I crept back around to the bathroom door and peered inside. Jackie was standing in front of the mirror brushing his teeth and presumably preparing to style his hair afterward. He'd already dressed in a pair of black jeans and a white graphic T-shirt that had some kind of band logo on the front of it. It looked a bit like a chakra had combined itself with a spider web.
'The Spider's Eye' it read in red and black lettering, designed to melt down the shirt, most likely intended to simulate blood drops or resemble some form or type of gore.
'Definitely a metal band.'
"Hey Jackie, you didn't happen to see a yellow business card lying around my bed and bunk anywhere, did you?" I inquired.
"Nah, man, I don't fuck with your shit," he answered assuredly, "but I can help you look around if you give me a minute."
"That's ok. If you happen to find it, would you just slip it under my pillow and shoot me a text?"
Jackie processed my request, "Sure thing, Jasper."
Now that I'd squared that away, the next step was on with the socks and shoes and out our bedroom door onto campus to find Levi. I'd exited, grabbing a pair of my sunglasses on the way out just in case, darted down the hall and back to the stairs. If you've never had to pretend like something inherently mundane wasn't something that suddenly became intimately familiar from some kind of life altering experience, I don't know if I could describe just how differently the trip down the same staircase Levi escorted me on could somehow be the same old stairs I used on a daily basis. There was a low hanging allegory just waiting there to be snatched up, but I didn't have time to dwell on it.
I'd reach the bottom of the stairs soon and would have to decide exactly where it was that I'd start looking. Levi could genuinely be anywhere, and I hadn't the slightest idea of where he hung out when the group didn't make plans to spend the day together. Especially more so since all lines of communication usually went through Jackie.
Should I start with BARB's lounge area, or maybe the water park? It could also be that he was already taking an early class today and I just didn't know it. In this moment, I realized that I seemingly knew next to nothing about Levi. I knew he was Jackie's go to wingman for pickups, even before me sometimes. I knew he loved the gym, and I thought he'd been obsessed with girls. With Jackie everything was much clearer. I knew what foods he liked. I knew how he talked. I knew what preferences he had for things, and I even knew sometimes what he meant to say versus what he actually said. With Levi, I found myself having to take him at his word.
Regardless, my shoes touched the dreadful ground floor, and I had to make a decision. Based on the information I had available to me I suspected the most likely place would be BARB's lounge area where he was hanging out with people and helping tutor. Worst case scenario I just had to backtrack to the water park, but I could hit up the Lacy Elbe Art Center on the way through. He didn't strike me as the artistic type, but there was still a lot I didn't seem to know about Levi that would be detrimental to finding him if I just assumed.
I sprinted off to the BARB like a prison escapee. While I would define it as a sprint, others may have looked and laughed at the effort I was putting in against how much it probably exceeded the need for the resulting speeds I was achieving. Still, I ran and ran. I didn't care if people looked at me funny because this was important. I imagined someone with sexual trauma stumbling upon that business card and being further exploited and the idea of it propelled me onward even faster. I was controlling my breathing just like Anthony had tried to instruct me when I'd decided I wanted to try running to lose weight. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Repeat.
My sessions with him must've had some return on investment as I made it to the BARB in record time, but then... I don't think I've ever 'run' to the BARB or my classes before. I never needed to. I always showed up well ahead of schedule in order to make certain that I was always on time. I think that's part of the reason I felt so embarrassed and frazzled the other day during all the chaos. It was the first time I'd ever had to called out for tardiness and Levi had even helped drag me out from that too.
This made me wonder, while entering the doors to the lobby, how early Levi had caught on to the fact that I was actually Jasper. Was it when we first met? Is that why he hadn't been turned on by me? It had been particularly odd that literally everyone else was drawn to me like a moth to flame, yet he stood there in the midst of the greatest temptation stoic and unphased. I walked to the couch he had been on and placed my hand on the backrest to brace myself for a brief rest. Or was it simply when I had mentioned my own name in order to get my paper turned into class? Had I unintentionally put the idea into his subconscious? I guess the better question would have been "How was he so smart?", immediately succeeded by 'it must be the glasses'.
Breathing heavily, my body reactively turned to greet somebody that was b-lining across the lobby floor toward me.
"We don't have class today, Jasper," he had already begun to lecture, "you missed out yesterday."
"I, I had a few things come up that I couldn't break away from." I preemptively severed the inquiry into where I'd been.
"I get it. I'm glad that your friend Michelle could drop off your paper for you," Professor Lindt continued, "it was really quite excellent. Well done!"
"Th-thanks," I replied.
When had Professor Lindt ever had a casual conversation with a student before? Something felt off here, as though the buildings air and cooling system were sucking the oxygen out of the building to place the two of us in a vacuum of social despair.
"Well, I gotta get back to preparing, but if you talk with your friend again would you tell her that I'm having a hard time verifying her enrollment and to come see me?" he'd concluded.
"Oh, of course," I answered fully well knowing that I'd never actually have to fulfill his request.
Professor Lindt departed back to the small corner with which the teachers used to engage in discussion with each other. Whether it was mandatory for them or not I held no clues, but they certainly were consistent enough in the activity to warrant the possibility that they had been required to.
'Stop getting distracted.' my conscious awareness demanded it be placed back into the limelight.
Right. 'Thanks, Brain.' I expressed my gratitude for it by scratching an itch on the back of my head and swiveling my head around to survey the remainder of people in the room. Levi wasn't anywhere to be seen, but you know who was?
My eyes locked onto him like a defense system projectile heat seeks onto a missile or the same way that my body had sensed everyone's arousal during the previous day.
'Jesse.'