Luke was praising God when his parents' Ford Focus stopped in front of the O1 parking lot. He couldn't take the awkward questions his parents were throwing at him.

"So, what are your dinner plans for your first date? Are you going to make any reservations?" his dad asked.

"Make sure you get in touch with her, don't be a punk," his father advised. "Otherwise you'll take her to a seafood place when she's allergic to it, and then she'll end up itching all over, or dead from suffocation."

"That's true. People are allergic to everything these days."

"And make sure you pay for her food on this date and special occasions. After that it's equal rights. She won't cough up half, kick her to the curb."

"Gold diggers are a real nuisance, aren't they?"

"And another thing, don't try to have sex at the end of the date. You want this thing to last."

"Don't wanna be latched to a hooker."

"Finally..."

"Okay!" Luke shouted. "I get it."

"We just wanna make sure your first date is on fleek," his dad said.

"Exactly. We raised a gentleman, not a savage."

"I'll make sure to keep that in mind," Luke said as he undid the lock and opened the door to leave the car. "Thanks for the ride. I think I got it from here."
"Sure you don't want us to accompany you to your suite?" his dad asked.

"Babe, I think he's got it." His father wagged a finger at him, "Remember my advice, and you'll have yourself a steady relationship."

"Our little boy is growing up," his dad smiled. "I remembered when we first saw you. The lady who ran the foster care said to us, 'You don't want that kid. He's a little out of it.' We knew right there we had to adopt you." His dad was lost in memory. The reference to a time he barely remembered jogged back those images he saw before he woke up at the hospital.

He closed the door and his father rolled down the window. "Good luck son."

Luke waved and motioned towards the hill leading up to O1. Then he stopped and turned around, "Did they ever tell you where they found me? Not who my parents were, I know they didn't know."

"It was a stork," his dad said. "Might as well have been."

"Yeah, they had no clue. They found you at their doorstep sleeping on an open scroll. Freaking weird."

Luke thought to himself, Did Michael come back for me and drop me off at the orphanage? Or was it that—that thing that made me feel all warm?

Luke shook his head. Those images, they were just a dream montage. They mean nothing. Why should I think of them as memories?

"Why do you ask?" his dad wondered.

"Just curious," Luke said. "Talk to you guys later."

Luke waved at his parents and took off towards his dorm, Opus Hall, AKA O1. Opus Hall was a seven-story dormitory at the far reaches of campus, just scraping the wooded sections where deer and squirrels mingled together with students who came to smoke some of the plants that the animals fed off of.

Inside, the building was beginning to see wear and tear. The walls of the three elevators were ripping, leaving some sections where just planks of wood could be seen. It had been repaired and fixed on multiple occasions, only to be rendered back to its dismal shape after St. Patrick's Day celebrations year after year. The school just decided to leave it as is. It functioned fine, it was safe, and it was still among the fastest elevators on campus—zero to seven real quick.

Luke would always take the elevators. He lived on the seventh floor. It had a nice view of the Metro, D.C.'s rapid transit system, as it sped parallel to the easternmost edge of campus, although Luke would argue that "rapid" wasn't a fitting adjective for the Metro. Luke opened the door to his room, 703, and found Alex and Gio on the couch playing video games.

"Holy shit you're alive!" Alex stood up quickly. "We thought you died in the fire."

Gio expressed a sigh of relief and got up to hug Luke, "Thank God you didn't. I don't think I could've lived with myself knowing we left you behind."

"Me too," Alex said as he joined the group hug and crushed Luke and Gio.

"Alright, glad you guys care so much for me, now let me go," Luke squealed.

When they set him free, Luke turned to them and asked, "Is Kev here?"

Gio nodded, "Locked up in his room. Be careful going in, he may be..."

Alex finished his sentence by touching his privates. Luke turned away and gagged, "Don't, that's gross."

Luke turned to head to his room and Alex called him back, "Don't think you can just walk away without telling us where you've been. Only news we heard was that you were taken away by an ambulance along with some other girl."

"Well I'm okay now. Just some minor smoke inhalation."

"Who was the girl we heard you saved?" Gio asked.

"Some red head called Nellie."

"Was she hot?" Alex asked as the door to the suite swung open. Standing at the doorway was Alex's girlfriend Jenny. Jenny was a skinny short girl who probably didn't weigh pass a hundred pounds. She had long blond hair and wore excessive amounts of eyeliner and lipstick. "Hey guys. Alex can I speak to you for a moment."

Alex grudgingly stood up and pleaded like a child, "Do we have to? Why can't we talk out here...you know where there are witnesses."

Jenny said nothing and just walked into his single. She opened the door and stood by it waiting patiently. Alex sighed and trudged his way to his room. Once inside, Jenny closed the door behind him.

Gio changed the TV source settings to cable and raised the volume.

