I couldn’t believe we’d both made it. Out of all the odds and over all the hurdles; finally me and Mark had reached our destination – Yale.
It was an odd story and yet everyone we told thought it was kind of sweet, we had that whole ‘written in the stars’ vibe going for us. We were best friends and our parents both raised us as city kids. His parents were white, upper east side New Yorkers whereas my family was dark skinned folks from downtown. Yet, despite that, me and Mark ended up meeting through our families when they went to eat at the same restaurant: a treat to my family was a weekly event for his. Our dads got along at the bar as our mothers let loose at a karaoke place down the road. From that day on we visited each other’s apartments every week for years.
We ended up in the same high school since Mark insisted on going to a public one so he could be with me and his parents were happy enough to let him. Everything was perfect until senior year came around: during those last three-hundred days my parents divorced, my mother left New York and took me with her, we travelled all the way to Boston, and I thought that was the end for me and Mark.
I don’t know why, but neither one of us could ever really let go. We said we’d e-mail every day and we did, it wasn’t an empty promise. We said we’d webcam every day and we did. Our friendship never faded, in fact it took us being apart to realize how we really felt for each other. We both graduated the same day, we both found out we’d be going to Yale the same day, we both travelled to meet each other the same day, and we never let go since.
That summer we moved into our dorms early, made some swapping arrangements so that we could be together despite the old-fashioned boy and girl separating policy. We thought that this was the beginning of a better life, no one to stand in our way and no distance to stop us. However things were never really that simple when it came to love.
I remember the first time we unpacked our room, how exciting it all was and how much Mark loved the fact we were finally stable, together, like it was meant to be.
“This is it, three years of having you all to myself. Regretting it already?” He threw one of the pillows at me as he made our bed, his goofy-boy smile was one that never grew from the day I first met him when we were younger; it was still looking at me just as innocent as it was back then.
“I can’t wait to start classes, I know that’s really nerdy or whatever but I honestly can’t. Psychology is going to be so much fun and Professor Maggie is like – world renown or something.” All those feelings of being an adult, of being independent, it all came crashing over me in one swift moment and made everything feel great. I was on top of the world, I felt like I’d finally got my happy ending even though it was just the beginning of my life.
“I’m excited to get myself into my dad’s frat house, he’s on their wall of fame so it should be some sort of automated pass for me.”
Fraternity house? I had no idea he wanted to join one of those, I didn’t think he was the type of guy to align himself with those sorts of people. He’d never mentioned it before or that his father had come to Yale, too.
I didn’t say anything at the time, I mean what could you possibly say? We’d only just got each other again and I didn’t want to lose him to nights of nonstop drinking and topless women parading themselves around him or whatever fratboys did. I guess it was jealously, I guess I wanted us to just fly through college together with no interruptions but I knew we needed to make our own lives, too. I decided to stay quiet for a while, to smile at the idea and support him as best as I could.
I regretted it almost instantly.
The first couple of weeks flew by and Mark grew more and more distant with each passing day, it was almost as if he didn’t want his new friends
Learning to Kill: Stories