“Mm.”
“You could come over here, you know.”
I wait, my body buzzing with anxiety. My heart feels like it might explode.
“Don’t you think if I wanted to I would?” he says. I close my eyes, my throat tightening. After a few moments, I climb out of bed and go to the living room to have a cigarette. I can’t sleep in that room now. I find Jennifer C there with the TV on.
“The cocaine,” she says. “I can’t sleep.” She cocks her head at me.
“Oh, no. What happened?”
I tell her.
“Bastard,” she says. “You don’t need him.” She says it loosely as she lights a cigarette.
She doesn’t know that I do.
Heath leaves the next morning, the last time I will see him. Two nights later, we have a party. About twenty guys and five girls on the island come to the apartment to drink and smoke. By this time, I have slept with three different guys, only one of them twice. But none of those boys are at this party. Around two in the morning, most everyone straggles out. Jennifer C’s boyfriend, who is drunk, stays behind. They go into Jennifer’s room, and I go into mine, exhausted. A few minutes later, I hear arguing, and suddenly he comes through my open door. He lies facedown on the extra bed. I sit up in bed. “No way. This is my bedroom.”
He doesn’t say anything. Jennifer C stands at the doorway, pissed.
“You can’t sleep in here,” she yells at him.
“Fuck off,” he says.
Jennifer turns to me. “I don’t want you sleeping in the same room.”
“This is my bed,” I say. I consider telling her I am not remotely attracted to her boyfriend, with his big muscles and slicked-back hair, but I might insult her. “I was about to fall asleep. Get him out.”
“I can’t,” she says, her anger now at me. He snores softly.
“Where the hell am I supposed to sleep?”
“The couch.”
I grimace. “The couch? Where some guy spilled beer? Where everyone drops cigarette ashes?”
She shrugs, still mad.
“Forget it, Jennifer. He’s asleep. I’m about to do the same.”
She narrows her eyes and stomps out. I hear her door slam. I don’t want her mad at me. Our friendship is still way too tenuous. But I am so tired I can barely stay awake.
Sometime later, I am not sure when, I wake to the feel of the blankets being pulled back.
“What are you doing?” I try to push him away, but he is strong. He traps my arms on either side of me as he pulls off my underwear. I can smell him, old beer and body odor. I hear the TV on in the main room, which means someone is probably awake. I think of who that person might be, just on the other side of the wall, just a yell away. His T-shirt, which is cut into a tank, hangs down, brushing against my face as he rises up with athletic grace to pull off his sweatpants. Panic floods my body. I try to pull my hips away and close my legs, but he yanks me back and wrestles them open. The thought comes: This cannot be happening. Just as I think it, though, I become calm. Numb. The situation is also so familiar, the feel of my underwear sliding off my hips, a person I barely know hovering above me. I don’t think of the word “rape.” I won’t associate that word with this moment for many, many years. Perhaps this is why I don’t scream or yell out. I whisper instead, “Don’t.”
But he does anyway. His breath hot and fast on my cheek. His hairy legs scratchy against my own. Up, down, up, down. I hold my breath, willing it to be over, my mind empty. The TV in the other room drones on, whoever is watching it unaware of us here, of me. It doesn’t matter. Why does it matter? It’s just one more guy. Just get through it. All you have to do is get through it. After a bit I give up, letting him do what he wants. Up, down, up, down. Every few minutes headlights move across like a searchlight. Eventually he grunts and pulls himself out so he comes on my stomach. I keep my head turned away, my eyes on the shadows on the wall. I feel like I might throw up.
“You’re a cool girl,” he says before he goes back to his bed. I say nothing. I think about crying, but I don’t. Eventually, I get up to wipe my stomach with a towel.
The next day I don’t tell Jennifer. I don’t tell anyone for many, many years. As far as I know, there is nothing to tell. I had sex again. This time with Jennifer’s boyfriend. And if she knew, I am sure she would no longer want to be my friend.
7
In the fall, I head to college, leaving behind what happened in the Long Beach Island apartment, leaving behind what feels like a rash of mistakes and bad times. I am determined not to put myself in those situations again, although I’m also not yet sure how to do that. The new surroundings of college make me optimistic. My father helps me carry my boxes and duffels to my new room, and then I shoo him out. I’m ready to get started with my new life, that hopeful blank slate. This is the start of a new era for me, when I’ll be confident and smart. I’ll stop burying myself under my need. I unpack my brightly colored comforter and packaged toiletries. I set a new Brother word processor on the solid wooden desk, a gift from Dad, an unspoken vote of encouragement for doing well while I’m here. I don’t tell him, but it means a lot to me, especially because of my interest in writing. Maybe he noticed. I hang the tapestry I bought in Manhattan at a downtown flea market. It is blue and white, South American, and it brightens the cinderblock, white-walled feel of the tiny room. When my roommate arrives, she’s pleased. She’s from Ecuador, and the design feels familiar and homey to her. We’re confident we’ll get along just fine. We’re also happy because neither of us is anything like the other girls on our hallway. We congratulate ourselves on being more mature, more self-sufficient. We don’t hang all over each other, anxious about being away from home. We aren’t interested in having highschool-grade crushes or dramatic fights with our new friends. We’ve both done our share already, and now we’re happy to be on our own, to start again. She has a group of Latin American friends she’s met through the international students’ orientation, so she doesn’t need me in order to feel secure. Likewise, I have Zoe, a childhood friend of Jennifer C’s from back home.
Zoe lives in the other freshman dorm on the other side of campus. She’s beautiful, with big blue eyes and butterfly-shaped lips, but she doesn’t believe she’s beautiful, and this makes her all the more endearing to me. Her roommate, from Rhode Island, is here on scholarship. She dresses differently from us. She feathers her hair, as though it is still 1980. She paints on too much makeup. But Zoe invites her to come along with us wherever we go. She doesn’t judge her for these external things the way I do. Or maybe it’s just that I want Zoe all to myself.
“I’ll come to your room later,” the guy says. A girl waits, annoyed, eyeing me up and down. I scribble my dorm number on a piece of paper and hand it to him. He stuffs it in his pocket and the girl whispers something to him. He smiles and regards me before turning to head down the stairs with his friend to the Pub, the campus bar into which I can’t go because I’m only a freshman. David. His name is David. We met earlier at a party and kissed, and then he and his friend wanted to go to the Pub. I tagged along, hoping the bouncer wouldn’t notice me, but he stopped me at the door.
I watch David go, a longing tugging at my throat. Zoe left the party early too. She wanted to call her high school boyfriend at his Pennsylvania college. There is nothing for me to do except go back to my dorm and wait.
I eat a few cookies from the care package Nora sent. Then I brush my teeth. I change into pajama bottoms and a tank top. I put on music. Midnight comes. Then one. Then two. Hollow, I finally fall asleep. Sometime later the door opens and I wake, my heart fluttering, but it is only my roommate, back from her night. The next day, Zoe and I discuss David.
“Why are you wasting your time?” she asks, lying on her bed. I sit on the floor of her dorm room, drinking coffee. “He didn’t come see you when he said he would. He’s obviously an asshole.”
“Easy for you to say. You have a boyfriend.”
Zoe looks oddly at me. “How does that change David being an ass?”
I shrug. It just does. She has someone, I don’t. In my mind, this makes her worth more than me. I lean back
