Chapter 1

“It’ll be a bit before Fox gets home,” Kitty said as she opened her front door almost out of breath. “I baked cookies!”

I smiled, said I’d love one, and kicked my sneakers off at the door. Kitty zipped back to the kitchen. Fox, her older brother, had become my best friend over the last semester. I lived on campus; he commuted from home. For homemade cookies, I’d have done the same! You know, provided home wasn’t 300 miles from here.

I liked Kitty. She was always cute but completely spastic. She scared me a little. I had been stabbed across the arm, kicked in the nuts, and tripped down the stairs visiting Fox over the last five months. I knew Kitty was trying to be nice; I always tried to be nice back. She had even invited me to her 18th birthday a couple of months back. I had ended up getting four stitches. I dipped my head warily into the kitchen.

In other homes, the kitchen being filled with fizzing beakers, laboratory glassware, round overly-labeled plastic jars, and other scientific paraphernalia might be red flags. That was just Fox’s mom. I was first year, so I didn’t have any of her chemistry classes yet, but she took the aesthetic home with her.

No, the danger in the kitchen was wiggling her perky butt and humming to herself.

Kitty was a high school senior. She had bright blue eyes behind thick rimmed glasses. She twitched out of time with her crooked nervous smile. Her wavy blonde hair was pulled back and tied up in a frizzy bun. She was fair skinned when she wasn’t blushing, making her generally pinkish. She was wearing a striped blue t-shirt, a knee-length black skirt, and a frilly white apron. I tried to not perv out too strongly with her; she was my best friend’s little sister, after all. I did notice her nice calves today. I mostly focused on her hands. She wielded a long plastic spatula making a pyramid of freshly steaming chocolate chip cookies. Seemed safe enough, though the kitchen did not smell like freshly baked cookies.

“Arrived before you. Kitty is feeding me cookies.” I texted Fox. Kitty picked up her plate and gestured with her eyes to the kitchen table. I smiled as I sat down.

“I hope you like them, Jordan,” she beamed, rocking back onto her heels, “It’s my first time! Tell me what you think.”

That first bite was ... indescribable. I wanted to cough, to turn green, to curse God. I forced a smile. She was incredibly anxious and earnest. She had rolled up on her heels and bit her lip tightly. Her cookies were bad, awful, terrifying, heretical, apocalyptic. One look into her blue eyes, a glance at her off-tilted smile, and I just couldn’t come out and tell her that. I quickly devoured the other half of the cookie.

“Milk?” I said, rasping hoarsely.

“Oh? Of course! Yeah! Great idea! You’re smart!” She zipped to the fridge and dragged out a carton of 2%. I rapidly scraped my fingernails down the surface of my tongue, trying to disconnect any cookie remains from my taste buds. When she turned back, I was smiling and wiping my fingers on the back of my jeans. She slid in her socks across the kitchen tiles. I expected, hoped, prayed, that she would stumble and drench me in milk. For the first time, I survived unmolested. She set it down next to the plate, “How are they?”

She managed to put all of herself on the line for this one question. The truth would have killed her. I tried to speak and cleared my throat behind my fist. “They’re ... Good...”

“Have more! Have more!” she celebrated. She waved with both hands from the plate to me. I was stuck. She slid the plate even closer to me. I should just tell her they’re terrible. Hit her in the really pretty smile with the ugly blunt truth. Where was my backbone? Did I even have balls?

Dipping one in milk didn’t redeem it. The milk turned gray in color. There was no gray in the cookies, they were a sort of burnt brown with reddened chocolate chips. Chunks of brimstone chiseled out of the walls of hell.

“Aren’t you going to have one?” I hoped.

“I’m trying to diet,” she said, shaking her head. She leaned back and put her hands over her flat belly. Her boobs stuck up nicely. She had a slender, long, and fit figure. “Please, eat them till you burst!”

