The Scammer(60)

“He left a letter in his sloppy handwriting,” I say with a bitter laugh, wiping a betraying tear away. “Asking us to go on, to live without him. God, suicide is so fucking selfish.”

Nick frowns. “Selfish?”

The waitress returns, refilling our waters. Once she’s gone, Nick shifts in his seat, leaning forward. He stares at my hand on the table, as if considering reaching for it, then changes his mind.

“I don’t think the people who commit suicide are intentionally being selfish or thoughtless. I think they’re too blinded by the pain of living to be rational and think things through. They don’t mean to hurt you. They don’t even mean to hurt themselves.”

You don’t understand, he left me! He didn’t think about what would happen to me! I want to scream back but don’t because I know it sounds ridiculous.

“When my parents went to get his body . . . and all his stuff from his dorm . . . it just sat in the garage for weeks, collecting dust. When I finally opened a box, I found a Frazier mug. He had gotten accepted for a transfer. The last time I saw him, he talked about wishing he had gone to an HBCU. Wishing that for once, he could just be free and accepted in a school without all the bullshit that comes with being a token Black guy.”

“So that’s the real reason why you came to Frazier, isn’t it?”

I shrug. “Something like that.”

“Damn,” he mumbles. “But also cool, that you’re honoring him this way.”

I wouldn’t use the words honoring him but I’ll take the compliment.

“He talked so much about how if we went to Frazier that we wouldn’t be the outsiders anymore. That we would belong. But our parents were against it in every way possible. They weren’t big on Black history. My mom even found African art to be tacky. So yeah, I guess I am honoring him. But I would’ve rather he be alive, so we could complain about our parents, school, and Mad Men again . . . together.”

The waitress appears with another two shots. “Looks like it’s your lucky night!”

I grab the shot, taking it back before Nick can even touch his. Nick sips his slow, eyes never leaving my face.

I click my tongue. “You lost someone, haven’t you?”

Nick stares at me but doesn’t say a word. Just like the last time I asked him. No response is response enough.

I lean forward. “You ever hear of the five stages of grief?”

He frowns. “Yeah. What is it, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance?”

“Yeah. But there’s one more I came up with. I call it the boomerang. Every time you go through the stages of grief, and you think you’re finally okay, something triggers a memory, and you go through those stages all over again.”

He lets out a laugh. “When does it end?”

“Honestly, you never stop grieving. You just learn to coexist with it. Some days grief is sitting in your kitchen in front of the fridge looking for something to eat, then some days it’s sleeping in your bed, and other days it’s standing in your backyard, waiting to be let in from the cold. It’s like living with a feral street cat. There some days, missing the next.”

He nods. “I hate cats. I’m a dog person.”

I laugh. “I’m not surprised. We all deal with our pets in our own ways.”

The waitress arrives with our food. I watch Nick grab his ketchup and drown his fries with a smile. It felt somewhat good talking about Kevin. Mom and Dad never wanted to talk about him because his death meant a flaw in their parenting. And they spent too much of their lives being perfect to be reminded of such a blemish on their record. They still haven’t called once. Meanwhile, Nick has been walking through fire, all for me.

“Nick, I don’t want to get you in trouble with your brothers. I can figure something out.”

“You’re not moving back into that place,” he says without looking up. “Not until that guy is gone, and honestly, I don’t trust you around the rest of those girls either.”

I watch him take a bite out of his burger and smile.

“Thanks, Nick. I really don’t know what I would have done without you.”

He places a handful of fries on my plate.

“Tell me one thing. That night you took me home from the party . . . why’d you do it?”

“Honestly,” I say with a wince. “Someone wanted you to give the girls a peep show.”

He laughs and when I don’t join him his smile drops.

“No. NOO! Are you . . . Damn! No way!”

The waitress appears with another two shots of brown liquor.

“Bartender said you make a cute couple,” she says, placing them on the table. “Drinks on the house.”

We glance over at the bartender, a pale woman with long black hair.

“We are a cute couple,” I agree, holding up the shot.

Nick stares at me, a glint in his eyes. He chuckles to himself, twirling the shot glass around.

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. Cheers. To us. The cute couple.”



* * *




The lights are still on in the frat house and we walk back close to four in the morning, freezing in our too-thin jackets. We sat in that booth talking for hours about randomness, and, if I’m honest, I could have sat there until daylight.