Fox news blared in the background, talking about the recent flooding crisis in New York City. The news anchor's voice was fighting with the muffled ruckus going on in Alex's room.

"You said you were busy," Alex's muffled voice reached Luke and Gio in the living room.

"That doesn't mean you go without me you dick!" Jenny mouthed off.

A loud bang rumbled from the room. Gio shook his head and reached for the remote, "For a tiny girl, she's feisty."

"You think we should do something?" Luke asked.

Gio raised up the volume on the TV, "Nah, don't bother. It's just young love. It'll end up in sex anyway. Don't cock-block him."

Glass shattered inside Alex's single. "There better not be another woman!"

"Are you crazy!" Alex responded.

"You'll face worse if you keep lying to me Alex. I better not catch you with another one of those senior wh...."

Gio raised up the volume on the TV to its loudest level. Luke shook his head and went to his double at the end of the suite hallway. He knocked and opened the door and found his roommate Kevin sitting at his desk with a pile of books scattered across and around his laptop, like a fortress nearly blocking him from view.

"Oh great, you're back," he mumbled without looking at Luke. "How was the party?"

"It was fire. How was studying?"

"About as great as having a vasectomy without anesthesia."

"Psychology paper that bad?"

"Oh, I could probably finish it by tonight if the occupants of 703B would keep their domestic quarrels to a low volume."

"You could hear it in here too?" Luke asked as he shut the door and listened in. He heard more banging and shouting, although the words were less audible in the double.

"See what I mean. I swear, that woman has an attachment issue."

Luke laughed, "You can say that again."

"I bet you have no clue what that even means," Kev said while typing away on his computer. His straight hair looked like a haphazardly built bird's nest, as if he had not taken a break from working in days. He wore a gray hoodie, since his desk was by the window and a chilly draft would leak into the room, much to the awareness of Luke—not because he felt it, but because Kev always complained about it.

"What's not to get about attachment issues? It's pretty straightforward."

"Enlighten me," Kev said while taking his eyes away from the screen to riffle through a book.

"You know, like she just—always want to be around him and stuff."

"That'd be an acceptable answer from a second grader, not a freshman in college."

"Well then lecture me," Luke said knowing that he was in for a lecture anyway.

"Attachment issues stems from attachment theory. When you were a young baby, you were a fragile, inept, little sucker that constantly needed attention in order to poop, fart, and cry another day. Your mother—or at least in your case some caretaker—fed you, quenched your thirst, and wiped your butt for years. As with allowing anyone close enough to your bum, you develop a bond with the person. You need that person in order to survive. You become attached to the person and develop an emotional bond."

"Okay, I get it." Luke said. "Alex is the baby and Jenny is the mom."

"Wrong as always," Kev closed one book and went back to typing. "Maybe if you listen more, maybe—just maybe—you may learn something."

Luke muttered curses beneath his breath. Kev continued, "Anyway, if you are neglected by the caretaker and somehow survive, then you will grow up with a grudge. You won't be excited around your caretaker, and it will impact you emotionally beyond childhood. Noticing how your caretaker has abandoned you, you will go through life making damn well sure no one else does the same. So, when a corrupted youth, not unlike yourself, is raised in a neglectful houseful (or none at all), blossoms into an adolescent, then into an adult, and starts learning about the birds and the bees and heads off to start intimate relationships, you develop that emotional bond that you lacked as a child with your partner. Only problem is, you are determined to keep that bond permanent."

"Why I have a feeling this is just a convoluted way of attacking me," Luke said.

"I'm narrating in the second-person Luke. I know those types of books are rare, but please, if I insulted you, you wouldn't be able to find out. Now, because you insist, I'll apply it to the situation that is louder than turtles having sexual intercourse in front of a microphone."

"You watch turtle porn too?" Luke smiled. That was a good one, he congratulated himself.

Kev ignored his comment, "Jenny must've been neglected as a child. Possibly her father left her mother, who had to work multiple jobs in a single parent household and didn't have the time and pleasure to spend with her child. Jenny felt abandoned. Jenny grew up with that lack of a proper attachment. She finds said attachment when she dates Alex. She is determined not to give him up. Jenny, much like any infant, responds with anxiety when she notices that her bond risks being severed. Depending on the trigger, in this case going to a college party without her and knowing that Alex is coveted by other females, she has to react quickly to prevent some random senior 'thot' from 'stealing her man.' She confronts him, usually in a violent manner. Conflict ensues. Having asserted herself properly and keeping close tabs on Alex and his movements, she seeks to exert control over him. She may threaten him..."

As if on cue, Jenny's voice muffled through the walls, "I swear if you do that again I'll go to the police..."

"Like that," Kev pointed his pencil over his neck.

"Oh my God," Luke said. "You don't think..."

