by Alison Grey
It just felt unsafe somehow. There were so many people…
My intuition said this was going to be a bad idea. But I didn’t know how to stop it.
I wish I had.
Forty-Six
SHERIDAN
Later I’d try to define what exactly happened that night in a way that made it seem less… immoral. Because immoral is such a heavy word and I don’t think anyone did anything wrong, but we made the kind of decisions we’d never make sober, so there’s guilt with that.
I was so focused on Heath. He’d grabbed me almost the moment he’d come into the cabin and I’d been so surprised since I’d imagined him coming in with Olivia clinging to him. But if I hadn’t known they’d just been dates at a formal together, I’d have never guessed they even knew each other.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair, making goosebumps rise on my skin. “I should have taken you, Sheridan. What a mistake to take anyone else.”
I wish I could have played the part of the cool girl, the one we all want to be as women. But I couldn’t, not with him.
I wrapped my arms around him, my inhibitions having left me hours ago.
“It’s okay,” I said, smiling. “You’re here now. I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time.”
It was a lie of course.
Of all the mistakes and different ways things could have gone, accepting Heath is one I regret the most.
He wasn’t worthy.
Too bad you don’t realize these things until it’s too late to change them.
* * *
I remember being on the recliner with Heath for what seemed like a long time.
Someone had turned down the music. I looked around at one point and everyone was half naked or in some cases fully naked. I’d never seen anything quite like it.
People were pairing off and finding their own secluded corners of the cabin. Amanda had curled up on the couch by herself and was asleep. She’d pulled one of the cadets jackets on top of her to use as a blanket.
“How many bedrooms are there here?” Heath asked. I looked at him and was dizzy thinking about what he was really asking me.
“Only two I think,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know. Want to go to one?”
We stood up and kind of stumbled around the cabin, tripping over couples hooking up around us.
For some reason it made me think of my class on Ancient Greece where we’d learned about Dionysus who was the god of mystery, wine, and intoxication. The ancient Greeks had celebrated and worshipped him in secret ceremonies specifically embraced by Greek women who would dance and get drunk off wine, which they weren’t accustomed to, causing them to go into a sexual fever of sorts, at least according to my professor.
They’d indulge in “copious” sexual activity and orgies and we’d all been intrigued at the thought of such things, imagining what it would be like to let yourself go in such a blatant and shameless way.
And then class ended and we hadn’t thought about it anymore.
But it was all I could think about now as we entered one of the bedrooms.
On the bed there was just an enormous pile of naked limbs. I couldn’t tell who was who at first and it didn’t help that I was heavily intoxicated from both liquor and Heath’s professions.
“What am I even seeing right now?” I asked and Heath squeezed my hand, shocked at the sight.
“I think… I think it’s an orgy.” Heath cleared his throat, a habit I would know later was something he did when he was very anxious. “Holy shit.”
Sure enough, Hollis, Winston, Wendi, two other cadets and Brooke…
Brooke?
Sure enough, she was part of this and I was immediately embarrassed to see her in such a position.
It was like walking in on your parents. That same feeling.
I closed the door, even though it had been wide open when we’d walked in.
I didn’t know what to say. I suddenly felt very sober.
Heath laughed. “What is happening?”
I looked up at him to say something and as soon as I did, he kissed me, both of his hands on my face and it was the kind of kiss I’d been waiting for my entire life.
And suddenly I didn’t care about what was happening in the bedroom.
Forty-Seven
HOLLIS
It was definitely a bizarre night, one I barely remembered, which is probably better anyway.
I enjoyed it. But I was so conditioned to feel guilty about it, that it was hard to be in the moment, even for me. I loved playing the part of the girl who didn’t care, but I desperately did care, very much, and the next morning when everyone was sober and the night’s veil had been lifted, of course there were regrets.
I woke up in the crook of Winston, my cheek on his left pectoral muscle, his arm around me. We were both naked, which wasn’t so unfamiliar for us. It had happened a couple of times, always on nights like this when we allowed our guards to come down.
But I felt someone else’s body pushed up next to mine.
I glanced over, groaning as the morning light hit my eyes, the hangover had already started its relentless march across my forehead. Tylenol and water would not be enough today; I already knew that.
I was surprised to see a naked Brooke next to me.
Brooke?
What the hell?
Brooke was asleep and next to her was one of Winston’s buddies, also naked.
Holy hell.
I sat up, pulling the sheet against my chest. On the floor entwined with some other guy was Wendi. Also naked.
Good grief. What had we done?
* * *
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
I was talking to Brooke who wasn’t taking the previous night’s activities as well as I was.
“I’m a slut,” she pronounced.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that such a terrible thing?”
