The Gifted Student Pt 04

Looking out my window, the rainy evening wasn't doing much to improve my mood. It was the first week of finals, and I was stressed out about the calculus final. Thankfully, Baz was here helping Laura and I study. For me, this was among the last math courses I would ever have to take, and I was glad. For me, math had gotten progressively more exotic. Arithmetic was fine, and algebra was just arithmetic sideways. It was all stuff I had absorbed as a kid watching Ma and Pops do their restaurant's books. Then with geometry, you were playing games with the numbers. You just had to remember a few different rules, and it would all work itself out. Calculus was hard. You were still playing games with the numbers, but the rules seemed really arbitrary.

Baz, as a math major, had struggled over the semester to help me see the beauty of the numbers, how infinities and fractions of infinities made the world so exciting, but I couldn't wrap my head around it. But with his help, I could follow the rules of calculus to set up the right transformations and generally get the right answers, but the rules and answers had no connections to reality. It was just maddening. I had fretted I still had a statistics class to take, but Baz said after calculus it should be a cakewalk. He said it was mostly a class to prove how right Mark Twain was about statistics.

"Well, you two seem to be ready," Baz said. "I promised I would head down to help Mia and Mallory make sure Liv was good to go. Make sure you guys show up at the party tomorrow to celebrate us all passing."

I smiled and waved as he closed the door, but it was mixed emotions. As she struggled, Liv had been howling all semester about how useless calculus was to a Performance major. I was relieved I wasn't likely to be the worst score in the class, but I was also regretful that we all were not together in our struggles.

My friendship with Mia had been mightily strained by the fallout from Halloween. One of the things I had loved about Mia was how utterly passionate she was. Until, of course, that passion had turned against me. I was able to deflect most of my friends with silence and a pretense that the events of Halloween had never happened. Mia knew just enough to know I was lying to all their faces, and that infuriated her. It got to the point where she could barely stand to be in the same room as me. She was upset I was lying and not letting her help me. I was defensive because all I wanted was for Halloween never to have happened, and if we were talking about it, that meant it actually happened.

The rest of the group were confused. They knew something happened to me, but I wasn't talking. They knew that Mia knew more than she was saying because she was uniquely angry, but that didn't make any sense because she was off-campus when whatever happened to me happened. The consensus seemed to be to just let the storm between Mia and me blow over, but whereas before Halloween we all would have worked together, now we worked in separate groups.

As I was feeling sorry for myself, Toby knocked on the door. "Hey! I won a bet with some online friends. You want to see how they paid off?" He turned over the box, filled with Chinese candies, on my desktop. A blast of nostalgia washed over me. Looking at all the brightly colored wrappers, I was six years old again. Pops would take me into the local Chinatown when he had business there. We would always get a bag of imported candy, with exotic flavors and textures.

"Wow, these brings back memories," I said, picking up some Haw Flakes.

"Want to show Laura and me the best ones?" Toby said with a smile.

"Sure." I talked about the candies, talking about what the flavors were and my memories about them. Everyone loved the coconut and ginger flavored candies, but enthusiasm waned with the sour guava. After comically spitting out the lychee gummie, Laura made me laugh, asking if that was still candy, or some sort of punishment like castor oil.

