Chapter 28

I eventually accepted that I was never going to get back together with Gina. The dull ache of loss didn’t fade with the realization, though; it simply reminded me of my own shortcomings. If only I’d paid more attention to her. If only I’d listened to Trip’s advice. If only I’d done something.

If only, if only, if only.

Physically, though, I was fine. My ribs had mended to the point where I could start working out again, and my bruises and cuts had healed (except for a small scar through my left eyebrow, a constant reminder of the consequences of my actions).

Since I was getting my life in order, I decided to give up some of my extracurricular activities—give them up for good, that is. Kendall and I were getting along well and I was doing well in school, so I didn’t want to screw things up by taking on too much.

Consequently, I gave up the Ski Club and the Wrestling Club. Coach Travis wasn’t very happy, but he couldn’t change my mind. The season was winding down anyway, so it was time for him to begin focusing on his football players and spring training.

I also gave up basketball. My decision was more of a formality, though, since another guy from our floor had taken over my spot on the team when I couldn’t play. The guys did pretty well without me—better than they had with me—but they didn’t even make the quarterfinals.

“Aw, hell, Loverboy,” T.J. said. “I didn’t think we’d get to the finals anyway. Especially since you had to go and get yourself beat half to death ... just when you were starting to get good, too!”

T.J. still grated on my nerves at times, but I reluctantly admitted that he had his good qualities. For one, he was fiercely loyal. For another, he was absolutely fearless. And once I looked past his bluster and obnoxious nicknames, I realized that he made wisecracks instead of showing his emotions. I knew we’d never be bosom buddies, but at least I didn’t snap at him when he was just trying to be friendly.

I did keep up with the Flying Club, though. I enjoyed my lessons with Earl, and I especially enjoyed my cross-country trips. They were relaxing, since I had to pay so much attention to flying that I didn’t have time to brood about losing Gina.

Felicia called me sporadically after the fateful Night at the Hilton, but I was usually preoccupied, surly, or both. I know it wasn’t fair, but I blamed her—at least in part—for my break-up with Gina. If only she hadn’t been so starved for attention. If only I hadn’t given her my phone number. If only she hadn’t called when Gina was there to answer.

“If only,” I cursed silently. If only I hadn’t had sex with her in the first place! Self-discipline? Ha!

I don’t remember when it happened, but her phone calls stopped abruptly. Maybe her boyfriend caught her. Maybe she got tired of me being a jerk. Maybe she simply moved on. When it finally dawned on me that I hadn’t heard from her in a while, I berated myself for not noticing sooner.

I cared about Felicia, and she deserved better. After a bit of soul-searching, I located her phone number and called her, but the number had been disconnected. I called the store where she worked, but the manager said she had quit unexpectedly.

I felt bad for her, but I didn’t know what else I could do, since I wasn’t the answer to her problems. In my imagination she dumped her boyfriend, quit doing drugs, and found a guy who would love her and take care of her.

Not likely, I thought grimly. And that’s another thing I’ll eventually have to atone for.

About a month after our break-up, Gina called. For a moment, my spirits soared, thinking she wanted to get back together. But at the sound of her voice—so full of determination—my hopes died silently.

“How are you, Paul?” she asked.

I mentally shrugged. “I’m fine, I guess. How’re you?”

For a few minutes, we had a surreal conversation, which made a mockery of the warmth from times past. I could hear the heartache in her voice, but it was locked away behind a thick wall.

She asked about my classes, and told me about hers. I told her about my flying lessons, and she told me about volunteering at the hospital. We talked like normal people, like acquaintances. We definitely didn’t talk like former lovers, or even best friends.

“Have you told your parents about us?” she finally asked.

“No,” I said simply. “You?”

“I ... couldn’t. Besides,” she added, with forced humor, “I didn’t want Leah to start pestering you right away.”

I laughed, but it was strained.

“We’re going to have to tell them, though. Sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” I said heavily.

“Have you talked to Susan?”

“No. I...” I fell silent with the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

“I know,” she said simply.

“Have you talked to her?”

