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As Brinker and I walked out of the enlistment office, I felt light and free, like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.
“Finally!” Brinker said, giving me a satisfied and accomplished smile. “I was getting so sick of listening to those draft-dodging cowards and those… naturalists.”
He said that last word with a dark look, making me laugh for the first time in a while. Poor Leper, I thought. His interest in beaver dams was the final straw for Brinker. As I exhaled and saw the smoke coming out of my mouth in the cold air, I looked up at the frosty sky and smiled faintly.
We continued walking through campus and towards our dorm building. I hadn’t acknowledged the gravity of the situation until now, the moment that I walked through that building. I’d be leaving all of this behind, leaving Devon, and going into the real world. I still felt a thrill when thinking about it. The feeling persisted as we walked through the hallways, bulletin boards covered in Devon extracurriculars and sports games. Those reminded me of something in the back of my head, but I didn’t know what it was, until I opened my door to find…
“Hey pal! Where’s the brass band?”
I had forgotten about Phineas.
My face must have shown all of my shock and remembrance, as he cocked his head to the side. “Hey, what’s with that face? Can’t you look more excited?” A pause. “Did you forget about me or something?”
Brinker, who had walked past to his dorm, must have heard his voice, and popped his head in the doorway next to me. He burst out, “Finny! By God, you’re back!”
“Hey Brink!” grinned Finny. He glanced at me again. “Can you explain why Gene here is speechless when his best pal of all time has finally returned?”
Brinker’s excited face slowly faded and became a face of realization, his mouth an “O” shape as he looked between Finny and I. He turned his head towards me—my face was frozen but I was shaking—and gasped. “Wait. So that’s why you signed up?” My head turned sharply and I looked at him silently with wide eyes and furrowed eyebrows, almost a threat to stay quiet in front of Finny. “Oh my God, your face! It is true!”
“Signed up?” Finny’s voice broke us out of our tense atmosphere. We both turned our heads to look at him. He was still smiling, sitting at the desk with his giant white cast. Looking at the both of us innocently, he repeated, “Signed up? To what? Sports?”
“Well, the war.”
“Brinker!” I shouted.
But it was too late. It had already been revealed. So it was inevitable, hearing Finny’s reaction soon after. The quiet voice that reached my ears made me regret everything I had done until then. “The war?” he had asked. “You… enlisted?” Something about his tone seemed pitiful and broken. Guilt racked my body as I tried to meet his sad, piercing gaze, but couldn’t.
The ugly silence that followed felt deafening. Brinker put a hand on the back of his neck awkwardly and added, “Err, well I enlisted too. We went together.”
“Toge—” started Finny incredulously. He seemed to have not been able to make himself believe this, the fact that Brinker and I went together. Then, something strange happened. Finny’s face, sad but still child-like before, immediately fell to a serious expression. It was similar to an expressionless face, but I sensed something darker behind it. I had never seen Finny look like this before, and even at that moment, before everything ensued, I knew something was wrong. “You’re joking.” He had said it in a statement-like manner, like what he was saying was indeed the truth.
“No, we just came back from the enlistment office,” Brinker explained. I still stood there in the doorway, horrified. I wanted Brinker to shut up; he didn’t know how strangely Finny was acting, because he didn’t know him as well as I did. “We’re leaving in a few days.”
“No, you’re not,” said Finny. For some reason, he had looked pointedly in my direction, but shouldn’t he have been saying it to the both of us? "You're not going to that war."
Brinker shrugged at him. “Yeah, we are.” Slowly, he inched away from the doorway. “I’ll let you guys talk about this. I’ve got to go break the news to Brownie and everyone else, anyway.” Then he looked over his shoulder at me and added, “And that’s still really messed up, Gene. Leaving him like that.”
I heard him tutting to himself down the hallway carelessly and I despised him for leaving me to deal with this mess.
Stiffly, I made myself walk in and close the door. I could feel Finny’s eyes watching every movement, and I felt clumsy. Now that we were alone, I thought that, after knowing all of his habits for so long, he was going to ask me why I enlisted and maybe joke or get teary-eyed about it. That would have been more familiar to me, even with the uncomfortable subject. But he was just silent, and that was worse.
Because he didn’t say anything, my overthinking took over: Of course I couldn’t talk if he hadn’t; I wasn’t worthy of it. I might have annoyed him. I just had to wait for him to start.
