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March Freshman Year
"Why does Tom call you 'Miliano?'" Pete asked.
He was following my gaze over to the other side of the party where Tom was having an animated conversation with a group of girls from my track team about my third birthday. That was the one when I'd been so excited I crawled up onto the table and stuck my entire face in the cake while my parents weren't looking.
"Huh?..." I pulled my eyes back over to Pete and noticed he was laughing at me.
"Oh,... it's from this one kid at the school in Magdalena where I went for second grade. He thought 'Max' was short for 'Maximiliano.' Tom loved sayin' it, so he-..."
Pete was still laughing at me, harder now.
"... -What?"
"Nothin'..." Pete reached a hand up over his mouth trying to stifle his laughter, but that only made it worse. Confused, I glared at him until he started to settle down. "... It's just...," a few more half-suppressed chuckles, "... I've never seen you smile like this before. It's almost like you look happy to be here."
Pete was absolutely right, too. I was happy. So happy, in fact, that I even forgot to say something sarcastic back to him.
"Dude, thank you so much for this," I said as I felt that smile stretching even wider.
Pete just kept laughing and shook his head at me. "Jesus. Will you stop that already? It wasn't just me. You should at least be thanking all the other people here, too."
"Believe me, I have been... I just... I still can't believe he's really here."
In fact, I had to look back over at Tom again now to assure myself that this actually was happening. It was real, though. And it was hands-down the best birthday present anyone had ever given me, even if I still had no idea how it all happened. I mean, I still didn't know how the hell Pete had even known my birthday was this weekend in the first place. I hadn't ever told anyone here when it was because I didn't want anyone to make a big deal out of it. But my brother, on the other hand, certainly knew about it. And he also knew I fucking hate surprises, so he'd been gleefully tormenting me for over a month about something big that was going to happen this year. Every time we'd talked, and the whole week I'd been back home for spring break, Tom kept alluding to my birthday, refusing to give me any hints about what was going on except to tell me `you're gonna lose your shit.'
He'd certainly been right about that.
I'd had lunch with Pete and a few of our other friends in the dining hall earlier today, and afterwards Pete asked if I could stop by my room with him because he thought he'd left one of his books in there. At the time, I hadn't noticed there were more people hanging around on my floor than usual for that time on a Friday afternoon. But as soon as I opened up the door to my room and stepped inside, I was interrupted mid-sentence in my conversation by a chorus of shouts of "Happy Birthday!" At that exact moment, I felt a pair of strong arms wrapping around me as Tom had come barreling out from behind the door to hug me.
Tom???
Tom!!
Tom was- what the fuck??- Tom was here!
I wasn't just surprised. I was stunned speechless. Tom, quickly realizing this, lit up with a gigantic smile that showed just how damn proud of himself he was. He looked over my shoulder to Pete, and they high-fived over my head.
That snapped me out of it.
"You fucking shithead!" I'd screamed, smiling, laughing, and completely serious all at the same time. Tom broke out laughing. And, right before I'd lunged at my brother to tackle him to the ground, I saw Pete out of the corner of my eye dropping back into the crowd of people hovering in the hall, closing the door behind him to give us some time alone as they'd all shouted 'Happy Birthday!' again.
It took me a few minutes to peel myself off the floor where I'd continued wrestling with Tom as I screamed a stream of obscenities at him. Finally, once we'd worn each other out and both calmed down a bit, I began trying to piece everything together. But exasperatingly, Tom wouldn't have any of it. He stubbornly refused to answer any of my questions about how he'd gotten here. Instead, he demanded I show him all around my campus, take him into the town, and introduce him to just about everyone we ran into. Even now I still didn't have many of the answers I was looking for.
But as I smiled over at Pete, I knew there was one thing I was certain about: no matter how much he protested to the contrary or insisted that all my friends had helped out, Pete was the ringleader in all this. His smug grin gave it away, no matter what he said.
"Dude, seriously. How long have you known about this?"
I could tell he was on the verge of saying something infuriatingly evasive yet again as Tom bounded back over to us, rolling his eyes at Pete when he overheard what I was asking. "Shit, give it a rest. You don't know everything. Just fuckin' get over it already."
They both snickered together.
"Great, now there's two of you," I said, shaking my head as they high-fived each other again.
"Yeah, and it's a good thing, too," Pete pointed out, "'cause you know you never would've let anyone do something nice like this for you if you'd actually known about it before it happened."
Thinking about that, I knew I couldn't argue because it was true. So I gave up on Pete for the moment and decided to try my luck with Tom again:
"But how?... how did Pete even find you to plan all this?"
"Instant messenger, stupid..." Tom said, rolling his eyes and laughing along with Pete. He swayed a little on his feet as he did so. I mentally started tallying how many drinks I'd seen him have already tonight.
"And what?... You just talked to him and hashed this all out together out of the blue like that?"
