Joining the Storm

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In an instant, in one flash of warm blue eyes, Etan’s entire life made sense.

The party itself was depressingly typical. Far too many college students jammed into a Chicago courtyard apartment, music too loud, temperature too high despite heavy snow falling outside. Inexpertly rolled joints passed around as easily as fake phone numbers.

Second-hand clothing dragged back from the early decades of the twenty-first century, styles of their grandparents brought back from the dead. Every conversation competing to be the most important, the most revolutionary, and the loudest of all time.

Etan desperately needed a break from the toughest bunch of biology and math classes he’d been foolish enough to take in an indigestible lump, but he only went along to these nightmarish events out of a sense of obligation. If he’d wanted to sit in his own lonely shoebox apartment every night, why bother moving to such a huge city in the first place?

He could have easily taken most of his non-laboratory classes online for a lot less hard-earned money, even with the huge help of his grandfather’s faculty tuition rate. And he could have stayed in Southwestern Virginia for all the rest, holed up in the mountains and living rent-free with his family.

And he would have long since dropped out, or dropped dead, from the never-ending routine and depression.

Etan forced himself to walk through the mob again, escaping the living room with its ear-splitting cheap stereo, broiling fireplace, and shocking chill every time the front door opened. Kitchen followed dining room on the way to bedrooms, all with too many people trying to get a warm body into the closest thing to a bed before they all disappeared into finals.

Several attractive guys and a couple of adventurous girls made it clear Etan was what they were looking for, or at least close enough for the night. Most of the time, he would have taken the chance, if nothing else to get the hell out of the crowd.

With the guys at least. Girls were an unknown territory, one he was more than a little bit afraid of.

He could have even stayed in Appalachia for the casual hookups. Just trade the pretentious wannabe artists for a bunch of grumpy high tech and tourism workers, most of the m*******a for tobacco, and self-conscious wine drinking for cases of nasty beer, and he’d be right back at home. Out in the open or furtive and sneaky, partners were around.

Going home alone, an option too many of the kids in either place seemed afraid of with so much pressure building up as the semester wound down, didn’t bother Etan most of the time. The temptation to just say a quick goodbye and disappear was familiar and comfortable to him. He’d stayed a couple of hours longer than he’d planned to already.

Something was different tonight.

Since he was a little boy, Etan had felt a curious sense of dislocation. Hardly anything or anybody around him seemed to fit, and not a damn thing inside of him did. Only his grandparents and father made him feel at home and comfortable.

Part of the trick was they listened to him without trying to convince him he was imagining things. Being around them made him feel like all the sharp and jagged parts of himself at least kept still for a time instead of trying to slice him to ribbons.

As he’d grown up, once in a while he felt one of those parts slip into place. A tiny bit of the noise inside softened, quieted, fell into tune with a song he did not yet recognize. Minor changes like taking his first science class or kissing a guy for the first time, big changes like deciding to go to college so far away from home.

The relief of that smooth internal shift instead of relentless grinding gears let Etan know he was on the right track every time.

And every time, he had a feeling of oncoming alignment, an eclipse in slow motion in his chest. Perhaps a piece he never knew was missing completed several others. Maybe another that hadn’t been meant for him in the first place slipped away.

Or simply a part of Etan that had always been used the wrong way, by himself or someone else, fell into perfect motion at last.

Walking around that overheated party in the middle of an early December Illinois snowstorm, he felt the adjustment long before he understood why. The rolling heat throughout his body told him this would be nothing less than fundamental. A change to last the rest of his life.

A burst of laughter from the living room brought a real smile to his face, easing muscles strained from faking for hours. He turned to see a crowd of men and women filtering into the few remaining open spaces.

Flowing into human eddies and currents.

The tides within Etan surged and roared.

One man looked back into his eyes instead of dodging forward to find the alcohol. Snow glittered in curly red hair that brushed his shoulders, with blue eyes framed by a neatly trimmed dark red beard. He smiled at Etan, a friendly, open smile, not the blatant come-ons he’d tried not to return all night long.

This man showed no signs of fear or arrogance, not even a trace of the desperation filling the room as people paired up and departed. Only a confidence too natural to be any kind of act.

And those gorgeous dark blue eyes that made Etan’s knees weak. The man walked forward, slipping his heavy black wool jacket off.

“I’m roasting in this thing,” he said, his deep voice setting off resonance waves in Etan’s stomach. “Know where the standard coat pile is?”

“Not really. I left mine in the car.”

“You’re a braver man than me, driving tonight,” he said, brushing the snow from his hair. “It’s really coming down out there.”

“I had a feeling it would be worth it.” Etan’s heart sped up, and he hoped his cheeks weren’t turning red.

“Were you right?”

“Not til just now,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Etan Griffith.”

“Alex Collins.”

Everything grew from that one warm touch.