“I wanted to talk to you first,” she said. “Besides, I didn’t want her to try to...”

“Get us back together?” I finished rhetorically.

“I’m sorry, Paul.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said, trying not to sound surly. She sniffled, and in my mind’s eye, I could see her wiping her cheeks, her dark eyes full of tears. I continued, my emotions tightly controlled: “I guess we’d better tell everyone, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to do it together?” I asked hopefully.

Silence.

“Okay, bad idea.”

“I’m sorry, Paul,” she said. “I want to see you, but...”

“I understand.” It was my turn to wipe my eyes. “Okay, so what do you want to tell them?”

“The truth.”

“All of it?” I asked, a little shocked.

“No, not all of it. Let’s just tell them that we drifted apart. That’s more or less true. Let’s tell them we had a talk, and decided not to see each other any more.”

“No, you decided not to see me anymore,” I half-snapped. “There wasn’t any ‘we’ about it.”

“Paul, what did you expect me to do, wait for you to fix things? You see how well that worked!” Suddenly, she paused and drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I don’t want to get into it again. We’re both to blame. I know you didn’t decide to break up; I did, and I’ll have to live with that the rest of my life. But I want to have a life, Paul, and I need to do what’s best for me.”

“You could’ve had a life with me,” I muttered.

“Yes, I could’ve had a life with you. But not with you and Kendall. I tried, Paul. I really did. But...”

“Yeah, I know,” I said at last, silently admitting that she was right. I bore the majority of the responsibility, but Kendall wasn’t without her share of blame as well.

“I’m sorry, Paul,” Gina said quietly. “I really don’t want to get into this again. I know it’s hard ... it’s hard for me too.” After a mutual silence, she sniffled. “Promise me one thing, though?”

I could hear the hope in her voice. “Anything,” I said.

“Promise we’ll always be friends.”

For a moment, I thought about saying something spiteful. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt someone I loved, still. “I promise,” I said at last.

“Thank you.”

Once again, we were silent for several long, emotion-filled moments.

“I will always love you, you know,” she said at last. “You’ll always be my pitter-pat man, even if...”

“I know,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from breaking.

“I’m so sorry, Paul.” After another long silence, she composed herself. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger, less anguished. “Let’s just tell our parents that we’re adults, and we decided to break up. We decided to be just ... friends.” She laughed, with teary, artificial humor. “You’re going to have to fight off Leah, you know.”

“I’ll survive. I like Leah, but I don’t think I could be with her without thinking of you ... and that’d be pretty hard. You’re ... you’re one of a kind, Gina Coulter. And you’ll always be my first true love.”

At that, she did begin crying, in earnest.

I couldn’t fault her; I had to blink back tears of my own.

“I’ll always love you, Paul,” she said at last. “Always.”

We talked for a little while longer, about the specifics of what to tell our families. It was a sad conversation, as if we were announcing a death in the family. By the time I hung up, I wasn’t feeling any happier, but at least I didn’t feel like I’d lost Gina forever.

A little while later, after I composed myself and took a shower, T.J. knocked on my open door.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Just finishing up some homework,” I said. “What’s going on with you?”

He shrugged. Then he studied his shoelaces for a moment. “Were you talking to Gina earlier?”

The wall between the rooms was metal, not cinder block, and muffled sounds came through. Actual conversation wasn’t clear, but the general tone certainly was. “Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

He fidgeted. “I guess I just wanted to say...” Another fidget. “You know...”

I waited.

“I guess I just wanted to say ... um ... you know...”

I smiled, albeit sadly. “Yeah, I think I know.”

“Okay,” he said, the relief in his voice almost comical. Then he looked up and flashed me a lopsided grin. “Me and Glen are gonna go out drinkin’ tonight. D’you and Super Jock wanna go?”

“I don’t know...”

“C’mon, Loverboy,” he whooped, “let’s go raise some hell!”

I forced a chuckle at his enthusiasm. “Okay,” I said after a moment.

He grinned, ear-to-ear and a little goofy. Then, just as suddenly, he sobered. He started to return to his room, but paused instead. “Hey, Paul?”