Brooke looked at me with stark fear in her eyes. “It is when you have parents like mine. Did anyone use protection? I don’t even remember… I mean I do, but I didn’t care about that at the time. Is this how people get pregnant? I mean, I definitely enjoyed it… I just…”
She was rambling away, and I felt bad. Brooke wasn’t someone who did stuff like this. Hell, neither was I really. This was a whole other level of partying that I’d never experienced.
“Hey.” I was buttoning my shirt now, both of us no longer naked. The guys had quickly gotten dressed and were in the other room, preparing to leave and go back to school. Their curfew was noon. “You did nothing wrong. You had fun, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“No one made you do anything, right?”
“No, not at all…” Brooke’s voice trailed off. “That’s why I hate myself, because I liked it. I wanted all of it. It was like I couldn’t get enough.”
I wrapped my arm around her. “Then there’s nothing to feel bad about. We experimented… we did some weird stuff. That’s what college is for, right?”
Brooke sighed. “I’m just not… I just have no idea what came over me.”
“You wanted to hook up.” I stood up and pulled her up with me. “You wanted to feel young and alive and sexy. You wanted to do something wild. For once. To look back on fondly when you’re an old lady. It’s okay, Brooke. Really. No one will ever know. You parents will absolutely never find out.”
Brooke hugged me back.
“Thank you,” she said. “You never make me feel bad about anything I do. Whether it’s saying the wrong thing, drinking too much, or participating in my first orgy.”
I laughed as we opened the bedroom door and went back into the living room to face the rest of our day.
If it had just ended there, it would have been one of my favorite nights ever at Martha Jefferson.
But of course, that’s not what happened at all.
Forty-Eight
BROOKE
After the events at the cabin, nothing dramatic happened, curiou
sly enough. Everyone there agreed that what happened at the cabin stayed at the cabin, and we’d all just kind of settled into the idea that it had been an extraordinary night where we’d made bizarre decisions, but that we were young and everything had been consensual, so what was the harm in any of it?
As long as no one ever found out.
Life settled again. Sheridan and Heath were now an official couple. It was as if, in a way, Olivia’s betrayal had brought them together. It wasn’t the most romantic of origin stories, but Sheridan didn’t seem to care. For some reason Heath Anders— the most mediocre boy SMI ever produced in my opinion— had Sheridan the beauty under his spell. We’d never understand why and had we known how serious they’d end up being, maybe we would have protested the whole thing more.
But you can never predict those kinds of things. Or their repercussions.
Olivia was trying her hardest to be the girl we’d once loved and trusted, but it was really a losing battle. Nothing was ever going to be the same with us, not after the petty betrayals and the lying.
We’d had a sort of suite meeting about it, a good week after the ring formal. Hollis had confronted her with the rumors we’d heard from Wendi and Olivia had broken down, embarrassed, but still with little explanation as to why she’d lied to all of us.
“I just wanted a fresh start,” she explained. “I went through absolute hell at UVA… sorry, Radford, with the affair and I just didn’t want to be that person anymore. And I thought part of moving on was just… I don’t know. I can’t even explain it. It’s so dumb, I thought about telling y’all so many times about the lies, but it just seemed to get harder and harder the longer time went on. And then I felt like I couldn’t.”
We were all baffled by this logic.
When junior year ended, Hollis broke the news to Olivia that she and Amanda would be rooming together in an off-campus.
Just the two of them.
Olivia didn’t take the news well, but eventually she had to accept it and a shaky truce was made between all of us. Sheridan and I were staying in the senior dorms and ironically Olivia ended up rooming with Julia, the girl from freshman year that Hollis had originally tried to push Olivia on.
We didn’t hear from Olivia all summer. I’d messaged her a couple of times, just to be nice of course. I guess part of me felt bad for her. She wasn’t well, that’s clear to me now. There were so many red flags with Olivia and if it had been a different time and place, maybe she could have gotten the help she needed.
But she didn’t. And that can’t be changed now.
Senior year was an intense time, but it was the calmest of all our years.
At least, until about two months before graduation.
That’s when everything went to complete shit.
And the ticking bomb that would blow up on graduation and result in the death of Olivia, had started its timer.
We just didn’t know it until it was too late.
PART FIVE: SENIOR YEAR AND GRADUATION
Forty-Nine
AMANDA
I had seen Olivia around campus of course. We even had some classes together and it was always cordial. We even had lunch together sometimes and I could almost forget about the past and the lies.
I was preparing for post-collegiate life. I’d set up interviews with some advertising agencies in Atlanta where Hollis and I had already planned on being roommates while she started law school. Working at an ad agency wasn’t my dream, but it was a start— something for me to do while I figured out what the hell else to do with the rest of my life.
