The College Pact Series

Chapter Two

Zack

I’m unsettled. 

In fact, as the wheels of the plane touch down at Philadelphia International Airport, I feel like a freshman, a novice, all over again. 

For three years, Adrian Rodriguez was my best friend, my roommate, and sat in front of me, the sixth seat in our Varsity Eight. 

In May, I fucking killed him.

Not by putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger or running him over with my car. No, what I did was much worse. I missed the signs. I overlooked his mood swings and made excuses for his lying. I let him drift farther and farther away from me that by the time I called him out on his drug habit, I barely recognized the guy standing in front of me. 

What type of best friend, roommate, teammate does that? 

Now I’m back for senior year and I’m dreading it. None of it, not the academics, or the future plan to score a sick job in New York City, or my final rowing season makes any sense without Adrian. 

Each morning brings a fresh wave of guilt, so overwhelming, I wonder when I’ll finally drown in it. 

I pray to drown in it. 

Exiting the airport, I hail a cab to campus. The city air feels nothing like a homecoming. The usual excitement that zings with the start of the school year is gone. The thought of catching up with my rowing team after summer break feels obligatory. Too much of an emotional vortex for one day. 

            Rowing is no longer an outlet but a curse. 

And as much as a part of me wants to quit, I can’t.

Because I have unfinished business with the sport and with Adrian. 

I need our boat to win the Dad Vail Regatta. For him.

…..

Stepping into my house, a torrent of memories assaults me. 

            Adrian tossing an Xbox controller at D’Arco’s head. 

            The guys all eating pizza, cracking up at Adrian’s impersonations. 

            Adrian swearing at the television during a soccer match.  

            Adrian. Adrian. Adrian. 

            Shaking my head, I carry my bag up to my room, close my bedroom door, and drop my forehead against the wall, steadying my breath and squashing the swell of emotion that clogs my chest. 

I share the house with three other guys from the crew team. It used to be five of us; now we’re four. Damien D’Arco, Jeremy Hunt, James Bilson, and me. No one mentioned getting a new house for senior year, so we all just kept this one, closing Adrian’s room off as if it doesn’t even exist. And in a way, it doesn’t, not without him to breathe life into it.

How the hell am I supposed to do this? Live here? Row? Graduate? 

            The house is quiet as I pull out my laptop and collapse onto my bed. The rest of the guys will be arriving sometime today since we start practice tomorrow morning. The only silver lining in keeping this house from last year is that none of us need to unpack and set up the space again. We all left it exactly the way it was on the last day we were all here. 

            Dad Vail Regatta. 

            Settling back against my pillows, I sign into my laptop, ignore the messages from my sister Nicole, click out of the emails regarding pre-class assignments, and log into Facebook. 

            My breath catches in my throat, a stab in my chest. 

            Because the first photo on my feed is Maura. 

            Maura Rodriguez.

Adrian’s twin sister. 

Staring at her face in the photo hurts.

She looks so similar to Adrian; the shape of their eyes, the determination glaring from them, is exact. She’s smiling in a photo with her three best friends and while her friends’ faces glow, there’s something sinister about Maura’s smirk. 

Glancing at the caption posted by Emma Stanton, my jaw tightens until it aches. 

Caption: On to new adventures, new beginnings, and an epic start to senior year! #collegepact.

Except Maura doesn’t look excited for her fresh start; she looks devastated. 

She’s grieving, hell, we all are, but the pain bleeding from her midnight eyes alludes to something darker than sorrow, deeper than mourning. 

A ball of shame burns in my stomach because I did this; I put that look in Maura’s eyes, broke her fucking heart, and turned the feisty, sharp Maura into a dark and damaged shadow. 

Exhaling, I pick up my phone and scroll through my contacts, my thumb hovering over her name. I haven’t seen her since Adrian’s funeral in May. Throughout the overbearing summer days working as a ranch hand on my uncle’s farm, I thought of her often, even texting her a handful of times. 

She never responded. 

Maybe she knows?

No, no one knows the truth. 

            Although Maura and I spent a lot of time together, our friendship only existed through Adrian. In ways, losing him also meant losing her. She was a constant fixture in our dorm room and at this house last year. She rowed at the same regattas as us and always cheered for our boat. 

We’ve crossed paths at the same parties, been to a few group dinners together, and I’ve slept at her family home more times than I can count, bumping into her on my way to the coffee pot in the morning. 

Seeing her face in this photo, the angry slash of her eyebrows and twist of her mouth claws at something in my chest and eats at my stomach like acid. 

I wish I could reach out and wrap her in my arms, squeeze her until all the desperation and sadness and anger leak out. 

She’d probably swing at me for showing her concern. For even caring. 

Chuckling, I close my laptop. Maura is a lot like her brother, tough and scrappy.  

Massaging the space between my eyebrows, I look around my room. 

The silence expands. Too many thoughts I don’t want to consider sift through my mind. 

Adrian. Adrian. Adrian. 

Screw this. 

Jumping up, I tug on some running shorts, grab my headphones and SUV keys, and flee the space that once felt like home.