I want to go home has become the refrain on repeat in my head over the last several months.
This first year has been an total whirlwind that cycles from long classes, longer hours of study, and bonding with my roommate Merin Mullane. I wasn't sure immediately how well we'd get along, but within the first week of the year we were already cooking up some inside jokes. Our similar interests don't outnumber our differences, but it doesn't matter. It's been so long, it feels, since somebody outside my family looked and talk to me like they saw me as normal. Like me, she's also unsure right now where she wants to take the rest of her life, but she's more cheerful about it.
"That's part of the adventure, isn't it?" She asks me.
Classes were easy at first. All I needed was to just catch up on the rest of my required general education, and then I could tackle the real challenge of deciding what my future was meant to be. Many long evenings have already been spent browsing the catalog of degree programs, but usually these end with me feeling frustrated or numb. There's the sensible choices of course, the ones that Pa would be pleased to see me take (business, polysci, anything with a bit of prestige). History was romantic, promising a great number of futures that range from law to archives to politics if I wanted. That's the challenging part of it though: what I want. The real tempting whispers are what I hear from the arts, with their long studios of painters, music practice rooms, and lockers lined with giant butcher paper sketchbooks and charcoal. There's even crossover with radio science; an almost natural gateway between art and science. I took radio science once, finding that I was not only one of very few young women in the class but also happened to be placed with others that didn't speak to me unless it was absolutely necessary. Hard pass.
Merin tactfully brings up her dream major one night as we're relaxing.
"How about just join me in marine biology?" She asks, poking her head out from the doorway of our small, shared bathroom. Whatever face I pull in that moment makes her backpedal immediately. "Or not."
"I have nothin' against it, it's just that I haven't thought about it at all. Like, even as a passing interest."
"Says the girl that thought about majoring in business finance for a whole two days." She says with a smile.
"Okay... how about pharmaceuticals?" I ask. "Or Medicine. Maybe I can just delay on deciding completely and do another six or ten years in med school." It was Merin's turn to pull a face in response. She flicks off the bathroom light and throws herself down onto her bed, rolling onto her side so she could still see me while we talk. The most notable feature of her face was a long, elegant Borzoi snout that now had a very leveled gaze at me down at the end.
"What did you want to be when you grew up?" Merin asks. "Maybe there's something there you can focus on."
I try to think about my childhood self. The earliest memories I can summon involve me watching the leaves dance against the cloudy skies. Later, I had a lot of daydreams that were more or less the same plot: spending days creating and my nights showing off my creations over sips of champagne, rubbing shoulders with other artists. I like to sink my hands into textiles, experiment with different types and weaving patterns, incorporate some of those old traditional Neweman patterns into my work, and I like to tell stories with them. Even if I'm the only one who understands it. Of course over the years I entertained a bunch of other ideas on every end of the spectrum from classic to absurd: meteorologist, squire, a florist. All lofty ideas. There came a point where I stopped daydreaming about them at all, just vaguely wanting to be useful and help others. Not exactly best suited for being a Death mage. Once I woke up from the daydreams, all I could think about for the future was just returning home as the dutiful, mildly impressive eldest daughter to eventually lead the family. Shoulder a legacy. Probably marry. Probably have children. Continue adding branches to the family tree. An area of study if that was what was waiting for me at the end felt pointless.
"I liked looking at trees," I finally say. "...and I like weaving." I wave my hand over to the small cardboard loom I had assembled on my desk. "I like reading, and researching. There's just not a lot of futures involved with all of that that'd make sense with..." I trail off vaguely. Merin tilts her head and waits to see if I'll complete the thought, but after a length pause she sits up and stretches.
"Something my mom told me is to take some classes that just sounded interesting to me," She says. "I didn't really know either--you were there."
"I guess that explains the improv class."
"Then getting into the sciences, I dunno... it was something I could sink my teeth into. It's a broad field too, like there's research opportunities, I could go all the way and teach it some day, I could specialize in nothing but sea sponges, like there's endless things there just in that one field, you know?" She shrugs. "Maybe just take some classes that sound fun. It'll at least keep you invested."
