The Charles

He remembered how Virginia had done it. Rather, he remembered how Nicole Kidman had done it in that movie with her ridiculous prosthetic nose. He remembered how her shoes had sunk into the mud and how her eyes had remained straight ahead. He remembered her pale hands. He remembered how natural it all felt.

The pavement moved beneath his feet. Bow Street curved and became Dewolfe. His body shot forward, blowing the lapels of his peacoat back. Larger and larger stones slipped from the ground to his palms and into the pockets of the coat his father had bought him. The thick fabric pulled heavier on his shoulders, but he only moved faster.

Peter had broken another person’s heart. He had sinned. It lay shattered on the carpeted floor of his Canaday common room. Other Noah never wanted to speak to him again. And maybe that was a stupid reason to want to die, but in his own heart he felt like a murderer. He was murderer of Love, which was worth more to him than life.

He was no angel. His murder had shattered his humanity. This place—this school, this world—was so preoccupied with the brain. It didn’t appreciate the value of a person’s heart. He hated that this place had turned him into someone who could murder a piece of another person. And he was only a freshman—what would three more years in this world do to him? People jumped off the Weeks Footbridge to prove something, but he had nothing to prove. He imagined the cold water swallowing him, rushing around him, pulling him down until he escaped that artificial world with its synthetic priorities. It would feel so natural, finally.

He was standing on the bridge. His leather boots hung just over the edge of the stone railing. The water flowed and the trees shook. The world moved around him, out of his realm of control. Then the world stopped. All was still.

Hang on.

The Charles was frozen.

Yes, it was technically spring, but Snowmaggedon was keeping the Charles securely sealed in a thick layer of ice. He was so stupid. He thought more clearly, it seemed, than his mind ever had before. If he were to jump, he would not be enveloped by the water. Yes, the stones and the boots and the peacoat and momentum might pull him through, but he’d still hit the layer of ice. He’d splat. It wouldn’t feel natural. It would be clunky.

His body was shaking. He couldn’t tell whether he was crying or laughing. How could he have been so stupid? What beautiful, rapturous idiocy! The spell was broken, and Dewolfe Street and St. Paul and Mass Ave and Widener Gate blew past him once again. The stones jumped out of his pockets, and he soared back through Tercentenary Theater.

He stopped in front of the tree that Delilah had shown him—the small, beautiful tree beside Memorial Church that had kept its leaves long past when the others had relinquished theirs to the winter months. Peter climbed high into the branches of the tree. He sat in the tree for hours, gripping onto the branches. He basked in the nature that surrounded him. The twigs and bark hugged his body. He watched people pass beneath him. He observed as the rest of the world continued to move around him, blind to the boy in the tree. He began to shiver in the cold. He wouldn’t have minded freezing solid, attached to this tree for eons, removed from the thawing, ebbing, and flowing world. The cold clawed into his bones. His heartbeat slowed.

“Peter?”

“Wha—whoa!”

“Are you surprising someone?!”

“You got me—”

“Who are we spooking?”

Peter hopped down from the tree and stood with the ArchAngels, Samson and Delilah. They were headed back from a midnight Market run. They would have invited him, but they thought he’d had a p-set. The glow from their halos warmed Peter. They all continued on to Canaday and, just like that, the events of the night blew into the past. No one questioned him. What was now had been. The angels walked him home and chilled in his room for a few hours.

The Sophomore

The Sophomore is a fool. The Sophomore thinks he knows much more than he knows. The Sophomore has seen things. He has felt things. He has learned. He is one year older. He lives life by his heart. The Sophomore is wise.

The Sophomore stands on the Weeks Footbridge, heartbroken. Murderers tend to return to the scene of their crime, and he is no exception. He feels it gives him strength. The Charles beats beneath him, past the Low-Rise and the Tower and behind him into the glowing future.