Undeclared (The Woodlands) Read online

  Today was hot—like yesterday and the day before. I don’t remember what 60 degrees feels like. It’s either brutally hot (day) or freezing cold (night). I can handle the hot. I’m from Texas after all. It’s the huge swings in temperature that are hard to get used to.

  We’ve been going on a number of walkabouts that are essentially a bunch of guys going from hut to hut in a small village looking for insurgents or handing out aid. I always think that it’s ridiculous to be handing out paper and pens and candy while we are carrying assault rifles, but everyone here treats it like it’s normal.

  Yours,

  Pfc. Noah Jackson

  P.S. You can just call me Noah.

  Grace

  Lana and I lived in this amazing apartment just two blocks off campus. One thing about going to a pricey and old private college was that the surrounding apartments weren’t run-down shitholes owned by slumlords. We lived on the top floor of a renovated Victorian.

  It had high ceilings and oversized doors. The lights were reproductions of late 19th Century Victorian decorations, made out of iron and frosted orbs of glass, according to the apartment rental sheet. It was altogether too beautiful to be housing college students, but I guess when the annual tuition at Central was more than the price of a luxury car, the landlords expected a higher caliber tenant. Those were silly expectations. We were college students.

  When I came home from the library, I forgot all those things and treated the apartment door like it was the entrance of a flophouse, throwing the heavy wood structure open with a bang, not caring that the newly plastered walls might be dented by the antiqued brass doorknob.

  “Lana!” I called as I burst through the doorway, placing my padded backpack holding my camera and laptop on the floor. She shot up from the sofa as if electrocuted and a caramel-brown head of hair immediately followed. I groaned inwardly when I saw it was Lana’s boyfriend.

  “Hey, what is it?” she asked, smoothing her hair out of her face. I waved my hand in front of my chest to indicate that her shirt was unbuttoned and her camisole askew, and then averted my eyes while the two proceeded to right themselves. Too bad I couldn’t cover my ears to avoid the sounds of zippers and snaps. It’s not like I’m a prude, but I just didn’t like Peter. He didn’t treat Lana right, and I didn’t like knowing they exchanged body fluids. She deserved better.

  Thankfully, interrupting their intimate moment managed to stop the cycling of crazy thoughts in my head. I felt almost foolish over the panic I had gotten into at the library. Looking down at my hands, I saw they were still trembling. I pressed my palms together as rational thoughts began filtering through my thick head.

  I went to the kitchen to grab a water bottle. I busied myself and tried to block out the kissing noises from the entryway that indicated an extended goodbye.

  “Even God rested on the seventh day,” I told Lana after she closed the door.

  She grinned unrepentantly at me and then laughed outright when I screwed my face into a fake offended expression.

  “Sorry, I figured you’d go out with the library crew tonight,” Lana said. My library crew consisted of my student supervisor Mike and two others. Ordinarily, I’d meet up with them to have a post-work drink and complain about all the dickheads who needed help in the library. I think a whole set of other library students drank on another night. I had no fake ID yet so I was limited to early hours at a diner that also just happened to serve liquor. “Or be hanging around to find out if the brown haired muscled guy is your fabled Noah.” Obviously Lana had noticed my reaction to the guys in the library.

  “It’s crazy, right?” I needed her reassurance. “I’m just imagining things.”

  She nodded slowly. “I would think so. What makes you think it was him?”

  I dragged myself over to the living room and sank into a side chair.

  “At first I convinced myself that it was just another pair of guys who looked like Noah and his buddy Bo. But later, Mike told me there were two junior college transfers from California who were fighters. Noah once wrote that he was interested in fighting after getting out.”

  “So you added up two guys, one blond, one dark, plus fighters from California, and got your Marine from high school?”

  The skepticism in Lana’s voice was exactly what I needed, and I mentally leaned into it, relaxing for the first time since I had spotted those two guys in the library.

  “I know, honestly. Only I could come up with such a thing,” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but I knew my tone was wrong. More hopeful than mocking.