I've noticed that people give me less odd looks here than I would've gotten in high school. College all at once feels freeing and completely suffocating; everyone is too busy with their own lives to really give me the same judgemental or bemused looks I'd spot on my peers faces all those prior years. On occasion, I even put some slack into the leash I have on my magic and slip by even more unnoticed, like a quiet little ghost haunting the campus.
Sometimes, there's the odd night where I want the exact opposite. The old anxiety that used to doggedly follow me each day sometimes steps back and lets me breathe. The need to try to hide myself or keep on the sidelines is feeling less and less important.
It's becoming cyclical. The pressure from classes and decisions and feeling something like a ticking time bomb, I think I want to go home, I stuff it down, and then I decide maybe I need to just have some fun. Experiment with being slightly irresponsible. There were no young sisters to look out for here, after all: just Merin, who didn't need a lot of convincing to go out. The prior version of myself was tucked away somewhere in one or two shoeboxes I'd brought from home, now waiting patiently at the back of my dorm closet, and this other version of me can get unleashed just a little bit. Merin and I will crowd together in our bathroom to get makeup on, singing loudly and off-key to whichever of us shoved a cassette into our tape player, and we'd bemoan that we couldn't share wardrobes. She was almost a foot taller than me and lithe, almost effortless in her femininity in ways I couldn't understand. Watching her transform into someone glamorous and untouchable was always fun.
By comparison I leaned into my well-loved concert tees and paired them with earthy skirts or my distressed jeans. She contrasted my "grunge meets hippie meets a ball of yarn" style as she described it, with love, with a wardrobe of lace tanktops and platform sandals. Tonight, for the club, I let her find things in my closet to make me up as some sort of grunge-chic look. She artfully smudges the eyeliner around my eyes, needing to lean in real close to get it just right, and I topped it off with a perfume that'd be less heavy once we were busy dancing.
The clubs we go to are unlike the crowds I usually would hang out in before college, but the heavy rhythms and synths are still just as easy to get lost in as my usual metal is. The dreary damp outside would later serve as a refreshing break from the densely packed crowd that was there tonight: a sea of other college students, strangers, and a comforting anonymity in the dark despite many bodies crammed up against one another. I have to be especially careful in these crowds and keep my magic as tightly encased as possible here, so the only risk of me getting lost or unnoticed is purely just due to my height disadvantage. Merin could see over the crowds though, and it's easy for me to follow her lead to avoid getting trampled.
The first and second times I came here, I wasn't sure what to do. Merin would take me by the hand and not quite drag me to the dance floor, having dipped off for a second to grab beers or waters for us, and then just... move. Dancing doesn't come to me easily even now, as I'm often more content to go to a semi-meditative state with feeling the music in my body, but dancing is fun. Being with her doesn't give me any sense of pressure that I might look stupid or move in an embarrassing way, and in brief flashes it's even made me forget that I'm in a crowd at all. Under the flickering neon lights, I must not look as spooky as people say that I tend to, because we inevitably always catch someone's attention.
Tonight is no different. There's a group of young men nearby that I can see out of my periphery, and they're watching us. A few times in the past this usually preceded some loud, annoying drunk catcalls and jeers to watch us kiss, but no such things have been said yet. We keep dancing, and we keep drinking. I'm feeling a pleasant buzz in my body, my head swimming only just a bit in that sweet zone that I can coast on for ages, and I open my eyes to see one young Dile man has started matching Merin's rhythm. He's moved behind her and one ear flicks toward him unconsciously, which he notices. She just looks directly at me instead, leveling that same sharp, knowing gaze at me. The lights around us keep catching in the glitter in her makeup, and I find I can't look away from her at all. I feel the presence of one of the Dile's friends moving to dance behind me very close, close enough to almost feel breath on the back of my head. My face surely is hot to the touch, and I'm thankful that my blushing is subtle to go mostly unnoticed to the eye. I take my time before I turn to face whoever is behind me, and he's admittedly a quite handsome tigerlike Nomad. Neither of us say anything, not that we'd be able to hear above the music anyway. My heart is pounding, and it's impossible for me to tell if it's from just the exertion of dancing or from that it's been a very long time since I've let someone get this close to me.
