It’s not like I didn’t know that this day might come. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind; Harlow’s health has haunted me just as her dad’s face has. I guess you can’t ever really prepare for the news that someone’s dying. It seems so much crueler if you love that person, and the purest form of evil when they have so much living left to do. Harlow’s in her thirties; she shouldn’t need to worry about her own mortality.
I’ve been sitting in my rental car for an hour and I can’t make myself turn the key in the ignition to actually start it up. My whole body feels numb. My fingers curl into my palms and my fists clench tightly of their own accord. Why am I being punished? When will it stop? I was in shock back at the Bait House, now that I’m alone I’m angry. Rage courses through my blood and swells the veins in my forearms to the extent that they pop out from my wrist to elbow. My pulse hammers so hard in my ears it’s a wonder I don’t explode.
I give in to my frustration before I know what’s happening and start beating down hard on the steering wheel, punches falling in an insistent surge of anger, causing the car horn to sound and my knuckles to ache. Flailing and writhing in the front seat, all I can do is scream out my helplessness in a string of curses and profanities. I lose myself in anger and hurt. I know I need to stop and calm down but I can’t because my mind’s racing, taunting me with possibilities that are too painful to consider and too real to ignore. The only thought I can make sense of is that I know I don’t want to exist in a world where Harlow doesn’t.
It’s exhaustion that finally claims me. When I’m breathless and can’t hit the steering wheel anymore, the tears start. It took all my effort not to break down in front of Harlow at the Bait House. I’d held my head in my hands so I didn’t have to look at her face. One glance before I had pulled myself together would’ve been all it took.
A woman walking her German shepherd falters when she notices me in the car, and quickly picks up her pace. The discomfort of seeing a grown man cry is clear in her gait. She crosses to the opposite side of the street and throws inquisitive glances back at me until she finally reaches the street corner and disappears out of sight. A group of what looks to be college-aged kids notice me next. A small brunette girl accidently makes eye contact as she walks by the car and a second later the whole group is turning their heads in my direction. I rub my hands down my face, take a deep breath and turn the key in the ignition. I need to get out of here. I pull out, passing the group of kids who are laughing and smiling like they don’t have a care in the world.
God, I wish I could go back to being their age.
2000
High school had ended in a blur for Harlow and me. While Logan, Elliott and the rest of my friends were trying to recreate American Pie and see high school out with a bang—pun intended—I’d been preoccupied with hospital appointments and supporting H in a bid to convince her parents that deferring college for a year wasn’t necessary.
From the moment we’d been pushed to start considering colleges, my goal had always been Duke. It was a great school that wasn’t too far away and had one of the best pre-law programs in the country, according to my dad. It didn’t hurt that Duke athletics were pretty stellar and Durham’s cost of living to quality of living ratio made it seem like a total no-brainer. When Harlow was diagnosed with Myocarditis and we were forced to re-examine our college choices, making sure to pick somewhere close to a good hospital specializing in cardiology—our searches all pointed to Duke University Hospital—sealing our fate.
I’d always maintained a picture in my head of what I expected our college experience to be. Harlow and I would be together, that part was never up for debate, but we’d decided that we wanted to spend our freshman year like any other teenager away from home for the first time: drunk, hungry and eager for new experiences.
Neither of us was interested in going the Greek route, and Harlow was as far removed from a sorority chick as you could probably get. She was a tomboy who’d rather spend the night watching sports and scarfing down pizza than waste three hours getting her hair and makeup ready to be seen at the “cool kids” parties. Which, by default made her cool in her own right. Guys loved her, and not just because she was beautiful, but because she could hold her own in a room full of hockey players. She wasn’t afraid to damage her rep by telling it like it was. She called a spade a spade, and if you were talking crap, you’d better believe she’d let you know.