I did my best to smile, surprised I didn’t have to reach into my face and pull the muscles taut to fake it. Till I burst? Hopefully soon? I took a deep breath. I was going to tell her. I washed the third one down with the rest of the milk. I almost swallowed it whole like a duck, trying to keep any particle from touching my tastebuds. The cookie crumbled and sogged just a little, defeating my attempt at ninja sneakiness. I looked back, through tears, into her eyes.

I took a deep breath and reached up to wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. I switched quickly to the other hand, the milk glass hand. I didn’t want cookie in my eyes.

“I’ll get you another glass!” she said, bubbling with joy. She hopped, skipped, and danced over to the fridge for the carton again. The front door opened and I hooked my head to see Dove coming in.

Dove, Fox, and Kitty. Some people’s parents tried to do the work for the bullies. Sister, brother, sister, in descending ages. Dove was dressed in the blue top of the diner she worked at. She had a figure like her sister, tall (but shorter than Kitty) with a small curve to her hips and a nice curve to her tits. Her hair was darker, only fell to her shoulders, and was wavier than Kitty’s frizzy. She had on pale lipstick and dark eyeshadow and a black miniskirt to match. Sexy gets tips, after all. Her thighs to her knees were reddened from the January cold.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind perving on Dove, like I worried about perving on Kitty. Dove was three years older than me and Fox. He wasn’t protective of Dove in the same way as Kitty. Besides, Dove was crazy hot.

In that moment, I barely registered Dove as human, let alone woman.

“What is that smell?” she blanched. “A hospital?”

“I made cookies!” Kitty said, proudly as she filled the glass in front of me. “Jordan is giving me a taste test.”

I smiled, mirroring the way the left corner of Kitty’s mouth raised more ecstatically than her right. She was just a little awkward when she smiled. My face was trying to tear itself from my skull. It wanted nothing to do with what I had just put in my stomach. I picked up the fourth cookie. I closed my eyes. Chomp. Chomp. Too many Chomps! Ew ... Swallow. Milk wash. Milk wash! MILK WASH!

“Those do not smell like cookies.” Dove leaned over me and took her own bite. She spat the chunk over the floor, “Jesus, Kitty! Are you trying to poison him?”

“What?” Kitty’s cheeks lost their near perpetual blush. Her skin now showed how fair she truly could be. Bleached bone pale.

“Goddammit Jordan!” Dove smacked me in the back of the head, “I know you’re a nice guy but if you told her you liked these there’d be five dozen of them the next time you came over. Do you want your mom price-gouged buying you a coffin?”

“I--” I looked up for Kitty who had bolted from the kitchen with her eyes behind her hands. “Is she going to be OK?”

“Are you?” Dove flopped down in the chair facing mine. She sat with her knees apart, but snapped them closed when I tilted my head to see her blue panties. “Jordan!” she snapped, I looked up and she looked worried. “Are you OK? Those were what cancer would be if it were a baked good.”

“They weren’t that bad,” I said, as the first spasms hit my stomach. She waited for me to admit the truth. I frowned, “Uh ... OK, yes, they were far beyond that bad.”

My phone buzzed across the table and I missed reaching for it. Dove sighed and picked it up. “Fox ran into Marie and they went for coffee. He’s on his way now,” she relayed to me. “Here, let me walk you downstairs so you can lay out on the couch until you feel better. Do you need to throw up?”

“What?” I asked. Kitty poked her head in the kitchen and I saw the fear on her face. I should’ve said something but shook my head: no.

I kinda knew it was a lie, but I felt better seeing Kitty look mildly relieved. She bolted when Dove looked over to see what I was looking at.

“C’mon,” she said. “You have to hold yourself up. You’re a skinny dude, Jordan, but I’m not carrying you.”

“I can walk,” I said. She led me down to the basement. I collapsed onto the couch. She came back and put a pack of Shoppers Drug Mart brand pills next to a glass of water. She shook her head.

