First Draft Chapter 37

Clio was upset when she saw my haircut. “Why did you do that?” she whined. “I liked your hair before.”

I shrugged. “Someone else wanted me to cut it short.”

She crossed her arms and raised her voice to a higher pitch. “Doesn’t my opinion matter? I mean I am your girlfriend, and you didn’t even ask me, and you let someone else, who I don’t even know, decide to cut your hair shorter…”

I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. She stopped immediately, shocked. It was the first time I had ever been rough with her. “We are not going to argue about this,” I said firmly. She merely nodded, still somewhat surprised by my sudden action.

I had surprised myself as well. I had actually grabbed and shook her just on instinct, and afterwards I couldn’t believe I had actually done it.

When Clio did begin to speak again it was more cautiously. “Did you get my letters last night?” she asked. Her voice was still whiny, although it was always a little whiny. I’m certain that if I had not just shaken her, she would have said something a lot more accusing.

I shook my head. “I didn’t see them.”

“But I left them right on your desk. How could you not have seen them?”

“I was busy. I was out with Hermes last night.”

“Hermes was out with my brother last night.” Caught in my lie, I was unsure of how to respond. There was a pause in the conversation, and then Clio was struck by a new thought and started up again. “And besides, you were obviously out with whoever cut your hair. Who was it anyway?”

“You don’t know her.” [Go back and make more explicit that Clio and Emma do know each other]. Inwardly I grimaced at letting the word “her” slip out. For about a second or two I watched Clio’s face, hoping she wouldn’t pick up on it, then decided my best bet was to move the conversation along. “What did you want to talk about anyway?”

She made a face as if she didn’t like being asked that question. “It’s hard for me to put into words.” I waited for more, but then I realized she was finished.

I cleared my throat to prompt her to say more, and when she didn’t take her cue I said, “Well, if you want to talk about it…” I left the second half of that sentence hanging at first, but when she still didn’t pick up on it I spit the rest out. “…you’re going to have to put it into words.”

“I know, I know, but it’s hard for me. I need time to formulate my thoughts. I can’t do it if I feel like I’m being rushed.”

I started to get angry again. “Last night you left all those notes saying you absolutely had to talk about this, and now you can’t put it into words?”

“I can’t do it when I’m rushed. If we could talk about it this evening…”

“I’m busy this evening,” I snapped.

“Tomorrow then.”

I moved my hands in the air while I tried to think of something to say. “I don’t know. Maybe. There’s been so much going on lately though.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “But I’m your girlfriend.”

I felt bad for making her cry, and I tried to soften my tone. “But there’s been a revolution,” I said in my gentlest voice.

“What does that have to do with anything?” She asked with tears streaming down her face.

“It means we don’t have time anymore to take up long nights talking about nothing.”

She stomped her foot angrily and turned her back to me. I tried to touch her shoulder, but she just jerked herself away. “Clio, you can’t start crying all the time and expect to win arguments that way.” I tried to disguise the harshness of what I was saying by continuing to speak in a gentle voice. I still got no response. I wasn’t going to deal with this. “Look, when you’re ready to talk, you know where to find me.” I went out the door.
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I knew there wouldn’t be art guild that week, but I also knew Hermes would be there. He never missed a week.

I opened up the door, and Hermes called out to me. “Hello Jon,” he said. “I’m glad you could make it. I was getting kind of lonely over here.” Hermes was on the floor painting by himself. “Grab some brushes and let’s do some painting.”

“I’m through painting,” I answered firmly.

Hermes seemed shocked to hear this, but he accepted it. “Oh, well, ok then,” he said in a disappointed voice. He continued again with his painting. “So why did you come by then?”

“I came to see you,” I answered. “Why do you keep coming when you know no one else is going to show up?”

Although Hermes head was still turned down towards his painting, I could see that he was smiling. “Actually I was hoping no one else would show up,” he said. “I wanted to get some painting done in quiet.” Hermes looked up suddenly. “Hey, where have you been lately anyway?”

“I got in trouble yesterday because of you,” I said.

“Trouble?” Hermes briefly cocked his head to one side trying to understand me, and then gave up and shook his head dismissively. “There’s no one to get in trouble with anymore.”

