“Idiot,” she told her reflection, tugging hard at her tangles. “Idiot.”
She was going to blow-dry her hair and then bundle up in a warm coat. She was going to walk outside for at least ten minutes and breathe in the smell of the trees she was not trapped inside. She’d force herself to act like it was a week before, and no, she couldn’t make it not have happened, but she could make what had happened an error-message percentage of her life that didn’t completely decimate the rest of it.
You don’t get to win, she told the featureless shadow in her mind, a rage rising up, undoing her despair. I won’t let you.
* * *
—
She spent the day almost exactly as intended. It took nearly an hour on the living room couch with her parents to convince them she was fine, the Christmas tree sitting in the corner, its checkered skirt wrinkled, all the presents gone. She plucked at a throw pillow thread as she spoke, keeping her voice low and thoughtful but kind of vague, as though the idea of transferring had been a whim, and discarded just as quickly. Her father had been pleased about the conference, but her mother kept frowning, as though seeing right through her. Catherine stared back, innocently determined.
I’m fine. FINE.
She went for a walk, her hair fully dry now, her stomach still warm from coffee. It was raining, lightly, but she told herself it didn’t matter. She listened to music on her phone, the earbuds almost vibrating from the volume. But she found herself skipping songs, each one not quite right, too sad or too upbeat, and was every song in existence about love or breakups? All love-lust or aching sadness, like someone had died. She stabbed at the screen of her phone, trying to find something that fit, trying to ignore how cold she was getting, how stupid she felt.
She hadn’t been a virgin. Maybe that was a good thing, better. Less traumatic. She’d been with two guys before, one of them a boyfriend in her senior year of high school. Josh Tyler, a striker on the soccer team. She’d teased him about having two first names. Sweet, but absentminded—he’d crashed his bike into a car not once but twice because he “forgot” about stop signs. But when they kissed, he tasted like mint gum, his breath cold air against her lips, her tongue. She marveled at how he could make her whole body warm. One day second semester, they skipped school and went to his house. His bedroom. She tried to relax, but the room was too bright and quiet and she was hyperaware of the sound of their breathing. No condom, just birth control she’d been on since fourteen when her cramps were so bad she couldn’t walk upright. She thought about that when he pushed himself into her, and then shook her head, trying to feel something other than strange and slightly scared. It was amazing how turned on she got during everything else they’d done, how much she’d wanted more, but now that she had more she found she could have gone without it. He’d finished with a shudder while she’d looked over his shoulder to see a wet spot on the corner of his ceiling. He should look into that, she thought. Fix it with something.
The next time, an hour later, had been just as bad, but the third time, the following weekend, in his car in a darkened parking lot, had been much better. Maybe it was the risk of it, or the lack of light. Something. She’d never known her body to be so fickle.
He went to school in California. She’d looked him up online a couple of times. It hadn’t been a bad breakup, or a real breakup at all. Just a four-month relationship that had fizzled as the weather warmed and life moved on without him.
Then there had been another guy, Daniel, who she’d met at a Halloween party in October. Some random house on Progress Street. She had to find his last name on Instagram: Howard. What was with the two first names? They’d both been drunk, fumbling and laughing in an upstairs bedroom, tasting like cold, bad beer, and twice someone banged on the locked door, trying to get in, and they’d shaken with laughter, Daniel whispering, “Quiet, they might hear us,” and she’d yelled, “Occupied!” in a defiantly loud voice, like it was a bathroom stall or something. Fun. Stupid. They’d gone to her dorm after, Amber tactfully sidling out with barely a word, pillow in hand. He’d messaged her a few days later, asking her if she wanted to grab a drink sometime, but she and Amber had made a pact about no real boyfriends until at least second semester, so she’d said thanks but no thanks. That next week she’d found a single red flower (not a rose) outside their dorm room one morning (no note) and Amber had teased her about stalkers (dodged a bullet). But Catherine secretly thought it had been…sort of sweet.
She stopped walking three streets down from her house. It was biting cold, but she kept every muscle still, wanting to feel the ice-air like a punishment. What was wrong with her? She was like the worst stereotype of every college freshman who had ever existed. Blond with big boobs and tight yoga pants. She liked mixed drinks and oversugared coffee and had never gone a week without Starbucks or Panera. She didn’t think she’d ever read a classic novel. She liked flowers and reality shows and skinny jeans and turned down dating because she wanted to have fun and get wasted and chill out and—
You deserved it. Whatever happened to you that night. You deserved it.
“Shut up,” she muttered under her breath.
You were so easy that night, it was almost unfair. He probably looked at you and thought, pathetic—
“Shut up!”
“Catherine?”
She spun around.
Henry was standing before her with Molly, who was looking at her anxiously.
“Sorry,” Catherine said. “You just…surprised me.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
Flustered, she took her earbuds out and pocketed them.
“Wanted some fresh air,” she said at his silence. She didn’t have to meet his eyes to know he looked curious, even worried. “Forgot how cold it was. You should get her a coat.” She nodded at Molly.
“We did, last winter. She hated it, though. Also, it’s too big now, since she got sick.”
Catherine thought she might burst into tears at any moment, or scream, or hit something. It was like her brain was too big for her skull, everything under her skin about to burst through, and she’d splatter against the ground, black and putrid and festering, but at least she’d be free.
“Hey, about Falls, it’s totally fine. I didn’t actually think you’d—”
“You know what, Henry? I really don’t care what you think.”
She brushed past him and within a few minutes was back at her house, stripping off her coat and sweater, kicking her boots into the closet that used to house a monster. She half ran upstairs to the shower, shutting out her mother’s call, her father’s frown. She felt bad about snapping at Henry, who she knew was only trying to help. But it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to help.