A girl in a tree, upside down. What if that was what happened? What if that was where she belonged?
Why had she gone to that party? Why had she gotten so drunk? Why hadn’t she asked Amber to take her back to the dorms? Then this would just be Christmas. Her life would just be her life. None of this would have happened. She would be fine. Fine.
What can I do?
And it came to her. An answer. Not a perfect solution, no, but she knew she couldn’t walk those paths and pass the dorms and take showers down the hall knowing what she had washed down the drain that night.
“I don’t want to go back,” she told her mom as the oven counted down. “In January. I don’t want to go back.”
* * *
—
Her mom pushed and prodded and begged for more details but Catherine just shook her head. It had been a bad night. She was fine, just still shaken up, mostly by what could have happened. No, she just hadn’t liked it there as much as she thought she would. Lots of people transferred. Well, she could go anywhere, really. Just wanted a change. Maybe a community college, then transfer. That’s what Henry was doing. Henry Brisbois, remember him? He liked it at Falls. No, it didn’t have to be Falls. Anywhere. Just not back.
Am I crazy? she texted Henry that night. They’d been texting off and on. Talking to him was easier, somehow, than talking to the friends she couldn’t face. He asked her how the cookie jars went. She asked him about Molly. They talked about Amy. (Henry had gotten the coveted eggnog bread this year.) Then she asked him about Falls and he asked her why.
Bc West Washington U sucked. Falls is way cheaper
Might convince parents to let me transfer
That bad?
Worse
Do you have to live at home at Falls?
No
Lots do, but there are dorms. I think there’s a lottery for them though.
You serious?
Maybe
Pretty sure that’s the opposite of serious.
She stifled a laugh and sat up straighter against her pillows. Feeling suddenly very awake despite it being nearly midnight, she powered up her laptop and signed into her college account. She’d have to figure out the transfer process if she really wanted her parents to take it seriously. She’d come down in the morning with everything neat and organized, prepared to answer all their questions.
She had two emails in her school account. She clicked on those first, noticing one was from her roommate, Amber. Subject line: U ALIVE?
Hey Cat. You’re totally MIA on text. Everything okay? I heard rumors right when I was leaving, idiot Cordelia mostly. WORST RA EVER. Just wanted to make sure you’re good/chill/know I’m here for whatever. And yes, that was a screw you to Prof. Kang’s parallel structure. 89.7 is NOT a B+. I swear I’ll come back and sue once I’m a real lawyer. Anyway, call me, text me, whatevs. Merry xmas too. Best roomie ever! PS: can we please go to the gym more spring semester?? I need cardio and kale and you. <3333
Catherine made a strange sound, something between a laugh and a sigh. She could almost hear her roommate’s voice in her head, slightly raspy from cigarettes, Amber lying on the floor with her legs kicked up on the bottom bunk, holding her phone a foot from her face, squinting at a picture some random hookup had sent her. “Is that it? Is that supposed to turn me on?” She held it out to Catherine, who snorted and twisted away. Borrowing eyeliner and sharing dresses. Trying to do the drunk test, walking in a line they made with overlapping Post-it notes in the hallway, clutching each other and laughing. Complaining about finals being so many points and how group projects were literally the worst.
“I think they’re secretly a test,” Amber had told her over fries one night. “Like to see if you can resist committing murder, even when it’s justified.”
“What do you get if you pass?” Catherine asked.
“Not arrested.”
“Lame.”
“Totally. I think if I murder one of them, it might be worth it.”
Catherine scoured her takeout box for the saltier fries at the bottom. “Well, I’m not helping you bury the body or whatever.”
“Oh, come on. It was going to be that Felicia girl who literally told me she was going to do nothing because her ferret died last month and she still wasn’t over it.”
Catherine paused, fry in the air. “Okay. Maybe her.”
“Thank you. God.” Amber play-kicked her with one bare foot. “The things you have to do for a decent accomplice-after-the-fact.”
Now, in her bedroom, Catherine’s fingers hovered over her laptop, but she wasn’t sure what to say. She was fine? Yeah, Cordelia was terrible? Hey, you need to find a new roommate?
She clicked out of the email. She’d figure it out later, along with what she was going to say to Hania.
The only other message was from her British literature professor. Subject line: Final Essay Submission.
Shit, Catherine thought, her heart skipping. Her final essay for Brit lit had been nothing short of brutal. An analysis of a collection of poetry or any of the full-length pieces they’d studied that semester. No fewer than ten pages. She’d chosen the poems, mostly because five poems were still way shorter than a full book, none of which she’d actually read cover to cover. She remembered a high school teacher telling the class senior year that they couldn’t expect to use SparkNotes in college and still pass. Well, Catherine had been using them with some regularity for the two classes she needed to fulfill her English credits, and she had a B in both of them, so there. But she’d actually read the poems for this essay. Looked up analysis of them in the college library, too. She’d tried to do well on it. She thought she had, but maybe a ten-page essay on two-hundred-year-old poetry had been beyond her.