Thirty Happens (9 page)

chapter eleven.

I
could do this.

I had no choice.

I had made the decision to see this through and dammit, I was going to see it through.

That was the mantra running through my head as my mom’s car pulled up outside the dorm. I had my eyes trained on my feet. On the seat in front of me. On the dashboard. On my nails, that had somehow been bitten down to the skin in the last four hours.

Not on the building outside of the car window.

Not on the sidewalk.

“Mom, do you mind pulling up just a little bit more?”

I didn’t want to explain to her that this was the spot.
The
spot.

“No problem.”

No questions asked mom pulled forward about a car’s length. She didn’t ask, but I think she knew, judging by the set of her jaw which meant her teeth were clenched tight. Her eyes looked watery, but nothing fell. She was holding it together for me.

Ugh.

“Thanks, mommy.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“I love you.”

Her voice was choked with emotion and a little bit of fear.

“Love you more. Don’t worry, I promised I would text and call you every five minutes, and I meant it. I’m safe here. I’m probably safer than I was even before the… um… you know, before.”

I gave her a crooked grin, leaned forward to kiss her cheek and give her a quick hug again before jumping out of the car door and making it to the dorm door in two steps. I turned back to wave at her before opening the door and disappearing inside.

I pulled out my phone.

Made it inside the dorm building.

I started walking up the stairs.

‘Beep.’

Ha, ha, funny girl.

Grinning, I walked up the three flights of stairs to my home for the past eight months. Other seniors decided to pay a bit more, have off-site apartments, or the big fancy dorm rooms. I was fine saving myself some dollars and having a traditional closet-sized dorm room. It was a single, so that was a luxury compared to the first three years where I had three roommates.

Closing the door to my room, I exhaled for what seemed like an eternity.

Safely in my room.

I shoved my phone in my back pocket of the new jeans my mom had brought me from home. I had no idea what happened to the pair I was wearing last night. I really was fine if I never saw them again. They could burn, for all I cared.

‘Beep.’

Wiseass.

I started giggling. Mom almost never used cuss words, so the fact that she’d just typed one to me in the text was hysterical. The giggles became hysterical laughter, which somehow morphed into tears. I lay there, clutching my pillow to me, curled up on the bed sobbing for what felt like forever.

When the tears dried into hiccups, I sat up. My head was throbbing, a side effect that I suffered from anytime I had a good cry, so I walked across the room to get a bottle of water from my mini fridge and some more pain pills. I caught a flash of psychedelic color in the mirror and out of normal reflex turned and looked.

I stood transfixed as the bottle of water dropped from my limp arm and crashed to the floor, its contents splashing my legs, soaking my canvas sneakers.

I had managed to avoid seeing the result of my attack yesterday. I had averted my eyes from any reflective surface while leaving the hospital, in the car, everywhere. I should have taken down the mirror.

I wasn’t prepared to see this.

No one should see this.

My left eye was almost swollen shut, but it was still open enough that I could see out of it. The skin all on the left side of my face was a mixture of purples and blue, with dried blood and stitches mixed in for good measure. The right side of my face had a bruise in a perfect line at my cheek area. I guessed that this must have been one of the areas I hit the car.

Good thing I’m not OCD, or it would really irritate me that he wasn’t ambidextrous.

Now I knew why mom suggested that I stay home. This face would scare small children and be the thing that nightmares were made of.

I gently touched my hand to my cheek, wincing at the pain the soft touch had caused. Unfortunately, both shock and Novocain had worn off. Damn.

I stood there for a while, just staring at the damage. For some reason, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I mean, I didn’t recognize me. This wasn’t me. Somehow, the tough chick was gone and in her place was a vulnerable victim. How in the hell did
I
become the victim?

I had to get past this. I knew that it hadn’t even been twenty four hours, but it was Sunday and the next few weeks were hell weeks. Classes ending, finals to be taken, an internship to successfully wrap up… I didn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself. Not in that moment, anyway.

I nodded my head at the image in the mirror, mentally promising to process this later. Right now we had to get to work. Somehow I would find a way of merging this vulnerable victim version of me with tough as nails, get shit done version of me. Together we would get through this. I’m sure there was a counselor somewhere who would love to get his or her hands on me and psychoanalyze the fact that I now saw myself in two versions, and maybe someday I’d make that person’s day and set up an appointment.

I looked at the clock. It was pretty much dinner time. Another quick glance in the mirror said that I was
not
going to be braving the cafeteria today. I could just see everyone hurling chunks once they caught sight of this lovely mug.

Ick.

Looking around the dorm room I realized that if I wanted sustenance, it would have to be some granola bars that I didn’t even remember buying, water and air.

My stomach rolled a little at the thought of eating a potentially expired granola bar, but desperate times and all that. I unwrapped it and gave it a sniff.

Didn’t smell bad, but then again, did a granola bar really have much scent anyway? I mean, they were pretty much made up of oats, some sort of sticky stuff and preservatives. It had to be safe. I was bringing it to my mouth slowly when I heard a light knock on the door.

Whew. Saved by the bell. Um, sort of.

I went to the door and looked out my peephole. I saw Lynnie and Brian standing out there.

I opened the door, ready to gently send them on their way because I really was in no mood for company.

When I opened the door, the delicious scent of takeout Chinese food hit my nose and caused my stomach to loudly protest the fact that I had been willing to subject it to a stale, expired granola bar.