The plan we’d made in high school had never factored in medical issues, though, so instead of living in separate dorms with strangers we were expected to forge lifelong friendships with, we opted for an off-campus apartment. Our parents didn’t go for it immediately, but I’d sold them on the fact that by living together off campus I could make sure that Harlow’s medical needs were taken care of. There’d be no random strangers or peer pressure to drink when it was the last thing she should be doing with her daily medication regimen. I’d be with her pretty much 24/7, which meant that she’d always have someone nearby that knew exactly what to do if her health began to deteriorate, and would constantly be looking for the signs. It made perfect sense and was a win, win scenario in my eyes. I’d get to spend every night with the girl I’d been in love with since she’d shot me in her back garden the first week I’d moved to North Carolina.
So, that’s what happened. We left for college, just like most other kids from our senior class. Molly scored a scholarship at Brown, Elliot moved to Chapel Hill and attended UNC, quickly pledging for Phi Delta Theta and by some magic, or more likely bribery, he actually got in. As for Harlow and me, 509 Willard Street became our home, and for the first three months of our freshman year we locked ourselves away in the small two-bedroom apartment and survived solely on sex and ramen.
“It’s basically high school round two,” Harlow told her mom over the phone. Dianne had made me promise to make sure that Harlow called her every two nights to check in—and by “made me promise” I mean she threatened me. For such a slight and pretty woman, Dianne had a glare that could reduce a grown man to tears. That’s no joke; I’d seen her rip into the twins on more than one occasion and leave them tearing up. There were two things I knew with absolute certainty. One, never, never answer yes if your girlfriend asks if she looks fat in a particular item of clothing. Two, always stay on the good side of Dianne Stevens.
College wasn’t shaping up to be what I thought it would. Sure, all your average clichés about frat parties were sadly and irrevocably true. But, I felt kind of cheated by Hollywood. In every college-based film I’d ever seen, and granted while it wasn’t as many as most it was still enough to con myself into thinking I had an educated opinion, students hung out in coffee shops discussing the next big event on their social calendar. Well, newsflash! Students do not have copious amounts of free time. Go figure. My schedule was insane and it was only going to get busier. I’d been truly duped by movies that portrayed college as a non-stop rager; in my experience, it was an academic institution that wouldn’t think twice about ejecting your ass from their program if you didn’t toe the line and actually do the work.
Where were the movies that showed kids like me spending all their time in class studying, or interning for some local law firm for free—all so I could claim a small semblance of experience? Can anyone say office bitch? It was less Law and Order and more free labor exploitation. I spent all my time filing or fetching coffee and sandwiches. It sucked on an immeasurable scale. The summer I’d spent mowing the neighbors’ lawns in ninety-five-degree heat with a killer case of hay fever when I was thirteen, just so I could save up to buy my own computer capable of connecting to the world-wide web, was more enjoyable.
Harlow was living a different college experience than mine. Whereas I was focused, had my major in sight and was heading for it with guns blazing, she wandered aimlessly through her entire year. What’s more, she wasn’t the slightest bit panicked by it. Over the course of a few months at Duke, she’d gone from obsessing about her health limitations, not being able to join the swim team, or party like most other freshman, to a full-blown embrace of her situation. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little envious of how happy-go-lucky she seemed about college. I get that she was probably just happy to be there at all, but somehow the tables had turned and I’d inadvertently taken on all of her anxiety.
When we first moved in we lived like students. We ate like students. Embraced the whole lifestyle, ridiculously late nights and caffeine-fueled morning seminars included. It wasn’t until one of her check-ups when the doctor told us they needed to make adjustments to her medication because her stats had slipped that I paused long enough to realize we weren’t normal students. She hadn’t asked me to take care of her; I’d put that on myself as her boyfriend. I needed to do it, if only to settle my own nerves. I set my alarm thirty minutes early every day, even when I didn’t have class. I would get up bleary-eyed and put out her pills on the kitchen counter so she wouldn’t forget to take them. I’d memorized all the leaflets the doctors had given her about leading a healthy lifestyle and made sure that the apartment wasn’t stocked with only junk food. I was happy to assume the role of caretaker. I needed to feel like I was helping. The image of her unconscious in the back of an ambulance was so deeply ingrained in my memory I was hell bent on making sure I never had to relive it.
