three

February, 2016

​

            Jacob could hear his friends outside his door. They were pre-gaming in the living room and were planning on going out. It was one dollar shots at the bar tonight. Jacob lay in bed staring at the ceiling. His parents who had normally called him at least twice a week stopped calling. He had always hated those conversations; they really were a waste of time. But now that they stopped, he realized how much he needed it. Suddenly the door opened and Daniel flipped on the lights.

            Jacob quickly covered his face with his blanket. “Dude, what are you doing?”

            Daniel smiled. He had a can of cheap beer in one hand and portable speakers in the other. “It’s Thursday night, what are you doing? Get up!”

            “No thanks, I think I’m just going to stay in and sleep early tonight.”

            “C’mon man, you haven’t gone out at all this semester. You’ll only need like five shots, your tolerance must be zero.”

            “Daniel I think I’m good for...” Jacob was cut off by Daniel turning up the speakers to be louder than his voice.

            “Today.” Jacob had to yell. “Can you please just leave me alone?”

            “Ok man.” Daniel turned around and walked out the door, but a few seconds later he returned followed by the rest of his suitemates. “Hey, get up! Let’s go Jacob!”

            His friends each put a hand on his blanket and tried to pull it off him. After a short struggle, the combined power of the four guys overpowered Jacob and they threw the blanket to the ground.

            “Guys seriously get the fuck out of my room.” Jacob didn’t even pretend to smile anymore. His friends didn’t move. Jacob slowly got out of his bed and picked up his blanket from the floor. He climbed back into bed and threw the blanket over himself. His friends moved again to grab his blanket.

            “If you touch my blanket I’ll kill you.” His friends stopped moving and Jacob stared at them. Slowly the smiles disappeared.

            “Hey Daniel, let’s just go to the bar, it’s getting pretty late.” Henry grabbed Daniel’s arm and started to walk out of the room. As Daniel turned around, Jacob caught a glimpse of his face. He looked devastated, like he just lost his dog. The door shut and Jacob started to breathe normally again. It was the first time he had ever yelled at his friends like that. Jacob shut his eyes but couldn’t get rid of the image of Daniel’s expression.

 

“Hey Jacob, wake up. Aren’t you going to be late for your class?”

            “Yeah, yeah thanks man.”

            Jacob sat up in his bed and looked at his roommate, Daniel, who was standing in the doorway fully dressed and ready for class.

            “Well anyways, I’m headed out I’ll see you later.”

            “Yeah see you later bro. Thanks for waking me up.”

Daniel turned around and the door to the room slowly shut behind him. Jacob sighed and fell back into his bed. His first class didn’t take attendance and he could get the notes from one of his friends so there wasn’t really a need for him to go. He turned over and checked his phone. He had over 200 unread Facebook messages. His suite’s group chat had blown up last night when they all went out to a bar. Facing them would be awkward today, Jacob let out another sigh, but hopefully they didn’t remember too much after their night out yesterday. He set his phone down and decided that he would fall back asleep. He closed his eyes and saw black.

           

“Yo Jacob did you end up going to your class?”

            Jacob’s eyes shot open and he sat up in his bed. “No I didn’t.”

            “Bro we all went out last night, got hammered and still got up for classes today.”

            “Yeah I know, for some reason I just don’t feel well.” Jacob moved his hand over his head to feign a fever.

            “You weren’t feeling well last week either, do you have mono or something? Shit did we share anything since then? How’d you get it? Is there a new lady in your life?” Daniel gave Jacob a sly wink.

            “None of the above,” Jacob responded with a blank face.

            Daniel’s smile slowly disappeared. “Alright dude, well if you need anything just let me know. But for now I’m gonna be spending as much time as I can outside of the room so I don’t get sick.” He turned around and the door shut behind him. Jacob sighed. He sighed again. His stomach felt like it was twisted, but no matter how many times he sighed or stretched his stomach, he couldn’t shake the feeling. He got out of bed and got ready to leave. Right before he left, he put his headphones in but didn’t play music. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to music or talk to people.

            Jacob walked in late to his English class, and the professor paused momentarily to let him take a seat.

            “Jacob can I see you after class?”

            “Uh sure.” Jacob took out his books and attempted to pay attention to what was happening in front of him. His professor was talking about how regional trade in the Mediterranean at the time affected Shakespeare’s plays.

            “Now if you will all take out your assignment that was due today, we will be discussing the reading in groups.”

            Jacob froze. He forgot to do the reading and the assignment. He took out another piece of paper that looked like it could pass as the assignment and scooted his chair over to his assigned group. For the rest of the class, he zoned out and tried gathered information about the reading based on what others said.

            “What do you think, Jacob?”

            Jacob looked up and saw the eyes of his group members on him.

            “Uh, I’m actually not sure about this one.”

            He could feel the disdain creeping out from his normally well-composed classmates.

            “Well, I guess I can answer then.” The girl turned and looked straight at Jacob with her nose slightly upturned and said, “Obviously Shakespeare wanted to convey that Venice was a world maritime capital that reached out to both India and Mexico.”