“Gimme!”

I reached my hands forward for the bag of food, ignoring the brief look of horror on Brian’s face. I hadn’t seen him since we parted ways at the T last night, discussing the chances of our beloved baseball team.

Odd.

That felt like a lot longer than just one night ago.

Lynnie laughed at me, ducking my hands and waltzing straight into my room.

“I kind of figured you probably were not interested in going to the caf today, so picked up your favorites and we decided we were crashing your dorm room for a floor picnic.”

I won’t lie, my eyes filled up a bit that my friends both knew me so well and cared enough about me to bring me sustenance.

“Yeah, I got to see the damage just a bit ago in the mirror. Figured it wouldn’t be all that kind of me to subject the student population to ‘frankenface’ right as they were about to eat. You both just saved me from eating
that
.”

I gestured with disdain towards the unwrapped granola bar that sat discarded on my bed.

“Ew, Karyn. What the hell were you thinking?”

Lynnie walked over and grabbed the offending bar with a napkin, as if not to sully her hands with the nastiness that was previously going to be dinner. She threw it away with a beautifully dramatic flourish.

Brian was putting a blanket down on the floor and started laying out the Chinese food containers and plastic forks and spoons.

We all sat cross legged on the floor and tore into our food like we hadn’t eaten in a week. I barely took a breath, I was shoveling food into my mouth so quickly. I couldn’t figure out if this was the best tasting food I’d ever put in my mouth, or if I was just
that
hungry. Maybe it was both.

After a little bit, I noticed that our comfortable silence had turned, I don’t know…
un
comfortable. I looked at my friends with a raised eyebrow, trying to figure out why it felt different. I saw Lynnie elbow Brian and give him a look.

That’s when I got it. Brian hadn’t really looked me in the eyes all night. There was that brief moment at the door, but otherwise, he had looked at the blanket, the food, the floor… he was avoiding me as much as a person could while sitting in the same room.

What the hell.

“Hey, Earth to Brian.”

His head came up and he finally looked at me, with a little bit of confusion on his face.

“What?”

“Seriously? What? Dude, you have barely said a word, you seem uncomfortable as hell like you’d rather be anywhere in the world but here. Honestly, if all of
this
is too much for you, there’s the door. Otherwise, I thought you were my friend, so get your head out of your ass and be my damn friend.”

I allowed the anger to push through the disappointment and sadness. I had cried enough so if I just hung on to pissed off, I’d get through the evening without another salty drop rolling down my face.

“I’m so sorry, Kar. I just… I guess I just feel like I should have been there for you somehow.”

I raised an eyebrow at that statement.

“Bri, how the hell do you figure that?”

“I know, I know. I’m not being rational or whatever. But, a real man would have ‘walked you home’ or some shit. I let you get on the T and just go.”

I shook my head at him, smiling sadly.

“Yes, just like you did more than a dozen times before. He was messed up in the head, Brian. You
know
that. He was a dick from day one and just obviously had some screwed up mental issues. If you’d have been there, who knows what he would have done to you to get to me. This has nothing to do with you being a good friend, a ‘real man’ or whatever sick macho crap is stuck in your head. It happened. There was nothing you or I could have done to stop it. At least he didn’t…”

I trailed off, still not saying the word. I saw a look of relief flash Brian’s face. I couldn’t figure out why. Was he relieved I didn’t say the word or was it that it didn’t get that far? Probably a little bit of both.

“Yeah, I know. I just have to process it, I guess.”

“So, what does that mean? You’re going to avoid me until you can wrap your head around all this?”

I waved my hand around my face, indicating the mess that was evident.

“No, I won’t avoid you. I’m sorry, Karyn.”

He leaned over and gave me a quick hug, one to let me know he was still there for me, but also so gently as to not squeeze anything that might be hurt.

“So what’s the plan for the week?”

Lynnie not so subtly changed the subject, moving past the heaviness that had taken over my tiny dorm room.

“I have my last week of classes before finals, plus working at the Beacon. I’ve still got my fingers crossed that I get offered a job. I mean, I’d kind of hoped to have a big story that I’d get to work on, and so far all I’ve done is help edit other people’s work.”

My friends both looked at me as if I’d grown another head.

“What?”

“Poor you! Other interns are fetching coffee and don’t even have a laptop to turn on, let alone helping the senior editor actually work on perfecting articles that will get printed in one of the best papers in the country.”

They were both laughing at me, and I was fine with that. This was a conversation that we’d had multiple times in the past couple of weeks, and it was one that I was comfortable with and grateful for.

I gave a little half smile.

“Hey, I have to fetch coffee about four or five times a day. I’ve had to switch toothpaste to a pricier brand just to get the whitening effects to counter that much coffee. My smile was starting to look a little too yellow.”

“Ewwwwww, not when I’m trying to digest, woman.”

Lynnie mock retched into her hand.

“Funny lady.”

“So you’re still going in tomorrow?”

They looked at me in concern. I understood, I really did. The thought passed through my mind that maybe I should take a day or two. But then that obnoxiously stubborn pride of mine kicked in and told me that it was business as usual.

“Yup, sure am. I’m not going to let this slow me down. My college career is almost over, and I plan to see it through. If people have a problem with my messed up face, then they’ll just have to deal with it themselves.”