"Are you fuckin' kidding?" Tom laughed. "Pete was so worried I'd think he was some psycho child molester when he first IM-ed me to ask if mom and dad would let me come... He kept apologizing for looking at my screen name off your computer. He even spent all this time explaining who he was `cause he thought I wouldn't have heard of him..." Tom looked over at Pete now, shaking his head a little. "... Shit, you're so lucky you don't have to listen to Miliano like I do 'cause all fucking year long it's been all 'Pete and I are going down to Washington this weekend,''Pete and I are going skiing together,' 'Pete and I are going to be roommates next year,' 'Pete and I-..."
I elbowed Tom sharply in his side. "-... Shut the fuck up, meathead. Pete and I know what Pete and I have been doing. We don't need to hear about it from you." At least now I had one more answer though. "... And where the hell did you get that beer from anyway?"
"I got it from Abby back there. She-..."
"...- Wanted you to bring it over to me." Pete interjected smoothly, slipping the can right out of Tom's hand as he did. "Thanks, man..." With that, Pete chugged down the beer in one long gulp and tossed the empty can over his shoulder into the recycling bin.
"Hey!" Tom glared at him with a comically betrayed look. Then he glanced back and forth between the two of us as we both laughed at him. "Oh great, now there's two of you..."
"Someone's gotta look out for you..." Pete replied as he grinned at me.
"Go fuck yourself, there's plenty more where that came from..." Tom retorted, turning his head to look out at the party. He smiled back at me. "I really don't know what the fuck your problem is, Miliano. You're grumpy all the time for no reason. College is fucking cool..."
Before I could say anything to that, though, I noticed Tom's eyes following my friend Swayta across the room. "Be right back!" He called brightly, taking off for that side of the party. "... And just fuckin' try to stop me from drinking my beer this time!" he shouted over his shoulder to Pete.
We looked at each other and burst out laughing.
"Kids these days..." I sighed.
"He's not that young..." Pete pointed out. "He'll be in college next year too."
"Yeah, God help us."
"Seems to me like he'll be just fine. " Pete chuckled as we watched him. He was leaning in close to Swayta now as they talked.
"What the fuck?" I said, shaking my head in amazement. "... How the hell does he know all these people already?"
While I was away at school, I'd temporarily forgotten that Tom was so much better at all this than I was. Everyone always loved Tom. And Tom loved everyone, too. As we'd been growing up, my response to moving every few months and to constantly being the new kid wherever we went had been to close myself off from other people so it wouldn't be a big deal when I eventually had to say goodbye to them too. But Tom had always been the exact opposite. Tom was an open book, wearing his heart on his sleeve with everyone he met. He treated new people as though they were immediately his best friend, like an eager puppy who'd happily run up to any stranger and follow them around, wagging his tail all the way. When we were younger, my parents had always asked me to keep an eye out for Tom whenever we'd start at a new school until they figured out that they should've been asking him to do that for me all along. Within a few days, it seemed everyone would already know Tom, have fallen completely in love with him, and know all about our whole story. Meanwhile, I'd still be busy just trying to find my way around. Frankly, I envied him for all that, too. I sometimes wished I wasn't so hung up on protecting myself from getting hurt all the time so I could just be more in the moment like he always was. That is, of course, until I remembered Tom always took it much harder than I did each time we'd had to move on. It would be a huge mistake to think Tom was insincere or didn't really care about the bonds he made so much more easily than I did.
Pete laughed, apparently following my train of thought. "I guess it was dumb of us to assume we'd have two people just like you around this weekend..."
"Yeah, and lucky for you. I don't know how you'd be able to handle how awesome that would be."
I didn't really hear whatever Pete's response to that was over all the loud music, though. My focus had shifted back over to Tom and Swayta again. It seemed like she was leaning into him a bit too closely...
"Hey, Swayta pitched in for this too, right?"
"Yeah. I mean, everyone did..."
"Cool. I think I'd better go over and thank her..." As I was starting to make my way over there, though, I stopped myself to look back at Pete. I caught his eyes with my own to make sure he'd know I absolutely meant what I was about to say.
"Pete? Seriously. Thank you so fucking much."
I watched as he visibly swallowed down whatever sarcastic or flip reply he'd been about to say and glanced down for just a second before meeting my eyes with his again.
"You're welcome," he smiled. "... It's just really, really cool to see you like this."
I stepped back towards him to reach out my hand to do our evil twin fist bump. "Best birthday ever..."
"Good," Pete grinned. "Now shut up and go have fun being big bro again..."
"Thanks, man."
And then I was heading back over to Tom and Swayta. It took me a while to get across the room since I stopped to talk to everyone I passed as they wished me a happy birthday and I thanked them for their part in making this happen. When I finally did make my way closer to Tom and Swayta, they were still blithely talking and laughing, clearly having a great time with each other. I didn't blame Tom. Swayta was a smart girl. And she was hot. But I noticed that her hand had dropped down to squeeze Tom's forearm as she was laughing about something he said...
Aww hell no.
They were both so absorbed with each other that neither one had seen me come up to them. I reached out an arm and slid it around Swayta's waist from behind, spinning her around to face me.
"What the fuck?!" Tom cried out, glaring at me.
I smiled serenely over Swayta's shoulder back at him. "I'm really glad you're takin' the time to thank Swayta for her contribution to your trip. But I think it's my turn to say `thank you' too..."
