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  He just felt alone. Audrey’s presence had taken up so much of an emotional position inside of Darren, that when she left, a void was left in her place. A void that he didn’t know how to fill without her.

  He should have just walked her to the gymnasium. He could have fed the addiction that much longer. It would have been worth being late to biology. At least Rachel was in sociology with him, not biology. He didn’t know if he would be able to lie to her when she asked him why he was late, and there was no way that he would be able to tell her the truth either.

  He couldn’t even tell Rachel about having lunch with Audrey. She’d think something was going on. Maybe she’d have a point though. With the way Darren felt so empty now, he had to wonder himself. Even Rachel never left that kind of lingering feeling that Audrey did.

  Got to get under control, he told himself. Rachel is his girlfriend. Audrey is only a research partner-a girl he just met and didn’t know anything about. Keep the mind focused on how it was supposed to be, and everything will go back to normal. No more guilt, and no more emptiness.

  But Darren didn’t know that after today, nothing would ever be normal again for him.

  Chapter 11

  Darren was halfway to the lecture halls, day dreaming about Audrey for awhile, then scolding himself over and over in an endless cycle. Biology class went by in a blur, but he thought he at least caught the fundamentals of the class-either way he was going to have to spend some time tonight with his face in his text book.

  But he didn’t know if he was going to have the time tonight. He was going to be meeting Audrey at the library to work on the research paper, and not only that, but he was still supposed to catch the architecture professor after class. He almost forgot about that, his mind had been too preoccupied with Audrey to remember.

  A hand touched Darren’s shoulder.

  He spun around in shock, thrown back into consciousness without warning, stumbling backwards as Rachel came into view.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said.

  Darren let out a sigh of relief. “It’s okay.”

  “Daydreaming?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About me?” She put a thin smile on her face and hunched up her shoulders.

  Not in the way she hoped, Darren thought. “In part,” he said instead. “Mostly about the history paper.” Which was true in a sense. He didn’t need to clarify that it was about the partner for the paper.

  “I hate research papers.”

  “I think everyone agrees with you.”

  “I was thinking about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, and what I wanted to do to you.”

  “What’s that?”

  Rachel grinned and let out a low laugh. “You’ll find out tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah, I thought we could go into town for awhile, get a real dinner for once,” she said. “Does Jack work tonight?”

  Darren sighed. He had been wondering if she would sacrifice her time to spend with him, but now that she did, he was going to be busy. Busy after six though, maybe he could make it work if he knew he wouldn’t be late in meeting with Audrey. “Well, I have to meet my history partner at six, if we could be back from town by then?”

  “I guess,” Rachel said, a frown growing across her face from the forehead down. “I take it we don’t have time to spend together in your room?”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see what time it is when we get back.”

  “You can be late for your meeting, can’t you?” She took a step closer, reaching a hand out to his arm.

  Rachel’s touch didn’t carry the gentle current of electricity that Audrey’s did. Instead, it was cold, limp, and to be quite honest, unnatural.

  “I can’t do that to someone,” Darren said. “You know me.”

  Rachel dropped her hand. “I know. Maybe we’ll have time.”

  “We always have tomorrow too.”

  “Tomorrow?” Rachel looked up to Darren in confusion.

  “You said we could have dinner before your party.”

  Rachel frowned for a moment, then her eyebrows shot upwards. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot all about that.”

  Darren rolled his eyes, unafraid to let Rachel see this time. It was no surprise that Darren fell by the wayside again. No wonder why she asked him about tonight. In fact, Darren wouldn’t have been surprised if she was lying, and that she was only asking him out with her tonight because she made new plans for Friday. She was throwing Darren under the bus, felt a little bad, so tried to fix it by asking him out tonight instead.

  Rachel stepped up to Darren, putting her arms around his waist. “I can’t go tomorrow, I’m so sorry. Can’t we do tonight instead?”

  Darren wondered what her replacement plans entailed, but he wasn’t going to ask. He just didn’t care anymore, and he didn’t want to get into another argument. She’ll grow out of this phase soon and realize what Darren is supposed to mean to her-won’t she?

  “I already have work to do tonight,” Darren said.

  Rachel leaned the side of her face against his chest.

  He hoped Audrey wasn’t nearby to see this. He didn’t see her among the other students passing by them on the paths, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t close by. He didn’t want her to know he had a girlfriend, no matter how much he was beginning to wish he didn’t.

  Just stick through the rough patch, he tried to tell himself. Things will go back to normal when she gets over her partying phase. Just hold on, but don’t give in. Let her come to her sense herself.

  “I guess it’s my fault,” she said.

  He had to keep himself from opening his mouth because she was right.

  She looked up at him.

  Darren latched his fingers around his backpack straps, making sure she knew that he had no intention of hugging her back.