            Jacob didn’t say anything. The best way to deal with these types of people is to not acknowledge them at all.

The class winded down and everybody but Jacob handed in their assignments. Jacob slowly packed his belongings until everybody else left the classroom.

            “Hey Professor, what’s up?”

            “Hey Jacob, you aren’t in trouble or anything, but I just wanted to talk to you about your performance in this class. You’ve been coming late very often and it’s affecting your grade. Also you have been consistently not handing in homework and missing discussions online. Is there something going on in your life?”

            Jacob blinked. He expected a minor chastising from his professor for being late all the time and not turning in his homework, but he didn’t expect her to ask how he was doing. He wanted to tell her about his parents. He wanted to tell her about his financial situation. He wanted to tell her about how most days he didn’t want to get out of bed or see anybody else. He wanted to tell her about his friends. Instead he just smiled and said, “Sorry for not putting my full effort into your class, I’ve just been super busy and I guess I didn’t put enough care into this class. I’ll try to reconsider my priorities and try harder in this class.”

            “Ok, I just wanted to let you know that I’m here if you want to talk about anything. Have a good weekend.”

            “Thanks, Professor.” Jacob turned around and walked out of the classroom. What his professor didn’t know was that he wasn’t putting enough care into any of his classes. The astrophysics and differential calculus that had been so interesting and novel at first had become something that he didn’t even want to think about. He was someone who had never failed a class, let alone failed a test, but now he was failing all of his classes. At this rate, he might even get kicked out. Jacob knew that something was wrong, but he didn’t want to think about it. All he wanted to do right now was sleep. All he wanted to do was sleep and wake up feeling happy and invigorated. That never happened, though.

            By the time Jacob returned to his suite, all of his suitemates were in the living room drinking and watching basketball. The laughing slowly died down.

            Daniel turned to him and said, “Hey what’s up? Do you want a beer?”

            “No thanks, I think I might just take a nap.”

            “Dude you just woke up an hour ago to go to class.”

            “Yeah, thanks mom.”

            “What the fuck is your problem, man?”

            “Daniel, it’s whatever just let him go. If he doesn’t want to hang out it’s fine.” Nathan took another swig of his PBR. “Are you even surprised at this point?”

            All of a sudden, Jacob’s brain felt like it was pushing against his skull. An intense migraine started to form and Jacob felt the world start to tilt.

            “Sorry guys, I’ll hang out later. I’m just not feeling well. I’ll see you later.”

Jacob quickly turned into his room and shut the door. He threw his backpack on the ground and climbed into bed. He knew that he should be doing homework or applying for internships, but the more he thought about it, the more his head hurt. He flipped onto his stomach and forced his eyes shut. He could hear his friends yelling and laughing in the room over. Jacob flipped back over onto his back. He started to run through a list of things to do and fix in his head. How to deal with his parents. How to deal with his friends. Money. Grades. Internships. Girlfriends. Jacob stopped and smiled at the last one. Meeting a girl was the very least of his problems right now. The worst part about everything was that no one knew about his problems. How does that even come up in conversation? Jacob ran through the potential conversation in his head.

            “Hey.”

            “Hey, look so I’m poor, my parents divorced and they don’t talk to me anymore, I’m failing my classes, I don’t have an internship or a girlfriend.”

Jacob shook his head. He didn’t want anyone else to worry or stress about him. He would just have to get over this hump by himself. Whatever. He’ll just think about it later.

            The door cracked open. A sliver of light swept over Jacob’s face but vanished as soon as Daniel closed the door.

            “Hey Jacob. Are you awake?”

            “Yeah I am, what’s up man?

            “Look I’m sorry for earlier. I didn’t mean to say that.”

            “It’s fine Daniel, I understand.”

            In the darkness, Jacob could hear Daniel shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Are you ok Jacob? Recently you haven’t seemed like yourself.”

            Jacob suddenly felt the knot in his stomach come back. “Yeah I’ve been alright, I think I’ve just been a little stressed recently. There’s a lot going on.”

            “Really? You’ve just been in your bed for most of the past few weeks.”

            “Oh really?” Jacob pushed his covers aside and sat up. “I guess that’s true. I should probably get out of bed. Is the game still going on?”

            “Yeah it is.”

            “I guess it’s time to watch the Knicks lose again.”

            “Let’s go baby.” Jacob followed Daniel out to the living room where his suitemates were all still watching the game intently.

            “Ay look who it is.” Nathan extended him a beer and a seat next to him.

            “Thanks man, wow - the Knicks are winning?”

            “I know today is a good day isn’t it?”

            Jacob just smiled and popped open his beer. As the game went on, Jacob laughed along and tried to act engaged in his friends’ conversations. But really, he didn’t find the topics funny or interesting. Eventually, the game came to an end and everyone went back to their respective rooms. As Jacob lay in his bed to go back to sleep, Daniel quietly said to him, “Jacob, I’m glad you’re ok.”

            “Same, Daniel, same.” Jacob turned to his side and the same knot in his stomach started to come back. He held his stomach, and exhaustion eventually took over his body.