Chapter Three: The Scariest thing isn't Death;
Part One: it's the Trust You Seek.
Next week came around in a metaphorical blink of an eye. Holly decided taxi change or not she wanted the money still. So she stood at the covered bus stop earlier than last time waiting to look upwards at the sky. Even with daytime hours, Gotham's overcast skyline loomed a thick grey waiting for the right chance to bury the city in white. The crunch of chemical salt from the ice alerted her to someone nearby, not many people were outside in the cold. Not at least until rush hour rolled around.
"Afternoon, Holly."
"Afternoon, Jonathan."
They had not seen each other since the ride in the taxi. Each going about their lives with hardly any thought for one another. Today, however, Holly would be teaching Mario's friends more arithmetic functions they should have already known. Jonathan would be taking enough notes for three. She wondered why he even made three copies, they certainly could just take one and copy off each other right?
"Hey," Holly looked at Jonathan, "why are you taking notes for them?" Not the exact question she wanted to ask first despite that it came out this way.
"I would assume for the same reason you are tutoring them."
She paused then spoke quickly, "You thought James was cute looking thus you had a playboy bunny roommate talk you up to his best friend Vinny while probably giving him a blow-job so that you could take notes for cash all to hang out with said cutie because you couldn't just ask him out, get fucked then rejected?" It was refreshing, she thought, to feel able to tell this man anything. No matter how blunt nor strange sounding.
He had to process what was said, "No." She thought she saw him open his mouth slightly then close it before his head tilted and he blinked then finally replied, "I'm not sure if you're actually a fool or rather manipulative, though the former seems closer to the truth."
Holly sniffed. Rude. Rather than say it aloud she turned her eyes to watch the grey slushy street for the bus to come. The rickety thing had come into view getting closer, "Foolish enough to try things I know are a waste of time," she admitted as the bus slowed down coming to a squeaky stop, "that they won't bring me any happiness. I involve others to create that fake sense of the feeling. When everyone's smiling and laughing I can feel like I am too," Stacey had seemed overjoyed to help Holly with getting a boy. Holly recalled grinning wide when the woman teased her about only doing nerd things for boys, that sense of happy-go-luckiness felt so infectious at the time. Now it felt lost. "I ultimately try too hard to fit in with the people around me," Holly stepped up into the bus holding out a small plastic card with her student ID information that the driver nodded at. She turned her head over her shoulder at Jonathan as he held up his ID too, "and I only feel like I can tell you because," sitting down in the middle of the semi-crowded bus against the window Jonathan sat next to her in the aisle, "I don't need to impress you." His posture made it seem like he was uncomfortable on the crowded bus. Holly however continued on rambling it all out of her head, it felt too good getting it off her chest just like smoking did for her nerves, "You're obviously an intelligent individual who doesn't necessarily have to right now nor wants to care about other people's social status. I believe you'll judge me not by what I falsely pretend to be. Am I wrong?" She fucking hoped she wasn't wrong otherwise she just spilled wild opinions onto someone she hardly knew. That would be way more awkward than when they first met.
The bus lurched forward, rocked when it stopped and lurched forward again as it went from stop to stop. It pulled from campus grounds towards the inner city at a snail's pace with Gotham city residents not understanding how to drive in the snow no matter how long they had lived there. Jonathan had yet to say anything to Holly in reply. He was simply facing forward staring straight ahead and while she peeked over from time to time she mostly stayed looking out the window at the buildings passing them by. They eventually had to get off and change bus lines. The wind had died down considerably to almost none at all, be that as it may, the weather still planned to let Gotham know it was ready to torment them. Little white flecks of snowfall had begun as they had every other night that week. The two stood silently at the bus stop waiting to get onto the yellow line to meet the four men at Mario's family restaurant again.
"You're not wrong," his voice nearly made her jump, the sudden answer came when they sat down again on their next bus, "Last year," lowering his voice enough to not be overheard by those near, "I came across George injecting steroids that James had stolen from the university's medical building. It's not hard to come to the conclusion that Mario may have been involved. He thought so too when I was confronted; we made a deal. That he would only buy my notes this year at whatever price I set and I would not be a factor to him nor his friends being removed from the team or expelled."
