I remember falling in love with you. It was fast and easy, like taking a jump down a ledge on a cold winter night. It happened the very first time I met you. The grass around us sat under thick mist, and the trees sang a haunted song. I didn’t know where I was going, but then I found you. You were standing near the edge of the stream near the back of the campus, near our dormitories, smoking a skinny cigarette. You saw me crying, and you laughed.
I laughed too. You were breathtaking.
You walked close and dropped the cigarette, grinding it to the ground with the edge of your Mary Janes, and I was caught for a minute on the way you moved. You were like a dancer. Your legs were long and dainty, in the way that a ballerina’s might be. And you tossed your silky smooth black hair over your shoulders and smiled at me.
“I know you. You’re the one Zachary hates.”
“Zachary?” I asked, uncertainty.
“Zachary David Smith,” you reminded me, sardonically. “Our English teacher.” “You’re in my class?” It was ridiculous to me that I hadn’t known that. I would have never missed a girl like you.
“Not anymore,” you scoffed. “They kicked me out.”
“Does he hate you too?” I asked quietly.
“Not at all. He loves me. He loves me so much he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me when the sun was out.”
You were so proud of it. I was proud too. “So he moved you out?”
“No, my mother did. Did he send you out here?”
I shook my head. “Saint did.”
“Saint Foster? From the third tower?”
“I don’t know where he lives.”
“He’s such a dick. Don’t mind anything he says. He didn’t even look at you when he talked, did he?”
I shook my head again.
“He’s just pretentious like that. But don’t worry. I’ll talk to him,” you announced. “Leave it to me. Tell me if he ever treats you like that again, okay?”
You grabbed my elbow, and we walked back in together. You let me go as soon as you saw Saint, and you yelled at him for me, getting right into his personal space to tell him how terrible he was.
“Don’t ever leave her in the cold like that again.”
“I can do what I want.”
“Right up until I call your mother.”
He flicked your forehead. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck yourself,” you retorted, crossing your arms over your ironed blazer. “Stop acting like a jerk.”
“Stop acting like a bitch.”
You leaned in, mischief playing on your lips. “Make me,” you said, jeering. Saint pushed you away, and I was glad for it. Nobody should have gotten that close to you when you already had me.
It was a week later, and I was following you around like a lost duckling. You never minded. You let me help with your laundry and comb your hair, and you always held the light for me when the laundry room got dark at night. I would ask you to help me with my calculus, and you always leaned so close our arms would brush. I suddenly got terrible at math. You wore watermelon-flavored lip balm from a Swedish brand that I had never heard of, and only ever associated with you. I would smell it on your pillows when I slept over, and I tasted it on my own lips when you let me borrow it. It didn’t taste like watermelon. I wondered if it tasted like you.
I wasn’t brave enough to find out.
You smelled of watermelon, hairspray, and expensive perfume. I always knew when you were close. Sometimes, I would smell you on my clothes, but only on the nights you got drunk enough to sleep on my shoulder. I never moved you off, and you never complained about the crick in your neck in the mornings after.
One time, I remember, your father sent you a bunch of Fireball shooters. As a present, I think. Your parents had finalized their divorce, and you were a mess. Shattered and devastated like I’d never seen you before. We had shot after shot,and you were so dizzy you couldn’t see me right in front of you, and you leaned your face so closely into mine that I could make out each individual lash. You had so many.
You took a breath, and I heard it in my lungs. It felt like my lungs had stopped. But that’s okay.That was enough for me. You could breathe for the both of us. “I’m in love with Zach,” you whispered to me. I stiffened up. “Don’t tell anyone.” And then you leaned so close that I thought you would kiss me, but you passed out on my lap instead. I never let you touch the floor.
I felt so cold that night. I turned down all the lights and bent my head over yours, praying to a god I never believed in that you would wake up and take it all back. But god isn’t real, and you were as cruel as you were loved, my dearest.
I couldn’t have told anyone, even if I wanted to. If I told someone and they reported it, you would hate me. If I didn’t tell anyone, then you would fall harder for him, but you would still keep me. I would have never, ever betrayed your trust. But I had to do something.
There’s a girl in the grade below us who looks like you, Alaia. I’d have never noticed her if you hadn’t noticed her first. I saw your eyes tracking her, with down -turned lips and narrowing eyes across the cafeteria. She walked from the north corner to talk to Saint, and you scowled the entire time.
You crushed your milk carton onto the table so hard it splattered onto my skirt. The next day, I told Alaia that Zachary was holding office hours on Friday evenings around 8 PM.
Next Saturday, you walked into my room and marched me to the library.
“We’re studying English,” you told me curtly. “I slipped up on my last essay.” You never slipped up on your essays. You never slipped up on anything. You were the first ranked in your grade and you were in all the AP classes I could never reach. You were behind Saint, but everyone was behind Saint.
