The Rest Is Illusion Read online

  “I needed to fix you up. I just thought it would be easier here.”

  “Gabe, you’re a shitty liar,” Wilder accused. “Why am I here? I can tell you’re keeping something from me. What is it? Tell me what’s going on.”

  Gabriel was white. He appeared to be trembling. “Tony,” he finally slurred out.

  “What about him?” Wilder said, rubbing his eyes.

  Gabriel swallowed hard. “He made me promise not to tell, but I guess now that it’s done, there’s nothing he can do,” he said.

  Wilder felt an icy chill run up his spine and settle in his brain. He stared unforgivingly at Gabriel. “What do you know, Gabe? What has Tony done?” He said each word meticulously.

  “He and Maggie, they…,” Gabriel stammered, but then lost courage again.

  “Stop being such a pussy and tell me what the fuck happened!” Wilder was inching closer to the edge of the bed, his nerves on end.

  “They went to your room. They went looking for your folders while you slept here.” Wilder was out of the room before Gabriel finished the sentence. “I didn’t want to help them!” Gabe screamed as Wilder flew down the hall barefoot and shirtless.

  Wilder Rawls sprinted across campus, chased by the thought of certain defeat and running after the preservation of his world. He raced half-naked through the cool air of the morning, brushing past the few students up and about. The sun had just begun to rise in the east.

  Inside Raven Hall, Wilder dashed through the Maze, ripped through fabled phantoms, until he came to his closed door.

  Perhaps Gabriel was wrong. Perhaps Tony and Maggie were too scared to continue. After all, Wilder had them. He had them both. And Maggie was barren of strength. She was too weak-willed, too much of a follower to act up against him. She sank into befuddled tears if he so much as looked at her askance. Wilder calmed himself with the thought as he turned the knob on his door.

  Unlocked! His heart sank, and his stomach knotted.

  Inside, it all looked the same. He had pictured it trashed. Everything—clothes, books, folders—thrown about, but it was all as he had left it. His calendar still hung absolutely symmetrical on the wall.

  Wilder bent over his bed to reach for the folders, and it was as if someone hit him in the chest. He fell back on the floor, his breath taken for a fleeting instant. They are missing! The folders are gone!

  “Maggie,” he seethed through gritted teeth. He felt his head would explode from the gathering rage and blood.

  So, Maggie wasn’t as stupid and gutless as he had supposed. And Tony had found a little helper. Wilder sat with his back to the bed, motionless and crazed. He clenched his hands in white-knuckled stringency.

  The blinking red light on the answering machine caught his eye across the room. He pulled himself up and glanced at the number of messages. Twenty-three. All of them, it seemed, from a single source. Rawls, Patrick… Rawls, Patrick… Rawls, Patrick.

  Wilder backed away from the machine as if he could already hear his father’s voice. “What have you done?”

  Wilder’s world was broken, and its fragments were being ground into a fine powder and sprinkled all over him. They told my father! Somehow, Tony and Maggie had taken the folders, then reported him to his father.

  Or maybe not, he hoped. Maybe it was just his father returning his call. But that was a laughable suggestion, he knew. His mother had most likely said nothing about it.

  Wilder suddenly thought of the negatives he kept in the journalism lab. He had to get to them. Surely Tony and Maggie would not have thought of those.

  As Wilder sped from the room, leaving the door wide open, he heard the phone ring once more behind him. Running to the lab, Wilder imagined his cell phone crammed with the unfaltering politician’s voice. For the first time in his life, he felt lonely and scared and sick to his stomach.

  AFTER THE raid on Wilder’s dorm room, Tony and Maggie situated themselves for the night in the one place they knew Wilder would eventually come, the darkroom in the journalism lab. Maggie slipped the key into the lock, and they were in. It was that simple. No secretive glances or frightened stances. Tony found himself a little annoyed with her in that moment. She could have stopped it. She could have put an end to Wilder’s people-playing before he had gotten as far as he had. But then, maybe it wasn’t that easy for her.