I'm not minding the attention. That's the surprising part of it.
What do I want out of this? That's one of the clearest thoughts I remember having, as well as the answer. I think I want to be wanted, but like this?
We're lost to the music. Instead of feeling like it's letting me escape, instead I feel more alive than ever. Does it matter? The heat between our bodies feels nice, my head is clear enough for once to actually think this through, and the little tangle of shame that is threatening my good time is desperately wanting to wrangle control. What don't I want? I don't want these guys to start jeering at us. I don't want to be boring. I don't want to be creepy. I don't want to graduate into a dead-end job that gets me nowhere until I find someone to marry. I feel a tap on my shoulder. I hear Merin's voice in my ear, asking if I'm good and I say yes. We keep dancing, and it feels endless. I feel his hands on my hips as he pulls me closer. I don't want to have to believe that I need to go back to being that quiet little sweater girl and the perfect eldest daughter and the good example for my sisters. I want to relax. I want fun. I want--
He asks me if I want to go back to his place later, and I say yes.
His name is Mark, as I learn at some point between drinks and in the pause between industrial-synth sounding songs. He smiles wickedly when I give him mine. There's not much else we try to learn about each other from talk alone.
Mark is asleep next to me hours later and I stare at the ceiling wondering when it wouldn't be impolite to leave. This was miles removed from the confusing sex-on-the-first-date with Thorn years before. This was solidly an unspoken agreement of a one-off thing. Not a terrible one either. Still, was it impolite to leave the second I heard a snore and try to walk back to my dorm in the dead of night? Or do I wait until the morning, say that I had a good time, and then stagger back in the harsh light of day? I take some moments in the dark to try to get a sense of how I'm feeling aside from physically beat, and find only just a sense of calm.
There is a radio in his room. I very gently remove myself from the bedsheets and tiptoe across the floor to dial the signal to our dorm radio. Merin doesn't pick up, either fast asleep or keeping warm in someone else's bed. I leave a quick, reassuring message that I am safe and just tired, promising to return in the morning. After hanging up, I crawl in right back where I had been laying and get a few fitful hours of sleep.
Mark wakes up first, easing me into the waking world with some coffee. I blink awake, confused but grateful as I take the paper cup into my hands. "Thank you," I say before taking a long sip. In the soft haze of daytime peeking through the blinds, he's still handsome in a scruffy sort of way. He drinks his own coffee as well and the morning moves by a bit slow, us making small talk now that we don't have to compete with the dance floor.
At the end, he asks: "Do you want me to walk you back home?" and I shake my head no.
"I'm good, but thank you," I say. I'm warm all over. There's a final kiss on the side of my face before I'm dressed and out the door. For the first few minutes of my walk, I'm still riding on that feeling of warmth, and then bit by bit something underneath the surface of my skin seems to almost... shift. I cross my arms as I walk, feeling colder than I ought to, and the pull of my shirt over my torso feels weird in spots even when I try to tug it away. I walk a bit faster, like I can outrun the weirdness that's happening purely just in my own body, but it is already a boulder that's rolling downhill. By the point I reach my dorm I get inside and go immediately into the bathroom where I sit on the floor in the dark.
Cutting the lights makes it easier, somehow, whatever this is. I take deep breaths and curl forward on myself, my forehead almost touching the floor and making my fungoid hair fall down around my face like a curtain. The feeling of it is ticklish in a way that I hate and I gather it all up in my angry fists and contain it over one shoulder. The air on the back of my neck feels nice, and I finally feel like whatever THIS is can start to settle. I keep breathing, trying to let my muscles relax, but when I start to finally go upright and feel every thread of fabric on my body I freeze.
There's a knock at the door and I feel all those ugly internal processes shut down immediately. I exhale a last time and stand up, opening the door to Merin. She peers past me curiously to the dark.
"Are you okay?" She asks. "Sick? Hungover?" I shake my head and then cringe.
"Wait--I mean--I'm okay, I'm just not sick. I'm fine."
She says so much with such a measured silence. "Right," She finally replies.