  “Oh Grace,” Lana sat down on the edge of the chair and put her arm around me. “Don’t you worry that you aren’t open to new things here?”

  Was that what I was doing? Were my hopeful imaginings just a way to keep myself from getting close to others? Even if I could wish Noah into existence here at Central, I couldn’t make him love me. And if he had loved me, he would be here. Or I would be with him. I rubbed my forehead. I couldn’t even stand to think about all that now. Time to change the subject. “Have you talked with Amy about the picture?”

  Lana played along, sparing me any more potential humiliation. “Yeah, we want you to do one of those miniature pictures.”

  “The tilt shift?”

  Lana nodded. “That the kind that makes everyone look like little plastic figures or models?”

  I took out a pencil and paper and sketched out the front of the Alpha Phi house. “What do you want me to focus on? Are you going to stand outside and hold hands and sing?” I asked.

  “Not sure.” Lana was an apathetic sorority sister. “I’m going to be the photographer’s assistant and make sure the Delt’s house doesn’t swallow you whole.”

  “I thought you wanted me to be swallowed by a Delt,” I teased.

  “I think I said last year that a cure for one man was another. It was in an attempt to get you over the Noah phase.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Lana.”

  “I’m just a psychologist-in-training. I promise to give you free therapy sessions if I mess you up too bad during college.”

  “I’m holding you to that,” I said. “Guess I lucked out when we Sullivans came to live with you guys.”

  “I think it was kismet,” Lana replied, smiling at me, probably relieved I hadn’t started crying again.

  “Kismet doesn’t sound very science-y.”

  “Still in training, Grace. Still in training.”

  Noah

  Bo’s left cross glanced across my chin and I stumbled back against the ropes.

  “Fuck me,” he swore. “What’s wrong with you this morning?”

  As if he had to ask. My trainer, Paulie, jumped into the ring and bustled over to me.

  “I only get you for two hours in the morning and this is the effort you’re giving. Fuckin’ ingrate,” Paulie muttered, pulling off my gloves and protective facemask.

  Getting hit in the face is probably my least favorite part of mixed martial arts. I could take a body blow or three, but the other guys at the gym joked about my glass jaw. Paulie has tried to beat that out of me. On a regular basis, he and a few other guys punch me in the face while I wear a protective mask. The goal is to make me so accustomed to getting a fist to the face that I become like a comic villain, always getting up again even after the good guys thought they’d killed me.

  Taking a blow to the head or the ribs is one thing. What separates the winners from the wannabes is the ability to think. If you’re hit with the left cross that usually means the right side of the fighter’s upper body is open. Only the most disciplined of fighters always keep their right side protected, and Bo isn’t a disciplined fighter. He’s fast and he has hammers for fists, but he’s lazy, which is why he’s only my sparring partner and not competing professionally. This morning, though, my reflexes were coated with tar. Gym chum could take me down this morning.

  Bo sensed this and apparently Paulie did as well. “Get over there and do chest crawls. Twenty five times,” Pau
lie instructed. Holding the upper rope up and pushing the lower rope down, he gestured for me to get going. Bo helped by shoving me in the back.

  Military crawls? I could do those in my sleep. I tried not to look grateful at being released from sparring. Pulling my body across the gym mats, one forearm and knee at a time, required no thought at all. By the tenth one, my mind was completely blank of everything but the abrasiveness of the rubber weave of the mats cutting into my arms and legs. By number fifteen, I wasn’t feeling anything but a burning sensation in my abdomen. Pain is weakness leaving the body, I repeated in a loop. By twenty-five, I felt like liquefied rubber.

  My effort didn’t quite meet Paulie’s standards. When I stood up, he looked at me grim-faced. “Took you two minutes longer today. You’re a worthless schmuck. Go run and get the fuck out of here. When you come back tomorrow, your mind better be in the game. We have a fucking meet in four weeks. Do you want to get on the card or not?”