  Tony had snuck back to the house to get a case of beer. He hid it in a duffel bag and brought it along both as a reward and a tension-breaker. They sat in the darkroom together drinking and talking the rest of the night. The more relaxed they felt, the more freely they delved into their secret, hidden stories. They had no qualms about offering them up to one another. It was all freely done and appreciated. For Tony, it was a cathartic experience.

  “Oh, I’ve known you were gay for a while,” Maggie giggled as she sat with her back up against a cabinet. Tony was opposite her on the floor, bottle caps and beer littered about him.

  “What? How?” Tony smiled, disbelieving. “I am the straightest-acting gay football player this side of… Dave Kopay!”

  “Well, I don’t know who that is,” Maggie said, “but most girls can usually tell. I think we have a little of the gaydar too.” She paused. “And Tony,” she continued, “don’t say straight-acting. It’s demeaning, as if you have to act like a heterosexual to be considered a man. Wilder is a hetero, for the most part, and I still don’t consider him that much of a man.”

  “You’re right. I guess I’ve just gotten used to the way everyone else thinks.” He looked at her earnestly. “So what made you decide you could do this? Why now? Why wait until now to serve Wilder his due?” He was feeling unrestrained, eased by the beer.

  Maggie was silent for so long, Tony regretted asking the question. He wondered if maybe he had probed too deep.

  “When I was in my room with Wilder,” she began finally, “and I heard those voices, all that laughter, I don’t know. Something in me just woke up. It was like my strength, the capable me, the strong me, was lying dormant, hiding away from all the shit that has been flung my way. But that laughter, that freedom to laugh, it stirred me. Everything suddenly seemed trivial. We’ve only got our own selves to live for, you know? We’ve only got our own souls to free. Nobody else should hold sway over that. I realized that in hearing the laughter. Now I feel new. I feel revived. Have you ever felt… changed? Like in an instant? For no reason you can think of, it just happens? That’s what it was like. I found something I had when I was brought into this world. Something that wasn’t so much lost as it was misplaced.” She took a swig of beer. It seemed an insouciant exclamation to her heady speech.

  “Honest living,” Tony said. Maggie looked at him, waiting for an explanation. “That’s all it is. If we live honestly and true to ourselves, things go smoother.” He sighed and examined the lip of his bottle. “I should live more like that. Dashel lives like that.”

  “Now you can. Now I can,” Maggie said softly. “You help me, and I’ll help you. We’ll catch one another if we falter.”

  Tony nodded and held out his bottle to toast the agreement. Clink. “You look different in the dark,” he said.

  “We all do. Shadows shield our flaws from the eyes of others, take away the light so they can’t be seen.”

  At that moment, Wilder flung the door to the lab wide open. He burst in on them, looking damaged and halfway possessed. Tony saw the look of panic on Wilder’s face as his eyes adjusted to the sight of the two of them seated on the cold floor.

  “Something amiss, Wilder?” Tony asked as he used the counter he had been leaning against to leverage himself and stand. Maggie did the same.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” Maggie said. Her voice was solid and getting stronger. It was not impaired by the alcohol.

  “Where are they? The negatives?” Wilder asked, rushed and out of breath. His bare chest heaved from exertion and cold.

  “You won’t be needing them anymore,” Tony said. He walked up to Wilder, knocking caps
and bottles over as he stood toe to toe with him. “We might, though,” he said with a wink.

  “What have you done? My father… what did you tell him?” Wilder demanded frantically, as both Tony and Maggie walked past him toward the door. Tony felt he could not contain his glee, yet he remained controlled.

  “You’ll see,” Maggie said. Her face was sullen, unforgiving. “You brought this on yourself, Wilder. We’re not game pieces. People are not to be toyed with.”

  “Don’t fucking talk to me like that, you stupid bitch!” Wilder exploded as he came at her with a clenched fist.

  Before Tony could come to Maggie’s defense, she curled up her hand and landed a punch on Wilder’s jaw with a great smack! Wilder fell backward and slid across the slick floor into the beer bottles, causing a good deal of clamor. Tony looked at Maggie in surprise.

  “I’m not as stupid or weak as you think, Wilder,” she said, her fist still drawn. “This plan? It was my idea… bitch!”