Harlow wasn’t one for taking things easy or living within a pre-determined set of guidelines, even though they’d been set out by a team of exceptionally qualified medical staff. She was a free spirit, a firecracker and determined to push the boundaries and not be held back—a quality I both loved and loathed in equal measure.
“When Dr. Foster diagnosed Myocarditis, I’m sure it was firmly recommended that you completely avoid all competitive and highly physical sports for at least six months, Harlow. Only resuming them if or when your cardiac tests showed complete recovery,” Dr. Butcher reiterated.
Harlow nodded her head, her unkempt blonde waves spilling from the loose clip she’d fastened it with. A strand dropped out over her cheek, catching at the corner of her mouth and I moved unconsciously, sweeping it away with my thumb and tucking it behind her ear. She gave my knee a tiny squeeze, and I gazed down at the spot she was holding and took her hand. I couldn’t help noticing her own knees bobbed up and down impatiently waiting for the doctor to make his point.
“We’ve looked at your results and at present I’m not in a position to advise that you increase your physical activity any further,” he told her, settling his sympathetic eyes on the paperwork in front of him.
A slither of dread unfurled itself deep in the pit of my stomach, making me shift forward in my seat and grip H’s hand a little tighter. I was aiming for reassurance, even though I knew I was missing the mark.
“But… But it’s been more than six months. I’m feeling really great,” she countered. “I’m almost never out of breath when I go through the exercise plan you gave me. I could probably do it twice without even breaking a sweat. I’m not asking for you to clear me to go climb mountains or anything,” she said with a laugh, looking from him to me, and then back at him. “I just want to be able to do more. I miss being allowed to run, I’ll even settle for jogging. Heck, power walking would do,” she confessed hopefully.
I could tell Dr. Butcher didn’t want to dash her hopes, but I could also see that it was exactly what he was about to do. I kept my eyes trained on the doctor, trying not to witness the sadness I knew would be settling into place over her pretty face. I didn’t need to look at her to know she’d be biting down on the corner of her bottom lip. I knew her hazel eyes would turn glassy, but she’d rather die than let a tear fall in public. I knew the light that rested somewhere behind her smile wouldn’t be making an appearance today, and that thought alone crushed me.
“Harlow, abstaining from physical activities shortly after any type of inflammatory heart disease is recommended because viral persistence could last for several months. Six months was given as a guide and we’ve reached it, but I’m afraid we need to move it back a little further. All the beneficial principles of ACE inhibition, beta-blockade, and the diuretics we’ve been administering aim to unload the burden on your heart, but we have to afford them the time to do so. Different people react in different ways, some more slowly or quickly than others with the same prognosis. It’s a very delicate balancing act, trial and error for want of a better phrase, to find each person’s equilibrium.”
“So really this is just a little bump in the road, right? You’re not saying that she can’t ever resume more physical activity, just not right now?” I asked, trying to inject a positive note into the conversation.
“That’s right. Not right now,” Dr. Butcher said pointedly, looking directly at Harlow. He seemed to know as well as I did that just because he’d given her the facts didn’t mean she would listen to them. He gave me a curt nod when she didn’t acknowledge his answer, knowing that I was taking note at least.
I liked Dr. Butcher; when Harlow and I had first met him, we’d laughed at how unfortunate his name was, given his profession. Nobody wanted to associate their heart doctor with a butcher.
“I keep imagining him behind his desk with a stethoscope in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other,” I’d said sniggering as we waited in the reception room at the Duke Cardiology EP Clinic.
“Ouch, what was that for?” I whined as Harlow’s elbow dug into my ribs.
