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I shake my head. “It’s too much right now.”
“What’s too much? I’m completely lost. Why haven’t you mentioned this? We talk about everything, butthis,of all things, is off limits? I don’t understand.”
I finally turn to look at her, finding the disappointment and confusion written along her dewy skin. Her brows furrow and her shoulders shrug before leaving me alone with her lingering questions.
I understand why she would think she knows everything there is to know about me. That’s how friends are, and roommates for that matter. She does know almost everything about me, but some stuff is better off left in the past.
After taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I step out of the bathroom, holding my towel tightly around my chest. She’s standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, hurt evident in her eyes. “I’m so sorry if you feel like I’ve been dishonest with you. That’s not the case. I just—some things are easier to keep buried.”
“I get it, Hales,” she says, “but this was a pretty big surprise. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that you haven’t spoken to them in so long.” She presses her hands to her cheeks and stares through me like I’m a piece of glass. “It’s like there are allthese sudden mysteries about you and I’m questioning how I’ve known you for so long without actually knowing you for so long.”
“I’m sorry they woke you up with their call.”
“I don’t care that I was woken up.” She slides a hand over her eyes and shakes her head again. “You talk about them, often. I know I’m not imagining that. Why would you lie about them?”
I haven’t lied. They both keep public profiles on social media, and I can see what they’re up to all the time without having to talk to them. “I would never lie to you.”
Willa’s door cracks open and Jerry peeks through, squinting his tired eyes. “Everything okay out here?”
I didn’t even know he was here. When he stays over, it’s late at night after he closes the restaurant, so I don’t usually find out until the morning.
I tighten my towel around my chest again, feeling more naked than I am. “Yes. I’m sorry if you were woken too,” I say.
“No, no, I’m fine. Just making sure you ladies are okay.” With Willa’s room still blacked out from her darkening shades, I can only see Jerry’s hands on the doorframe, his messy black hair formed into a mohawk, and wrinkled sheet lines imprinted on his stubbly face.
“We’re good, baby. Go back to sleep,” Willa says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jerry runs his fingers through his messy locks and sighs. “Are you sure? You two sound hangry. I can whip up some breakfast if that’ll help?”
“We’re not hangry, babe. I’ll be back in a minute,” she says, turning toward him to give him a kiss and gently push him back into her room.
“Okay, okay,” he says with a chuckle. The door closes and seconds later we hear his body thump against the mattress.
“I have a final in an hour and my head is still spinning from last night. Could we discuss this later? I’m not a badperson, Willa. I just have a lot of things that I need to keep compartmentalized for the sake of my health. Can you trust that answer?”
“Yeah, of course,” she says, dropping her gaze to the floor. She forces a small smile to add to her lie.
“I’m sorry. I just—this truly has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.” I can’t believe I just said that—those words always cause the other person to think it’s more about them than they did in the first place. It isn’t my intention with her, but I just can’t think straight.
“I get it.” She doesn’t. She’s been fortunate enough to escape most forms of trauma in her life and I would pay to be walking in her footsteps rather than mine. Regardless, my woes don’t need to be her problem, which is why I have kept them to myself. “Don’t worry, okay? I want you to do well on your final. We’ll talk later when you get home.”
I’m trying to show an expression of gratitude, but I probably look nauseous from knowing my parents have desperately and successfully tracked Willa down because they saw me on the news. If I had taken just a few more minutes to think through my decision the other day, I could have avoided this additional trouble.
I close myself into my room and give in to my growing obsession to check my phone—an obsession I just fed while finding that my message to Liam still hasn’t been read. I’m not just a fool who can convince myself everything is fine.
THIRTY
MONDAY, JUNE 12TH 9:45 AM
I wish I could tell myself that the stares and whispers were a figment of my imagination but on this side of the campus, I see the same people day in, day out which means I’m familiar to them. I keep thinking if I didn’t volunteer my interview, I might have stayed out of the limelight—I might not have been attacked on the street. The whole reason I did what I did was to keep my name clean and away from the Smiths’ mouths. Now I’m not only covered in bruises, but they are probably still pointing a damning finger at me.
The old stone building is hot and muggy as it has been the last couple of warm weeks. The hallways are emptier than usual probably because some students have already finished their finals and left to go home for the summer. Half of the rooms are set up to be cleaned with seats shoved to one side and the shades closed.
My classroom is still full of life, a mixture of energy from the vast number of personalities that make up this major. Before branching off in this direction with my studies, I assumed any person who worked within the mental health field was of the same variety: calm, caring, a listener, and intelligent. Most are,but there are subsets beginning to show as we grow closer to the end of the curriculum next year.
I can tell who will likely practice from the book and who will venture off to find alternative methods of therapy. There’s also a separation between those eager to work with children and those who prefer to focus on adults. Then there are specialists for addicts, grief, trauma, abuse, forensic, medical, education… The list goes on and on. My focus is on childhood psychological behavior, but this class, Affective Neuroscience, is a requirement of all psych grad students, which has been more of a debate and discussion class to cover varying opinions on trending practices.
I’m grateful the professor is already here, which eliminates the possibility of small talk with classmates.