  Tony let her have her moment, and then he opened the door and ushered her out, taking a final glance at Wilder who only seemed more obstinate and hateful. His eyes glowed with an eerie reflection from the surfaces of the room. His heaving chest was pink from the boiling heart inside it.

  Chapter Nine

  “…CALL BACK, Dash. I’m ready to talk about things. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you this week, but… well, I’m ready now. Call me?”

  The message from Sarah concluded as Ashley walked into his and Dashel’s room. The morning sun had risen as he walked back from Sarah’s dorm where he had spent the night. He couldn’t feel envious or angry at Sarah for calling Dash. She needed to clear up matters between them. She needed to gather the shattered bits of something that was never anything more than a one-sided romance. She had to achieve closure from Dashel in order to open anything lasting with Ashley. He and Sarah had an unspoken understanding about Dash.

  As Ashley opened the door, he noticed an understated new quality to the room. After a few seconds of visual hunting about the sun-lit space, he noticed the cleanliness and order of Dashel’s computer desk. No stacks or columns of papers were on the desk or the floor. In fact, there was nothing to suggest Dash had spent any part of the year working on schoolwork of any kind. All the books and folders were neatly aligned on a shelf. Everything was closed and shut off. Pencils, pens, and markers were placed point down in a black plastic holder.

  Ashley took off his jacket, pitching it on his bed. He heard raised voices out in the hallway, then, a little later, a thud. As Sigma Gamma president, he knew he should return to the hall to investigate, but he was distracted by another matter. Glancing at the floor, he noticed a dark stain, faded in but new. He bent to inspect. Though mostly dry, it was no more than a few hours old. If Dash had done it, it looked like he had tried to clean it up. It smelled of cleaning solutions.

  Gently touching the stain, it hit Ashley what it was. Dashel’s blood. The realization coincided with the squealing of tires in the parking lot outside. In an inner cloister of his mind, it was the bloodstain that screeched in that horrific manner, giving Ashley a start. He jumped back from the dark mark on the floor in sudden fright.

  The message light blinked on the phone from the recording Sarah had left. Ashley picked up the cordless and dialed Sarah’s dorm, his hands shaking.

  “Hello,” Sarah’s soft voice answered.

  “Sarah. It’s Ash,” he said, concern in his voice. “I just got back to the room. Dash isn’t here. I think something’s wrong.”

  TONY AMBLED down the paths of Verona College. He had walked Maggie to her dorm and left knowing he had found a new friend.

  Honest living. He kept repeating the phrase in breathy whispers. The idea of absolute truth was a forceful one. It required action. His family at least had to know what he was living honestly about. He would call his mother and father and set up a dinner date. It was best to untell a lie over a good meal. There was no backing out. He had made a solid decision.

  Circling the quad in an attempt to steady his nerves, he made his way toward the old tree. He wanted to look on the Old Lady, as Dash called it. The tree was beginning to take symbolic form in Tony’s mind, becoming more than old bark, limbs, and leaves. Her branches offered much more than simple comfort. It was unconditional acceptance. Unyielding solace.

  Slushy and soppy, squished ground suctioned beneath his hiking boots as he walked. Tony, like Dash, preferred to walk in the saturated ground rather than on the presumably less messy sidewalks. In a matter of minutes, he stood on a small mound of earth by the paved road. On the other side of the road, the old tree stood solitary and strong against any wind the valley might hurl its way.

  Tony admired his surroundings for a time, a wisp of colors in the air, the sun-glinted treetops of the valley, and the waters rippling and rising like tiny vertebra in the river.

  As he glanced up into the air, following a stream of light that ricocheted from a broken shard of glass on the ground, he recognized Dash straddling the largest limb, high up in the tree. Caught off guard, Tony gasped in delighted surprise. Dash was looking right at him with a pleasant but distant expression that really resembled no emotion at all. Tony waved widely, then watched his steps as he came down the small hill and crossed the wet, slick road.

  “What are you doing up there?” Tony yelled on his way across the melting ice of the drive.

  “Just seeing things,” Dash responded. “Seeing things the way they were meant to be seen, fresh and newborn and touched by new sunlight.” His voice had a dreamy, disconnected quality. Tony stood at the base of the tree and peered up at him in adoration.