What else is there to say? I think. I am fine, probably.
"I mean," I say before I could think about it. "I think I'm just anxious. That was the first time I'd just gone after like... a casual hookup, you know."
The caution in her expression slowly starts to give way to a teasing grin. "Yeah, the first time I thought I was doing something wrong by being a grown adult made me want to hide away in the dark too."
Part of me wants to tell her about whatever that feeling was. It's been an inconsistent one, hard to explain, and comes up in when I'm least expecting it. The first transparent memory I could recall had been from my very first day changing in the locker room at school. It feels like something bigger than myself, trying to fit inside my skin and unable to find footing, and at worst it feels like every eye on the planet is focusing in on me like I'm an interloper that's just been discovered. It's a vague fog that I could sense sometimes watching Merin dance, eventually morphing into envy that I try to ignore. Once or twice with Thorn back in the day, when he'd be trying to be sweet and romantic in the ways that only fifteen year olds think and say things like "--just, I can't believe how cool you actually are". It tried to come up again briefly with Mark when he whispered the word "beautiful" into my ear, and I tried to ignore it. What girl hates being called beautiful, after all?
I try to not entertain my want of home. My cycle continues: classes, study, outings, sleep. If I move fast enough through each one, it's never overwhelming. Dancing is a reward for the labors of the week. A lot of nights don't even end up with me going home with anybody or vice versa: I make small talk, sharing just enough of myself to spur the other person to start oversharing about their own lives, and I'm golden. We drink. We dance. If I do end up with somebody, I'm steadfast to call Merin to still signal that I'm fine. She'll do the same. I'm careful. It's not always fun either, but sometimes disappointment is expected. I show up to classes exhausted and scrape by. Merin and I study together, though our disciplines are quite different from one another by this point. I'm feeling alive, but exhausted.
I finally decide that I'm going into Interdisciplinary Studies.
Merin gave me a confused smile when I finally declared. My Pa's voice during the radio call was mostly cheerful, asking what specifically I was studying toward that. I carefully leave out that a last minute decision to take--and then pass with flying colors--a folklore studies class that had a Neweman focus was what finally sparked my interest in a more directed path. I'm able to craft a detailed enough description that satisfies his questions: research focused, sprinkling in something marketable and understandable (my one class on business finance I suffered through in the previous quarter gets a mention), and call it good. It almost eases the pressure that I've been living under for the last year.
I try not to think about how it still feels like I'm stalling and decide I'm satisfied enough. It seems attainable, once I'd be able to actually pin down the academic focus areas that I'll synthesize. The grab-bag of credits I've accumulated do have a common theme in them: I've not been able to stay away from the arts or social sciences. There's an apparel marketing and design course here, a sociology 101 course there. Folklore. Research capstone. It frustrates me how much focus was still needed on those prior education courses, how the time spent thinking was wasted and enough to put me behind a quarter.
I want to graduate with Merin. I want us to both launch our successes and our lives at the same time. We've earned that.
Catching up only means taking on a bigger course load. The days get even busier, and the nights become less occupied with going out. The full satisfaction still isn't there. I long to feel more lively again, and music during study sessions isn't cutting it.
During a study break, she does what she does best and throw open the doors to a conversation with a blunt question: "Why don't you date seriously?"
I don't answer immediately, idly twisting a pencil around in my hand as I try to think through my answer. "Aside from the obvious of being too busy as of late, I dunno. There just hasn't been anybody I've met that I'd want to date long term."
"But you do want to?"
"Probably." I close my notebook. This conversation was going to be a long one. Merin's eyes are focused, picking up on something unconscious that I wasn't able to mask. She would've been a good Death mage, I think to myself.
"Have you dated? Seriously?" She asks, flopping over onto her back. Her head dangles a bit off the edge of her bed as she's looking at me, one elegant hand reaching across her bedspread to pick up a nail file.
"Sort of. I dated someone back in high school--this Pactkin guy named Thorn--for a bit over one summer. We went to concerts, made mixtapes and things, you know..." I shrug. "Tried not to get caught fooling around by our parents." She laughs a bit. "I guess because he'd been my first everything it felt more serious at the time."
