Acquired Tastes

Chapter Twenty-Six

With less than a month left in the program, tension on campus reached an all-time high. Although Neil and Roman had remained, fairly consistently, in the safe range of the top twenty students, Neil never felt like he could relax, especially with the other students growing more and more desperate with each dismissal ceremony. Any time that was not occupied by activities, he spent practicing, and with each passing day, he hated each of the buildings more: the smell of sweat and hand sanitizer in Bingham, the lights in Emery that always flickered, the Dining food which had only become less and less edible with each passing month and never sat well after a long day of intense exercise. It seemed that each night, by the time he collapsed into bed, his body was sore all over, with his eyes heavy and his stomach aching from the combination of bad food and anxiety.

Still, he almost never had to practice alone. Roman accompanied him just about everywhere, spending hours on each type of exercise or training, never running out of encouraging words for Neil, never listening when Neil told him to calm down, take it easy, don't hurt yourself. In fact, Roman had grown even more determined to do well than Neil, it seemed. He still struggled in fights against anyone bigger than him, but he had grown faster and better at anticipating his opponents' moves. He was as fast as ever when he ran, and he met each activity with a quiet, teeth-barred determination that Neil wasn't sure he'd seen on any of the other students.

The second-to-last Saturday night, after Roman left for dinner with a friend, Neil didn't see or hear from him again. Sometime around 10 p.m., he began to feel concerned about the silence; Roman hadn't spent a night away from their room for several weeks, now, and it felt different these days. Neil knew he would only make himself anxious if he tried to fall asleep, so, instead, he pulled on a hoodie and set off walking around campus. He wandered through some of the buildings, most of which were empty, the lights only waking up as he passed through. He knew he was looking for Roman, but his mind struggled to admit that to itself.

The overhead lights in Knapp were all off he went in, but even from across the room, he could make out Roman, sitting on the floor in front of the illuminated scoreboard, barely moving, just a silhouette against the bluish light. Neil crossed the floor, sitting down beside Roman, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. Roman glanced over at him but didn't speak.

"What's up?" Neil asked finally, watching Roman rest his chin on his forearms, eyes shining in the neon.

Roman shook his head slightly, not speaking. Neil followed his gaze to the scoreboard, to their numbers, just above the line that separated the safe students from those who would be dropped at the following dismissals ceremony if they couldn't improve their scores. Nothing moved.

"Hey," Neil said, eyes shifting back to Roman. "We're gonna be fine."

"You don't know that," Roman said to the scoreboard. Finally, he looked over at Neil again. "I don't think I've ever fucked anyone's life up this badly."

Neil slid closer, his side meeting Roman's, and wrapped his arms around Roman's shoulders. Roman's muscles tensed but he didn't stop him, just looked back at the board.

"You haven't fucked up my life," Neil insisted, leaning his head against Roman's, searching desperately for something to say. "In fact, you've been the only part of it, lately, that hasn't actively sucked."

Roman shook his head, pulling away from Neil. "Please don't be so fucking nice about it, Martin. I spent the first couple months being so defensive about everything that I couldn't even like...make myself do the bare minimum of what you were asking me to do." He ran the back of his hand over his cheek, not meeting Neil's eyes. "And now we're fucking here, and you're the person I care most about in the world, and the worst person I've ever been, I've been to you, and I don't know..." his voice ran out and he cleared his throat anxiously, cracking his knuckles with his thumb. "...how to live with that."