“Yeah?”

“I ... I’m really sorry about you and Gina.”

“Thanks, T.J.,” I said. “That means a lot.”

To my surprise, he simply looked me in the eye and nodded.

Not bosom buddies, I thought, but maybe he’s not so bad after all.

I called my parents the following day. Gina and I had decided to coordinate our calls, so I imagined her dialing the phone as I did the same. With a dark chuckle, I wondered if she looked as morose as I did.

Erin answered.

“Hi,” I said. “How’s it going?”

She immediately sensed my mood. “What’s the matter?”

“Gina and I broke up.” So simple, I thought. My heart ripped out and I can explain it in five little words.

“Oh, Paul,” Erin said. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

I told her the story Gina and I had worked out: that we’d grown apart since coming to college, and decided to take a break from dating each other. It was the truth, but it left out a lot of unpleasant details.

The main thing we’d agreed upon was that we didn’t want our families trying to fix things. Our mothers had worked behind the scenes for years—sometimes quietly, sometimes not—and we didn’t want our emotional wounds reopened by a round of “get the kids back together.”

Erin asked me a bunch of questions, and I answered them, but I don’t remember what they were, or even what my answers were. I’m sure I made sense, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Instead, I was thinking about Gina, and about how badly I had screwed up our relationship.

When I talked to my mom, the conversation was much the same, although I kept waiting for her to prod me to reconcile with Gina. She never did, and I was so shocked that I actually asked her about it.

“You’ve been drifting apart for a couple of months, dear,” she said.

“Then why didn’t you do anything?”

“Why didn’t you?”

Ouch.

She paused a moment to let the silence draw out. “Elizabeth and I thought this was coming, but...”

“Then why didn’t you say something?”

“I did. Remember?”

“I guess,” I said sullenly.

“Oh, Paul,” she said, her voice soft, “I wish I could put a Band-Aid on it and make the hurt go away, but I can’t.” She paused. “This is the hardest part about being a parent.”

“What?”

“Seeing your child fall and then having the willpower to wait for him to pick himself up on his own.”

I laughed, without humor.

“You’ll understand ... someday.”

“So you’re saying that this is hard on you too?” I asked, almost sarcastically. I immediately regretted my tone, but I couldn’t take it back.

“In a way, yes. But it’s not nearly as hard on me as it is on you. I understand that, Paul. I wasn’t always a mother. I was a girl once, too, and I had my share of heartbreaks.”

“Does it ever get better?” I asked, trying not to sound as miserable as I felt.

To my surprise, she laughed, low and sweet. “Believe it or not, it does. It might not seem like it now, but it does get better.”

“When?”

Once again, she laughed, but without scorn. “I think it took me a whole year to get over my first heartbreak.”

“That long?”

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “But I was young—younger than you are now—and I think I was being a bit melodramatic.” She mimicked a maiden in distress: “Oh, the world is coming to an end. What will I do? What will I do?” Then she laughed. “I survived. Ginny helped ... a lot, as a matter of fact. You don’t have a big sister, but you’ve got Kendall.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said with a harder edge than I intended, “I’ve got Kendall. And even though she hides it well, she couldn’t be happier about how things worked out. This is what she’s wanted all along. Well, since I came to UT, at least.”

“Do you think she really loves you,” Mom asked shrewdly, “or does she love the idea of loving you?”

I considered for a moment. “I think she really loves me,” I said at last. “I mean, I know she does, but...”

“But?”

“I guess I’ve seen a side of Kendall that I didn’t know before.” I laughed, a little bitterly. “I guess she’s human after all.” At her hesitation, I explained. “Manfred and I always called her ‘The Goddess Kendall.’ To us, she was a goddess, on a pedestal.”

“No one can survive on a pedestal for long.”

“I know,” I said. “And when they come down to earth, you realize they’re only human.”

“Mmm hmm.”

“So Kendall’s only human. But she does love me. I can see it in her eyes when she looks at me. And ... I know this is gonna sound crazy, but when she touches me—not like sex or anything, just a touch, you know?—it’s ... comfortable. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

“I think I understand.”

