The Fairest Show by Gregory Ashe

Author:Gregory Ashe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodgkin and Blount
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SPRING SEMESTER

JANUARY 2016

1

Auggie got back to Wahredua tired and in a bad mood. It was mostly the travel—they’d taxied back and forth from the gate twice before finally taking off, and the extra time on the plane had made an unpleasant experience even worse than usual. The shuttle had been crowded with Wroxall students getting back from break. Auggie had recognized several of them, and he’d exchanged greetings with them, but he couldn’t join in with the excited chatter. It was dark by the time the shuttle dropped him at his apartment. The night had a cut clarity, buzzing with the orange smears of the sodium lamps, and the snow banked along the sides of the road was black and crusted. He humped his bag toward the stairs as he texted Theo.

In the apartment, Ethan was playing Xbox—Halo, again—and noises from Orlando’s room suggested that winter break hadn’t slowed Orlando down at all. For a kid who, the year before, had still technically been a virgin, Orlando had definitely made up for lost time. Auggie thought it had something to do with his family’s overall shittiness toward him and, more specifically, the tragedy from the year before. He thought maybe he needed to talk to Orlando about it. But why was it his responsibility? And what would he say, anyway? You’re having too much sex, Orlando. Have you ever considered having less sex? A guy was yipping, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” so Auggie added, Or at least having it more quietly?

“Is that my blanket?” Auggie asked as he hung his coat in the closet near the front door. His was the only one—presumably because his roommates had tossed theirs on the sofa or left them in their rooms. He hopped in place as he took off the boots from Theo.

Ethan glanced down at the enormous, fuzzy blanket across his lap. It was stained red in places, and red Takis flavoring coated the controller and Ethan’s hands. “Oh, sorry, my feet were cold—”

“Are you kidding me?”

Not waiting for a reply, Auggie grabbed the blanket off Ethan’s lap and dragged it behind him as he continued toward his room. He stopped when he got to the doorway. The door was open. The bed was a mess, and not only because Ethan had stripped the blanket off. Clothes and a heavy winter coat and a medium-sized duffel bag covered the bed. None of it belonged to Auggie.

He tossed the blanket on the floor and turned back to the living room. Ethan was blasting an alien in the face.

“What is that stuff on my bed?”

“Huh?”

“What’s on my bed? Whose stuff is that? Ethan!”

“I don’t know.” Some sort of missile was incoming, and Ethan twisted on the couch, as though he were the one in danger of getting killed. In a way, Auggie thought as he picked up the empty Takis bag, he was. “Ask Orlando.”

Orlando was currently being told to “Give me that cock” and “Load me up, yeah, fucking load me up.”

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