"You're blackmailing them?" Not what she expected, if anything she thought it would have been the opposite, "Why not just extort the money, why do them a service, Mario's obviously loaded."
"It'd be naïve to think like that. Did you stop to consider why Mario has such vast wealth?" Holly shook her head No, she assumed he just came from one of Gotham's founding families and got to use his father's checkbook, "While he doesn't try to get involved with his family directly, they are still notorious for their criminality. Mister Calvi is a Falcone, do not think that if his father or grandfather found out someone was extorting his son they would not find trouble."
"So... A deal is any better because?"
"A deal to buy notes only from someone with an impeccable record, why Holly, Mister Calvi is simply investing in the best." Was that humor? She thought she caught a quick lift of his lips like a smile. By the time she turned her attention to him, he had no tell.
"And you wondered if I was manipulative."
"Or a fool." He joked. She thought it had to have been one.
They had two very different reasons for interacting with those four. Holly was sure though that Jonathan was infinitely more involved and that she would not want to be that deep in dangerous waters. She'd tutor them until the end of the semester and be done with it, money be damned.
The tutoring session went as expected. Just like the last time James drank cola laced with whiskey shots, George actually understood what Holly was teaching and Vinny... he was just never going to be good with numbers. He might pass through sheer luck, or cheating, but that was none of Holly's business. Mario had been writing more of his medical essay, his sister had not been present this time, and Jonathan took well-written notes. It lasted about as long as well, the sun having already bled into the horizon a cold autumn darkness filled the streets outside.
Holly sat waiting for the three men to solve a problem she gave them, "You going to finish that?" She pointed lazily at Jonathan's basket of breadsticks. She had nibbled down a caprese salad with fantastic balsamic dressing be that as it may there was a void in her stomach that only grains shaped as sticks could fill. He was checking the copies of notes for accuracy. Without a word nor looking up at her he pushed the basket in her direction, "Thanks."
"You two can certainly have more than our cheapest salad and free breadsticks if you're hungry." Mario also had not looked up from his textbook and papers.
"Yeah, live a little girl. Have a shot with me?" James pipped up. He had given up trying to solve the equation. He winked at her then waved down a waitress to get more whiskey cola shots. Holly nibbled on the bread, not in a sheepish manner, simply slowly. She was avoiding answering James by keeping her mouth full. When he got those shots he pushed one at Holly, "Promise it's good... Or wait, do you even drink?" He nudged Vinny to get the man's attention, "Hey bet you she doesn't drin-"
Holly took the shot and knocked it back, "Kind of weak shit with it being mostly pop."
"Woah, nice. Stacey did say you'd be cool to party with," Wait... What had Stacey told him exactly? "Had to check my sources with you being so fucking smart and all nerdy like Johnny here." He gave Vinny another nudge, Vinny was red in the cheeks in spite of that he laughed.
Mario finally looked up, going from Holly to his friends, "I didn't hire Holly to party with you, she's here to teach you math."
Without missing a beat James laughed heartily, "Ah man, you hear that Vinny, can't have lil'Hollywood suckin your sausage after all." James made the motion with his hand and mouth as if to give a blow-job. And Holly turned redder than the crimson tablecloth. The moment in her mind had gone from a calm breadstick eating zero to a rude and kind of gross one hundred real fast. She set the half-eaten breadstick down as its shape was put into a more phallic perspective.
"Enough of that." Mario chided James.
The silence that befell the table after felt deafening. She just sat there blankly looking at the water in front of her before the overwhelming feeling to run away took over. This feeling started slowly in the back of her head spreading like a fever through her body. A feeling akin to a hollow numbness followed immediately with thundering panic at not knowing how to react to the feeling, "... The answer is seventy-two." Holly suddenly said, reaching across the table to tap on George's paper, leaving a small oil mark from the breadstick's brushed butter on her hand. She pushed her things from under the table with her foot then all but shoved at Mario out of the booth. He obliged. Holly did not mind being hit on or even flirted with, James was physically attractive, but something just felt wrong and she did not have the mental fortitude to sort it out that fast.
