I had a plan. I needed Grayson to know that above all, I cared about him and was worried. That I wasn’t trying to be nosey, rather, I wanted to know what was happening so that I could help him in any way possible - even if it was just being someone to talk to. But I had to be casual about it. Bring it up and then quickly drop the topic if it looked like he was going to get upset. I shared all of this with Cassie and she stopped what she was working on to turn around in her chair to stare at me.
“Ashley,” she said evenly, “You’re way overthinking this.”
I fidgeted, standing there in the doorway of her bedroom. Okay, maybe, but maybe not. I mean, if I went about this wrong and it made him mad, that’d be my fault, right? I had to think this through carefully to make sure I didn’t say something stupid.
“I don’t think Grayson is that kind of person,” Cassie said when I was done agonizing over this. “Sure, he’s not very forthcoming about anything and honestly I’m not a fan of that, but I don’t think he’s mean.”
Mean. That word stopped me dead in my tracks. Like the thoughts in my brain went crashing off the rails, rolled down the side of a mountain, and wound up plunging into the bottom of a lake. I stared at Cassie for a good long moment.
No, Grayson wasn’t mean. He got mad that one time. But it wasn’t like…
…my very ex-boyfriend.
“This is only my second relationship,” I said miserably.
“Ohhhh righhhhhht you were dating Shitbag McShitastic before college,” Cassie sighed. “Okay, admittedly I haven’t had that many relationships either, but this anxiety? I don’t think it’s normal. Here, call up Josh and talk to him. He’s had like, five billion boyfriends, he can get you sorted out.”
If you don’t remember, Josh is the guy that Cassie introduced me to who had the pet mouse. He is no longer living in the dorms and his pet mouse is doing just fine, for the record.
So I called him up and we talked for a bit and he was on Cassie’s side that I didn’t need to be this anxious about it - and that if Grayson got mad at me for simply expressing concern then that would be a clear sign it was time to dump him. He even let me practice what I was going to say, which was a much shorter version than what I had in my head, if only so I could feel more comfortable given my lack of a history dating someone that wasn’t awful.
With that all sorted, it was time to move on to the next phase of the plan.
I went to Grayson’s house.
None of this turned out like it was supposed to. There was no prior expectation that I could show up at his house uninvited. I’d only been there by his invitation. There was an unspoken understanding between us that while my apartment was open to him, the reverse was not true for me. I don’t say this to slight Grayson. His circumstances are very different from my own. From what I’ve seen of his father so far, I feel that unexpected guests would be detrimental to the situation. If nothing else, it’d be terribly stressful.
I hated it when my friends showed up at my house unexpectedly when I was growing up. It only happened a few times, because after they got the same explanation each time about why they couldn’t hang out here - my mom was at the shop and myself and my older sister were responsible for everything in the meantime - they gave up trying.
I’m explaining this because the plan wasn’t to show up unannounced. Not at all. I was going to message him and ask if he was home and if so, if I could meet up and walk with him to his next class. That way, I could bring up the topic of his home life somewhat naturally and we’d have some relative privacy since he lived in a quiet neighborhood without a lot of people out and about like campus. And, Cassie reasoned, if he did get mad, I could just walk off instead of being stuck somewhere alone with him.
“And then you call me,” she said firmly, to which I agreed.
So we all had it figured out. No blindsiding Grayson, no being intrusive, and certainly no going behind his back.
Then I found myself halfway to Grayson’s house and the phone was still in my pocket, the message to Grayson unsent.
It’s hard to explain what I was thinking and feeling as I walked to Grayson’s house. It’s not like it’s a short walk, either. I had to walk there with full awareness of what I was doing, with some part of my mind screaming at me to stop. But I felt - I don’t know.
Like the world was collapsing in on itself around me. Like everything was crowding in too close. There was a tight knot in my heart and all that gravity was spinning it faster and faster, until I thought it would all come undone and break into pieces and then - I wasn’t sure what would become of me then. If I just kept moving, I reasoned, then perhaps I could match the pace of everything that was collapsing inside me, and then everything would be okay.
And the whole time the little logical voice in my head was watching this and quietly pointing out that if I knew exactly what I was doing, then why was I still doing it?
I think maybe I have too many things I’m worrying about right now.
