I rode my bike south on Andrews Road toward campus. I had an hour before my class started, but I would rather sit around on campus than at home, and I also felt like having a couple slices of the really good pizza that they made at the student-run Coffee House for lunch. I enjoyed feeling the warmth of the sun on me as I pedaled the familiar route, especially knowing that its time was limited. Late October in Jeromeville was very pleasant weather, with a high temperature of around 75 degrees today, but if this year was anything like the previous four years I had spent in Jeromeville, the weather would suddenly get cold and possibly rainy a few weeks from now.
I parked my bike at the Quad, locked it, picked up a copy of today’s Daily Colt campus newspaper and read the front page as I stood in line for pizza. When I sat at a table with my food a few minutes later, I saw Eddie Baker walking toward me. “Hey, Greg,” Eddie said. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” I replied. “You?”
“I’m good. Meeting with some of the Bible study leaders later, but I got here early.”
Eddie graduated in June, as did I. This year he was working part time on staff with Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, a chapter of a national organization called Intervarsity. Dave McAllen and his wife Janet were the head staff of JCF; I assumed that this was the Dave that he would be meeting.
He continued, “Shouldn’t you be in Nueces student teaching now?”
“I’m just there for the first three periods, until 10:58. Then I come back home. I have a class on campus today at 1.”
“I see. How’s teaching going?”
“Not bad. One of the students got suspended this week.”
“Wow. What did he do?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but I heard the master teacher say it was drug related.”
“Dang. How old are these kids again?”
“High school. He’s a junior. But taking geometry, which is normally for sophomores, so already he isn’t exactly the best student.”
“Yeah. Do your students like you?”
“Some do, some don’t, I guess.”
“That makes sense. I was thinking earlier, are you all serious, or do you ever joke around with the students? I had a teacher in high school who joked around a lot. He was really funny.”
“I’m still figuring out what is and isn’t ok to do. But I joke around a little. Like last week was Homecoming, and for some reason they did something where the nominees for Homecoming Court had to do silly things. One day they weren’t allowed to talk, and if a teacher called on them, they had to act things out and answer without talking. And two of the nominees were in my class, so I called on them as often as I could. At least until they got really tired of it.
“That’s great,” Eddie replied, laughing. “Hey, I wanted to tell you, Friday after JCF people are hanging out at our house. You’re invited.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks! Yeah, I’ll be there! That sounds like fun!”
I was excited the following night on my way to JCF. Of course, I should be excited about JCF every week, because I got to worship God with over a hundred other University of Jeromeville students, and I got to learn about the Bible. But I had to admit that this week felt more exciting than usual because of Eddie’s party afterward. I had made a lot of great friends in the three years since I first got involved with JCF, but I also often felt slightly on the outside of the cliques that formed within the group. Knowing in advance about something social happening afterward gave me one less thing to worry about this week.
This year, JCF met in the large lecture hall at 2101 Harding Hall. I walked in and looked around for a seat. I arrived early enough that there were plenty of empty seats. As I looked around, something registered in my mind as being out of place. It took me a few seconds to process what I saw, after which I did a double take and looked again, because the whole scene was confusing the more I thought about it.
Haley Channing stood across the room from me, talking to Tabitha Sasaki. Haley was accompanied by a middle-aged man whom I was pretty sure was her father. I had met Mr. Channing once before, a couple years ago when Haley’s parents came to visit for the weekend of the Spring Picnic. This was shortly after I met Haley, before her mother passed. Also with them was a skinny sandy-haired freshman boy named Brennan, whom I had seen around JCF this year but never actually spoken to.
Why was Haley here? She graduated. She moved back home, hundreds of miles away. Apparently she was up here visiting, which made sense because she still knew people in Jeromeville. Tabitha, for example. But why was she talking to Brennan? He and Haley did not go to JCF at the same time; Brennan was a freshman, and Haley graduated last spring before Brennan started here. Did they know each other from somewhere else, or did Haley just meet Brennan tonight? And why was Haley’s father here? He had probably met some of Haley’s Jeromeville friends over the years, but would he really travel that far with Haley on what was likely at least an overnight trip just to see his daughter’s friends? Haley had an older brother who graduated two years ahead of us, and I know he still lived in Jeromeville last year. Maybe Haley’s brother still lived in Jeromeville, and Mr. Channing came up to see him too. Maybe he just wanted to get away for a weekend. It had been two years since Mrs. Channing passed, and grief hits people in unexpected ways sometime.
I sat down and decided not to go talk to Haley right away. Maybe later, but not right now. I did not want to interrupt whatever Haley and the people around her were talking about. I had been called out for that before; once at JCF when her mother had recently passed, she was talking to her friends, I asked what was wrong, and I was told later that it was weird how I kept trying to talk to her. It would be better to wait for the right time. After all, everything was going to feel weird with Haley around, and it was none of my business why her father was here or how she knew Brennan.
Not necessarily, I told myself. I had no reason to feel weird around Haley. Sure, she did not like me back, she did not feel the same way about me as I felt about her, but we had coexisted peacefully at JCF for a year and a half after that conversation, until she moved away last summer. I had no reason to believe things would be any different today than how they were during that time of peacefully coexisting.