“So yeah, she loves me. And I love her. I wasn’t real happy with her for a while, but...”

“That’s what relationships are about, Paul,” Mom said gently, “making things work, even when you’re not happy with the other person.”

“Does it get any easier?”

“No, not really,” she said with a frank laugh.

“You’re not helping, Mom.”

“Oh, Paul,” she said, her voice trailing off in a wistful, amused sigh. “Welcome to the world of grown-ups.”

“When did life get so complicated?”

“I believe it was June 6^th, 1963.”

That was the day I was born, and I grimaced at her gentle jibe.

“Things’ll get better, honey,” she said with genuine warmth. “I know it hurts right now, but it does get better.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you mind telling Dad for me?” I asked after a moment. “I really don’t have the energy to go through all this again.”

“He’s got a layover in Phoenix, but I’ll tell him when he calls. Do you want me to ask him to give you a call?”

I started to say no, but then surprised myself. “Um ... yeah. If you don’t mind.”

“What is it you pilots say?” she teased. “Roger wilco?”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Oh, Paul, you’re not my little boy anymore.”

“Evidently not.”

“But I’m proud of you,” she said. “I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

You wouldn’t be if you knew about some of the things I’ve done. Maturity? Ha! Aloud: “Thanks, Mom.”

“I love you, honey.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

I called Susan next, but the line was busy. When I tried again fifteen minutes later, she answered on the first ring.

She didn’t even say hello: “Trust me, you’re going to survive.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, Paul, it’s you!”

“Who’d you think it was?” I asked. “Oh, never mind. Gina, right?”

“Yes. She called back a couple of times, so I thought it was her again.”

“Oh. How is she?”

“She’s upset,” she said. “But she’ll survive.”

“She’s upset?”

“Yes, of course she is,” Susan said, with gentle reproach. “A chapter of her life just ended.”

“No kidding,” I said, my voice thick with irony.

She neatly changed the subject: “How’re you?”

“I’m fine, I guess. I mean, I’m not exactly the happiest guy in the world right now, but I’ll survive.”

“That’s good to hear,” she said, a teasing note in her voice. Then she sobered. “I am sorry to hear about you and Gina. She loves you very much, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. Then I repeated Gina’s own words: “But she can’t be with me, right?”

“No, she can’t. Do you understand why?”

“No,” I said sourly.

Silence.

“All right, yes. So I screwed things up. Bad. I should’ve done something sooner. I should’ve said something. I should’ve... aaargh!” I half-howled in impotence. “I should’ve paid attention, or ... something.”

To my utter surprise, Susan laughed. She composed herself quickly, though. “I’m sorry. I sometimes forget how young you are.”

I grumbled something about older women laughing at me.

“Back to what you were saying,” she said easily, ignoring my grumpy remarks. “Yes, you probably should’ve done something, but it’s not easy maintaining harmony in a three-way relationship, especially when two of the members don’t want to share the third. I’m not saying you didn’t screw up, like you said, but you did have a difficult job.”

“Finally! Someone sees things my way.”

“Paul,” she said deliberately, “I’ve always seen things your way. We’re more alike than you might realize. But I’m also a woman, and I can empathize with Gina and Kendall. Do you remember the conversation we had about committed relationships?”

I laughed ruefully. “Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day.”

“You can’t have a committed relationship with more than one person. I know I certainly haven’t met anyone who’s managed to sustain a multiple-partner relationship. Not a long-term relationship, at least.”

“You haven’t? Then why did you let me get into one in the first place?” I asked, with more than a trace of exasperation.

“I didn’t ‘let’ you do anything, Paul. I’ve always treated you like an adult and let you make your own decisions.”

“Then why didn’t you stop me?”

“Would it have done any good?” she asked reasonably.

“Yes!” Unfortunately, I knew my answer for the lie it was. When she let the silence draw out, I admitted it, “Okay, no.”

“I thought you’d see it my way.”

“I always see things your way,” I muttered.

“That’s because you have wisdom beyond your years.”

I couldn’t decide if she was mocking me or not.