“I’m about to meet my new cardiologist, and you’re freaking me out with the butchering jokes,” she whispered. “I’m already nervous. Now I have an image of some Leatherface lookalike in a white coat and apron covered in blood!”
“Leatherface?”
“Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” she replied. I gave her a blank stare and shrugged.
“The dude with the chainsaw, he was Leatherface—you know, because he’d wear a skin mask, and he used to work as a butcher at the meat factory with his brother, the cook.”
“How do you even know all that?” I asked. Half of me was intrigued, and the other half was a little terrified of how her brain worked.
“Seriously, Ellis, you’ve watched it with me. How can you not know that stuff?”
Neither of us saw or heard the moment Dr. Butcher entered the waiting room as we slouched together on the hard plastic seating, talking about dudes wearing masks made of human remains.
“Ms. Stevens,” he said in a commanding voice loud enough to make us jump right out of our skin. As a heart doctor you’d think he’d be a little better at not inducing heart attacks in his patients or their chaperones. We turned to take a look at the man with the booming bass tone and couldn’t hold back our muffled sniggers. We had to feign a few coughs to calm our surprised laughter. Dr. Butcher was about five-and-a-half feet tall and looked like he weighed eighty pounds soaking wet. The guy was tiny, and yet his voice carried like a supersonic jet engine. It was utterly disarming.
It took three weeks of taking it easy before Harlow began to push her boundaries again. She’d jump on her board and skate to class, and when I pointed out that wasn’t a good idea, she’d shrug and tell me she coasted ninety percent of the way, and to trust her. It wasn’t about trust, though; I knew if she started to feel tired that she’d stop and rest. It was the fact that she was so willing to take the risk at all that irked me. My girl was sneaky. She would push a little more each and every day; before I knew it, she’d be seconds away from joining the damn track team, and I’d have to reign her inhibitions back in.
Freshman year turned out to be mostly a year of testing our limits.
“Let’s go out,” Harlow had said one Saturday night, halfway through Fall semester. “Katie from my English Lit class has a boyfriend that works at Shooters. He’ll serve us for sure. I need to get out of this apartment, and you do too. I can’t remember the last time we had a night out,” she said, hands on hips.
“We’re like a forty-year-old married couple trapped inside the bodies of twenty-year-olds.”
I laughed at her assessment and stretched out my arms lazily unleashing a yawn.
“You should invite some of the guys, it’ll be fun.” She was wearing a dazzling smile full of hope that made my tired-ass self want to groan. I couldn’t say no to her once she switched up her tactics and pulled out the big guns—huge wounded puppy eyes. I was beyond tired, but the prospect of letting off some steam and having a few beers appealed to me more than I thought it would.
When I’d taken on the internship at Goldman and Burke’s I hadn’t planned on staying past the initial three-month placement. But once that was up, and they’d exacted as much free labor as they could from me, they offered me a paid position. Mrs. Feldstein, their legal secretary who’d worked for the firm since what I assumed would have been the dawn of the dinosaurs, was falling behind in her productivity. Since she didn’t want to retire, and the partners didn’t have the heart to replace her with a younger, newer and more efficient model, they enlisted my help. I picked up the slack, assisting with the preparing and filing of legal appeals and motions that Mrs. Feldstein couldn’t get to. My previous role of tea bitch became a thing of the past. Mrs. Feldstein wore a hearing aid, had a penchant for mint crisp cookies and had a bit of a drinking problem—if adding whiskey to her mid-morning coffee was anything to go by.
But, despite having to shout over the radio she constantly had blasting at noise levels I’m sure broke some form of pollution code, Mrs. Feldstein was a lot of fun to talk to. I never had a grandma, but I imagine she would’ve been the coolest granny on the block. She swore like a sailor and none too quietly either. She was pretty much buzzed every day by 2 pm, and I think half the time she closed her office door she was actually passed out asleep at her desk.