I’d never thought of moving to LA until Olivia. That’s what’s so shocking— Olivia had spent hours telling me stories about LA and her time there and how we should move there together after graduation. I’d confessed to her and only her my dreams of being an actress and breaking barriers in the industry. My theater classes at Martha Jefferson were by far my favorite and I longed to have the kind of money the other girls had to pursue my dreams.
But it wasn’t meant to be. That’s what I’d convinced myself anyway.
I decided to put my computer science degree to good use and make a great life for myself. That was nothing to be ashamed of. Work a few years, build up a nest egg, use my twenties to accumulate stuff and my thirties to settle down, maybe start a family, and then go from there.
Still. Something in me ached for the intangible.
* * *
Two months before graduation I was alone at the apartment I shared with Hollis. It was a one bedroom, so we still shared a room. Our twin beds were mere feet away from each other.
I looked forward to the day where I would have a little more space to myself.
I’d been studying for midterms when the knock on the door startled me.
I walked over to open the door, expecting it to be Sheridan or Brooke, maybe even a friend of mine from class who had said she might drop by to study later.
Instead, I opened the door to see a mail courier, a bored looking man, stout and short, with a thick yellow envelope in his hands.
“Are you Hollis Cobb?” he asked.
“I’m her roommate,” I replied.
He handed me the envelope addressed to her and said nothing else. Just turned and was on his way, completely unaware of the impact of his actions.
He had no idea he’d just delivered the thing that would set the course of events that would change our lives forever.
Fifty
HOLLIS
Dozens of photos.
That’s what had been in the envelope. Amanda had handed it to me as soon I’d walked in later that afternoon after a student senate meeting.
“What’s this?” I asked looking at the front of the envelope for a return address. There wasn’t one.
Amanda shrugged. “Not sure. LSAT?”
I shook my head. “I don’t get those results until next month.”
I dropped my backpack on the floor and walked over to the futon in our living room, ripping the padded envelope open with the end of my keys.
I dumped the contents out on the coffee table.
As soon as I saw the photos, I realized why there hadn’t been a return address.
It wasn’t needed. I knew immediately who had sent these.
* * *
“I brought my camera!” Olivia had said. “Capture some Kodak moments!”
That conniving bitch.
In the madness of that decadent night in the cabin over a year ago, we’d let our guards down and she’d captured it all on film. The photos were clear and incriminating. You could without a doubt see each of our faces and parts of our bodies that would only be allowed in magazines they keep behind the back of a cash register in clear plastic.
I was embarrassed for myself, but I was devastated for Brooke. She was the one who would suffer for this, the one who would have to be put on suicide watch if these were to ever get out.
I didn’t even want her to know they existed. I knew that right away.
Amanda looked over my shoulder and she gasped, and I could almost hear her thoughts, knowing they mirrored my own.
We were so fucked.
* * *
There had been no need for explanations when I instant messaged Olivia and asked her to come to our apartment as soon as possible.
“I’m guessing you got mail today,” she typed, and I wanted to throw my laptop out the window I was so angry.
I didn’t even respond.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she typed back.
And then she signed off.
* * *
“What do you think her agenda is with this?” I asked Amanda as we waited for Olivia to show up.
I’d never had homicidal tendencies until that moment, but now I understood every episode of 20/20 I’d ever seen. Rage could really drive you to think about doing a lot of things you’d never consider when clear-headed.
“I can’t even begin to imagine,” Amanda answered. She was staring at the photo
s. “Wasn’t Wendi part of this too?”
“Ugh yes don’t remind me,” I replied covering my face with my hands.
“Well, she’s not in any of these pictures.” Amanda handed them back to me. “Kind of weird.”
“Well as far as I know she wouldn’t have any reason to fuck up Wendi’s life,” I retorted. “Fuck. I wish I’d never met this bitch.”
It was more like an hour before Olivia showed up, so by the time we let her in the apartment, I was close to having a stroke from all the anxiety the photos were causing me.
“Hi.” Olivia strolled in, but I could sense she was scared to do whatever it was she had planned. “I hate this whole thing, but there was nothing else I could do. Just so you know that up front.”
Amanda stepped between us, sensing that I might, for the first time in my life, become violent. She didn’t have to worry about that, but it made sense, considering.
I’d never hated someone in my whole life as much as I hated Olivia Barron at that moment.
“What are you talking about?” I yelled. Olivia jumped, which brought me a slight amount of pleasure.
“I never thought I would use those photos. I felt terrible when I took them, but I was so angry,” Olivia said. “Y’all had alienated me and made me feel so alone. Over a couple of guys who weren’t even taken. It surprised me and hurt me.”
Amanda guffawed. “Are you serious?”
“I am,” Olivia stated. She had straightened up now, her posture showing us she felt powerful because she thought had the upper hand. “After what happened my first semester in college, I promised never to allow anyone to have power over me again. Even though he was the married one I was the one punished and made to feel bad. It wasn’t right.”