26
Gwen
I barely remember getting to my room. My bag’s still sitting on my bed, unpacked, from when I’d arrived back at Preston. For no real reason, I suddenly remember my first night in here, feeling as though it wouldn’t be so bad. It was a nice room. Private. It had everything I needed, allowed me to live minimalistically, without the threat of other people clawing their way in. I look around the space and something about it feels terminally small now, as if the walls could close in and crush me if I stood here long enough.
I feel the sour taste of bile rising in my throat long before my stomach even finishes churning. I bolt for the door, darting down the hall to the communal bathroom, and crash into the nearest stall. My knees crack against the floor as I fall, emptying my breakfast into the toilet bowl. It feels like my insides are being pulled out, and I wouldn’t even really mind it if they were. There’s something black and sickening in there, roiling around, and I want nothing more than to purge it.
Because these are the noxious remnants of what I felt for Hamilton Bates.
The toilet gurgles loudly when I flush, and I sit there on the floor, gazing listlessly at the graffiti littering the stall.
Priscilla Yates farts in her sleep.
These boys ain’t shit
TJ + MB 4eva
Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by Dr. Ross
Gwendolyn Adams is in room 418. Stay frosty!
I blink at the jagged scrawl. Much like TJ and MB, it’d been scratched into the metal instead of just scribbled with a marker. It’s not something that can be painted over or erased. It’ll always be there.
Always.
Just then, I hear someone enter the bathroom, door closing heavily behind them. I hear footsteps—the delicate ‘clack’ of heels—and the sounds of shifting fabric. I close my eyes and wait for them to enter a stall so I can sneak out unseen. But whoever it is, they must be at the mirrors instead. With a steeling breath, I stand, brush off my pants, and push the stall door open.
Reagan’s gaze jumps to mine in the reflection of the mirror. It only lasts a split second before her eyes return to her face, carefully applying a coat of lipstick. She doesn’t live here like I do, but I know she has friends in the dorm. It’s not my first time seeing her here.
It’s the first time she ever says anything to me, though.
“Well, that didn’t last long.”
I blink at her, feeling a distant sense of confusion. “Excuse me?”
She puts her lipstick away, her eyes jumping to mine again. “You and Hamilton.” She leans back and fluffs her curls, arranging them carefully over her shoulder. “Not that I’m surprised. It’s just that when a guy dumps you for another girl, you generally hope they have a longer shelf-life than a gallon of milk.” She looks at me, those ruby red lips pressing together. “But I know that look, so let me be the first to welcome you to the Hamilton Bates cast-off club. It’s a lot less exclusive than it used to be,” she mutters.
I hug my arms around my middle. “How did you—”
“You can’t really think I’m that stupid,” she says, eyes narrowing. “The two of you were about as subtle as a sledgehammer.”
I shift my gaze to the floor, swallowing against the sour taste in my mouth. “I’m sorry.”
She snorts a laugh. “No, you’re not. And if you’re going to go around poaching from other girls, at least have the decency to own it.”
“It wasn’t—” My throat seizes around the sad, messed up truth of it all. That it wasn’t what she thinks. That it wasn’t real.
She doesn’t seem to care, anyway. She picks up her bag and finally turns to me, looking me in the eye. “You want to know what the most screwed up thing was? When I realized that his obsession with you was no longer just about his long-standing hatred of freaks, I actually asked myself ‘what does she have that I don’t’. And there for a moment, I thought that was the way. To piss him off, like you did. One second of him glaring a hole into your head was more emotion than he ever showed toward me. But no.” She smiles snidely. “Not even parading around with someone else’s Devil’s mark could get a rise out of him. And do you want to know why?” She pushes off the counter, sauntering forward until she’s close enough that I can count her perfectly curled eyelashes. “Because Hamilton Bates is a black hole of nothing. You scratch the surface, you just find more surface. The problem wasn’t that you had something I didn’t.” Her grin is a dark, twisted thing. “It was that you didn’t have anything at all. So, if he chewed you up and spat you out, then I’m curious. What exactly does that make you now?”
I stand there for a long time after she leaves, watching my own tear-stained face in the mirror, and I don’t make a sound.
No one would hear it, anyway.
I spend the next
hour locked inside my room. I can’t go to classes. Just the thought of it is enough to make my stomach heave again. The only reason I end up leaving at all is for Micha—because I know that poster is still up, and I don’t want others to see. When I know I can go out without a total breakdown, I drag myself out to the athletic field right after first period has begun but find that someone’s already cleared it. There’s nothing left but a few torn corners of yellow program paper.
My relief is two-fold; that hardly anyone would have seen it, and that I won’t have to report it, as clearly the administration already knows.