  I nodded and took the water bottle that appeared at my side. Gulping down some much-needed hydration, I went over to the bench where my running shoes were. I pulled them on and nodded to Bo. He always ran my cool-down with me.

  Every morning I got up at 5 a.m. to train with Paulie Generoli. When I had decided to come to Central, I figured that fighting would’ve to be shelved or put aside entirely. I wasn’t broken up about it. Few fighters ever made any money, although with new network television contracts, and increasing interest in pay-per-view events, the sport was making everyone richer.

  Even with the influx of new money, though, the likelihood of fighters making a real living out of it was low. The goal was to get on a television fight card. You do that and you get a pretty nice payday. I played high percentage shots, like saving all my money while deployed, instead of buying new trucks, bikes, or boats. But the lure of getting paid big money for beating the shit out of someone was too enticing to pass up.

  My trainer in San Diego begged me not to leave, but when it became clear that I wasn’t going to change my mind, he hooked me up with Paulie, a former Olympic wrestling coach. I was lucky to have him and even luckier not to have to pay Paulie for his training services, only for my gym membership. But if I could win something—anything—then Paulie could use me to bolster his gym’s reputation. It was a mutual back-scratching arrangement that could all go to hell if Paulie found out that I was messed up this morning because I couldn’t stop thinking about a girl.

  Never a big equal rights supporter, Paulie had become increasingly angry toward females after so many colleges began eliminating their wrestling programs. He viewed women as good for only one thing, and Paulie was perpetually single because he couldn’t keep his opinions to himself.

  “I’m going to talk to her after her last class today,” I told Bo as we ran along the nearly deserted downtown streets. Traffic would pick up in about fifteen minutes, but we’d be close to done by that time.

  “Where?”

  “Outside her classroom.”

  “Sounds like a terrible idea.”

  “It’s not,” I denied. I had debated this all night. It was why I couldn’t focus this morning. “Or it might be, but it’s the best I’ve got. I’ve let it fester too long. It’s time to pull the Band-Aid off.”

  “What was the Band-Aid, exactly? The Dear John letter you wrote to her?”

  “Was I supposed to show up at her door with my rucksack and say, ‘I’m a fucking mess. I can’t sleep. I jump at loud noises. I’m likely to strangle your cat if you have one,’” I retorted. When Bo and I separated, I’d spent three months wondering if I had made a big mistake by getting out. I wasn’t suited for anything but being a Marine, but time and multiple visits to the VA helped calm me down.

  I had wanted to separate, get Grace, and start a new life together. Instead, I sent her a letter telling her she reminded me of someone’s little sister and friend-zoned her. I didn’t want to think about the anger I would’ve felt getting that kind of letter from her. The guilt wore me down sometimes, but I didn’t want to present a fucked-up version of myself. I’d spent the year putting myself back together, physically and mentally, and another year making sure I could not only get into Central, but pay for it.

  If it took another year to win Grace back, I would do it. I’d hate it, but I’d do it.

  Grace

  When I left class, my first thought was that I was still in bed dreaming, because Noah Jackson was standing there, leaning against the interior brick wall next to my classroom with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Even slouching, he was still taller than many of the other students passing him.

  I let out an involuntary cry and swallowed it back, but it was too late. His head popped up and, as he straightened and looked right at me, I got my first full view of him. I wasn’t even surprised I recognized him. I couldn’t delete his image from my memory like I could from my hard drive.

  Noah was older than most of the students. He had never revealed his birthday, even though I asked repeatedly. His excuse was that I would try to do something too extravagant, and he would feel guilty. But based on his years of deployment, I knew he had to be around 23. It wasn’t just his age that set him apart from my classmates, but the way he held himself.

  I drank him in, mesmerized by the sight.

  Even standing silently near the wall, he had presence and an innate confidence. He didn’t shrink in on himself, but stood there comfortably, arms loose at his sides. The crowd moved around him instead of the other way around.