Harlow loved her. Every time I’d come home from work the first thing she would ask for was a run down of what crazy and politically incorrect words Mrs. Feldstein had managed to drop into conversations throughout my day. It was a rarity if she didn’t at least let one cuss word slip while there were clients in the office. She was hilarious.
“I’m up for it, but I need to shower and change first,” I said hopping up from the sofa and bending to kiss Harlow’s head on the way to the bathroom. She’d apparently not expected to win me over, and her mouth popped open like I’d suddenly grown a second head.
“What?” I asked laughing as I unbuttoned my gray shirt, peeking out around the bathroom door.
“Nothing, I just expected you to be too tired. I’ll call Katie and let her know we’re going.”
I dropped my shirt to the floor and was unbuckling my belt when she stopped in her tracks and placed the phone back down on the counter. I raised a brow as she shamelessly assessed my body, raking her gaze from my head to my toes.
“There’s room in the shower for two,” I called, walking back into the bathroom to turn the hot water on, knowing she’d be right behind me.
There’s nothing quite like hot shower sex to get you in the mood for a great night, even if it is rushed. We’d strolled into Shooters twenty minutes later than planned, but by the look of things we hadn’t been missed. Katie was leaning across the bar, her long white-blonde hair spilled over the counter as she talked animatedly with the guy serving drinks, whom I assumed was her boyfriend. Jace and Matt were huddled up by Katie’s roommate, Rebecca, whom I’d met only a handful of times before. She was a dork magnet if there even was such a thing. Standing at least six feet in her Docs, and possibly the only female in the bar wearing a Star Wars t-shirt, she stood out. Her bright red hair was clipped back with hundreds of tiny little black clamps, and her spiky chokers screamed, “back off!” while her smile said, “come closer.” She was a giant contradiction. The guys were drawn in by her ability to talk comic books and gaming, neither of which were my thing, but my friends ate it up all the same.
We made it to the bar, pushing through the throngs of students in various states of inebriation. The music was loud enough that I could feel it echo through my chest and I gripped Harlow’s hand, guiding her toward Katie.
“Hey, you made it!” she shouted, turning to introduce us to her boyfriend, Kyle. I ordered a beer hoping Kyle wouldn’t ask for my ID. I was in luck, he passed over a Miller Light without so much as batting an eyelash, and I turned to ask Harlow what she wanted to drink.
“Rum and Coke.”
She tossed it out nonchalantly like it was something she drank every day of the week. I held my hand up to stop Kyle from reaching to fill a glass from the rum optics and looked at Harlow with an expression that asked whether she really thought it was such a good idea. When all she did was widen her eyes at me, I shook my head. “You know you’re not supposed to have alcohol. Or too much caffeine, for that matter.”
“Ugh! Ellis, I’ll only have one. Relax, I know what I’m doing.”
I didn’t like that she seemed intent on drinking, it had never bothered her to abstain before. I didn’t want to make a big thing out of it in front of her friends, so I nodded despite my unease.
“Make it a vodka orange,” she shouted to Kyle while still focusing on me.
“I’ll drop the Coke, that way the caffeine’s not an issue, and I promise I’ll only drink this one.” She pressed up onto her tiptoes and kissed the side of my jaw. “Don’t worry.”
I sighed, and resigned myself to the fact that it was just one drink, what harm could it really do?
“Let’s ride the mechanical bull,” Jace said, handing over another round of shots. I’d lost count after the first five, and my buzz was quickly turning into full-blown tanked. I wasn’t a big drinker; I wasn’t even a small drinker. I’d always needed to be sober for hockey, and with Harlow not being able to drink I limited myself to one or two tops. The alcohol had been in full flow that evening, though, and it felt good to cut loose and not worry for a little while. I didn’t have practice, work, or classes the next morning, and the more I drank, the more relaxed I began to feel. You never truly appreciate just how drunk you are until you need to take a trip to the toilet, I discovered. I had to brace myself against a wall to keep from swaying and I was acutely aware that maybe it was time to switch to water.