Knowing I was falling apart inside doesn’t do a damn thing to stop it, though. I walked through Grayson’s neighborhood, past all those old brick houses with pristinely landscaped yards that screamed ‘money’, until I came to the house where Grayson lived. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, staring at the front door, waging an internal war with myself. That frantic, desperate energy inside of me battled with crippling indecision. Maybe if some part of me had suggested walking away none of this would have happened. But I’d come too far and turning around was off the table. My options were ‘forward’ and ‘stand there like an idiot’.
So I chose forward.
I walked up to the front door and knocked, thinking it would be fine, that Grayson would open the door and I’d carry on with my reasonable, well-thought out plan, instead of… whatever this idiotic moment of self-destruction was.
It was not fine.
Graysons’s dad opened the door. He stood there a moment, staring down at me while my heart hammered in my chest and I found myself at a loss for words momentarily. Grayson, I prodded myself from the back of my mind. Ask if Grayson was home.
But his dad spoke first.
“Well, come in,” he said, stepping back and holding the door open.
I did as asked. He seemed to recognize me, after all. Maybe this would be okay after all. I followed him through the entryway and into the kitchen, expecting for him to call for Grayson or to lead me to where he was. Instead, Grayson’s dad opened a kitchen drawer and started rummaging through the collected detritus inside.
“You need to be more careful about remembering your house key,” he said. “Or - you didn’t lose it, did you?”
“Sorry, my house key?” I asked.
He paused with his rummaging and raised his head to stare at me. His cheeks were sagging off his cheekbones, like deflated balloons, and his eyes shone with excess moisture.
“Yes, your key,” he repeated.
It took a moment to understand what was happening. In the interim, I stared mutely at him in confusion and he stared back, neither of us fully comprehending what the other was getting at. Finally, a thought wriggled loose in my head.
“Do you… know who I am?” I ventured.
“Of course I do,” he snapped. “This isn’t very funny.”
“It’s not a joke. Just humor me, please?”
Then, to mollify him, I added that it’d been a very strange day and I just needed confirmation that things were normal here. He sighed and shoved the drawer shut.
“You’re Grayson,” he said. “You live here and you should have a house key to let yourself in so I don’t have to.”
I had absolutely no idea what to do. I’ve seen him before when he was confused, but a literal inhuman entity showed up to deal with that. It didn’t seem like Grayson was home to help, either. I could call him, I thought desperately. Like hey, I dropped by your house hoping you’d be home, and now your dad thinks I’m you, please tell me what to do.
But then, I thought, wouldn’t he ask why I came here in the first place without messaging him first? I’m a terrible liar. I couldn’t hold it together in front of him and then he’d be angry - he’d hate me-
I took a deep breath. Grayson’s dad was talking and I wasn’t processing the words. Grayson wasn’t going to hate me. He might be angry, but he was different. It wasn’t like before.
“-is going to retire,” he said. “Did I tell you that already?”
“You didn’t,” I replied. He must be talking about someone on staff at the college. “Do they have a replacement?”
“I’m tired.”
He walked away from me, into the living room with no further explanation. I hovered there, watching as he sat down heavily in a chair. He wasn’t trying to talk to me any further. Think. I had to think. I’d come here for answers and I was going about this in the entirely wrong way but maybe I just -
Maybe I was doing this because I don’t actually trust Grayson anymore. Maybe I never did. And I can’t tell if he’s the problem or if I’m the problem.
“Do you… want anything?” I asked tentatively. “I could get you a drink?”
“Coffee,” he grunted.
Right. Coffee. I was the world’s worst barista but I could manage a drip coffee machine. I hastily assembled everything and hit the button, then waited while it brewed. I kept glancing at Grayson’s dad as I waited. He sat there, unmoving, staring straight ahead at the wall. I’ll be honest - I didn’t want to leave him like this. His confusion was far worse than I’d realized and if he couldn’t recognize Grayson right now, well, it felt wrong to just walk away with him like that.
There was a thump from the living room. Something falling. Then a creak from the chair as the weight was lifted from it. I hurriedly finished pouring the coffee and turned back towards the living room.
Grayson’s dad wasn’t there anymore. Coffee still clutched in my hands, I tentatively crept towards a room adjoining this one, where I could hear movement. It was an office, the walls lined with tall windows, and a desk and computer in the corner. Grayson’s dad was shuffling through everything littering the desk, just out of sight. I paused at the doorway, not sure I should enter.