"I think I get what you mean," Merin says, and as she launches into talking about her first relationship. I start to zone out, my fingers tracing over a small carved symbol of Penrhyn a student from the past marked into the desk. Thinking about dating and settling down flattens my mood, a gamble between trying to not think about my one and only boyfriend versus the uncertain future that seemed to be speeding toward me faster each moment.
"--So anyway the next thing I knew it was already over and I was just kind of staring up at him like "That's it?", and I swear it was like he was reading my mind. Sweetest thing for him to try to make it up to me though, because I think he really didn't expect that it'd happen that fast." She laughs. I smell something chemical-sharp and realizes Merin has pulled out a bottle of nail polish. "I wonder how he's doing sometimes. Hopefully whichever girl has him now has a better time."
"Yeah," I say a big vaguely.
"What about you? You did say that he was your first everything, soooo...?" The smell of her nail polish is grounding enough to make it harder to not feel the lingering, old hurts from that time period as I recall it.
Rather, as I... can't. When I try to remember everything, it comes to me like dim shapes and emotions, much like how you try to remember a dream.
"Funny that, I don't really remember it that well. I guess it wasn't that serious after all." I say with a smile, but Merin doesn't return it. She just looks at me with open confusion, still hanging her head upside-down.
"Your first time, and it was forgettable?"
"It was spontaneous," I explain. "We'd just gone off to see a show and took a bugabus back to his place. I do remember it was pretty late and not wanting to miss curfew... oh, I think his stepdad walked in just after we were done, or almost walked in. It was kinda funny timing." Merin paints her nails a bit carefully, a bit more intentionally slow, and I can tell she's working up to ask something different.
"So... you don't remember it well because, what--was the guy that bad at it or what?"
"I just have a bad memory." There's a pause. "...There was this other thing that's kind of funny now looking back, though at the time it wasn't really that funny... I thought I was real great at sneaking back in afterward, but my mom found me." Merin's mouth turns up at the corner as she listens. "I told her I was off studying with friends--"
"Yeah, anatomy maybe," Merin's eyebrows waggle and I laugh.
"--Obvious lie, and I think when I was going home I might've been thinking that maybe she wouldn't need to know I was sneaking off and having sex or whatever, but like--it was one of those things where I was realizing I needed to tell her." I brush my fungoid hair-strands off of my shoulders. "I couldn't be sure if we'd used any protection--" Merin puts the cap on her nail polish. "--so then right there in the middle of the night I had to have this talk with her about like, going down to the clinic just in case."
"The first time I had sex, we accidentally tore the condom because my nails were too long and he was too nervous to even get it on properly," Merin said, sitting up. She pauses to blow on the polish on her nails. "And then it turned out that I had put it on inside out so we had to start all over again." She's giving me that same direct look as she does, but it's harder to escape from now. "...And you weren't even sure the night that it happened if you two had used any kind of protection. Were you like... drunk or something?"
"No." I answer immediately. "I barely even had a contact high from the people that were smoking around us." There's a heaviness forming in the space between us while we talk, and an urgency starting to prickle under under my ribcage like there's something wrong.
"I'm not quite--okay," Merin sighs, and she clasps her hands together in her lap. The usual easy smile she wears most of the time, the usual relaxed eyes and posture isn't anywhere to be found at all. Something different, some other big feeling, has taken their place. "I'll just ask it directly. Did you even want to have sex with him?"
It's concern. Concern over... what exactly? This? A roiling hot feeling rushes through my body, a crashing blend of anger and confusion and alarm that I can't figure out who or where it needs to be directed at. Merin's gaze is so intense that I can't stand another moment of looking at her. It's almost tangible.
"I mean, at the time I don't think I was expecting it." I say.
"With everything you've just said, I mean--are you even sure you said yes?"