  “I love you,” she said.

  She was looking for reassurance that what she did would be forgotten, but Darren had no intention of giving it to her. He said nothing.

  Rachel pushed away and looked up at him, a pout growing on her face. “Don’t you still love me?”

  “You already know I do.”

  “You don’t show it.”

  “Didn’t I yesterday?”

  “Just tell me you love me.”

  “I love you.”

  “You didn’t mean it.”

  Darren rolled his eyes. “Fine, just tell me what you want me to do.”

  Rachel pulled away from him. “I just want to know that everything is still okay between us.”

  “You already know my feelings.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Darren shook his head.

  “What?” Rachel said.

  “Do we have to fight about this again?” He didn’t want to, but she was pushing the subject, and he had no intention of backing down from her this time.

  “About what?”

  “About your bloody parties getting between us. That’s what.”

  Rachel took a step back, her jaw falling open.

  “Don’t even give me that,” Darren said. He could feel the heat rising in him, contrasting with the cool fall air with such harshness that he shivered. “We went through all of this yesterday morning, and I’m not about to go through it again.”

  “Why can’t you just be happy that I made friends here?” Her voice broke on the word ‘I’ and a tear fell from her left eye.

  Darren didn’t believe the tear was real.

  “Just because you want to lock yourself away from everybody else, doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

  “I don’t lock myself away.”

  “Yes you do! And then you claim it’s because everyone hates you for being Arab. Get over it!”

  Darren just shook his head. There was no point in even trying to attempt to answer her.

  She didn’t understand-she didn’t grow up seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard. Being
treated like he was treated.

  “You try to turn everything into my fault,” Rachel said.

  “Because it is,” Darren mumbled over his breath.

  Rachel’s face grew tenser as her eyes began to bore into Darren’s skull. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes you did. What did you say?”

  Darren snapped. “I said it is all your fault!”

  She stepped back in surprise.

  “All these problems between us are because of you!”

  Rachel gasped. “That’s not fair!”

  “Yes it is! It’s because of your drinking that we’re moving apart!”

  “Don’t you even try to blame everything on me!”

  “It’s too late!”

  The other students that had been passing by them on the path now enlarged the berth they gave the quarreling couple. The number of stares increased, and Darren could feel the eyes on the back of his head, pushing and prodding him. He was starting to feel like a zoo animal, on display in a cage with his mate so that the entire world could see how they interact.

  Rachel let out a sob-one that looked more real than the initial tear. “This isn’t fair!”

  “It’s true though, and you already know that!”

  “I thought you loved me!” The tears were falling in a pair of long streams from the corners of her eyes now.

  “I did.”

  “Do you anymore?”

  Darren had to stop and think about it. Bad move.

  When he opened his mouth to speak, it was too late. Rachel interrupted the formation of words.

  “You don’t!” she yelled, her voice as unstable as an unbalanced tire shaking on the road.

  “Rachel, you didn’t gi-”

  Her loud sob broke into Darren’s mind and shut off his mouth before he could say what he intended to. Rachel ran past Darren without warning, her backpack bouncing off her spine in loud thuds that were muffled by her crying.

  Most of the students on the path watched her hysterical run toward the building, but a large number kept their attention on Darren. Judgment filled their gazes as they stared at Darren, blaming him for hurting Rachel’s feelings, just because he wasn’t crying.

  But he had no reason to cry. What the spectators didn’t understand is that he was the victim here. The only reason he wasn’t becoming emotional is because he had been dealing with this for so long that there was nothing new for him to grow upset about. He reached a plateau in his side of the relationship, and the only path he saw was back down.

  Unless there was a way to find solid footing on the plateau, Darren and Rachel would both lose their grips, and all would be lost. They might fall only a few feet at a time, but they would still be falling. And it was a lot easier to flow with gravity than it was to climb back up the plateau. If their problems didn’t get fixed soon, they would never be able to make it back to the place they were.

  Rachel’s run slowed when she got to the doors, and she disappeared inside without taking a glance back. She was going to run to a bathroom to hide in, but Darren also figured that she intended on still going to class-the class that Rachel and Darren both shared.

  But Darren had no intention of going. Not anymore. What was the point? He would never be able to even concentrate on what the professor said with Rachel’s presence trying to distract him. Just the density of the air would he too much for him to be able to handle. It would be easier to catch up on what he missed than it would be to go through that.

  Darren turned around, ignoring the lingering stares of the people who witnessed the argument, and headed away from Painter Hall.

  Chapter 12

  Darren off loaded his backpack in his dorm room, used the campus computer network to find out who the architecture professors were (professor Adam Lasser was the one in charge) and headed to McCormick Hall to find his office. He went while classes were still in session, so only a handful of other students passed by him when he stepped into the building.