  “Why are you dressed so nice? Why the suit?”

  “Just felt like looking nice today,” Dash replied.

  “Well, you look great. Listen,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about Wilder anymore. Nobody does.”

  Dash grinned strangely, as if Tony was unaware of something. Perhaps Dash was never really worried about Wilder in the first place.

  Tony cleared his throat and traced the gashes on the side of the tree with his index finger. “Truth is, though, I think Wilder’s little attempt at getting one over on me actually helped me out.”

  “How’s that?” Dash asked.

  “Well, let’s just say I have to be honest now. I’m ready to be honest, I think. There’s no going back.” He took a deep breath. “I’m gay,” he said loudly with a slight shrug of his shoulders. Even as he said it, he felt a shudder of fear undulate through him and twist in his gut. It was as if, for a split second, he thought even Dash might recoil in shock. But then that thought was carried off by the breeze as he saw Dashel’s beaming eyes and broad smile casting joy down on him.

  “That’s great, Tony,” Dash said.

  Tony wanted to grab him and take him in his arms. He wanted to thank Dash with a million kisses for offering his acceptance so easily.

  “Dash, if you’re sick. If what Wilder said was right, I’ll help you. I’ll be there with you,” Tony shouted up to the branch. “But you’re not, are you? Sick, I mean?”

  Dash sat silent. Tony was not prepared to wait for an answer.

  “I’m coming up,” Tony said. He grabbed bark and knob and hoisted himself onto the trunk of the tree.

  Dash laughed as he watched Tony climb closer. Tony made quick work of the ascent. He was at the branch in no time, hugging one large arm around the tree as he came up to Dashel’s face.

  “I’ve wanted to do this for a while now,” Tony said as he carefully took Dashel’s chin with the tips of his fingers and guided Dash’s lips to meet his own. In that kiss, Tony felt a melding, a forging of strength and love. Energy flowed through them both, and he knew if he let go of the tree, they would remain high above the ground. Their souls were of the air, the birth of day.

  At that moment, all of Tony’s anger at the world for its bigotry and hypocrisy was wiped away. And he knew the truth at last. That up until then, everything had only been ma
ke-believe and fantasy. Insignificant.

  “BLOOD? ARE you sure?” Sarah asked, the worry seeping back into her voice. She was on her cell phone, stepping out of the dorm hall. She had wrapped her pink scarf hurriedly about her throat and pulled back her hair. A couple thick strands of brown fell rebelliously over the rims of her glasses.

  “Positive,” Ashley said over the phone. “It’s blood. I’m worried. Everything’s cleaned up. There isn’t even a hint of his paper here.”

  “Well, maybe he’s at the library. Maybe he’s researching,” Sarah said, trying to find some relief in what she was saying.

  “But the blood,” Ashley gently said, knocking away her hope of a less dramatic conclusion.

  Sarah walked quickly down the paved walkway into the quad. “So, what do we do?”

  “I’ll look in the school clinic,” Ashley responded. “Then the library,” he added. She knew this was just to make her feel at ease. It worked a little.

  “I’ll stay over here on this side of campus and look for him,” Sarah said. “Oh God, Ash, I hope he’s okay.”

  “We’ll find him, Sarah,” Ashley said. It was all he could say. Sarah knew there could be no promises about Dashel’s condition when he was found. He was dying after all. But now she would be there for him when she was needed, no matter what.

  Sarah turned off her cell and stood still for a moment, looking around. She searched through the uneven air of the strange season, searching as if she could will Dash to appear before her, safe and well. If only she had that power. At the moment, she could not see through her anxiety over the thought that she might have already had her last conversation with Dashel. That in their last contact, she had shown him nothing but disbelief and anger at his acceptance of his own demise. Fear that the final time she would hear his voice would be the recorded commands of an answering machine.

  “Dash, where are you?” she whispered into the morning light. Again, she strode quickly over the slush-patched pavement and hurried in and out of the thick doors of the buildings that surrounded the quad. Her concern was rising, and her heart was sinking.