“I’m teasing you, Paul,” she said, as if reading my mind. “Although not entirely. You do have wisdom beyond your years, but you’re still only eighteen.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” she said calmly, “that you don’t have all the answers; you don’t know how to deal with every situation. Take comfort in that. Right now you can blame your mistakes on youth and inexperience. Imagine what happens when you’re my age.”

“What?”

“You can’t use immaturity as an excuse!” she said with a laugh. “When you’re my age, you have to blame your mistakes on ignorance, or arrogance, or simple stupidity. That’s not very good for your ego.”

“I guess.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Paul, but the important thing is that you learn from them. My father always taught me to forgive any mistake—the first time—no matter how big. If someone repeats a mistake, however, you’ve got a problem. You made a lot of mistakes with Gina. But are you likely to do the same thing again?”

“Not hardly,” I said, with surprising conviction.

She chuckled. “Good. So take this experience and learn from it.”

“Easier said than done.”

“True. But I have faith in you. I don’t think you’ll let things go so far if you and Kendall ever drift apart.”

“No way.”

“Then you’re learning already.”

“I hope.”

“You’ll do fine,” she said.

We talked for a few more minutes about communication and trust, things I had failed at miserably with Gina. I thought I had good grounds not to trust her, but the communication breakdown was mostly my fault. Time and again Gina had tried to get me to fix things, but I hadn’t done a thing.

As our conversation wore on, I wanted to ask Susan’s advice about Gina’s cocaine use, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I guess I didn’t want to be a snitch. I’m ashamed to admit that I also didn’t want to ruin my chances of keeping Gina as a friend.

I knew cocaine wasn’t good for her, but in her own way, Gina was a strong person, and I had to trust her to take care of herself. If I meddled in her life, it would just drive her away completely. I was selfish enough to want to avoid that.

In the end, I decided that Gina was an adult; I couldn’t live her life for her. So I didn’t say a word about cocaine, or anything else Gina had done.

Susan and I talked for a little while longer, mostly about school and my plans for the summer. She had a way of listening that made me feel like I was the most important person in the world. By the time we finally said goodbye and hung up, I felt immensely better.

My dad called later that night. Surprisingly, we spent most of the conversation talking about planes and flying. I think he understood that I didn’t really want to rehash the situation with Gina. So we talked man to man, rather than father and son. I don’t know why, but it was tremendously important that he see me as an adult, rather than a child who needed comforting.

“Well, Paul,” he said, winding up our conversation, “is there anything you need? Money? Food? Books?”

“Spending money wouldn’t hurt,” I said, echoing the request of college students throughout history.

He laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“It sounds like you’re gonna be all right, son,” he said after a moment.

“Thanks, Dad. I hope so.”

Eventually, I began to believe my father’s words. The sun still rose and set. The stars still wheeled through the skies. The world around me continued its cycle, and so did my life.

In the middle of March, we had to go through advising and registration for the upcoming quarter. Once again, Trip and I planned our schedules together, along with the rest of our design team.

I also made sure my schedule worked with Kendall’s, Wren and Christy’s, and Siobhan’s modeling schedule. I regretted not having to worry about Gina’s schedule, but I told myself that she was probably happier without having to deal with me and my schedule either.

Getting all of my required classes at the right times took a bit of work, but I eventually managed to get all of the pieces to fit together. My one fear was that I’d encounter a myopic halfwit in the advising center.

Fortunately, I didn’t. Unfortunately, Professor Joska was the reason why. He was actually in the advising center, and when he saw me walk through the door, he said a quiet word to the clerk handling advisor assignments. My stomach sank when I saw him do it, and I wasn’t surprised when she directed me to him.

“Well, Mr. Hughes,” he said as he took a seat behind one of the ubiquitous desks, “let’s see what you have planned for next quarter.”

“You don’t have to bother with this, Professor Joska,” I said, even though I knew it was useless. “A regular advisor would be fine.”

He gestured at the other desks with graduate advisors; they were all busy with students. “And since I run the advising center”—he suppressed a smile at my startled look—”I thought it best to help with the overflow.”