  The soft voices of professors in the midst of lectures drifted down the hallways, surrounding Darren in full stereo. The main hall led directly to the offices of the engineering departments, and mixed somewhere among them was professor Lasser’s office. Darren followed the main corridor to the end and turned into an even narrower hallway that intersected with it. The lighting was dim in this area, and did well at hiding the wax buildup along the edges of the floor. Darren passed an open office where a young blonde girl was pleading to her professor, a man who looked twice as old as Darren’s own parents. He only caught a few sentences of their conversation, but it was enough to tell that the girl was pleading after being caught cheating. The tight look on the professor’s face didn’t show any hint that he was going to be giving any leniency.

  Darren continued down the corridor until stumbling upon Professor Lasser’s office halfway between the open office door and what looked like an open secretary’s office at another intersection. He gave a quick rap at the door, not expecting any response, and didn’t get any. It was still fifteen minutes until the current classes let out, so Darren still had a while to wait. Should have just sent the professor an email and hoped he answered.

  Darren looked down at the door handle, and then up and down the hall. He could check and see if the door was locked. The professor may even have the plans in his office, or maybe his computer was still logged in so Darren could take a look around.

  No, that would be breaking and entering.

  Not if the door had swung open when he knocked. It wouldn’t be Darren’s fault if the door was left unlatched.

  Darren gave the handle a twist. It was unlocked. He pushed it open an inch and then let go, looking back up and down the hall to be sure no one was coming, then pushed the door the rest of the way open.

  The office was small and almost empty. There was a slim wooden desk with a laptop in the middle of it, attached to a drawing pad beside it. The walls were bare except for a square window on the back wail that faced out to Lacuna Street, letting in a trickle of the sunlight as the day grew older. Behind the desk, in the corner, was a large urn with rolled papers sticking out of it, and beside that, stacks of books almost waist height.

  Darren took a final glance down the hall and stepped inside. He hesitated in front of the desk, realizing that he had just broken into a professor’s office, and that he didn’t know what he was even looking for. Plans for the library, but this is a professor’s office, not a planning room of a construction company. Why would a professor have anything like that? He didn’t build the-

  “Can I help you?” A voice from behind Darren said.

  Darren spun around to see a man standing behind him, leering at him over the top of a pair of wire rim glasses. The man was younger than any of the professors Darren has had, with thick blonde hair hung in a mess across his forehead, ending at a crease made by the frown growing on his face.

  “I... uh... I knocked and the door opened,” Darren said. “Are you Professor Lasser?”

  The man seemed to study Darren for a moment over his glasses before he stepped past Darren, setting a small leather briefcase on the desk and setting himself in the chair behind the desk with a smile.

  “I take that as a yes,” Darren said.

  The man nodded and gestured to the sole wooden chair on Darren’s side of the desk, so Darren sat in it and looked across the surface of the desk to the silent man.

  “I was just wondering if I could ask you something about the campus. I thought that since you were the architecture professor, you might either have knowledge of the campus buildings, or even have the blueprints.”

  The man nodded and crossed his arms.

  “Well, I... Uh...” Darren wasn’t sure how to even ask without giving his intentions away. “There’s a rumor going around about a student getting in trouble for climbing into an old steam tunnel below the library.”

  Good, Darren thought to himself. Convince him that you already know what it is, and t
hat your interest isn’t really in the tunnel itself.

  The professor rose to his feet and walked to the door, closing it after taking a quick glance into the hallway. He went back to his chair, and sat down without saying a word.

  “I was wondering if there was any truth to the existence of the steam tunnel, because I think he was just trying to jump ship on a research paper I had to write with him.”

  The professor leaned forward and rested his elbows upon the desk, peering at Darren over the tops of his glasses. He still said nothing.

  “I’m sorry if this is a bad time,” Darren said, unsure as to why the man wasn’t saying anything at all.

  The man shook his head.

  Darren sat with his mouth hanging open, unsure of what to say.

  “Out with it,” the man said. “Just say what you mean to say.”

  “I just wanted to know if the tunnel exists, that’s all.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Don’t lie to me boy.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You know it isn’t a steam tunnel.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me.”

  Darren didn’t understand what was going on. He only came to ask the professor a question, and somehow it got turned around and it was starting to feel like he was the one being interrogated.

  “I’m not playing dumb,” Darren said. His knuckles were growing white from his grip on the armrests of the chair.

  “I know you were there,” Lasser said.

  “Where?”

  “At the tunnel.”

  How could he have known that?

  “I-” Darren started to say, but Lasser cut him off.

  “We know you were there and I know why you are here now Mr. Ansari.”

  How did he know Darren’s name? Troy must have told them. There was no other explanation that Darren could see.