With a White Rabbit melting in my mouth, I looked over at Toby's quietly knowing face. It felt good to be talking about myself, after so long of not wanting to. Even talking about the trivialities of candy was a feeling better than I had had in quite a while.

~~~~

Up in the twin's room for the party, we all clinked our glasses together. "To passing calculus!" I felt I did better than I feared I might. Liv and Laura also were confident they passed, but Liv was joking she would refuse to ever again do math problems including Greek letters.

After a lull in the conversation, Bryce spoke up. "Anyone have a drinking game they want to play? Beer pong perhaps?"

"Ug, no thanks." Mia replied, "Last time I played beer pong I was hugging the toilet most of the next day. But if you wanted to play something like 'Never Have I Ever,' I'd join."

This suggestion seemed to be well received, with one exception. "Well, if you guys are going to be playing drinking games, I guess I will go downstairs..." Laura said.

Debbie grabbed Laura's arm. "No, stay. Never Have I Ever isn't so much a drinking game as it is a truth-telling game. Most people play with a beer, but I'd be fine with you playing with your Coca-Cola."

Laura had always maintained her family's strict religious beliefs when it came to alcohol. I think we all felt it would have been mean to exclude her for being herself. "Laura, we want you to stay if you want to," Mallory said. "Beware though, you might learn a few things about people that might shock you."

"Okay." Sitting back down, Laura looked relieved at being included, and also a bit eager to see what shocking tales might be revealed.

Bryce looked over at me. "Tara, are you good to play too?"

I appreciated Bryce's gallantry. Even though I was still feeling a bit self-conscious, I felt it likely I could dodge any Halloween questions because who in their right mind plays the "Never have I ever had involuntary nude pictures taken" card.

"I'm in. But I do have one request. Let's all just tell the truth. I have played this game before with someone who parsed their answers so finely they were lying overall. It ruined the entire evening, for everyone. So if you feel the need to overly parse your answers, just sit down and drink your effing drink, okay?"

Agreeing, everyone got themselves arranged on the floor in a circle.

Laura asked, "So how do we play?"

"First, someone makes a statement," I explained, "in the form of saying 'never have I ever', and then an activity they have not done, or maybe they have done. Then everyone who has done that act then has to take a small drink, acknowledging their guilt. If no one has done that, the questioner has to drain their glass. Then one of the drinkers gets to ask the next question."

Laura nodded, so I continued. "So for example, I will start the game with never have I ever shoplifted."

Debbie, Mia, Liv, Mallory, and surprisingly Baz all lifted their glasses and took a sip. Baz shrugged, and just said "Baseball cards when I was a kid."

Laura said, "Okay, I get it."

Mia said "Don't forget your sip there, Tara."

"Sorry, Mia, that is one thing I have never done," I chuckled. I knew most girls did some petty shoplifting at some point in their youth. "I once had a friend banished from my house for years by my Ma for just talking about her shoplifting experience. Small business owners tend to take theft very personally."

The game went through the warm-up phase, with its rather innocent questions while people built up their nerve to ask the bigger questions.

"EWW, you guys are FOUL!" Liv visibly shivered as the guys laughed. "And Debbie, I can't believe you would admit to peeing in a pool either!"

Debbie just smiled and took a second drink.

Finally, a big question landed. Baz and Bryce had been ganging up on Toby, trying to get him to admit to something. Bryce went basic with "Never have I ever kissed a girl", and immediately took his own drink.

Finally cornered, Toby took his sip, but he was upstaged when Mia burst out laughing. "Mallory!"

Mallory looked at her beer before she put it down. "Damn, I am nowhere near drunk enough to be talking about this. Okay, short version. Attended a small party, two more girls than guys. We started playing a 'locked in a closet with someone' game, and was one of the unlucky gals randomly stuck together. It didn't do anything for me, but yeah, it happened."

"Amen, sister!" I thought as I put down my own bottle. In the commotion over Mallory, I seemed to have slipped by unnoticed. I was glad because my own tale wasn't quite as innocent as Mallory's. "Yeah, the last time I kissed a woman was a lady I babysat for. I was kissing her while riding her husband's cock. She was sitting on his face," seemed a bit on the slutty side, even among close friends. But even that tale would have been less mind-blowing to everyone present than the equally true "My first lesbian kiss was with Keily. Yes, Keily, our RA. You see, we ended up licking caramel off each other's tits while the rest of the restaurant looked on..." Inwardly, I smiled. Life could be stranger than even the most contrived fiction.

The game jumped up a level when Debbie proposed "Never have I ever been naked in public." Mia, Liv, and surprisingly Toby, all took a sip.

Mia said "I'm surprised there aren't more skinny-dippers in the group."

"That's how I got that credit," Liv said. She chuckled. "My brothers stole my clothes from the shore though. The stories of the reprisals and counter-reprisals from that stunt are legendary in my family."

Toby shyly said "There was this trail in the farm's woodlot."

When I looked at Mallory, I realized one day she was going to be a terror as a barrister. She sat there, looking at Toby, relishing the fact she knew she had the perfect question to ask next.

"Never have I ever masturbated in public," she suggested with a huge smile.

A couple of people gasped at the audacity of her question. Toby blushed a bright shade of red, but realizing he was busted, laughed. In his trademark deadpan, he said "I would never do anything like that." He took a large sip, and with a Cheshire Cat grin, said "I don't know why you'd think I would do anything like 'touch wood' in a woodlot."

I admired his grace. Having to admit to something so private, even if he did it in his goofy backhanded manner, took a great deal of character.

A few questions later, Mia glanced at me with an almost imperceptible scowl. She then proceeded to ask "Never have I ever had Party sex."

Even though I knew Mia was pissed at me, and might even been justified in her anger, I felt this was a cheap shot. She was obviously fishing for Halloween clues, but wasn't on the right path. I left my glass where it stood.

Unfortunately for Mia, none of the other glasses had moved either.