“Twenty dollars says my guy can hold on longer than you, Jace,” Harlow chirped from under my arm a short while later.
“Oh, you’re on, little lady!”
“Wait, I don’t think I’m built to be a bull rider,” I admitted, swaying slightly.
“I’ve got to agree with Ellis on this one, guys,” Katie offered. She was looking from me to the bull at the far end of the bar. “My money’s on Jace.” She lifted off her stool, pulling a twenty from her back pocket and slapping it down in the center of the table.
“What you betting on?” Kyle asked as he leaned to collect the tray of empties from our table.
“Who do you think will ride the bull the longest, baby?” Katie answered, pointing between Jace and myself.
“Your man here has the advantage,” Kyle said, clapping Jace on the shoulder. “He’s shorter, his center of gravity should be better.”
Jace grinned at me smugly, and ran his hand through his messy dark hair, sending it shooting out in all directions. We’d met in our first ethics class, and bonded over our mutual appreciation of our lecturer. She was smoking hot and looked way too young to be the teacher, but once she’d opened her mouth and unleashed holy hell on a group of guys that had walked in late, we’d quickly named her The Dragon and feared her more than fancied her now. He was only a few inches shorter than me, and was lean, but built smaller through the shoulders.
“Ellis is a skater, his balance is awesome, and his limbs are longer, so he should be able to wrap around it better,” Harlow countered.
“Okay, you’re on. Put me down for twenty on Jace. I’ll take your money, Harlow, if you’re so intent on losing it.”
Within minutes we had a book going on who’d get his ass served to him by the bull, and I was pretty confident that it would be me landing quicker on the inflatable red crash mat surrounding the machine. I rolled my shoulders, psyching myself up. I almost collapsed in a fit of laughter when Jace began trash talking with Harlow like we were weighing in for a boxing title.
Rebecca and a few of the people she’d been talking with had joined in too, and to Harlow’s delight were joining “Team Ellis.” Before I knew what was happening, the whole bar was enthralled as Matt took to the DJ booth and announced our battle.
Katie insisted on a coin toss for who’d go first and set the bar. Jace called it, and made his way over to the inflatable mat and mounted the bull like he was a pro rider. I watched through hazy eyes as he wound the rope tight around his right hand, taking a firm grip and then leaning down low. The concentration on his face was epic; he was taking it as seriously as if he’d just mounted a real bull. Cheers erupted as the machine swayed into motion to the sound of “Dead or Alive”.
“Huh, he moves pretty well with it,” Harlow mused as her eyes traced Jace’s actions, his hips rolling back and forth as the bull bucked beneath him at an increasing tempo.
“Oh, the boy’s got skills!” Katie howled, stepping up on the crossbar of her stool so she could get a better view over the crowd. “Who knew? Whoop, go, Jace!” she called out before turning back to us all.
“I feel like I’m watching him get lucky—I mean, just look at his face. I bet it’s his sex face,” Rebecca added. Everyone within a five-foot radius began laughing as we watched the bull pick up speed and its movements become more erratic.
“Oh, he’s going!” Matt boomed over the PA as Jace began to slip from the bull’s back, and clung to its side like his life depended on it.
“How long’s he been on?” Harlow asked Katie.
“Forty-seven seconds, forty-eight, forty-nine…and he’s down!”
The crowd cheered as Jace’s grip slipped and he was flung to the mat like a sack of potatoes. His shirt was riding up and his wrist flamed bright red with rope burn, but he stood up wobbly on the inflatable mat and threw his hands in the air like he’d just managed a solid eight seconds at a Professional Bull Riders event.
“Shit, that’s way harder than it looks,” he gasped reaching the table and taking a pull of the beer he’d left. “Good luck, man.”