"Alex is the victim here. Trust me, I've heard their battles plenty of times, and he hasn't won a single one. Why you think he pits the bruises and cuts on football and training? Who would take him seriously, especially in this country, if he came out and said a hobbit of a girl was abusing him? He'd be the laughing stock of campus."

"But, if we know it's her fault, isn't there anything we can do?"

"There is, but we live in a society where it's always assumed that men are the aggressors. She has the power of inflicting self-harm and claiming Alex did it. She has the power of claiming sexual assault, even rape. There was a time when the scales were shifted too far to one side—where rape wasn't being taken seriously. Now it is, and it's a good thing. Yet now, the scales have tipped over towards the opposite side and any accusation, particularly from a female, might as well be the trial by jury."

"Still, getting back to the point, you're telling me there's nothing we can do to stop this?"

"You could knock on the door. Both sides tend to wish to keep their domestic violence covered up—one for obvious reasons, the other usually because of shame and fear."

"You could've just said that from the beginning," Luke said as he opened the door and headed out into the hallway. He approached Alex's suite, 703B, where the argument was still ongoing, and knocked on the door. The voices were silenced immediately. Luke spoke, "Alex, I wanna review my math answers with you—make sure you don't fail again."

There was some shuffling and Jenny opened the door, rotated that frown upside down, and scooted by Luke, "You should really get Alex to clean up his room. God knows I can't."

"I'll keep that in mind," Luke said as Jenny made her way towards the exit of the suite and out the door.

Luke peeked his head into the room and saw Alex sitting on his desk with his hand over his head. Books were scattered across the floor, the sheets on his bed were torn off, and shards of glass from a broken cup mingled on the Philadelphia Eagles rug he had on the ground. A tornado had passed through Alex's room. "Dude, you're alright?"

"Yeah man," he sniffled a bit. Then he raised his voice. "I said yeah! Now go, I gotta clean this mess up."

Gio had gotten off the couch and was near Luke. He placed his hand on Luke's shoulder, "I got this from here." He went inside and closed the door behind Luke, shutting him out from the conversation.

If you had it, then why did you wait for me to intervene to finally do something? Luke thought to himself. Luke stuck around a bit to listen in.

He overheard Alex mumbling, "First the takeover, now this."

"You gotta let her in man," Gio said. "It'll make half your life much easier."

"I just can't let her in to control me and boss me around like that."

"She's already in, so make the best of it. Imagine the things you two can do together if you stop fighting each other. Imagine the power you can unlock if you just give in."

"How—how can I do that?"

"Just speak to her."

The conversation fell dead for a bit, and Luke took that as his cue to head back to his room before they found out that he had been listening in on their conversation. While heading back, Luke thought to himself, that's odd. Why is Gio giving Alex, the lady's man, the one actually in a relationship, advice? Gio could barely talk to girls unless he's drunk.

When Luke entered back into the room and closed the door, he was greeted by Kev's monotone voice, "I was right."

Luke changed into his sleep clothes as night had fallen, "Yeah, yeah."

"If you ask me, I can't understand how that big oaf could catch a football let alone a girl like that."

Luke didn't say a word. He covered himself under the covers and became lost in his own thoughts.

Those images I saw while waking up, I just can't shake them loose. The fire in the palm of the winged man's hand reaching towards me...and then what happened last night. Did I start the fire? How could I? How could I even summon a flame like that? Was I rubbing my hands the wrong way?

Eventually, his lack of answers to the surmounting questions tired him out and he fell asleep.

*________________________________________________*

Author's Note

So remember when I said I wrote this for a theology class in the Spring of 2018? Well you might be wondering what this has to do with theology or school for that matter. Finally, in this chapter you see a bit of what the class was about. Attachment Theory, explained thoroughly by Kev in this chapter, is viewed as a possible explanation as to why domestic violence occurs. The person, usually the man, feels like he is losing his significant other, and having grown up with attachment issues with his parents, he doesn't want to lose this special attachment he has gained. 

With regards to domestic violence, my professor brought up music to show domestic violence from multiple vantage points, from the victim, to the oppressor, to an outsider. One song that has a good mixture of both the victim and the oppressor is Love the Way You Lie by Eminem Feat. Rihanna. Eminem raps verses explaining why someone would be violent towards someone they love and takes us inside the mine of a violent spouse. Rihanna takes us into the mind of a victim and why she struggles to leave. If you haven't heard the song before, you can listen to it below:

https://youtu.be/uelHwf8o7_U

Through Kev I try to explain one possible explanation that psychologists have provided to explain why someone may be violent in a relationship, i.e. Attachment Theory. Speaking of Kev, what are your thoughts of him? Did Kev do a good job telling you about Attachment Theory? On a less serious note, if you were to go to college and had to be roommates with Kev, what would your reaction be?

I hope you're starting to get attached to the story. 

Catch you in Chapter 4.

- L. A. Rivera