Looking flustered, Mia drained her bottle. As she reached for a new one, Mia looked at me and said "Funny, I would have thought SOMEBODY would have done that."

I quietly stewed a bit. The whole situation with Mia was needing some deescalation, but I wasn't sure why I needed to be one to back down. Still, I knew I was going to have to square things with her, but I didn't know how.

I looked back up and almost froze in fear. Mallory was savoring her choice of questions again, and this time, she was looking right at me.

"Never Have I Ever had sex with a resident of Lincoln House."

Fuck. I closed my eyes. Okay. Between the petting Zach and I did, my escapades with Keily, and my absurd condition at the game's onset, I decided it was time to come clean. I picked up my bottle. I didn't want my Halloween story to come out this way. I didn't have to go into Keily, but keeping the Zach story quiet wasn't working for me anyway. The group hadn't ridiculed Toby too bad. Perhaps this wouldn't be as bad as I feared. I took a deep drink.

I could hear various gasps among my friends. Mia exclaimed "What the fuck Tara! You and the twins?"

My eyes flew open. Both Bryce and Baz had their beers to their lips, but looked as confused as I felt.

Baz and Bryce were brotherly to me. Our relationship was purely platonic. Objectively, they were handsome and all, but we were just friends. They had their own girlfriends back home they often talked about. So even just thinking of them sexually was just a little unsettling.

As she stood up, Mia was as angry as I had ever seen her. "So, you and the twins, huh? What else haven't you been telling me as your best friend?"

"But nothing like that happened!" I protested.

"Right." Mia rolled her eyes.

Seeing Mia roll her eyes made me want to cry. I couldn't explain it. I couldn't explain why it really was a coincidence and that Baz, Bryce, and I really were platonic. And then I would have to explain Halloween on top of that. It was just too much. I wiped my eyes, and bolted for the door.

I could hear everyone talking at once behind me as I dove down the stairs. I opened my dorm door, and sat down on my bed. I was trying to process just what had happened, and it was just too damn big. After a few minutes. There was a tapping on my door.

I sighed. "Come in."

Liv opened the door. "Hey Tara. You want to talk about it?"

"Not really." I paused. "You know nothing happened with Bryce and Baz, right?"

"I believe you. The guys stressed the same thing after you left, and I don't sense any of you lying. However, I suspect you know Occam's Razor is against you, whatever the truth is."

The simplest answer is usually the truth.

I shook my head. She was right. The truth of my story was complicated, and I didn't even have a clue why the twins answered the way they did yet. I was in a precarious position because people were naturally going to want to believe simpler stories, even if they weren't true.

I said, "I suspect I am going to have to get together with Bryce and Baz to figure out what happened. I know why I drank, but the twins have no part of that story."

Liv looked at me. "It must be a heck of a story, even if you aren't getting spit roasted by the Edwards brothers."

"Oh, gross!" I picked up my pillow and threw it at her. "There isn't enough soap anywhere to scrub that vision away!"

Laura walked in, carrying her glass of soda. She seemed completely distracted though. Putting the full glass down, she absently asked. "Is there anything I can do to help, Tara?"

She was acting so weird. Asking her question, her eyes had barely left the glass of Coke. It wasn't like her.

"No, Laura, I'm okay now."

"Okay."

I was discretely staring at Laura. She was so out of character, and her staring at the glass of soda was starting to creep me out. I was about to ask her about it when she burst out sobbing.

Liv asked, "What is wrong Laura?"

"Nothing... Nothing is wrong."

"Bullshit, Laura," I said. "This isn't like you. You haven't stopped staring at that glass since you came in."

She sniffed. "Well, it's full."

I saw that. But the significance eluded me. Thankfully, Liv was quicker on the uptake.

"Oh! You never had to drink, did you Laura?"

I was almost ashamed at not making the connection sooner.

"No. I didn't." Laura resumed crying, "My life is so boring, so utterly mundane that even though all of you got through a bottle or two, I never even had to lift my glass." She laid her head down on the desk. "Even Toby, who grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, managed a few good stories. I mean, masturbating in public? He got credit for that story, and I've never even masturbated."

Seeing Laura so emotionally raw was new to me. You could almost always count on her being on a level keel. She had naivety and quirkiness to spare, but she also had a certain positive consistency you could count on. Tonight, she was a hot mess, and uncomfortably recognizable to me as a reflection of myself.

I turned to Liv, who seemed as affected by the scene as I was. She broke the silence. "Laura, is that something you would like to learn? I could teach you."

Laura looked up at Liv, "You would do that for me?"

"Sure," Liv said. "There are some things I can show you." She started thinking. "Tara, I could use some help. I know it is a big ask, but can you pitch in?" Before I could refuse, she continued "I don't need you doing anything you aren't comfortable with. I need your eyes though. I can handle the demonstrations, I just need you to observe in case I need help."

I wasn't particularly comfortable with this. It was a little like deja vu. Like Bryce and Baz earlier, I never thought of Liv or Laura sexually. They were my friends. But unlike the twins, this escapade was promising to be all too real. I looked at Laura. She was looking at me expectantly. "Well Laura, what do you think? Do you want me to help? Are you comfortable with me watching you get yourself off?"

Without pause, Laura answered "I trust in you. You are my roommate."

This naked faith in me unintentionally made me feel small. If I had half the faith in Laura she was expressing in me, these miserable weeks since Halloween might have been a lot different. Before I could control it, the flash of anger I felt at myself caused me to rashly speak. "Are you sure, Laura? Even Toby never said he masturbated in front of anyone. You ready to drink to that?"

Laura looked me square in the eyes. "If anyone ever asks me that question, at least I will not be thirsty like I am tonight."

Feeling super tiny, I had to change my focus to Liv. "Okay Liv, I'm in, as long as you are handling the demonstrations, and I don't have to."

"I promise." Liv grinned at me, "It's fine if you keep your pants on. I wouldn't be able to see anything anyway."

