What! The! F*ck! Is Nameless! Doing! Here!
Here, of all places, here, of all goddamn colleges. It has to be a joke. He has to be visiting a friend, or something. He can’t be enrolled here, learning here, sleeping within the same ten miles of me. He can’t be. He just can’t. I came here to avoid him. I moved to an entire state to leave him behind, and now he’s found me again. No, shit, there’s no way he’s here just for me. It’s a coincidence. His shitty, threatening emails earlier in the year were just last-gasp effort taunts, his way of – of – of what? Somewhere in the back of my mind, Dr. Mernich’s sessions stick with me, burning dark and hard. Triggered. His way of triggering me. He wanted me to remember. And now he’s going to get to see me remember. In person.
“H-Hey, are you okay?”
I look up. A girl with honey-colored hair and huge gray eyes behind glasses blinks at me. She smells faintly of musky roses. My stellar powers of observation alert me to the fact she has tits even bigger than Kayla’s and a thick, soft, belly, but I barely register it through my haze of panic.
“I’m decidedly not okay,” I say, my voice thin and high.
“Yeah you look like crap,” The girl covers her mouth, then whispers. “Um, not in general. But right now you look sick, is all. Bad-sick. Not, um. Rad-sick.”
Rad-sick. I can feel the literal stars beginning to gleam in my eyes as history unfurls and I discover the only person on the planet Earth who may have beaten I, Isis Blake, in making stupid puns. And having fabulous curves. And smelling like roses. But then I remember I’d been in the midst of undergoing a mild panic attack.
“You are really cute and all,” I say quickly. “But I’m currently facing down the fact my ex-boyfriend goes to this college, which is extreme grossness. You probably don’t want to stick around for something that’s the same level of gross as, like, a vat of Nickelodeon slime, so if you could just leave so I can get back in the mood of being terrorized helplessly, I’d appreciate it.”
Glasses-girl frowns, and searches the crowd. “He terrorizes you? I’m so not down with that, fryslice. Which one is he?”
“Oh, he’s the one with the hellish menacing aura barely concealed beneath a mask of vague antisocial tendencies and abs and he’s currently walking into this very room and oh my god I have to go. To space.”
I dart out the back door just as Nameless pushes into the cafeteria. I gulp twilight air and my steps are so big and frantic I almost trip. Glasses-girl steadies me by grabbing my elbow.
“Hey, um, seriously, do you want me to take you to the nurse?”
I consider her for a long moment. “You know, that would be lovely. But first, I’m going to puke on your shoes so you probably won’t want to do that, or even be remotely nice to me anymore.”
“Okay.”
I unceremoniously puke on her shoes. When I’m not making attractive hurling noises anymore, the girl laughs.
“I’m Diana. These are my roommate’s shoes. She’s a bitch.”
“Oh man,” I wipe my mouth. “I love messing up bitch-shoes. I’ve done it so often. Mostly to this one stupid pretty boy. And now you. Not that you’re a stupid pretty boy. Because you have boobs, not a penis. Obviously. Um.”
There’s a thoughtful pause. Diana looks thoroughly informed of her own gender.
“I’m Isis.”
“Nice to meet you, Egyptian goddess of fertility,” Diana smiles.
“She was full of magical spells and almost always naked, which is coolio except for probably sand in her hooha, but I’m not actually into marrying my own brother – sidenote: grody – and if I had Isis’ banging magic powers – pun totally intended – I would be hexing dudes, not sexing them, and I’d definitely not stay here for four years to figure out what I don’t mind doing to make money until I die and oh god I need to lie down.”
So I do. On the sidewalk. Diana watches me with unmistakable morbid curiosity.
“Your puke puddle is right by your head,” She points out helpfully.
I wrinkle my nose and scooch five feet sideways into the grass. And the grass turns into a hill and I’m rolling and it smells like earth and new fresh green sproutbabies, and when the world stops spinning and I stop moving and Diana teeters down the hill asking if I’m okay, bringing that soft smell of roses with her, and I start laughing.
All the terror in my chest was spun out by the rolling fall. It broke the hard, icy grip of Nameless. The smell of the sun-warmed ground and the feel of grass tickling my butt reminds me it’ll pass. He’ll pass. He’ll die, also, someday, and then I’ll really be free, but it’s not the end of the world. He’s here. I’m here. But we’re different people now. I’m stronger, because of everything that’s happened. Because of him, and the pain. But mostly because of Sophia, and Jack, and Kayla and Wren.
I want to be happier. Happy like Sophia is now. Happy like I want Jack to be, now.
Even if they’re both gone. Even if they’re all gone.
Even if I’m all alone.
Diana watches me laugh, smiling, and sits beside me. It’s then I confirm my suspicions – only a total weirdo would continue to hang out with someone who puked on her shoes, then rolled down a hill like a sugar high hamster and laughed about it. Diana could be a serial killer. Or a genuinely nice person. Both the sort of people who shouldn’t be hanging around yours truly.
“You’re crying,” she says offhandedly, picking a dandelion and blowing the fuzz away. I wipe my face.
“I’ve been doing it a lot lately. Because, you know. Crying is fun. If you think about it like Splash Mountain for your eyes.”
Diana giggles. I stand up, brushing grass off my sculpted abs.
“Anyway, it’s been fun but I must go and contemplate the fact I might be losing my f*cking marbles.”
Diana shrugs. “I think you’re just scared. It’s scary. College. We can do anything. We can fail or flunk, or drink or smoke or have sex, and no one cares. We’re not kids anymore. There’s no parents here. Whatever happens in our future, happens because of the choices we make now. That’s real scary.”
I watch her face. She hugs her knees.
“And seeing exes you haven’t seen for a long time is scary, too.”
I lose all will to leave, and flop down beside her. The last thing I wanna be right now is alone. We watch the sunset rip through the sky with fire and velvet.
“Boys are weird,” Diana concludes sagely.
“I don’t know anything about boys except they make weird noises sometimes,” I say.
“That’s called speaking.”
“Oh.”
Diana squints at me. “If he did something bad, I can punt him for you.”
“You usually go around mercenarily offering to punt people?”
“I have four little brothers. It’d be a waste to let my talents wither.”
It’s my turn to chuckle. Voices make me jump. I shoot a wary look up the hill, but it’s just a crowd of loud obnoxious girls shrieking as they pass.
“I really didn’t wanna live constantly looking over my shoulder again,” I sigh. “It was shitty in Florida and it’ll be shitty here.”
“I would say ignore him, but I guess that’s easier said than done, huh?”
I nod. Diana picks at a blade of grass. I’m about to say something deep and profound and possibly life-changing when Yvette’s clear, strong voice cuts between us. A guitar case is strapped to her back, pink hair matching the sunset.