  He was shorter than my brother, Josh, who stood at 6’ 5, but was more solid. Dressed simply in jeans and a dark gray T-shirt, his body had not lost any of the muscle he had gained while in the Marines. If anything, he looked bigger than he had in the one picture I possessed.

  I could see the veins in his forearms and biceps prominently displayed under the skin. Like the arms of a drummer in the marching band. Strong. Powerful. Capable. His eyes were deep-set but in perfect symmetry to his mouth and angular nose. His cheekbones were sharp and high, reminding me of a manga character. But where those characters had rounded baby faces, Noah’s jaw and chin were squared off, as if the sands of the desert had hewn that portion of his face out of rock.

  I tried to move back into the classroom, but the collective force of the exiting students continued to push me outside. We stood there for a moment, just a few feet away; the distance seemed at once yawning and stifling.

  I should’ve said something witty, like “where have you been all my life” or “long time, no see” because really did he expect he could show up and I’d fall at his feet? But my actual thinking capabilities were currently somewhere on the hallway floor.

  It was like fate, or life, or karma hated me. I needed to be in a men-on-their-knees outfit, not dressed in my brother’s flannel shirt, baggy boyfriend jeans, and battered canvas Chuck Taylors. I hadn’t even showered today because I overslept, spending most of the night tossing and turning.

  I wanted to run away before I broke down and completely embarrassed myself in front of my classmates. I turned away from him to head out the opposite end of the building. I couldn’t hear the sounds of dozens of students going from one class to the next. Nor could I see.

  Anger, resentment, and, if I was being completely honest, joy filled my head and clouded my gaze. I moved down the hall by rote memory. I could see the rear entrance of the square building. The light filtering through the doors seemed like some kind of salvation, and I hurried toward it.

  “Grace.”

  I heard his voice behind me. I sped up. I may have been running. People moved out of my way.

  I hit the metal release bar on the back glass doors with the flat of my hand, and the metal clanked loudly, I noted with satisfaction. I wished I had five more doors to bang through, but I guess that would’ve impeded my stomp toward my apartment.

  Ordinarily, I would meet Lana for lunch at the campus café. Today I was going home and hiding in my apartment until I could decide what I was
going to do. Like transfer out to another college or figure out how to avoid Noah for the rest of the time he was here. Problem was, I didn’t know why he was here or for how long. Transferring might be the best option. I could go to State University where my brother Josh went. It was only three hours away.

  I had reached the edge of campus and could see my house just two blocks away. I was convinced that if I reached the porch of the old Victorian, I would be safe, like when we were kids playing tag. As I stopped for traffic, I felt Noah behind me, his big body throwing a shadow that swallowed my smaller one. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his hand hover over my shoulder. My whole body tensed. I didn’t know what I would do if he touched me, but it wouldn’t be good. He sighed softly and dropped his hand away.

  “Grace, you’re mad. I get it. But can we at least talk?”

  I had never heard Noah’s voice before. We never exchanged voicemail messages, never Skyped. We had just written to each other—World War II-style. I thought our decision to write only was impossibly romantic. Plus, I didn’t want him to see me over the Internet and decide I wasn’t attractive enough to write to anymore. I still had those damn letters in a carefully preserved state in an archival box designed, I think, for scrapbooks. But I had imagined what he would sound like. Low, because it seemed manly, and maybe a little gruff, because of all the sand in the desert. And look, I was right. His voice was low, gravelly, and panty-dropping sexy.

  Who was I kidding? The panties probably came off even if he didn’t talk to a girl. He could smile or just acknowledge her presence and she’d swoon into his arms. I needed to avoid him, if only to preserve my dignity. I was too afraid that I’d throw myself at him and beg him to take me in all the ways that a virgin could dream of and then some. I kept moving toward my apartment, trying not to race, trying not to look tragic.

  Once we reached the front of my apartment, I was stymied.

  I had just let Noah know where I lived. Plus, I doubted I could get behind my security door before he put his big foot in and prevented it from closing.