“Did Zachary not help you?” I asked, pleased.
“He’s busy.”
I didn’t ask any more.
Zach was always busy after that, and you always slipped up on your essays after that. I was over the moon, absolutely incandescent under the rain of your attention. You had me. I was delighted that you understood what that meant.
And then Saint joined us. Two became three, and it felt like I wasn’t first anymore. And I thought I was used to being on the sidelines but I was wrong.
I hated Saint more than I hated anyone. I didn’t even hate Zach like that. With him, I understood. He was older, he was useful, and he was forbidden. You always liked things that weren’t allowed, and I thought I was being kind by letting you keep your vices. But Saint was normal. Saint was worse. He wasn’t any more handsome than you were beautiful. He didn’t laugh at your jokes and never made the first move. You did.
You were so bright and clever, I couldn’t believe you were being so stupid. I couldn’t believe you were falling again, as if the first time hadn’t left you bruised enough. And you tried to lie to me, over and over, but I’m not a fucking idiot.
I hated you both so much I could have cried with the weight of it. It pressed down on my chest until I threw up in the bathroom.
There was a knock on the door.
“Are you alright?” came a voice, hesitant and quiet.
I didn’t answer.
“Hello?” She knocked again. “I heard you vomiting. Are you okay?”
I opened the door aggressively, walked to the sink and rinsed my mouth. She moved out of the way at once. I wish the door had hit her.
She stood behind me, nervous, hovering over my back. I stood up, sweat drying on my hairline, and took a good, long look at her face.
This was the girl that surpassed you in the rankings. This was the girl you lost to. She was pathetic, and you were almost worse because if you were going to lose, you should have picked yourself a better opponent.
She went to put a hand on my shoulder, and I reeled away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Sorry,” she whispered, letting it fall. She twisted her fingers, pulling at them like they could pop right out of their sockets. Like she was a doll. A perfect, quiet, obedient plaything. I wanted her to break in half.
“I wanted to talk to you. About Mister Smith?” I huffed. I wasn’t going to listen.
“Fucking slut.”
She staggered back, face going white. I whirled around, to make sure she saw my eyes when I said the rest of what I had to say.
“Whore. A lying, whoring piece of shit that could never have what it takes to stay here. You think I want to talk to someone like that?”
Her hands were shaking. I felt so good. I felt like someone had taken a piece of cork out of me, and I was bleeding all over the tiled floor, and now that the wound was clean, it could heal again. So I kept going.
“Did he give you that grade because you sucked his dick? Let him fuck you? It won’t last. Nothing lasts here. Not your grade, not your dreams, not your ‘office hours,’ and not you. I’ll make sure of it.”
She looked so frightened. I laughed in her face.
“I just want to know,” I said. “When you’re applying to Princeton, when you need to pass their entrance essay, are you going to pull your skirt down for them too? And when you have kids and they ask you to help them with their homework, will you tell them who came before their daddy? I’m curious.”
She started to cry, and I could feel my skin knitting itself back together.
“Will you tell everybody that he fucks you on Fridays, when they ask you about your hobbies? When the first guy you meet at your next frat party puts his hand up your pants, will you think of him? And after–”
She slapped me right then. And before I could say a word, she ran out the door, holding her chest like my blood had left a stain.
The week after that, you were distraught.
It was then that I understood that you loved me after all. This kind of hatred that burnt and boiled you from the inside, like maggots burrowing underneath your skin, it was the kind of release you would only throw on someone who could handle it.
I could handle it. Alaia, perhaps not, but this wasn’t about her.
“Saint and Alaia. Zachary and Alaia. Alaia, Alaia, Alaia,” you sang. “Her name sounds so perfect with all of them.”
“Yours sounds better.” But it would sound the best with mine.
“She’s everything,” you whispered.
“Nothing,” I argued. “Nothing compared to you. Don’t think like that.”
“She’s going to report him,” you told me, melancholy pouring out of you, staring out the window above your bed like you wanted to jump out of it. “She’s going to tell the principal about the two of them.”
“Did she tell you that?” I asked, whispering too.
“Last night.”
“Are you going to go with her?” I asked quietly, hoping against hope that you would. I wanted you back. I will always want you back.
“No.” My heart fell. “I would never hurt him like that.”
“Then he’ll come back to you.”
You shook your head. “No,” you told me with a shaky voice. “He’ll be in prison.” “So you let him go.”
“No,” you said, starting to sob. “I can’t. You don’t understand. You never will. You’ve never been in love like this.”
You were wailing so deeply, so hurt, that I wanted to cry with you. But one of us had to keep it together.