“Fox’ll be here in twenty minutes or so,” Dove said. “I’m gonna make sure Kitty’s abominations are destroyed. XBox controller’s under your butt if you want to get started on your video games.”

I thanked her as my stomach penned it’s suicide note.

The rocking of the city bus on the way home was turning me green. It was about six hours later, almost ten at night. I hadn’t died, literally. Every game Fox and I played ended in my inevitable and quick death. I had turned down his parent’s offer to join them for dinner. I was not putting anything else in my stomach. Yet, I hadn’t grown hungry at all.

The bus was mostly empty and I could hardly even ogle Lynsey. Lynsey was one of my favorite neighbors to ogle. At least I knew I was on the right bus back to the dorms. Lynsey lived across the hall from me. My face fell down towards my knees. I couldn’t even run my eyes from her silky ponytail to her perky breasts without getting seasick. She made certain I knew that she ignored me.

I clenched my jaw, reswallowing a belch. It must’ve went in my lungs because I hissed it out my nose. It was agony to smell those cookies one more time. I fell over on my shoulder and against the window. The night vanished.

“Jordan!” Lynsey shouted some time later. She was on her feet, passing me en route to the back exit of the bus. “Jordan!” she kicked me. “Fine! miss our stop ... Idiot.”

It took more effort that I imagined I could produce. I swung, lurched, and tumbled after Lynsey, swinging from pole to pole like a monkey, before I stumbled out the back door of the bus and onto the sidewalk. I stood in front of Halifax Central Library, just a block from Gerard Hall. Lynsey watched me stagger forward and put my hands down into the snowbank piled up next to the bus stop.

“You can’t hold your drink,” she inferred, and rolled her bright brown eyes at me. I forced a smile but she just kept a flat impatient scowl on her dark red lips. Her earmuffs were kitten faces. Her brown ponytail shined under the street lights. “Don’t just lie there. C’mon. One foot in front of the other.”

But I didn’t move. I raised my hand begging for a second. Or a minute. Maybe an hour. A one index finger worth of time.

“Don’t die in that snowbank.” She spun on her heel and disappeared like The Flash. Time slurred past and I hadn’t quite made it home. Lynsey had long since left me. She got me off the bus, that was something at least. I weaved and held tighter to stay vertical. “Just let go of the light post, Jordan!” Then take the walkway to the front doors. I took a breath.

“Hey sweetheart.” I heard a lovely Caribbean tinged voice, “You OK? Fox asked me to check on you.”

“Almost home.” I gestured at the building in front of me.

“C’mon then,” she said, and slipped against me and offered me her shoulder. She smelled amazing. I looked into her blueish eyes. She smiled her bright smile. She was a dark girl, with blue eyes, her thick black hair was kinky and framed her angular cheekbones. She had bright blue mittens and a thick green parka. I realized I was cold. “Jordan?”

“Marie?” I asked, she was Fox’s girlfriend, maybe? They hadn’t had sex yet. Though Fox had his fingers crossed for the coming weekend. They’d only really gone out since she had come back to Halifax after Christmas break. It was January 10th. Unless it was the 11th? Had it taken me two hours to walk one block? Maybe.

“Yes, it’s Marie,” she said. “C’mon, one foot in front of the other.”

“That’s good advice, you’re a smart person.” I said.

“I didn’t know you and Fox were drinkers,” she sniffed. “Though it smells like you’ve been guzzling Listerine.”

“I don’t drink,” I said.

“Yes, I can see that,” she teased.

“Hi, I’m Jordan.” I had a flash of something about her, a loss of recognition. I felt like my smile was only attached in one corner of my mouth and that some of my limbs couldn’t handle gravity. She hefted me up and I grabbed the wall to help. It was like I had vertigo, but just on my left. It felt like her brain was slippery and it spun madly out of my grasp when I tried to hold it. That made no sense. “You’re very pretty.”

“Thank you,” she said, tiredly. “You’ve got a nice smile. You’re gonna need a really good sleep. Now, you gotta unlock the door.”