"I can't also be certain I said no either," I say, her voice sharper than I mean it to be. "What I do remember feeling is that it felt good, and it also felt really confusing. I wanted to keep seeing him afterward. Do I regret that it was him? Sure. But whatever it is you're thinking--we were fifteen." I feel the edge of the notebook's corner under my fingertips, pressing against it to just feel something small from whatever it was I was feeling at this moment. I sigh deeply. "...During the next school year after we broke up, I found out that one of his buddies was dared to mess with me at a party and he didn't warn me. He still cared enough to call the next day to see if I was okay, and that felt nice at first. Not like, in a way where I wanted to get back with him, but just that he cared to ask. I realized he was probably actually feeling guilty, and I eventually got him to fess up that the whole reason we even dated was because he was dared to act on it. He really liked me though."
"And how did his buddy 'mess' with you?" She asks, crossing her legs. I keep my mouth pressed shut for long enough to raise her concerns again. I guess it'd be warranted for this.
"He had already tried to like... mock me, I guess, for having sex? It was dumb. We almost got into a fight during P.E. over it. But because of the drama between us, and because we happened to be at the same party, it had to come up." I continue picking at the notebook, and the corner of the cardboard gets in under my fingernail and I flinch. "I was pretty drunk, and he probably was too, I dunno. He said some more dumb things about smoothing things over with us if I did something for him, like gave him just one kiss but I walked away. He--" I wave my hand at the air between us. "You know. Went for it anyway."
I'd rather lie down in the Midnight Ocean than admit even to her that sometimes, if someone at the clubs tries to move in for a kiss unexpectedly, it still takes me right back to that exact moment. Years and years later, except the control over my magical responses and impulses to that are stronger than ever. They need to be.
"Atala--"
"You know, I'm confident I would have absolutely been able to kick his ass but somebody held me back." I say.
"Not to get all after-school radio special about it, but you realize how serious that is right?" Merin says.
"I guess," I say, but I don't feel convinced. "I still had to go to school with him afterward though."
Merin holds out the nail polish to me but I shake my head, so she puts it aside. "And I'm guessing he was so well behaved after that, right?" She asks venomously. I think it'd alarm her more to learn that the remaining time I had in high school had, at this point, become such a stressful blur that I hardly remember it.
"He left me alone at least," I say. It's an answer that satisfies her, and it's almost true. Surely there might've been points where I'd hear him laughing behind my back or something to that effect, but it's all been washed away and not really dwelled on since.
"With Thorn though... like, with that night? I can remember thinking that I wanted to go home a bit." I inhale deeply. "...but I can also remember he was... responsive? I told him he was a bit too fast and he slowed down. There's not a reason for me to think he wouldn't have stopped if I said so. Whatever you want to call it, that's what happened."
We don't talk about it again for most of the rest of the night. I pretend to go back to studying, but my mind and heart are racing too fast. I'm feeling too much at once and fighting it every step of the way: anger (which feels irrational), scared (there's nothing to be scared of), indignant (she wasn't there, and it's too complicated to explain), uncertain (No point to question it all over again anyway). The day gives way, our books are put away, we get around preparing for sleep, and the lights go off. I could tell that she wasn't asleep yet, and with how I couldn't seem to get comfortable she probably got the same senes too. She sighs.
"What was confusing about it for you?" She asks. I take a minute to think about what she's referring to, realizing it had been how I described my first time.
"...It's hard to explain," I say, smoothing my hands out over the blankets. "I think it was something like... because we didn't plan for it to happen or talk about it before, I didn't realize that's where the night was heading until we got back to his house. I wanted to kiss him." I laugh, once. "I remember that, and I did. I guess maybe I thought we'd be making out a lot."
"He was prepared though," She says. Her voice is trailing on the edge of sleepy. "He had the condom."
"True."
It goes quiet again. I think I can hear distant cricket chirps through the window outside.
"I guess I just... don't really see the need in dissecting it more if the only thing I feel about it now is just regret." I say. My chest feels tight. Why are any of these feelings coming up now? "Regret that it was with him, and regret maybe realizing only now that I probably just wasn't ready, even if I thought I was."
There's only slivers of light coming in through the blinds of our window, but they still catch her eyes when she turns her head to look at me across the room. It could be the lighting, or it could be that she's legitimately sad on my behalf. I almost want to ask her why.
"How long had you been dating before it happened?"