Harlow pushed up from her stool and kissed my cheek. “Okay, Ellis, go show him how it’s done.” She patted my ass and bounced on the spot as I took a final drink from my bottle, placing it down on the table with my wallet and keys.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” I groaned over my shoulder as I moved through the throng of students littering the ringside.
“Where’s Ellis Hughes at?” Matt’s voice carried over the bar. I threw my arm up stepping into the ring and toeing my sneakers off.
“Get on up, bro, you got forty-nine seconds to beat.”
“Make me proud, Hughes!” Harlow called from back at our table.
Have you ever experienced that feeling of know something’s a stupid idea but throwing yourself into it headfirst anyway? Knowing it will end badly but relying on hope to carry you through? That was the nervous sensation that settled in my stomach as I threw my leg over the side of the bull, twisted the rope over my hand and looked out to the crowd. I’ve never had motion sickness, and I like adrenaline sports. I’m no pussy when it comes to trying new things and I told myself I’d be fine, but the second the bull jerked to life and completed its first revolution I knew I was screwed.
“I Will Survive” was blasting over the speakers, and I couldn’t help thinking it was an omen. I tried to lean backward and let my hips flex with the seesaw motion, but the spinning combined with the shots and the too-warm air in the overcrowded bar suddenly felt overwhelming. I scrunched my eyes up, hoping to steady my equilibrium but it didn’t help. I needed to focus on watching the bull to adjust my position and hold on. The music was blaring and I could barely make out the muffled sounds of cheers as blood rushed in my ears.
The bull bucked.
My stomach rolled.
Saliva flooded my mouth.
My throat tightened as I realized what was about to happen, but I was powerless to stop it. The machine pitched forward, jerking me into an upright position at the same time as it spun violently to the right, putting me in full-face view of the crowd. I clamped my lips shut as tightly as I could, but the force of the jerking caused me to expel the contents of the night’s binge drinking at full force into my audience. The bull made two full revolutions before someone had the foresight to kill its power, stopping me from spraying the entire bar with regurgitated Sambuca and Miller Light.
The giant red countdown clock had been paused on fifty-four seconds. I was still sitting tall in the center of the machine, but the spectacle of people retching and gagging around the room overshadowed the win. The lucky ones who’d avoided the splash zone were dry heaving and covering their horrified faces, but a hoard of people—mainly guys—were bent double, laughing and clutching at their sides.
My eyes scanned the bar in search of Harlow’s face. I crashed with her dumbstruck expression and watched as she shook her head in bewilderment. I unraveled the coarse rope from my fist, the burn not registering nearly as much as my embarrassment. I slid from the bull on shaky legs that didn’t feel like my own. They were weak from gripping the side of the bull so tightly. Harlow had made her way through the sea of angry and disgusted vomit-soaked students, stopping short of the ring. Matt barreled down from the DJ booth with tears in his eyes—either from laughter or the smell that was permeating the stifling room, I couldn’t tell.
“Are you okay?” Harlow mouthed with something akin to a wince and a smile.
“Hughes, what the fuck?” Matt shouted.
“I won, though, right?” I answered shrugging.
“You want to claim this as a win?”
He shook his head assessing the carnage still unfolding in front of us.
“A win’s a win,” I said, stepping forward. The inflatable mat hadn’t escaped the disaster, and my foot slid from under me. I hit the padded barrier full force—with my face.
“Let’s go out,” she’d said. “It’ll be fun,” she’d promised.
I’d initially panicked when she wanted to drink, worrying that we’d end up in the emergency room. My fears were justified, although somewhat misplaced. It was a blessing, and a curse that I’d consumed so much alcohol—drinking so much had caused me to fall but had also helped numbed the pain of my broken nose. Turns out, I should have been paying more attention to my own limitations, and not badger Harlow to recognize her own. Duke could keep its so-called college experience. If the night had taught me anything, it was that sometimes a win was actually a loss, and I was a sore loser.
Literally.
The only silver lining was Harlow got to play nurse instead of patient, and she made for one hell of a nurse.