Love Show by Audrey Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

People are pissed off.”
    “Shit,” I muttered. I had never
heard back from the fraternity president after I offered to print a letter. I
got out of bed and started pulling on clothes.
    “I’m kind of freaking out.”
    “Well, don’t do that. I’m coming
over. We’ll figure out what to do, okay?”
    “Alright,” he said shakily.
    I glanced out the window at the
bleak morning. It looked cold. It was always cold in Evanston in January. I
shouldered into a parka and ran out the door.
    Justin lived in the freshman dorms,
which were pretty, bucolic stone buildings clustered on the quad. I swiped my
ID at the door and jogged up to his room.
     “Hey,” he said. He looked like he
hadn’t slept. His hair was tousled, he had dark circles under his eyes, and I
could see worry lines creasing his forehead. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it was so
early. I’m kind of jetlagged. I just…I didn’t know what to do.”
    “You called me. That’s what you’re
supposed to do,” I smiled reassuringly at him. “Let me see the emails.”
    “They were sending texts, too. I-I
deleted most of them,” he said sheepishly. “But…” His voice trailed off as he
handed me his phone.
    The first text I saw read, you’re
a faggot. stay the fuck away from our frat and don’t write any more lies about
us .
    “Have you responded to any of
these?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
    He shook his head.
    “Good.”
    “Actually…well, I asked them to
leave me alone. A few times. Before I thought to call you,” he said softly. “And
it just made it worse…They said—they said they’d stop if we printed a
retraction.”
    “We’re not printing a retraction,”
I said flatly. “Retractions are for correcting mistakes, and you didn’t make a
mistake.”
    “Well, I deleted my Facebook. But,
now there’s stuff about me on CampusRag.”
    “I fucking hate that website,” I
said bitterly.
    He smiled weakly. “Right.”
    CampusRag was a gossip blog where
anonymous posters could say whatever they wanted about whomever they wanted. It
was basically a disgusting mess of anonymous vitriol. Nobody deserved to be
trashed on the Internet. Especially not Justin.
    “Alright,” I spoke authoritatively.
“Don’t write back to them and don’t let them think you’re intimidated.”
    “But I am intimidated,”
Justin insisted. “I just—I don’t know what to do. And they’re telling the whole
world that I’m gay, which is something I haven’t told most people.”
     “I’m going to handle this. I
promise.” I looked into his glassy brown eyes. “Okay?”
    “Okay,” he said softly. He closed
his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyelids. He pulled off a
heartbroken smile. He believed me. “Thank you.”
     “Of course.” I spent a few minutes
on his phone, forwarding the text messages, and longer on his computer,
forwarding the emails. When I was done, I smiled at him and squeezed his
shoulders. “This will look better in a few days.”
    “Okay.” He breathed unsteadily.            
    I looked around the small, cramped
dorm room. I remembered how lonely dorm rooms could feel in the awkward days
before everyone returned from Christmas break. “Do you have dinner plans?”
    He shook his head. David would like him. I mean, it would be hard not to.
    “My roommate’s a great cook,” I
offered. “You should come over.”
    He smiled. “I’d like that.”
    “Good, text me when you’re free.
It’ll be great.”
    He nodded.       
    “Don’t freak, okay? We’ll figure it
out.”
    I felt less sure of myself in the
hallway outside of his room. There were official steps I could take to report
harassment, but it was a long, arduous process and a resolution in April
wouldn’t mean much to Justin now. Plus, the paper’s faculty advisor, Dean
Canady, had gone to Romania for the break.
    I fired off a quick email to him
from my phone, alerting him of the situation, and letting him know I