I sat down with a resigned sigh.

For ten solid minutes, he questioned my class choices. Since our design team had selected one of his sections, he couldn’t object to that. Trip and I had chosen Professor Ledbetter for our Drawing class, so he couldn’t object to that either. But I had to keep my temper firmly in check as I patiently—respectfully, even—explained the reasons behind each class selection. In the end, he didn’t change a thing.

“Professor Ledbetter tells me you’re a figure model for an art class,” he said at last.

“Two, actually.”

“Don’t you think your time could be better spent in the design lab?” he asked, his gaze unwavering.

I answered without hesitation: “No, sir.”

“And why not, Mr. Hughes?”

“Because I enjoy modeling.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s relaxing.”

“So you think becoming an architect is about relaxation?”

“No, sir. It’s about hard work,” I said. And lots of it, you cold-hearted slave driver. “But it’s also about emotion and creativity and beauty.”

He nodded for me to continue.

“If I don’t have some time to relax, I don’t have any of those things. So I model for art classes. It gives me time to think, to dream. And if I can’t do that, then I don’t want to be an architect in the first place.”

“You’re not an architect yet, Mr. Hughes.”

As his words registered, my eyes widened.

“What’s so astonishing, Mr. Hughes?” he asked, deliberately laconic.

“Yet,” I thought exultantly. He said I’m not an architect “yet.” I could see the realization in his eyes. A surge of adrenaline prickled my skin as I thought about calling him on it. He’d shrug it off as a simple misstatement, and I’d say, “With all due respect, sir, you don’t make mistakes. You said so yourself.” He’d be forced to admit the truth or bluster. Either would be a victory, as far as I was concerned.

The entire scenario ran through my mind in the blink of an eye, and I held his steely gaze as I gathered my courage. Then...

I didn’t do a thing.

I didn’t open my mouth. I didn’t blink. I didn’t even draw a breath. I simply gazed at Laszlo Joska and understood him with a clarity born of hard-earned experience.

I’ve got what it takes to be an architect, my imaginary voice said.

Yes, Mr. Hughes, he replied, I believe you do.

To the outside world, we were silent, a student and a professor contemplating each other across a well-worn desk.

I schooled my expression. “Nothing, sir,” I said at last. It took a moment to convince myself that I’d actually spoken aloud.

After a long pause, he turned businesslike again. “Well, your schedule appears to be in order. I’ll sign it without any changes.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, standing up with the signed card in hand. I didn’t even smile. I still didn’t like the man, but I’d just gained a small measure of respect for him, and I wouldn’t cheapen it with a smirk.

If he understood, he didn’t show it. “Good day, Mr. Hughes.”

“You too, sir,” I said.

In the end, though, I couldn’t help myself: I think I actually whistled as I left the advising center.

As the end of winter quarter drew near, we finished projects, polished term papers, and studied for final exams. I had a major design analysis due in Professor Joska’s class, and I knew it had to be perfect; he’d accept nothing less. So I pored over my research, adding footnotes and illustrations where I needed to support my assertions.

I also had a portfolio review in Professor Ledbetter’s class, and from the hints he’d been dropping, Professor Joska wanted to see my drawings as well. I knew that Joska was in charge of the overall design curriculum, but I didn’t know how I felt about him presiding over every aspect of my education.

The man was an infernal taskmaster, and nothing I did was ever good enough. Any time he gave me a compliment, he followed it with “but you’ll have to do better than this.” I wanted to pull my hair out in frustration and scream, “I’ve redone it a dozen times! How much better can it be?!” I never did, though. I simply took whatever he returned and either redrew it, reanalyzed my research, or reexamined my conclusions.

He also questioned everything I did. His questions usually highlighted my errors, but I actually defended my work a couple of times, stridently even. The first time, he patiently listened to my points before he shook his head, returned my drawing, and said, “Try again.”

The second time, however, he questioned a simple design of a building façade. The assignment had been to take the outline of the façade and complete it using a required list of architectural elements. I had added several elements not on the required list, because they pulled my design together and gave it balance.