Yet there was nothing. We both took turns going to the shower without a word of mention, and got into bed. I thought of praying at the foot of my cot for help in this tense and awkward situation, but Finny hadn’t, so I didn’t either. While we turned our lights off and laid under our sheets in the darkness, I realized that he had broken one of his personal rules—to “always pray, in case there is a god.” This unsettled me to the point that I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night. My eyes stayed shut, so I stared into a terrifying nothingness as my mind whirred and whirred like a horrid machine to replace Finny's missing nightly monologue.
Why did I enlist? Why would I ever do that? It was Brinker. I can’t believe I let his stupid idea waver my loyalty to Finny. … But loyalty? Could I even say that when I jounced the limb in the first place? I owed too much to Finny, and I kept making more mistakes. I was so stupid.
That’s it. I couldn’t go to war. I needed to do something about this. Just like in Boston, when I realized I hurt Finny and had to take my confession back, I needed to take this back. The war is a serious thing—this hindered me, but I was so desperate and agonized that I made myself believe that I could have gone back to the office and recounted my enlisting.
Just as I fell into a state of stability and determination, I heard rustling from the other cot. I opened my eyes slowly and blinked a few times. Noiselessly, I turned my head to look at my alarm clock and saw that it was 3 A.M. I gaped. Finny usually slept still, like a log. As the rustling ensued, I closed my eyes painfully shut. For someone as useless as me to have affected him this way…!
Suddenly I heard his blankets slide off of his cot, and his feet hitting the ground. I held my breath. I didn't know why he had decided to get up, but the clacks of his crutches were getting nearer and I felt a tinge of fear. I was on my side, facing him at this point. I could tell, because when I cracked an eye open a little, I could make out the clothed torso of a dark figure.
I dared not look up; I just slowly closed my eye again. The moonlight flowing through the window outlined his body, and I did not want to see what kind of face he was making now. It felt like eternity lying there on my cot, and every tiny movement and breath I made became overwhelmingly loud to me, like the noise of gunfire. The blankets suddenly seemed to weigh tons, and I was overheated under them, but what was there to do? The only option I had was to lie there and hope he went away. Hope that he was just sleepwalking. Oh, right, sleepwalking with crutches. Brilliant and logical.
Something touched my face. Fingers. My breath involuntarily hitched, and I berated myself for that telltale action a million times before I noticed exactly what was happening. He was playing with my hair
What?
Was this it? He was just twirling my dark bangs and trailing his hand around my head. It felt cold. I was extremely confused, but now I knew that Finny was indeed conscious. That fact was scary to me. This continued for another eternity. Everything felt like forever that night.
Then, in the dark: "Gene. Get up."
I did nothing.
"I know you're awake. Get up."
Now that I had to move, I allowed myself to flinch away from him. My eyes had opened now and saw that Finny had been slightly bent over me, leaning on his crutches for support. He didn't look slightly expressionless like that weird face he made before, but that dark layer hidden beneath was there. What was on top, this time, was joy.
His voice had sounded happy too—enlightened, as if something came to him. Chills traveled across me, even though I was practically sweating under the blankets a second ago. An awful uncomfortable feeling, but it was nothing compared to what my weary mind was experiencing at the time. I was terrified at the fact he looked so happy, even though he had gotten up at 3 and gotten me up too. Again, something was wrong.
He looked at me with a smile that looked so simple but sinister to me. I stared back with wide eyes. "Finny, what are you doing?"
"We're going on a walk. Come on."
"No, we're not—" I started, but I felt like my throat constricted when Finny suddenly leaned over close to my face such that there was maybe a centimeter or two between us.
"Sure we are."
I sputtered, looking away, "Finny, it is way later than after hours."
"It's not going to matter."
This statement could have shown his trait of carelessness, but after the events that ensued that night, I knew that it was the exact opposite: It was planned and structured.
I went with him. He was able to make me do anything, and at the heightened sense of fear I felt at the time, this fact was made even truer, if it could have been.
We walked through the hallways and I passed the bulletin board of Devon activities and games again, feeling a distinctly different way than I had the last time I had walked by. Again there was a deafening silence between us. All that I heard was the clacks of his crutches.
He made us go outside of the building. The winter air hit me harshly, but I felt almost numbed at that point. Then we stopped at the chapel.