I took a deep breath and dug out my wallet. I kept my key fob inside. I slapped the red light and the buzzer alerted Marie to open the door for me. She walked me to the elevator, pressed the call button, but watched the number go up from 6 to 7 to 8. She sighed and stepped away.

“Get to bed safely, Jordan.” She smiled and waved from the exit. I reached out to her and it was like her brain was tilted too far away and I couldn’t reach high enough for a grip. I don’t remember when the elevator door opened. I did wake up some when they bounced off my foot and opened again. I caught something and she walked back to me.

“You get home safe too,” I said, I pulled some part of her brain and let it go as soon as I looked into her blue eyes. They started to warm up again. She shook her head as I stared goofily at her. I wasn’t moving my foot as the elevator doors closed and opened once more.

“Well, are you going to get all the way in the lift? You can’t sleep down here, you gotta go to bed.” She arched her left eyebrow.

“With no kiss good night?” I said, as cheekily as my stomachache, and now headache, and now ankleache, would let me. She let out a very hearty snort. She walked in over my sneaker, leaned in and kissed me on the forehead. I helped her drag me into the elevator car. She pressed four and walked back out.

“Good night, Jordan.” She kicked my toes and this time the door had nothing stopping it from closing. I waved, but she had twirled and was walking away with a lovely waggle of her tail. I remember lurching upwards.

“Hey, floor Jordan!” The elevator stopped and I looked up from the corner in which I was holding my belly. Vickie smiled brightly. She was tiny, maybe five feet tall. Her thick brown hair was tied back and she held her pink knit toque in her left hand. She was wearing a white leather jacket and red jeans. Her ears were pierced with a line of three silver star studs in each. She smiled cutely.

“What?” I mumbled, looking up as she stepped inside and hit our number 4 button. I sat up as tall as I could and mumbled, “Getting home.”

“You look green!” She said when she turned around after the elevator rose again. She immediately hopped down into a kneel next to me. She laid the back of her hand on my forehead. She took her mitten off and tried again, “No fever. What’s wrong? Drunk?”

“Bad cookies,” I slurred.

“OK...” She didn’t look pleased but promised, “I’ll get you to bed.”

I needed instructions to get to my feet but Vickie showed a lot of patience. I used the rail and her body to steady myself. Vickie felt even shorter when I had my hand on her shoulder. The doors slid open.

“Jordan! One foot in front of the other.” She propelled me as I stepped forward. I saw Lynsey, dressed in pink pajama bottoms and a tight white tank top. She stopped, her dark lipstick gone and her skin looked prettier in a more natural kind of way. Like it matched her neck. She carried her toothbrush and her hair fell lazily to her shoulders.

“Wow, that only took you half an hour,” she sneered.

“You left him out there? Like this?” Vickie snarled, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Yeah...” Lynsey sneered. “I’m clearly the bad guy! I woke him up. I got him off the bus. He’d be across the harbor by now without me!”

The imperious Lynsey swished past the pair of us and trotted down the hallway with her shoulders back and chin up.

“Bitch!” Vickie hissed as we turned and followed Lynsey. “You could give me a hand getting him to bed now!”

Lysney threw up a finger over her shoulder.

“She’s a terrible person,” Vickie said, frowning.

“She’s got a nice butt though,” I said with a smile, knowing that Lynsey could hear me. She also had nice legs, nice boobs, nice skin, nice tummy, nice smile, nice eyes, even, sometimes, under duress, at least once, a nice personality.

“It’s a flat boy’s ass!” Vickie retorted. “Eat a sandwich!”

I disagreed with Vickie but not audibly. Lynsey glared at us over her shoulder and slammed her door behind her. I lived across the hall. We staggered for my room; I used the wall to hold me up. Finally, I reached for the knob and turned. Vickie sat me down on my bed, “I’m going to get you a cup of water and a bucket. Do you need anything else?”