At the end of the night, after the worship and message ended, I wandered in the general direction of where Haley and her father were, saying hi to a few others along the way. While I did not want to interrupt or try too hard, I did not want to be completely aloof either. Haley’s pretty blue eyes looked up at me as I approached, and she smiled. “Greg!” she exclaimed. “How are you?”
“Pretty good. It’s good to see you again.”
“You’ve met my dad right?”
“Yes,” I said. Mr. Channing gestured to shake my hand, and I shook back.
Haley then gestured toward Brennan and asked, “Have you met my brother, Brennan?”
Brennan was Haley’s younger brother! That explained so much! Haley’s father was up here visiting his son, newly away at school, and Haley came along for the ride since she still had friends in Jeromeville from her time here. “I’ve seen him around, but I didn’t know he was your brother.”
“Brennan, this is Greg. He was in my year, and he’s still in Jeromeville, student teaching now. Right, Greg?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Nice to meet you,” Brennan said, shaking my hand.
“How’s teaching going?” Haley asked. “Are you actually teaching the class, or just helping out? How does it work?”
“It’s going pretty well. I’m mostly just helping out now, but the two master teachers I’m working with are going to gradually let me start teaching lessons soon. By January I’ll be doing most of the teaching myself.”
“What classes? And which school? I forget.”
“Geometry and Basic Math B, at Nueces High.”
“So you drive from Jeromeville to Nueces every day?”
“Yeah. I’m there for the first three periods, then I come back here and have education classes at UJ in the afternoon.”
“That’s great!”
I looked at Brennan again, then back to Haley, and said, “So all three siblings in your family ended up going to Jeromeville?”
“Yeah! Ever since Brennan and I visited Christian when he was a freshman, we both really liked it!”
“It’s worked out well for our family,” Mr. Channing added. “We had dinner with Christian before this, and we’ll see him again tomorrow.”
“That’s good.”
“Are you going to the party at the De Anza house tonight?” Haley asked.
“Yeah! Will I see you there?”
“Yes. We’re gonna take Dad back to the hotel in a bit, then head over there.”
“Sounds good.”
I lingered around Harding Hall to talk to as many people as I could after JCF. I was one of the last to leave, so when I finally arrived at Eddie’s house on De Anza Drive in north Jeromeville, the party was already packed. I saw many of the JCF regulars there, along with a significant number of people I did not know. I assumed that many of the people I did not know were freshman or new transfer students who had just begun attending JCF this quarter. I had not met all of the new students.
The De Anza house had a large living room with couches and a television in front. A stairway to the right of the front door led upstairs to four bedrooms, and a long dining and family room extended across the back of the house. A dining room table and another couch were in that room, along with a foosball table. A few minutes after I walked in, I heard shouting coming from the back. I headed in the direction of the shouting and saw Brent Wang and Todd Chevallier on one side of the foosball table and Colin Bowman and Andrew Bryant on the other side. Colin and Andrew each had their pants down around their ankles, playing in T-shirts and boxer shorts. “What is going on?” I asked.
Jason Costello, one of the housemates who lived at the house, pointed to the score counters and explained, “House rule. If you go down seven to nothing, you have to drop your pants.”
“Okay,” I said, shaking my head. Kind of silly, and inappropriate, but typical of things that male university students might come up with.
I wandered around for a few minutes, saying hi to people, asking what they were doing, and answering their inevitable questions about my student teaching. About half an hour after I got there, Eddie asked me if I wanted to play Mafia. I excitedly said yes and walked toward the couch at the far end of the back room where the Mafia game was forming. I had played this game a few times both with friends from JCF and with the youth group at church. In the game, led by a narrator who was not playing, three players would secretly be chosen as the Mafia, the doctor, and the detective. Some people played with two Mafia, especially in large groups, but for this game we only had one. In each round, with no one looking or knowing, the Mafia would secretly choose a person to assassinate. Then the doctor would secretly choose a person to revive, attempting to guess who had been assassinated. Finally, the detective would secretly choose one person, and the narrator would silently communicate to the detective whether or not that person was Mafia. The living players would then discuss and choose to accuse someone of being Mafia. The accused player would be executed, eliminated from the game, and if this player was not in fact Mafia, the process would repeat until the killer had been correctly identified, or until the killer had killed everyone.
John Harvey, one of the other housemates here who, like Eddie, was on staff part time with JCF, was the narrator. He passed out face down slips of paper with the roles randomly written on them. I discreetly looked at my paper; I had no special role.
John stood in the middle of the players, who formed a rough circle. Seth Huang, Ellie Jo Raymond, and Autumn Davies were squeezed onto the couch with me. Todd Chevallier, no longer playing foosball, sat in a recliner. Eddie sat on one of three chairs that he had brought over from the dining room table, with the other two occupied by girls I did not know, probably freshmen. One of them still had her name tag from JCF on; it said “Stacie.” Haley and Brennan sat on the floor, along with Ajeet Tripathi, Leah Eckert, Tim Walton, and Brianna Johns.
