Page 49 of Open Water
She wants to meet you properly now that you're "kissing her son."
Alex
That's not all I've done.
Liam
Gross lol
A pause. Longer than the others.
Liam
I need you to know something. You didn't ruin my life last night. You ARE my life. I meant that. Whatever comes next, I'm not going anywhere.
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Alex
You're everything to me, Liam. Everything.
Chapter 10: Alex
The call came through the Dean's office at 4:17 PM on a Thursday.
Not my phone. Not my father's number lighting up the screen for the sixth time in two days while I stared at it and didn't pick up. Patterson's assistant called my cell and said the Dean needed me in his office at five o'clock for a phone conference with my father regarding the pending hearing.
A phone conference. Scheduled through an intermediary. Routed through institutional channels.
Thomas Harrington didn't have conversations. He had proceedings.
I showered. Put on a Kingswell quarter-zip. Brushed my hair. Looked at myself in the mirror above the bathroom sink.
The bruise on my jaw had gone from purple to yellow-green at the edges. The split on my lip was scabbing over. My right knuckles were still swollen, the skin tight and shiny across the joints.
I looked like a person who'd been in a fight. I looked like a person my father would not recognize.
Don't embarrass me, Alexander.
Whitaker Hall at five o'clock. The oak doors. The hallway of class photos I'd walked two days ago with campus police. My grandfather's face. My father's face. Mine wasn't up there yet. Might never be, depending on how the next hour went.
The secretary showed me in. Patterson was behind his desk. University counsel to his left — same guy, same legal pad. A phone sat on the desk between them, a black conference unit with a single green light indicating an active line.
"Mr. Harrington. Please sit."
I sat. The leather chair. Same one. It still groaned.
"Your father is on the line," Patterson said. "He requested this call to discuss the hearing and its potential resolution. I want to be clear that this is not a formal proceeding. Nothing said here constitutes an admission or a binding agreement. This is a conversation."
A conversation. Patterson didn't know my father very well if he believed that.
"Alexander." The voice came through the speaker. Smooth and calibrated. He was probably in his study at the Greenwich house, the room with the walnut desk and the rowing trophies. "Thank you for making time."
Making time. As if I'd been busy. As if I hadn't been sitting in my dorm room for forty-eight hours unable to attend class or practice or do anything except stare at the walls and think about the sound Marcus's head made when it hit the carpet.
"Hello, Father."
"I want to start by saying I'm glad you're safe. The situation at the library was clearly volatile, and I'm relieved you weren't more seriously hurt."