~~~~

Liv, Laura, and I ate dinner together on Sunday. Most of the rest of the group had gone to a Jordan Peele retrospective down at the campus theatre. It worked out well for us. Liv didn't do the cinema because of her blindness, and neither Laura nor I were horror fans.

It had been interesting watching Laura over the last few days. She was obviously distracted, living by tripping from moment to moment. I tried putting myself in her shoes, but my experience was so different I couldn't quite pull it off.

"So Laura, are you still interested in those lessons?" Liv asked as we returned our dishes.

Laura looked at Liv like a deer in the headlights. This was a fork in her personal life, and she was having trouble leaving the familiar and comfortable road of her conservative past for an uncertain yet exciting path.

Laura tried to defer, "I wouldn't want to put you out."

Liv saw right though her facade, "Laura, there is nothing to fear." Liv gave a nonchalant toss of her head. "I mean, it's not like masturbation makes you go blind or anything."

A look of shock passed over Laura's face. The audacity of Liv's casual joke cut through Laura's fear, and she tittered a bit.

"You wanting to know more about yourself is natural," Liv continued. "You should be proud of who you are, and who you might choose to become."

That argument seemed to hit home with Laura, "You are right, Liv. This is my choice. What do you need me to do?"

Reading Liv's body language, she seemed more tense than needed, but she breezily said, "I need to stop by my room for a minute. What I would like you to do is head up to your room and change into some more comfortable clothes, like a robe. Something that makes you feel good."

Laura nodded, "Okay. I'll see you in a few minutes."

There was something off about Liv, so I followed her into her room as Laura climbed the stairs. As soon as her door closed, she threw her keys across the room.

She muttered, "Damn bullies. I thought I almost lost her."

I said, "Okay, I know you don't like bullies, but there is something else going on here. What am I missing?"

Liv turned her head towards me, "What, now you think I shouldn't teach her anything?" She gestured to the Amazon box on her desk, "Too late, the toys are already here."