I closed my eyes with everyone else as John asked each of the people in special roles to make their selections, one at a time. When I opened my eyes with the others, John said, “Greg! You have been assassinated. And the doctor was unable to revive you.”
That was a quick game for me, I thought. I had no further role in this game, but I could watch the proceedings. And I was curious to know who had picked me to go out first. The other players threw out various speculative theories of who was responsible, with none of them drawing much of a reaction until Ellie Jo pointed at Autumn and said, “Autumn has been awfully quiet through all of this.”
“What? Me?” Autumn exclaimed.
“You’re right,” Eddie said. “She has. I think it’s Autumn.”
“I would never hurt Greg! Greg is my friend, and I’m, well, shaken up at his death.” Autumn gestured as if she were holding back tears, but it was easy to see that she was not actually crying, since she was also holding back laughter. “These accusations against me are the last thing I need in this time of tragedy!” she exclaimed.
“It’s totally Autumn,” Ajeet concurred.
“Are you ready to vote?” John asked. Autumn continued trying to defend herself and clear her name, but everyone else wanted to vote. “Three, two, one, go!” John said. As John said “go,” Autumn pointed at Ellie Jo, and everyone else pointed at Autumn.
John said, “Autumn is not the Mafia. Put your heads down.” Everyone groaned, with some making expressions of surprise. Since Autumn and I were out of the game, we were no longer required to put our heads down. When John called for the mafia to awaken and choose the next victim, Stacie opened her eyes and smiled. I was not expecting Stacie to be the killer, although I knew nothing about how she operated in games like this since I did not know her. She pointed at Eddie. Tim was the doctor, and he pointed at Ellie Jo. Ajeet was the detective; he pointed at Brianna, and John shook his head no.
“Everyone, wake up,” John announced. “Eddie, you were murdered in the night.”
“Me?” Eddie said incredulously. “What did I do?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know, but you can’t talk. You’re dead.”
Everyone looked around, trying to figure out who could be responsible. Todd spoke up after a few seconds. “Okay, hear me out. I have a theory. Let’s look at this. Who did the Mafia take out first? Greg. And then Eddie. These were not random victims. Greg and Eddie graduated. They have degrees. They’re going to be powerful and influential in this game. Who else would target the people with degrees? Someone who also has a degree and knows these two well. And the only other person here with a degree is Haley.”
“No!” Haley replied, laughing. “It wasn’t me! These two were in my year! We’ve been through so much together! I’m not going to murder them!”
“That sounds like something that you would say if you were secretly in the Mafia,” Stacie suggested.
“Yeah! She’s right!” Ajeet shouted. Others shouted concurring sentiments.
“I think we’re ready to vote,” Todd told John. John counted down, and most of the surviving players pointed at Haley.
“Haley is not Mafia,” John said. “Put your heads down.”
The game continued for several more rounds. Ajeet was the next to be targeted, and since he was the detective, that conveniently eliminated the possibility of the detective learning who the killer was, and using that to sway the discussion. No one ever suspected Stacie, and she ended up winning, successfully eliminating everyone without ever getting voted out herself. Todd, the last player eliminated, said, “Really? It was Stacie?”
“It was,” Stacie replied. “And I fooled all of you.”
“So taking out Greg and Eddie first? That was just coincidence?” Todd asked.
“Yeah. I didn’t know they graduated. Just a lucky guess.”
“Well played,” I told Stacie. “Good game.”
“Thanks,” she replied.
The drive home from the De Anza house only took a few minutes, since my house was only about a mile away. I did not leave until almost one in the morning; by then, the party had wound down, and most of the guests had left. As I drove home in the cold, clear night, my thoughts were on Haley. I thought about what could have been, what might have happened had things gone differently two years ago. Then, as I pulled up to the red light to make a left turn onto Andrews Road, I made myself remember that this was not meant to be, and that it was pointless to think about it now. I tried making myself think about other things, but my mind was back on Haley by the time I got home and went to bed.
I never saw her again after that night, and as is often the case when I have just seen someone for the last time, I did not realize at the time that it was the last time I would see her. Back in 1998, people had to make much more effort to stay connected than they do now. She never specifically mentioned wanting to stay in contact with me, and I did not feel comfortable asking her for her contact information, given our history. It might make me look desperate trying too hard to stay in touch with someone who rejected me. At some point in the 2010s, I saw her on Facebook where it suggests people you may know, and I recognized her even though she had a different last name. I did not try to contact her. If she were ever to initiate contact with me, I would accept, since she was my friend in the past. But I still do not feel right reaching out to her, for the same reasons as before.
I did not understand it then, but growing apart from people is just a natural part of life, and there is not much I can do about it. Not everyone was meant to be a part of my life forever, nor was I meant to be part of everyone else’s lives forever. Haley would not be part of my life going forward, not romantically, not platonically, and at some point, I came to make peace with that. I would make new friends. Some of them would become part of my life forever, and others would pass out of my life a few years later just as Haley did.
Readers: Have you ever had a former love interest or significant other show up somewhere unexpected? How did that go? Tell me about it in the comments.
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Don't Let The Days Go By 