It was grand and mysterious looking at night. "You didn't really want to enlist," he said as he looked up at it. "Brinker made you, right?"
"Ye-yeah," I said in a broken manner, the frosty air finally making itself apparent to me. I couldn't see a lot, but I did notice the white plumes escaping my mouth. The moon was overly bright that night. I turned to him, and he tilted his head. Now that he started the conversation, I could build off of it. "Finny, I should never have enlisted."
"I'm glad to hear that, pal," he responded. "You know, I would not have wanted to see your name in a list of 'fallen Devonians' that they probably would have put up here in the chapel." He paused. "Just being away is just as bad as being dead."
I couldn't find anything in the dark to say in response to this. Finny then led me into a building. We walked up the sloped ground until I noticed exactly where we were. From the hard, stone railing I groped after we reached the top, I was reminded of that sensation I felt walking up the marble staircase and running my hand along the railing, when we were called to an assembly. Recently it had been showing promotional films of the army.
Finny leaned against a wall near the staircase. I inched near him. I didn't want to make a wrong step and accidentally fall. I didn't know how Finny managed here, being so reckless in his movements, but he moved confidently, as though everything was going in accordance to some greater plan, and that plan was undoubtedly going to happen.
"I couldn't survive here without you," Finny said quietly. "You're really my best pal, you know?"
I knew the right thing to say was that he was my best friend too, especially after I failed last time, but being the idiot over thinker I was, my mouth was frozen.
"Being shy again. I remember that night on the beach. You wanted to say it back, right?"
"Yeah."
"And you did just now, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then why," he said in a lower voice, "would you ever try to leave me here?"
I hesitated. Did I really want to say everything? The weight that I thought had been taken off of my shoulders was back now, and did I want to tell him about it? It might have made everything feel better, instead of confining those feelings in me the whole time. I convinced myself of this and said, "I… felt guilty about the tree incident," I said concisely, perhaps too concisely. "I know you don't believe me, but I did cause it. The guilt was too much, and enlisting felt like the perfect escape for me. It was an opportunity to run away from my troubles; an easy way out."
Finny seemed to absorb this information. "I believe you." My hands by my side seemed to untighten themselves. "That you caused the accident."
This was something that I always wanted him to admit, but for some reason, this confession seemed too quick and in the wrong place and time. And the way he said it felt off too, as if he meant that he believed that I did it because that was the type of person I was. That could have been my overthinking taking over again, though.
Still, I said, relieved, "You do?"
"Course I do. You wouldn't lie about this kind of stuff. Besides, it's not going to matter." I was silent with confusion. He had said that before. "Even if you left me like this."
Guilt came rushing back, even though I felt so relieved just a second ago.
"I forgive you," he continued. I couldn't see it exactly, but I heard it in his voice: he was smiling. "I forgive you because I trust you and I know you're not going to leave me alone after all."
"Finny," I said morosely, "it's probably impossible for me to not go to war after I just enlisted. They need everyone they can get." I had indeed convinced myself that I could just a few hours ago, but reality was coming back to me.
"Nonsense," said Finny. Here was his disillusioned state, I thought to myself. Sure, he acknowledged that I caused him to fall, but apparently one delusion could only go to be replaced with another. "You won't go. I have a fail-proof way."
"What is it?"
Finny went towards me, and in my curiosity from his statement, along with the darkness, I didn't notice his arm closest to me reaching out behind my back. But it was too late; he had already shoved me with a rejuvenated strength I thought he would have lost after being in the hospital and lying in bed for months. I felt like I was flying for a second, but crashed into the cold marble steps and tumbled down jaggedly, until my body hit the wall at the end of the staircase. I cried out in pain; this was more than just a bad bruise—something was definitely bent the wrong way. The agony was too much as I whimpered pathetically through clenched teeth. I felt myself go in and out of states of consciousness, and every time I 'woke up,' the splitting feeling hit me again, seemingly worse than last time. Pain, as it often did, made my mind purge everything it had previously held before. However the last thing I remembered before I finally fainted had to do with Phineas.
His piercing green-blue gaze illuminated our dorm lights as he stared into my soul. Brinker having revealed that we were leaving in a few days.
My eyelids felt heavy.
In my mind echoed Finny's words that finally made sense: "No, you're not. You're not going to that war."
Darkness.