Free Terminal Grill by Rosemary Aubert

hear this—you are so animated. But the journey is far too short.” With that he kissed me and stood to get off the train. We made plans to meet on campus after my class that night. I suggested an easy-to-reach street corner, but he said no. “I don’t like standing around on corners.”
    Finally, we settled on a building at the university and a flexible range of times in case neither of us could get there exactly when planned. He smiled and waved and got off.
    I couldn’t suppress the worry that he got off at Yonge and Bloor every day not to walk to the studio but to switch to the southbound train, maybe to wander aimlessly around the Eaton Centre or some other mall.
    I went to work. I went to school. I finished class. I waited. For an hour and fifteen minutes—with no sign of Matthew.The rainy night turned cold and wild with ripping winds that battered the still-bare trees.
    I waited so long that the building I was waiting in closed, though the kindly caretaker took pity on me and let me stand inside after he’d locked up.
    Finally, I gave up. I walked out of the building and toward the street, balancing on the curb and leaning into the traffic looking for a cab. The wind blew so hard that my clothes stung my body as they flapped around me, and the rain was a frigid, continuous slap in the face.
    I had not stood on the curb for more than a minute when I looked up to see a dark figure materialize out of the distance, running toward me, soaking wet, rain dripping from his coat, his eyes and hair blacker and more wild than the savage night.
    I opened my arms instinctively and he ran into them as if that was where he’d been headed forever. “You’ve got to take care of me,” he gasped. “I’m all drugged out ….”
    I clutched him, trying to pull him out of the driving rain and in under the flimsy shelter of my small umbrella. “Come on,” I said, “I’ll get us a cab.”
    â€œNo,” he insisted, “No. I want to get inside now. One of the buildings … one of the residences.”
    He seemed quite coherent, but he looked stranger than ever, so pale, so handsome, the black curls a tight wet tumble about his drawn face. He was helpless and childlike—lost, but also controlling, the way a skillful little boy is when he teeters on the verge of tantrum.
    I was freezing, but not scared. I felt my only concern was to get him out of the rain. He, however, turned out to be verychoosy about which building he wanted to be in. As we passed one after another, huddled tight together, he explained that it being the second to the last day of the video taping, the drug and sex dealers had arrived at the studio. He seemed to imply that he had no trouble passing up the “eighteen-year-olds,” but that he had succumbed to peer pressure and bought and consumed a huge quantity of drugs. He said he was very stoned, though he wasn’t acting what I considered out of control of himself.
    At long last—both of us wet and freezing—we arrived at the building he’d been seeking.
    It had an archway between two sections and set in the arch were the doors to each part. Matthew immediately went to the north door—the archway was brightly lit—and began yanking on it with a sort of almost-lazy anger. When the door refused to open, he began to pound on it. He seemed panicky, but, as always, there was a wall of some kind between him and his emotion, as if he didn’t have the strength, the interest to be fully angry.
    No one came to the door. Exasperated, he pulled me away from the door and leaned against the wall inside the front of the arch. From his pocket he pulled a handful of strange-looking things. He told me what they were, proudly, as if it were quite a coup for him to be in possession. But knowing nothing about drugs, I didn’t know what he was talking about.
    My pity for him was rapidly turning to