“No, I mean with Clio.”

“How is that my fault?”

“I said I couldn’t meet with her because I was out with you, but she knew you were out with Orpheus.”

“Serves you right Jon. That’ll teach you to use me as an excuse.”

“I was actually trying to find you that night though,” I said. “I checked your room, I checked art guild, I even went to the cave. Where did you and Orpheus go?”

“Out looking for adventure,” Hermes answered proudly.

“With Orpheus? Why didn’t you go with me?”

Hermes dismissed the question with a shrug. “Orpheus was there at the time. Anyway, you didn’t miss anything. We didn’t find any adventure.”

For some reason, I suddenly thought that a story of two people not finding adventure would be just as interesting as a story about them finding it. Perhaps it’s that part of human nature that enjoys others failure, but I was suddenly very eager to hear about the adventure they didn’t find. I took a seat in one of the chairs. “Well, tell me about it.”

Hermes took a breath to gather his thoughts. “Well, there’s not much to tell actually. Orpheus and I were sitting around talking, and I had the feeling that there was all this adventure just waiting for us right outside the doors. So I told him I wanted to do something really exciting that night; something that we’d remember for the rest of our lives.” Hermes paused, as if unsure how to continue, then simply shrugged and said, “But we didn’t find it.”

“Well, what happened?”

“We didn’t know where to look really. I thought about going to the Cave, but we always go to the cave, and nothing exciting ever happens there. So we wandered around and went into a couple other student hang outs, but there was nothing exciting in any of them.” He paused to think again. “Who knows? If we had gone into the cave that night, perhaps that would have been the one night something exciting would have happened. Maybe that’s why I had that feeling. I just misjudged it by going to the wrong places.”

“I was in the cave that night,” I said. “There was nothing exciting going on.”

Hermes pondered this for a moment. “Well, anyway, whatever we were looking for we didn’t find it. I’m not even sure what kind of excitement we were after. I guess I kind of wanted to get in a fight. I’ve never been in a fight before. But I didn’t want to start the fight. If I had started the fight, then I would have been in the wrong. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the bad guy. I would have wanted to be in a fight, but be absolutely in the right. So I was waiting for someone to start a fight with me. But no one did.”

“You’re just too likeable of a guy,” I said leaning backwards and smiling.

“Yeah, I guess that’s it. If I wasn’t so likeable, like if I had a nasty personality or something, I bet I’d get in fights easier. But then the fights would be partly my fault, and I wouldn’t be completely in the right. You see my dilemma here Jon.”

“You’re problem is that you brought Orpheus with you. If you would have brought me, you would have gotten in a fight.”

“Yeah, maybe we would have. I don’t know, does that count as being in the right if I get involved in a fight you start.”

“I think it would for you. Not for me of course, but it would for you. I’d be in the wrong, but you’d just be helping a friend.” I paused to consider what I had said, and decided to add, “but you shouldn’t ask me. I’m no moralist.”

“Yeah, so anyway, we didn’t know where to go next. I mean it doesn’t help that the campus is sealed off, but to be perfectly honest I don’t think we would have known where to go even if we had the whole world at our feet. So we just called it an early night. In fact I was in bed last night earlier than I usually am.” He looked up from his painting again. “It was kind of pathetic actually. Anyway Jon, why do you ask? What did you get up to last night?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Well what’s the problem then? Why couldn’t you meet Clio?”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

“Ahhh,” Hermes said knowingly. “You’re getting sick of her already.”

“Nah. It was just that one night I couldn’t deal with her.”

“I don’t know Jon,” Hermes spoke those last words in a distracted way as he focused on his painting. He didn’t say anymore on the subject, and I didn’t say anymore on the subject. After a while he looked up at me and asked, “So are you going to help me paint or what?”

“I told you I’m through with all that.”

“Your loss Jon.” He looked down at his painting again, and that seemed to be the end of our conversation. I waited a while for him to say something else, but when he didn’t, I just headed towards the door. “I’ll be seeing you around,” I said as I left.

“See you,” Hermes responded, not looking up from his painting.

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