“No, but thank you, you’re amazing.” I looked up at her. Her brain was like a tornado spinning really hard. She smiled, blushed, and pushed. I fell onto my back. I think I was asleep by the time she had pulled my second sneaker off.

I flickered on and off all night. The back of my throat tingled and it felt like I was rolling, spinning, or falling off the bed. I held, squeezed, and sometimes bit my pillow. On the third time that I woke up-ish, I saw Vickie sitting with Avril, our floor’s RA, on the other bed. I rolled my head, it was easier than just moving my eyes.

“C’mon V.” The RAs were all second and third years. Avril was a year older than Vickie, Lynsey, and myself, but you wouldn’t have guessed it for how cute she looked. You probably wouldn’t have guessed college age. She hated that. She was East Asian, Vietnamese I think. She was in her jammies, a Boston Bruins jersey and yellow flannel pants. She was brushing her long hair as she talked, “You know I have to tell you to go back to your bunk. You can check on him in the morning.”

“Look at him though.” Vickie gestured and waved when she saw my eyes open. “Quentin dropped out so he’s got this room to himself. He should have someone looking out for him. I got sick last semester; I wouldn’t’ve wanted to go through that without Ira looking in on me.”

Thanks to Quentin having an anxiety attack over finals, Lynsey called me the lucky one. I had a double room all to myself. This meant that, technically, I had the biggest single in all the dorm. Ira was Vickie’s roommate. Lynsey roomed with this redhead Paula. Avril had a single. All the RAs did.

“You make a good point, V,” Lynsey said. I was surprised to hear her, she must’ve been in the doorway. “Ira figured playing nurse would let her seduce you. Now you want to play the same game, but with a dick.”

“That’s not true! I’m not a whore like you!” Vickie growled.

“Fuck this!” Lynsey said. “There’s no helping her.”

“I’ll be OK,” I promised though my stomach gurgled and lurched, “Thanks for getting me home V.”

“Vickie.” She shook her head, “Or if you like it, Veronica.”

“Oh,” I felt a little removed from the closeness I craved. I turned to the other bright pair of eyes, “Hi Avril.”

“Hey sailor,” she grinned. “Feel better. Come on now, Veronica. Let him get his rest.”

I faked a smile until they closed my door behind them. I choked back the first few breaths, hoping they had walked out of earshot before I wailed into my fist as my stomach kicked up a storm. Kitty had tried to kill me! She was trying to make it look like an accident. Kitty had nothing but a future in the growing business of assassination.

I woke up again. It seemed Vickie had taken my jacket and my sneakers off but I was still in my sweater, t-shirt, jeans, boxers, and socks. I kicked the socks off and thrashed out of my jeans. I had unzipped my sweater but then I was asleep again.

“You coming down for breakfast?” I felt like I was floating when Vickie squeezed my toes. I scrunched up into the fetal position and shook my head. “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

“I’m getting better,” In dribs and drabs. My stomach was long done spasming but it still ached. “One day I’ll breathe without a machine.”

“If you’re still in bed when I get home,” she kissed me behind the ear, “You’re going to the hospital.”

“I’ll take your mom to the hospital!” I grumbled. My throat was sore and the sides of my brain were being electrocuted. She left. Gravity reappeared. I flickered out.

“Knock, knock!” Lynsey stuck her head in my room. I still thought it was last night. My stomach was tight but it didn’t hurt. Now my fingertips and my brain felt like fire. “Avril asked me to see if you were dead.”

I rolled my head and looked at her in the door. She looked a mite worried, which I hadn’t expected. Her brain felt like it was tipping towards me, giving me a good easy reach of it. I shook my head and it felt like her nerves were swinging back and forth like a rowboat in a storm. She tipped her brain up defensively. She scrunched her nose when she frowned.

“I’ll bring you up a juice and a tea,” she said, growling. She took a deep breath and it felt like her brain was coming back into reach. “You smell like you sweated out another whole person. You should go get a shower.”