JEREMY'S POV

After my first four hours of college, I had established a definitive opinion about my new roommate: Benjamin Nicholson was aware of his unpleasantness, but made no effort to improve his attitude.

"So..." Nicholson was sitting across from me, a white cap on his head and a milkshake straw between his lips. With the chaos of students bustling in that cafeteria, the sound of him sipping through the straw shouldn't have bothered me, but it did.

Our first interactions had unfolded without any major diplomatic incidents. I mentioned that I was studying criminology to become an officer in the missing persons unit, and at first, he responded simply, confiding that he hoped to join the homicide unit or maybe even the FBI.

But then something had gone wrong in our conversation.

"Tell me, Smith, are you really any good at finding people?"

"I have a good track record. Why? Are you looking for someone?"

After that, his mood had flipped completely, and all his forced smiles had vanished.

I hadn’t dared to bring up the topic again. When his forced cheerfulness returned, asking me to take a walk around campus, I decided to play it safe and ignore the previous hours filled with silence and dark glances.

I put on my friendliest smile. It was imperative that I made friends with this guy. Not only were we roommates, but we were also in the same course. I’d be seeing that face every day for at least the next three years, so I’d better get used to that pale look hidden behind a pair of expensive sunglasses.

"Go ahead," I encouraged him when Benjamin just sat there with the straw in his mouth, staring at me.

"No, I mean... it's not to pry into your business, you know. But... did I hear that right? Your boyfriend..."

"Lucas."

"Lucas, right. Your boyfriend, before he got together with you, had a thing with your brother? Your twin brother? Your identical twin brother?"

I lowered my hand to my glass of peach juice. My engagement ring made a pleasant clang when it brushed against the glass.

"Very briefly."

"Ah-ha. Ah-ha." Benjamin began playing with his straw, moving it up and down, up and down inside the milkshake.

He wanted to add something else, but I wasn’t sure giving him the floor on this topic was a wise choice.

But he decided for both of us, continuing, "And he -Lucas, I mean- sings in your brother's band. The same... brother? The identical one?"

"Drake, yes."

"Mh-hm. And they're best friends, you say?" Benjamin was trying to look inconspicuous during this interrogation, but he wasn’t doing a great job.

"Where are you going with this?"

Ben put his drink on the table and leaned forward. There was something odd in his gaze. His eyes were trembling slightly. "Smith. You're here in college, while they're getting drunk in a garage between an electric guitar and a drum set. Those two have already had sex in the past, and they're best friends."

I picked up my glass, listening once again to the clink of my ring. "So?"

"So, they're fucking. Right now. Your boyfriend’s dick. In your brother’s mouth."

The interesting effect of the psychotropic drugs I was taking was that I could still recognize the explosion of rage in my brain, only now I could watch it detonate within an impenetrable barrier.

I still had the glass in my hand. There was a time when I would have smashed it against the table, hoping to cut myself with the shards. But after a year of therapy, medication, and a thorough separation from my parents, I could simply bring the glass to my lips and take a sip.

Ben watched me with a smirk, aware that his comment hadn’t left me indifferent.

Was that his sense of humor?

Maybe I still had time to change roommates.

Perhaps I just needed to inform the student commission that Ben was disabled and needed accommodations, he couldn’t possibly be housed on the third floor; even though I wasn’t yet clear on the extent of his low vision or why he had chosen not to disclose his condition to the commission.

He could navigate our room and the campus without any problems, and he had no hesitation in locating his milkshake and napkins on the table, but he hadn’t even tried to look at the menu.

I should have done some research on albinism; I didn’t like being unprepared.

"Oh, come on, Smith, I was joking."

"You can call me Jeremy."

"You don’t like Smith? Too ordinary for a brooding guy like you?"

"I'm not brooding." I certainly didn’t consider myself a sunny person, but I liked to think I could be pleasant.

Wasn’t I?

Why the hell does Lucas want to be with me if...

I recognized that thought for what it was: the garbage cluttering up my brain. I could let it go; I didn’t have to hold onto it.

And so I did. I let that thought fly away and kept my distance from it.

I took another sip. "Lucas is faithful to me, and my brother knows to keep his hands to himself. Besides, Drake's partner is right there with them in that metaphorical garage of yours. If libido were to overcome their sanity, Andy would be ready with a machete to emasculate one of them. Preferably his boyfriend and not mine."

Ben burst into laughter. Did he think I was joking? Damn, our sense of humor was completely out of sync.

There had to be something we had in common, beyond our sexual orientation and our course of study.

"Tell me about yourself instead." I tried to make my smile reach my eyes, but I could feel the insincere effort of every single facial muscle. "Why did you come all the way to New York from California? You could have chosen a hundred universities closer than this one."

He shrugged. "I wanted a change of scenery. To see new places. You know how it is. You turn eighteen, and you realize you've never really left your hometown."

I knew something about that, although my desire to leave my hometown had nothing to do with exploring new places. I had just wanted to put as much distance as possible between me and Vancouver.

I asked the tricky question buzzing in my head: "Won’t you miss your parents?"

"I only have a mother, no parents in the plural."

"You're lucky," I replied somewhat recklessly. "I have three, and they’re all terrible."

Ben furrowed his brow, and I sensed curiosity on the tip of his tongue, but for the moment, he held back from asking questions.

That was for the best. I shouldn’t have mentioned my parents. It wasn’t the right time to air the complicated matters of my childhood.

I tried to probe him on a different angle of his past, but somehow Ben always managed to give me a non-answer, as if his high school years had been a foggy hallucination.

I had a paranoid nature that I was aware of, but at some point, it was logical to assume he was hiding something.

And that... was interesting.

I sighed. Despite the unpleasantness he carried with him, I had the feeling I wouldn’t try to get rid of him.

Liars fascinated me. And someone who seemed more unstable than me was a vaguely comforting presence.