“You’ll never know what it’s like to want someone like this,” you cried. “He made me feel smart. He made me feel like I was worth something. If I’m failing this, then I fail at life. He’s everything. He’s everything to me, but he doesn’t want me.”
“Everybody wants you.” I want you.
“He wants her.” You couldn’t even get the words out.
“Kill her,” I whispered, mad. “Get rid of her, then.”
You sniffled, and looked at me from under your wet eyelashes. I had never wanted to kiss you more. “What?”
“Get rid of her.” I would have said anything to get you to stop looking so heartbroken. I never wanted you to feel like that again. “No one will know if you do it right.” You cried yourself to sleep on my bed.
The day after, you went back to hanging out with Saint like it was nothing. You laughed at his jokes and touched his hair, and I let you because it looked like you were healing. And maybe it didn’t hurt anymore like you wanted it to, so you dug your fingers into the cut and peeled it open until you saw muscle and tendon. When Saint’s eyes strayed, you hung on to it like a leech. You followed his eyeline all the way to Alaia. He startled as you laughed.
I loved your laugh. If I heard that sound in my dreams, I would know exactly who it was.
“Her?” you said, like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. “You want Alaia?”
He scowled. “I don’t want anybody.”
“You keep looking at her,” you argued. “I keep telling you about next week’s quiz and you haven’t said a word.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he complained, but you kept going.
“Then stop looking at her. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
“You weren’t saying anything of importance.”
You slammed the table so hard that everyone in the library froze. They all turned to look at you, and you stood up like a tornado and ran away, leaving a whirl of papers behind. I ran right after you.
It all happened two nights later. You texted Saint. He didn’t answer. I had asked you to stop drinking, but you were upset. It was the day before Alaia was going to tell everybody about Zachary. You couldn’t face it sober, and I couldn’t face you drunk. I was completely clear-headed that night. The events linger in my head like a wine stain on a white carpet. I can never forget it. Neither can you.
You went looking for Saint. You walked all across campus in a white silk slip, shivering in the March chill. The cold didn’t even touch me. I was too worried about you. You were barefoot and quiet in a way that unsettled me, so I followed you two steps behind.
You walked into his room like you had every right, and when his roommate woke up you glared at him like he deserved it.
“Where is he?” you demanded, righteous as the grim reaper.
His roommate shrugged. “Gone.”
“Where?”
“Look dude, I’m not his keeper. To his girlfriend’s, I think?”
I knew where this was going. I should have pulled away. I should have dragged you out of there.
“Which tower?” you asked, breathing low. I think you knew too.
“Second.”
You screamed in response and pushed everything off his table, and closed the door on his angry roommate. Glass shattered to the ground, spilling juice, and you ignored all of it to walk away.
You banged on Alaia’s door with both fists, shaking violently. I didn’t know how to make you stop. Saint opened the door, chest heaving, cheeks flushed, and lips pink like they had been busy. Behind him, Alaia stood up and took a slow step back.
That was all you needed. You shoved him away with all your might and raced towards her, feet slapping on cold tiles. You reared your hand back, ready for a slap, and Saint twisted your arm behind your back.
“Shut up,” he hissed. “You fucking- bitch, shut up. Stop it.”
You screamed. You dug your feet into the ground and pulled your arm back, slapping his face too.
“Stop,” Alaia said, crying. “Please.”
Her voice grated on my ears. I wished she could die.
You rushed towards her like you had nothing to lose, and she screeched like you were coming for her life. She pushed you as hard as she could, and you flew away. You had always been so light.
Your back hit the window like a freight train, and time stopped when I heard the glass crack. It happened in the blink of an eye, and I could see your eyes widen when I saw the window break.
By the time I reached the edge, my hand had stretched out to catch yours, fingers leaning into the darkness; you were on the ground, splayed onto the grass like a favorite doll, torn silk cloth spread like broken wings.
I watched them, still kneeling over the jagged edges of the glass. They turned red as blood leaked out of you.
***
Zachary cried at your funeral. Saint and Alaia didn’t even come. I just stood there, letting the April snow collect on my shoulder and watching it build on the edge of my lashes. The maggots have come back, settling under my skin, burrowing into the festering wound your absence tore into me. My world flattened into the moment you fell. My nightmares are an echo of broken glass.
The moon has waxed and waned over a hundred times, and my memories haven’t changed. My feelings haven’t changed. Sometimes I can taste watermelon on the edge of my lips, and I chase after the taste of you like it’s the last drop of water I’ll ever have.
Time hasn’t stripped me of any pain. I feel the hurt like I felt it yesterday, the day before, and the day before.
Tonight, I’m back in your room. It’s not the same as it was when you were here. But then again, nothing is.
I can feel you like a heartbeat. You’ve never left the very bones of me. And when the sun rises tomorrow, they’ll find my body where they found yours.