"Hey where you going?!" James got out of the booth, Vinny and Jonathan followed suit. The latter gathered his things neatly together. Only George sat there; he had written down '72' but kept looking at the problem closely having a breakthrough of a lifetime. When Holly didn't answer and put her pack over her shoulder James put his hand on her other one, "I said, where ya goin' doll? Did it make you uncomfortable? Come on," he nearly whined, "you're hot. I'd totally fuck you more than once." He said this as if it would make what he said earlier alright. Is this the kind of company Stacey dealt with all the time? No wonder the socialite was constantly stress drinking.
It felt like something disgusting was crawling under her skin where his hand was, "Let go." Holly spoke calmly, it didn't reflect how fast her heart was beating. How hard it was to suddenly breathe. How much she wanted to scream and physically rip herself away. To act like Stacey and just throw an unsightly fit.
Mario was the one to push his friend's arm away, "James, you're drunk. Go sit back down." There was this understanding... A fear in James that even while drunk he followed what Mario told him to do. The second Holly was freed she left. Mario had no time to pay her, instead, he handed Jonathan an extra hundred, "You two take the same bus right?"
Holly had not truly fled into the night. She stood outside on the sidewalk just under the restaurant lights on the edge of the looming darkness, with only dim street lamps to light the way further down. She did not want to pass by that alleyway alone again. Sirens were wailing in the distance and muffled echos of people yelling filled the blooming night. Even so, the cold air felt too good when she breathed it in, like breathing for the first time. A folded one hundred was flicked into her vision, held between two pale spindly fingers. She took it slowly, delicately as to not touch the fingers that were not her own. The bill got stuffed into her pocket without any sort of grace. It was the click of a lighter that made her turn around. Jonathan had lit a cigarette in his mouth and was offering out another one. Holly took it. Putting it between her lips she held it steady and leaned towards him allowing him to give her a light as she inhaled, "Come by my dorms tomorrow at six fifteen pm, I want to show you something." He spoke without taking the cigarette from his lips.
They were silent the entire bus ride back. Parting from the campus bus stop without the need for goodbyes nor waves. Jonathan had offered her another cigarette for the walk home. She politely declined, "No, thank you." One had drowned enough of the previously overwhelming feelings.
Holly returned to her housing arrangement without further incidents. The house was finally quiet, no partying due to having to do just enough 'nerd shit' to not drop out. No boys allowed inside for the next two weeks, housemates' rules. She went inside and straight into the bathroom. Locking the door Holly threw up what looked like and probably once was a breadstick with green spots of salad. There was a soft knock on the door, "First time?" It wasn't Stacey, this was Melody's voice. She was just a year above Holly in university standards but younger in age. Out of the five women that actually lived and paid rent for the house Melody was the youngest.
She'd eaten breadsticks before? Her mind thought thus Holly asked dumbly, "What?" Right after she coughed and only dry heaved this time.
Melody did not reply for a few moments, "... Nevermind, you okay?"
"Yeah... I'm okay." She probably wasn't alas saying those words aloud shoved the remaining panic, shame, worry, and anxiety into a deep dark bottle, "ate some expired bread," she lied through her teeth before another smaller dry heave hit her, "... Call Moe for me? I'm not going in tomorrow."
"That's the short bald guy you work for right, his number's on the fridge?" Holly could imagine Melody making short measuring motions with her hand from behind the door.
"Yeah, the one that looks like a poorly drawn snowman." Holly heard the floor creak as Melody went to go call Moe as she had asked. It wasn't too late at night, he'd be working the diner at this hour.
She just sat in the bathroom for a while until the door got urgently banged on, "Okay vomit time is over. There's only one working toilet and I gotta pee, bad." That was Stacey. She sounded desperate and when Holly opened the door she saw the blond doing a small dance in the hallway to hold it in. Her eyes were metaphorically floating with how badly she needed to use the toilet. Stacey shoved Holly out of the way, slammed then locked the door. The only thing Holly heard from behind the wood was a loud sigh of relief as she walked upstairs.
