Envy by Sandra Brown

instructor was a grad student, who they later decided didn't know his dick from a dangling participle. The first week of class, he assigned a five-page essay based on
    John Donne's _Devotions.
    Taking himself far too seriously, the instructor had assumed a professorial stance and tone.
    "You may not be entirely familiar with the text, but surely you'll recognize the phrasèfor whom the bells toll.`"
    "Excuse me, sir." Todd raised his hand and innocently corrected him. "Is that the same as `for whom the bell tolls`?"
    Recognizing a kindred spirit, Roark
    introduced himself to Todd after class. Their friendship was established that afternoon. A week later, they negotiated a swap with the roommates the university had randomly assigned them. "Suits me," Roark grumbled when they proposed the idea to him. He gave Todd a word of warning. "He pecks on that goddamn typewriter twenty-four hours a day."
    ###They received the two highest grades in ##109
    the class on that first writing assignment. "The jerk wouldn't dare award an A," Roark sourly observed. Scrawled on the cover of his blue book was a large B plus.
    "At least you got the plus sign after yours,"
    Todd remarked of his B.
    "You would have if you hadn't been a smart-ass that first day. That really pissed him off."
    "Fuck him. When I write the Great American Novel, he'll still be grading freshmen writing assignments."
    "Ain't gonna happen," Roark deadpanned.
    Then he flashed a wide white smile. "Because _I'm going to write the Great American Novel."
    Love of books and the desire to write them was the foundation on which their friendship was built. It was a few years before cracks were discovered in that foundation.
    And by the time those fissures were discovered, massive damage had already been done and it was too late to prevent the structure's total collapse.
    They were well-rounded students, maintaining good grades in the required subjects, but excelling in the language arts. Their second semester, they pledged the same fraternity. They were avid sports enthusiasts and good athletes. They played on their fraternity football and basketball teams, sometimes competing with each other as avidly as with rival teams.
    They were active and well-known on campus.
    Todd was elected to the Student Congress.
    Roark organized a campus-wide food
    drive to benefit a homeless shelter. Both wrote occasional editorials, articles, and human interest stories for the student newspaper.
    After one of his stories was published, Roark was approached by the dean of the journalism school.
    He was highly complimentary of Roark's work and asked him to consider switching the focus of his endeavors from creative writing to journalism.
    Roark declined. Fiction was his first love.
    Roark never told Todd about that conversation, but he celebrated when Todd won first place in a national collegiate fiction-writing competition.
    Roark's submission hadn't even earned an honorable mention. He tried to conceal his jealousy.
    They caroused and partied with their fraternity brothers. They drank enough beer to float a fleet. Occasionally they shared a joint, but they
    #didn't make a habit of it and never ####111
    tried hard drugs. They nursed one another's hangovers, loaned each other money during temporary financial crises, and when Roark contracted strep throat and his temperature shot up to one hundred and three, it was Todd who rushed him to the campus infirmary.
    When Todd was notified of his father's sudden death, Roark drove him home across two state lines, and then stayed on through the funeral to lend the emotional support his friend needed.
    Disagreements arose now and then. Once, when Roark borrowed Todd's car, he backed into a fireplug and dented the rear fender. Todd asked several times when he planned to have it repaired.
    He asked so frequently that it became a touchy subject.
    "Will you get off my goddamn back about that?"
    Roark snapped.
    "Will you fix my goddamn car?"
    That heated exchange was the