"...You're really going to hate the answer."
We talk until our voices drift with sleep. Days later, I come back to our dorm and find a small pile of brochures she must have picked up from the student union building. The one on top is white and teal, and has a clean and clear headline: WHAT IS SEXUAL VIOLENCE? On it, she's taped a note:
"I don't know if I was much help the other night, or if you think differently about all that now. Just in case you do, you can talk to these guys. They're helpful."
The glossy paper packs a ton of information in nicely condensed bullet points about the different types, the common feelings that happen afterward, legal resources, and how to help your friends. There's a signal number at the end for a hotline to call and talk to professionally trained volunteers. The mix of emotions from that particular year of my life: desire and fear, dread and want, hatred and fondness, never seemed to make sense or fit anything that happened in a clean and easily defined way. I just remember that it all felt big.
They're helpful, she wrote. If it's happened to her, is that why she was so concerned for me?
I slip the brochures into my drawer next to my pencils. If the need arises, I suppose, it'd be nice to have them on hand.
⏪︎
I want to go home.
It doesn't happen after anything major. Instead, it is a slow-creeping rot that's snuck into every corner of my life. Part of me wants to pinpoint that conversation with Merin as where it got under my skin, but really maybe it had been there the whole time. Maybe it came with me to college, a small spore of doubt that waited patiently to bloom until it was exactly the wrong moment. Tiny pieces of it gather in my head now, such as getting back to the doom in the middle of the night and staring into my reflection until I lost track of time, asking what am I getting out of this? before I get into the shower.
Again in my classes, trying to focus on subjects I can't care about completely and asking did I just commit myself to something completely useless and ruin my life?
And again hanging out with Merin, feeling envy I can't find cause for and asking what is she getting that I'm not? She asked me, without directly asking me, if I wanted any of this to begin with. Her gentle way of challenging me, pulling me out of my shell, getting me to look back at things that I can easily say that I wanted, explore what I like, and now it won't shut off. What do I want out of any of this? I hear only Pa's voice, telling me how amazing of a future I'll have after college and me nodding in agreement. What do I want out of any of this? Going dancing, going home with the occasional stranger, living a life of a truly free young adult. Is it what I want? What do I want to actually do? What do I want to be? Seen? Loved? Successful? It can't have all gone to waste.
I stop going out. I can't find the answer to what I want out of any of it anymore, so I turn my remaining energy toward trying to reach the finish line. Once or twice an old hookup tries to call me but I politely make up an excuse to not go meet up. ⏪︎
I stop trying to think about if my degree is going to get me a lucrative career and decide to just focus on finishing. I just need to be in the present. I can't think about what's ahead, even though getting through these last remaining classes makes me want to beat my head into the wall. I don't need to want it, I just need to finish.
Merin talks with me in a subtly gentler way after everything and I want to crawl out of my skin. I'm fine, can't she see that? I told her so, and I just want her to understand that. She already has her choice of internships lined up after all of this is done and we should be talking about trying to keep in touch after graduation, but I just want those timeless, joyous moments back. I can't explain it. I just promise that we'll keep in touch instead. I work and move and breathe like I'm waiting for permission to make one last big push or one last big change, and then the breakthrough will happen--
--and it does, with a single radio call home. The signal is passed around to everybody, catching up Ma and Pa with how everything is going (fine, obviously, and not at all stressful and terrifying), to my sisters, but I can sense something is wrong on the other end. I'm hearing a waver in Phoebe's voice like she's been crying, so I press on. It's kid stuff: bullying, younger versions of the pressure that I am feeling in my day to day now, having a hard time talking about it, and in the shaking summary she gives me I hear just one thing: "--and I just kind of wish you were here right now, is all. Like before." She knows I'm still in Moonhaven, but visits back with the family just aren't the same when I leave at the end.
I stare across the room to the calendar I had tacked up to the wall to try to stay on top of my course work. A break would be nice. I won't graduate with Merin, but it's just a break. It doesn't even have to be a long one, maybe just a semester. People take breaks like this all the time.
"Could you put Pa back on the line?" I ask. "...I might be able to, I just need to talk to him first okay?"