“I brought the coffee,” I said.
“I can’t - I need the stapler,” he replied.
Huh. I waited a moment, trying to decide if maybe I should just leave or if I should wait or maybe go inside the office and help him look. This was all so strange. I was deeply regretting my choices. What was I thinking? Why hadn’t I just texted Grayson like I was supposed to?
This was a terrible decision and I was solely responsible for it.
“Do you… need it right now?” I ventured.
“Well I can’t just leave it like this and I don’t think the glue is working.”
Did something break while I was in the kitchen? Now I was worried. If he was having trouble with confusion then this might be dangerous, he might hurt himself. I took a deep breath. I was already in this mess, I might as well try to make sure he was okay before I left. I stepped around the doorway and into the office.
“What broke?” I asked.
I realized too late that something was horribly wrong. There was a brief waft of some foul smell and that was my only warning. Grayson’s dad turned around, staring at me with that vacant look that felt more like he was staring through me.
“Look,” he said. “It fell off again.”
And he held up his hand.
His detached hand.
I shrieked and dropped the coffee. The mug shattered on the hardwood floor, splashing hot coffee on my shoes. I could not tear my eyes away from what I was seeing. Grayson’s dad stood there, staring at me with a mournful look on his drooping face. His arm dangled beside him, the edge of his forearm bones peeking out of gray muscle, the edges of his skin tattered like fraying cloth. He held the hand up for me to see it, the fingers curled and puffy. There was no blood. None.
He walked towards me, a plaintive expression on his face. I stumbled backwards, my mind screaming at me to run, but that would require turning my back to him and I couldn’t take my eyes off that hand, held aloft in midair as if nothing were wrong, as if it wasn’t his own severed limb.
There was a crunch as he stepped on the broken edge of the coffee mug. A soft sound of yielding flesh. He paused and looked down, staring at the shard where it had pierced through the thin sole of his house slippers and into his foot.
“I-I should clean that up,” I babbled, not knowing what else to do, what else to say.
Then he looked up at me and I realized, my stomach twisting into knots, that he no longer thought I was Grayson.
“You,” he said quietly, his watery eyes finally sharpening. “I remember you.”
There was hostility in his voice. I stumbled backwards, stammering for excuses and finding none.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave?!” he shrieked, his voice cracking. “I warned you! Why are you still here?!”
He wasn’t talking about his house, was he?
“I-I need to graduate,” I stammered.
He advanced on me, dropping his severed hand on the floor as he did. He walked with purpose now, no longer teetering back and forth.
“Go somewhere else!”
“I can’t!” I wailed. “I-I agreed - and besides - no one else accepted me!”
“I see,” he said coldly. “This university was always keen to take in everyone else’s rejects. The desperate are the easiest to ensnare, after all. Well, I tried to warn you. Leave, please, before I forget who I was.”
My heart hammered in my chest. I was moments away from bursting into tears. But I managed to swallow my sobs for long enough to ask one more question. Who was he, then?
A wry, wan smile.
“The university president, of course.”
Just like Grayson had said. But there was a way he said it, a twist to his words, that made it feel more like a joke I didn’t quite understand yet. He’s the university president… but also, I don’t think that’s the whole of it.
Little wonder Grayson wasn’t making much progress with the doctors. His dad wasn’t being treated for anything within the realm of modern medicine. I recognized the color of the tissue inside the severed hand. I’d seen it before, when mom didn’t have time to cook for a week and the stew beef went bad from sitting in the fridge for too long.
Rotting meat. Grayson’s dad was a corpse and had been one for some time.
I left, at a run, not wanting to be there a moment longer in that horrible house with a rotting corpse yelling at me and telling me I’m useless and stupid and no one else wants me.
I went straight back to my apartment. I haven’t talked to Grayson yet. I haven’t even seen him. I talked to Cassie about what happened and then I typed this up. Cassie was sympathetic at least. She agreed that it was a Very Poor Life Choice to go to Grayson’s house without sticking to the plan of asking him if he was home first. However, my mistakes weren’t as important as the problem I’d unearthed. Specifically, Grayson’s dad was dead and has presumably been dead for a while now.
“You’re not going to like hearing this,” Cassie said quietly at the end of our conversation, “But you might want to take a break from this relationship until you can figure out what the hell is going on.”