Throughout the dark summer, this was what she’d focused on to keep sane and yet, just one week into term, she knew she shouldn’t have come back, that it was too soon. She’d thought this would be a return to something, but it was like a glaring compare-and-contrast exercise—the person she was now against the person who’d left for the vacation three months before.
It was five o’clock. She’d just come out of a lecture on the Romantic poets and was part of the damp, twilit migration that filled the campus, students heading to final lectures or back to their halls. She blended in well enough, but she felt like she was carrying a virus that none of the people around her were aware of.
There was definitely a sickness within her. Her blood was unstable, always running too hot or too cold, filling her with violent urges or rendering her too fragile and lifeless to leave her bed. And she could no longer cope with society, with small talk, with friends who pretended to show an interest but who just wanted ammunition for gossip.
She spotted Chris walking towards her. He was the main reason she’d come back and the main reason she should have stayed away. He’d written a letter a week after visiting her at Simon’s so she’d known it was over, but she’d still believed that if she came back to college they might be able to pick things up again, at least remain friends.
She’d gone to his room on her second day back, but he hadn’t even been able to look her in the eye, his body tense as soon as she touched him. And he’d kept using that same phrase, ‘like I said in my letter,’ as if the sentiments he’d expressed there had been beyond his control, as if he had no choice but to abide by them.
She wasn’t sure what to say to him now, and rehearsed the possibilities in her head, deciding that a casual hello would be best, something that showed how relaxed she was and that she understood things were different. She became less confident as they neared each other, but at the crucial moment he denied her the opportunity to say anything by bowing his head and looking at the floor.
Ella was sure he’d seen her and she stopped, shocked and infuriated, and confused because she couldn’t understand what she’d done to deserve such coldness. She’d blamed herself earlier in the summer, but she’d been wrong—Chris had failed her and she hated him for it.
She looked at the back of his head as he walked away and felt the rage building up inside her. Before she knew what she was doing, she was pursuing him through the crowd. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him around. He looked momentarily afraid and then angry.
‘Don’t you dare ignore me!’
Chris almost screamed in response, ‘What’s your fucking problem?’
A dozen answers spilled into her head at once, none of them strong enough or big enough to counter the cruelty of his simple four-word jibe. He’d treated her appallingly, abandoning her when she needed him most, but with a few careless words he could dismiss her as some obsessive former girlfriend and cast himself as the victim. It wasn’t fair.
‘I don’t have any problems. Remember?’
‘You need to see a shrink.’
She laughed scathingly and said, ‘You can’t even bring yourself to smile and say hello, but I’m the one who needs a shrink.’
He didn’t respond and a moment later he shook his head a little and started to turn away. It incensed her that he was refusing to take her on or even acknowledge her argument. She wouldn’t be ignored. Furious, she pulled him back by the arm again and, before he could speak, slapped him hard across the face.
He raised his own hand in reflex and looked set to strike her back, but stopped himself. Her hand was stinging and his cheek had reddened almost immediately, his right eye looking watery. It had clearly hurt, but he still denied her what she most wanted, dropping his hand and turning again, walking away into the crowd.
Ella became aware for the first time that a few people had stopped and were staring at her now. When she met their gazes, they moved on quickly. She too continued on her way, energy draining from her as if she were wounded.
By the time she got back to her hall the anger had subsided, but she felt weak. She decided to check the kitchen—if no one was in there yet she’d cook something. There were two people making dinner, though, Scarlett and Al, so she made for her locker and got bread and jam to take back to her room.
Scarlett had been a friend in the first year, less so since, and gave her a cheery hello as she walked in. She hardly knew Al, but he was a prick and had made crass jokes all week about the stuff that had been in the papers over the summer.
As she closed her locker, he said, ‘Ella, have you been in my room?’ She turned and looked at him, waiting for the punch line. ‘I think you left your horse head in my bed.’
‘That was almost funny, Al.’
He turned to Scarlett and said, ‘She smiled—I’m safe for another day.’
Scarlett looked embarrassed and tried to shush him.