Chapter 13

The Next Day

Grant bit his lip as he stood uncomfortably with his lunch tray. “Are you sure it’s okay? They’re your friends. I’ll be in the way.”

I sighed and rubbed my elbow against Grant’s, keeping a grip on my own tray. “Yeah, they’re my friends, so they’d better get used to seeing you with me.” I gestured come-on with my head, and Grant followed me to Larry’s and Laney’s table, smiling nervously.

I’d seen my friends watching me wide-eyed from the moment I’d entered the caf with Grant. I set my tray on the table when I reached it and cleared my throat. “You guys haven’t really had a chance to meet my roommate. I know you know who he is, but anyway, this is Grant.” I reached behind Grant and stroked the small of his back as a gesture of intimacy. “Grant, this is Larry,” I gestured with my free hand at Larry, who gulped and nodded. “And this is Laney.” Laney looked at Larry and responded with, “Uhhh, hi.”

I pulled out a chair opposite Larry and sighed. I’d hoped to be able to sit on something today, but decided I was still at least a day away from that. I put my knees on the chair and sat back on my calf muscles, wincing as my heels brushed my butt. Grant took a similar posture on the one remaining chair.

Grant began hesitantly, looking back and forth between Larry and Laney, “Amy talks about you guys all the...”

Larry cut him off. “Don’t ever hurt her.” His eyes were fixed on Grant’s in an unblinking glare. “I mean it!”

Grant’s tension went off the scale. He kept it well hidden, but I now knew him well enough to see it. Grant’s left hand, out of sight in his lap, clenched into a tight fist. I reached over quickly and covered Grant’s hand with my own, gently massaging it until it relaxed enough for me to entwine my fingers with his. My own heart was pounding as I began, “Larry, there’s been a lot going on...”

Grant shook his head slightly. “Amy, it’s okay. Let me.” He looked back at Larry, seeming to search for words, finding them at last. “Both of you are really important to Amy. So you’re important to me too. I want us to be ... friends.” Grant blinked at his own words, as if he’d somehow persuaded himself to say something impossibly intimate. He gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ve ... been learning a lot. I just want you to give me a chance.” He looked back and forth again. “Please?”

Larry opened his mouth to reply, and closed it again, seeming to be fascinated with the look on Grant’s face. He looked at Laney, who looked equally mesmerized. Laney turned at last and give Larry a slight facial shrug. She turned back to Grant, and made an obvious attempt to find some neutral ground for a conversation. Finally, she said, rather tentatively, “I’ve seen you from across the gym in your hanging class sometimes. Where did you learn to do that stuff?”

I could see the tension in Grant start to swirl away as though a bathtub plug had been pulled. Hanging was something he could talk about. “I had a coach, but those moves I pretty much taught myself.”

Larry blinked. “A coach? For how long?”

“I started practicing hanging when I was twelve.”

Laney seemed to be getting hooked, forgetting the drama of minutes before. “Does an outside coach ... I mean, is it like learning here?”

Grant shook his head. “Not at the same level. You don’t really get the kind of training anywhere else like they have here, and you can’t find a lot of the books. I’ve been learning a lot.”

Grant suddenly realized Tanya was standing just at the edge of his vision, biting her lip nervously Her roommate, Liz, stood beside her and gave her an encouraging nudge. Tanya cleared her throat. “Grant, I was hoping you could ... help me?”

I winced as Grant squeezed my hand convulsively. Grant responded cautiously, “Ummm ... how?”

Tanya sighed and gave an I-feel-helpless gesture with her arms. “I guess you know I haven’t really been keeping up with the hanging class. Almost everybody is doing at least three minutes in class now, and I’ve never even done two. My hanging grades are just killing my average and ... well, of course, that’s what we’re all here for, anyway, and it’s like I’m just not getting it! I’m in the bottom five, and our first party is coming up soon, and I’m ... well, scared.”

Grant nodded. “I’ve seen you a few times. You know you don’t turn your head enough, right? You’ve got to free up the carotids on nearly every turn, at least for an instant. In time with your heartbeat, of course.”

Tanya sighed forlornly. “The teachers have said that a couple of times. I try to keep that in mind along with everything else, but somehow I’m just not doing it. There’s just so much going on when I’m hanging, and I just get ... confused.”

Grant bit his lip in thought, absorbed in the problem. His eyes flew open wide suddenly, and he turned to Larry. “Can we get charcoal dust here? Soot, anything like that?”

Larry blinked in astonishment. “Huh? I don’t know. I guess the student store could order some. What does...?” He shook his head, mystified.

Grant turned quickly back to Tanya. “You need something visible to give you a goal to shoot for. When you’ve got some charcoal dust, coat the inside of the noose in your room with it. All the way around, just kind of brush it on. Then do a practice hanging. Don’t do anything different while you’re hanging, just do it like you normally do.” Grant stood up in front of Tanya. “You’ll get a black ring around your neck. It’s going to be darkest and widest in the parts of your neck that have been bearing your weight and rubbing hardest against the rope...” Grant reached up and around Tanya and touched the back of her neck with his fingers, letting them trace partway around toward the front, “ ... that’d be the back, and around to the sides, stopping below your ears. The dark part is probably going to stop about here.” He held his fingers on either side of Tanya’s neck, just behind the carotids. “See, that’s not far enough. You’re not getting the blood flow. You’ve got to work on getting the black smudge to cover up to about here...” Grant brought his fingers a couple of inches farther forward. “You’ll be able to tell at the end of each practice if you’re making progress, because it’s something you can see. Once you get there, you’re going to feel the difference, and it’ll start to feel natural. Your body will learn to tell you when you’re falling short. Okay?”

Tanya’s eyes had grown progressively wider as Grant spoke. Now she clapped her hands once and threw her arms around Grant, hugging him tightly. “I know that’ll work. Thank you!” She whirled to face Liz, grabbing her hand. “Let’s go to the student store!” They ran together out of the caf.

Grant stood frozen, not sure what to make of the departed Tanya’s outburst of affectionate exuberance. He looked down at me, wide eyed. I grinned and reached up to rub Grant’s arm. “You’ll get used to it.”