Swayta followed our exchange with her eyes darting back and forth between us, her face glowing with amusement. "Really? I haven't seen you thanking all your other friends like this..." she laughed. "... And I don't see why I deserve the special treatment."
"Yeah, but I don't see you complaining about it either..." I smirked at both Swayta and Tom.
"Never said I was..." Swayta replied, laughing again.
"Besides, it's my party. You don't mind me interrupting, do you, Gumby?" He was flashing me what I liked to call his 'look of death' now.
Tom slowly looked back and forth between us and finally gave up. "You're fuckin' lucky I'm so happy to see you... Tomorrow I'll get you for this."
"Cool, somethin' else to look forward to!" I replied brightly. "... Thanks, bro."
Tom sighed at Swayta's shrugging laugh, and then he headed back over to where Pete was joking around with some of my friends from my dorm. I kept an eye on my brother long enough to see him start cracking jokes along with the rest of them, and then I looked back over at Swayta. "You two seemed awfully friendly..."
"What can I say? Tom's cool..." I realized she'd been following my gaze over to watch Tom, too.
"He certainly is...," I agreed sincerely. Then, I leaned my head down so my lips were almost grazing over one of her ears. "... You know, if you hook up with my underage," and here I was careful to heavily emphasize that word, "brother this weekend, I'll never, ever let you live it down..." I pulled away slightly to look back in her eyes, making the tone of my voice perfectly light once again as I continued. "... But, really, I'm glad to see you two getting along so well."
"Hey, I'm insulted!" She laughed, reaching up to smack my chest playfully. "What makes you think I was even thinking that?"
"I know, I know, how silly of me, right? We both know you're still holdin' out for me..."
"Of course," she rolled her eyes. "... But you're too brooding and unattainable. Soccer-player-Max over there is so much easier."
"And still in high school. I'm way cuter anyway..."
"Oh, get over yourself. Tom has his own charms..."
"You think we look alike?"
"Yeah, a lot actually." She glanced back over at Tom. "Except for the smile. His is less guarded and, like, happier. Almost like he's actually gotten some action some time in the last six months..." Swayta laughed as she emphasized her dig by sliding away a little so we weren't leaning into each other quite so much anymore.
"Low blow!..." I protested, putting up a comic front of wounded pride before I changed the subject to ask about her plans for the rest of the weekend.
Swayta and I would banter about this kind of stuff all the time, but I chuckled to myself about how she didn't even know the half of it. Things here hadn't turned out to be like what I'd imagined for my sex life in college. Before I got here, I'd always thought (well, hoped anyway) that I'd hit it off with someone like Swayta. But as it turned out, my natural reserve around new people had worked against me and pushed me squarely into the friend zone with every girl I'd felt drawn to here. From that removed vantage point, I'd seen all the dramas that played out among my friends who'd coupled up or even just hooked up. The common theme repeating over and over was that everything got real complicated real quick at a school this small. It was like all the petty drama of high school but amplified by the close proximity of everyone living together on a tiny campus in a small town without much else to do.
It'd proven tricky enough for me to avoid getting caught in the middle of some of the blow ups and awkwardness my roommate Mike had created with his frequent hook ups. Nothing felt low-stakes here, so I'd only had a couple of hookups with girls back home over Christmas and Spring breaks because it was so much simpler there. Otherwise, this whole year had been a bust. I'd concluded hooking up wasn't worth the trouble if it wasn't with someone I thought I might be seriously interested in. And there just hadn't been anyone here who'd caught my eye like that yet.
As soon as my mind went down that train of thought, though, some Pavlovian reaction ticked my eyes back over to Pete across the room.
No.
That was weird and fucked up. And I still couldn't explain it. Months later, my fluke attraction to Pete hadn't ever faded away like I'd hoped. But even though I hadn't succeeded in stopping those pointless impulses, I was relieved I'd at least managed to keep their persistence from fucking up our freindship.
I brushed those thoughts aside, like I always did. Dwelling on them wouldn't help anything.
Unlike my roommate, Pete wasn't much of a player. I'd asked him about that once after things fizzled with a pretty Art History major he'd seemed drawn to earlier this semester. He confided that she'd been `more interested in Peter Lyons than Pete' and that it was a recurring frustration for him. After hearing him put things that way, it became pretty easy for me to pick up on that pattern in how other girls approached him too. Pete wasn't having the college experience he'd probably hoped for either. But at least we had each other as company as we both stood around the game but not really in it, waiting for something to change.
As I continued catching up with Swayta, I couldn't stop myself from half-watching Pete over on the other side of the room. I realized he was right about what he said earlier tonight: I was happy. Looking around this party, it felt like I really had made a life for myself here. And I clearly had some great friends around me, too.
I noticed both Pete and Tom were looking over at me and Swayta now. They were laughing together in a way that clearly suggested their joke must've somehow been about me. I caught Pete's eyes with my own and returned the smile he flashed over to me. Tonight I felt like Tom was right, too. He was right to wonder what my problem was here. What the hell was I grumpy about all the time? Things may not be exactly what I expected, but college actually was fucking cool.
Really, I had it damn good after all.
To be continued.