Fuller Than My Chest

We were all giddy to see the look on Callum’s face. 

The archetypal “Big Man on Campus.” Captain of the football team, president of the Gamma Delta Tau, and so connected that he could strangle a professor in the middle of an exam and still walk the stage as valedictorian. Guys like him float through this world, knowing that consequences are only for the “little people,” like me.

But he won’t float much longer.

The plan was mine. Garrett, Holly, Nick, and Natasha were eager to play their parts. To the average student, the name “Callum Holland” was synonymous with prestige and perfection, but for those closest to him, that name instead conjured words like “bully” and “narcissist.” So when the campus freak, for whom they had never spared a second thought, approached them after nightfall and pitched his diabolical scheme to knock Holland off of his precious pedestal, the four friends did not require any persuasion.

From the moment I learned the term “Machiavellian” at the age of 7, I had spent far too much of my free time cultivating the dark arts of scheming and manipulation. While the other fourth-graders were trying to make friends to sit with at lunch, I thought about how to trick Gerry into starting a fight with Justin so the recess aides would be distracted while I snuck away to push Madison into the mud and pin the blame on Susie. 

You can see why I’m considered the campus freak. 

I had hoped Princeton would be different. 700 miles from the Chicago prep school where I perpetually occupied the bottom of the social ladder, the Ivy League university promised a fresh start, a chance to reinvent myself and form genuine connections. Unfortunately, I had earned my way into Princeton with a full-ride scholarship, rather than being a legacy admission or having a relative donate $700,000. So, though it was a matter of incontrovertible fact that I was a student at Princeton University, I was never going to be “one of them”. But, just in case I didn’t get the hint, Callum Holland made it a point of pride to remind me every day.

Before I even made it to my first class, he “accidentally” bumped into me hard enough to send me to the ground while he and everyone walking by snickered at the campus’s new jester. By the end of the day, my backpack had been thrown into a dumpster, my lunch tray flipped onto my lap, and my reputation obliterated by stupid rumors about some double life as a serial killer (alas, I am not nearly that interesting). 

Last Saturday, I was sitting outside the commons “reminiscing” about this when I got a text. Well, in my opinion, that’s a generous way of referring to a row of five “cry-laughing” emojis followed by a flexed bicep. I did not want any risk to his cooperation, so I returned a thumbs-up. Before I could receive his equally dull reply, another number appeared on the screen. It was unknown and conveyed only three words: The Library. 12:20. There’s no A.M. or P.M. specified, so I’m confident I know the sender’s identity.

Three hours later, I arrived at the library. It was only moderately filled this weekend, with about a ⅓ of the computers and a ¼ of the tables occupied. Still, common sense said I should go upstairs to look for a more discreet area. Common sense was vindicated when I made it to the bottom of the steps, and looking up, I saw Callum Holland standing at the top. As soon I saw him, he quickly tilted his head to his left twice. I understand the message and begin to ascend the steps. 

From about six steps behind, I followed him to an empty conference room. This will only encourage good rumors, I think to myself. He goes in first, and I take about thirty seconds to follow him to be sure I am not seen.

“What the hell is this?” he whisper-yelled as he shoved his phone into my face.

 It was some peculiar browser, with a black background and a timer with thick red letters. “Some senior prank or something,” I replied with a nonchalant shrug of my shoulders. 

He grabbed me by the collar. “Listen freak, this has your bottom-feeder prints all over it.”

“It’s a friggin’ clock, the hell does it have to do with me?”

“It’s not just a clock,” he growled at me, releasing my collar as he did so. 

He swiped the screen to reveal more of the browser. I can see it in his body language: the slight tremor, the haste of his movements, and the tension in his facial features. I smirk to myself. The plan is working.

“The URL is CallumsCommupance.prince.net. Most of the page is just a bunch of gifs of me playing and shit,” he said as he shoved the phone back in my face. 

Indeed, the site had row after row of Callum’s best football plays repeating in four-second loops. “I’m so sorry you have another adoring sycophant slobbering ove-” My witty reply was cut short by a sharp burst of pain in my left rib cage. I dropped to the ground as gracefully as I could, propping myself up on my right knee. The snot-nosed putz had sucker-punched me. Before I could threaten a lawsuit, the back of his left hand flew across my face, and, stripped of any remaining dignity, I fell to my side. 

Just as he was about to begin a swear-ladden tirade about me “knowing my place” or some other classist BS when there was a knock on the door. We were both silent for a few seconds before there was a second knock. “Cal, you in there?” a familiar, feminine voice inquired.

Stage 3 had begun.

The door opened, revealing Holly’s deceptively innocent face. “There you are, silly,” she said like a patronizing babysitter. 

“What are you-” was all Callum could say before Holly shoved a blue powder in his face.

I’m no slouch in chemistry but the efficacy of the formula was still astounding to watch. Callum was out for two whole hours before a librarian found him. Now, all that was left was Stage 4. When Princeton’s Big Man woke up in the infirmary, his parents were there to politely explain he was heading straight to rehab. Callum’s attempts at protesting were pre-emptively undercut by all four of his closest friends tearfully “confessing” to the Hollands and the dean the severity and the toll of Callum’s cocaine habit. Worst of all, he had been buying a new blue variant that was supposedly four times as potent as regular white coke. He was lucky to be alive!

The five of us waved him a backhanded goodbye as his parents drove him away. We laughed and laughed and laughed until I noticed I was the only one laughing. I headed back to my dorm, where I found a note from my roommate informing me that a family emergency had summoned him home for the foreseeable future. It fell from my hand into the trash before I laid down in bed.

I stared at the ceiling. Painted white, but showing age. Empty of meaning. Yet, it looked fuller than my chest.