Extraordinary Means

Sadie caught me staring and gri

“Hey, trick or treat?” she asked.

“Trick?” I said hopefully.

“Too bad, I only have a treat.”

She pressed the last fun-size Twix into my hand. I tore it open, and the chocolate oozed out, getting everywhere.

“It’s all melty,” I complained, and Sadie smiled sadly.

“Not even chocolate lasts forever,” she said.

CHARLIE REFUSED TO hang out with us on Sunday night. He didn’t have the bridge right on his new song, he said. It wasn’t working, and no, he couldn’t just leave it, he’d lose the momentum.

So it was just Nick and me. Nick still wasn’t happy about my dating Sadie, but he was getting better about it. I guess it didn’t bother him as much now that we’d get out of here so soon. He talked constantly about how the girls back home would think he was so deep, and his biggest problem was going to be keeping up with all his ladies. I didn’t want to ruin his fantasy, so I nodded and said, yeah, totally.

That night, in a fit of nostalgia, Nick insisted that we play Mario Kart. Except he’d loaned his disc to Carlos from the second floor, so we went down to try and get it back.

But Carlos couldn’t find it. We stood there in the doorway while he sifted through the endless crap in his drawers, looking for the thing.

“I swear I had it, like, this week,” he said. “Hold on. There’s only five places it would be.”

Carlos opened his wardrobe and started tossing stuff onto his bed, like he thought maybe he’d hung up Nick’s disc by accident.

Nick rolled his eyes over it.

“We could play something else,” I said. “You could show me the crossbow trick on that Blood Stakes game.”

And then we heard a shrill electronic beeping from another room. It sounded like an alarm clock, or a timer. Except louder, and somehow more foreboding.

Beep-beep-beep beeeeep! Beep-beep-beep beeeeep!

Nick and Carlos stiffened immediately.

“Shit,” Carlos said, letting the sweatshirt he was holding fall to the floor.

The beeping continued, and I wondered why no one turned it off, and why everyone was reacting so strangely.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Med sensor,” Nick said grimly.

My eyes met Nick’s. He looked afraid.

“Come on,” he said, yanking me into the hall.

The beeping continued. Other doors started to open, the residents of the second floor looking around. Some guys from the third floor had come down the stairs and were poking their heads over the banister.

“Who is it?” someone asked.

An Asian kid in a towel pushed open the door to the bathroom, shampoo still in his hair.

“Chandler?” he called.

“Not me, dude,” a heavyset kid said.

“Shit,” Nick whispered. “The nurse is coming!”

Most of us were in the hallway at that point, rubbernecking, and Nurse Monica had to wade through it.

Med sensors went off only if your vitals spiked pretty badly, if you needed immediate medical attention. Most of the time anyone that sick was already staying in the medical building.

“Move!” she snapped. “You know better!”

“Where’s Charlie?” I said.

“Oh God,” Nick said, going pale.

The beeping was coming from Charlie’s room.

Nick and I started pushing to the front, and I couldn’t remember being more terrified. My heart was hammering, and I felt like I was going to throw up. It couldn’t be Charlie. It couldn’t be.

Nurse Monica banged open the door.

And there was Charlie, hunched over his desk, while two naked dudes went at it on his giant cinema display. From the huge bottle of lotion and his lack of pants, it was obvious what he was up to.

The entire hallway was in hysterics.

“Oh-oh,” Nurse Monica said. Clearly she’d been expecting a different kind of disaster.

“Fuck!” Charlie gasped. “Shut the door!”

“Yo, that’s dude on dude,” this guy Preston called out, thinking he was very astute.

“Gross! Turn it off!” someone yelled.

“More like turn it on!” someone else said.

“That’s enough!” Nurse Monica scolded. “Go away! Back to your rooms!”

And then she barged into Charlie’s room and shut the door.

I could hear her in there, trying to calm him down while he yelped, “Get away, oh my God, I’m fine!”

“That,” Nick said, “is probably my greatest fear.”

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.

“Oh, he’ll never live it down,” Nick said gleefully, and then he saw the look on my face. “Yeah, dude’s fine. He just jerked off so hard he triggered his med sensor.”

“I thought that was an urban legend.”

I mean, I’d never had that problem? And I’d assumed from the, uh, general activity on my hallway that it wasn’t a usual thing. I’d heard some guys joking about it, but I’d figured it was just one of those freak-out-the-new-kid things.

“Nah, it happens sometimes, if you’re, like, really going at it. The thing is not to rush. You’ve gotta get your heart rate down just enough—”

“Shut up,” I said.

“You’ve gotta do, like, yoga breathing,” he continued.

“Seriously, shut up.”

“Hey, I’m just giving you some free advice here,” he said. “So you don’t wind up being the next victim of the med sensor.”

“No offense, but I don’t want to think about you when I’ve got my dick in my hand.”

“Aha!” Nick accused. “Aha! So you and Sadie haven’t yet made the tiny little love muffins!”

I didn’t even know what to say in response. Or why Nick thought our love muffins were so tiny. Maybe we had massive love muffins. How did he know?

“This really is the darkest timeline,” I said, shaking my head as we walked back upstairs.

“Of course it is. We’re all sick virgins. Except for Charlie, who’s a sick gay virgin dumb enough to tilt his computer screen right at the freaking door,” Nick said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t want to be him tomorrow.”

FROM THE WAY Charlie slunk into the dining hall the next morning, it was obvious he wanted to disappear. And I didn’t blame him. The guys in our dorm were still laughing over his misfortune, and I was pretty sure the story was about to make the rounds, if it hadn’t already.

“What’s going on?” Marina asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at us.

“Nothing,” I said, shrugging. But Nick must have smirked, because Marina stared us down until he told her.

“Um, Charlie’s sensor went off last night,” Nick said, and then quickly took a huge bite of toast so he didn’t have to say anything else.

Marina gasped.

“Charlie, are you okay?” Sadie asked, looking concerned.

Charlie sank even lower in his seat, until his chin was level with the table. He looked awful, like he’d been up all night.

“Dontwa

That guy Preston sailed past our table.

“Hey, homo, hands where we can see ’em,” he called, laughing.

“Hey, Preston, you’re an asshole,” Nick called back.

Charlie put his head down on the table and sighed.

“Nick,” Sadie said, sounding stern. “Tell us right now.”

And so, laughing the entire time, Nick told them.

When he was finished, Marina was gri

“Just one of the many reasons why it’s better to be a girl,” Sadie said, which just about killed me, thinking of her doing that.

“The entire floor saw?” Marina said. “Like, all of them?”

“Seventy-five percent. Plus Lane and me,” Nick said.

“It isn’t fu

“She is a mom,” Nick said. “Her kids are adorable. I’ve seen pictures.”

“Oh, shut up,” Charlie said. “I hate this stupid sensor. I wish I could just disable it.”

“Actually . . . ,” Sadie said, and we all stared at her.

“You know how to turn it off?” Charlie asked eagerly.

Sadie shrugged, exactly the way she did when she tossed a bag of contraband candy onto the bed, or got held after class by Fi