Shameless

by Nina Lemay

I leave a message on Emmanuel’s cell and cancel our plans to go for dinner after school. Not that I could have kept anything down anyway.

  Instead, I go home, right from Leary’s office. I’m walking in a fog. I nearly miss my metro stop and narrowly avoid being run over when I cross the street on a red light. The driver honks and rolls down his window to yell at me, Osti de salope!

  I go straight up to my loft, where I lock the door and slide the chain into place. I strip down, think of running a bath, but the idea of waiting that long makes me want to throw up. So I just blast the hot water and climb under it till it runs out.

  I think I might be crying, but I can’t be sure. The hot water washes away everything.

  I gargle until I run out of mouthwash and my mouth is on fire, then swish with the vodka from the freezer. I spend the next half-hour doubled over the toilet, heaving and crying. It feels like every vein and artery in my face is about to simultaneously burst.

  When I have nothing more to heave up, I slump next to the toilet and let the room spin around me like a hellish carousel.

  I don’t know what time it is when I finally crawl from the bathroom, or by what miracle I even make it to my bed. In my bag, my phone is buzzing like crazy, and I have no choice but to amble over and get it out. When I see Emmanuel’s name on the display, I think I’m going to start retching all over again. I collapse on my bed with a groan, pressing my hand over my stomach—I swear I can feel my spine. My ribs stick out like arches over the concave plane of my belly.

  With shaking fingers, I text: not feeling well. Sorry.

  Seconds later he texts back:

  Anything I can do?

  No. that’s ok, I just need to lie down.

  Want me to come over and take care of you? Followed by a winky face.

  I clasp my hand over my mouth. No. I don’t want you to see me like this. I think about it, erase the last sentence, and type in something lame about being contagious.

  I don’t even know if I sleep. Reality and nightmare have become pretty much the same, until I can no longer tell the difference.

  Email from Leary:

  It was a fruitful and encouraging conversation. I look forward to seeing you after the next class, so we can determine your make-up assignments.

  I try to think of how I’m going to make it to school without puking my guts out.

  I do the math in my head: three weeks left till the end of semester. Six classes. That means six times I’ll have to—

  And there’s no guarantee he’ll stop there. I picture myself bending over the desk in that ugly, cramped office while he huffs and puffs behind me, pumping himself into a two-minute orgasm, slapping my ass: oh yeah, that’s a good girl. I think you deserve a B-minus. Next week work maybe we can even work our way up to a B?

  It won’t happen. I will never set foot in that school again. I’ll kill myself before that can happen.

  The day of Emmanuel’s class, I can’t force myself to get out of bed. The minutes tick away on my alarm clock, 9:02, 9:21, 9:45. In my head I picture what’s happening in the classroom at this very moment: everyone takes their places, Emmanuel is at the front with the projector ready for another lecture on the masters of traditional photography. He keeps glancing up from his keyboard, at the empty space where I’m supposed to be sitting. He tries to be discreet about it, but all eyes are on him, and they miss no detail. Audrey is there, in some new shade of Technicolor lipstick, flirting up a storm. Pretty much no one else notices I’m not there because I hardly talk to anyone most days.

  He waits till 9:50, 9:51, 9:57. Then he has no choice but to start without me.

  I pull the blanket over my head to block out the daylight streaming through the window, close my eyes, and try to picture not existing.

  A flurry of texts, 10:29, 10:32, 10:38.

  Hannah?

  Are you OK?

  Are you still feeling sick?

  I thumb through them, so numb I don’t even feel a pang. My fingers hover over the keys but I can’t bring myself to text back. Exhausted, I put down the phone.

  All I can think about is tomorrow. Nothing before and nothing after it even registers. Leary’s class tomorrow, and what will happen after, hangs over my head like a guillotine blade.

  I bury my face in the pillow and cry and cry and cry until there’s no more water in my body.

  4:42.

  A frantic knocking on the door pulls me out of my semi-comatose state. Holding back a groan, I press myself up from the disheveled bed; my head droops, heavy and leaden. I stumble, walk in zigzags to the door, needing to hold on to furniture just to keep upright.

  “Hannah!” calls a muffled voice from behind the door. “Are you in there? Please answer.”

  I stop inches from the door, breathing heavily like I just climbed a mountain.

  “Hannah. I’ll break in the door if you don’t open.”

  I shudder with my whole body. My fevered imagination draws a vivid picture of Leary crouched behind the door like an imp, speaking in Emmanuel’s voice somehow. The better to lure me out.

  “Please. I need to know you’re okay, you seemed out of it yesterday. Do you have a fever? Did it get worse?” A pause. “Talk to me. I can hear you behind the door.”

  I force down the lump in my throat, and just like that—I know exactly what I have to do.

  It would be easier to excise my own heart with nail scissors. But it’s the only thing.

  Without words, I turn the lock, then remove the chain. The door creaks open, and there he is. Seeing him makes my heart flip; he has shadows of worry under his eyes, stubble on his jaw—he always shaves before class. Oh God, what am I doing?

  Before I can utter a word, he encases me in a hug—germs be damned. “Hannah,” he whispers. His breath tickles my ear, and I close my eyes, reveling in his nearness.

  “Are you feeling worse? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”

  The genuine worry and concern in his voice cut me to the core. Tears start to well up in the back of my throat. I shake my head.

  “Then just let me take care of you. I can make chicken soup. Make a pharmacy run if you need anything.” He brushes a few loose strands of hair out of my face, then feels my forehead for a fever. “You seem okay. Not too warm.”

  It takes all the willpower I’m capable of, but I push his hands away. A frown line of confusion creases his forehead.

  “What’s the matter? Did something happen?” His jaw tightens. “Something at work?”

  “No.” My voice hardly sounds like me anymore, raspy and hoarse. “Emmanuel… I need to talk to you about something.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Reflexively, he takes a small step forward, reaches out to put his hands on my waist, but drops them awkwardly at his sides. I can see his face cloud over as he starts to suspect what this is about.

  “I… I had a chance to rethink all this.”

  I see my name forming on his lips before it materializes into sound. There’s nothing I will miss more, hearing him say my name. He made me sound beautiful. He made everything in my life beautiful.

  Without him—

  “We can’t see each other anymore.”

  Even though he knew this was coming, the look of shock on his face is striking. “What? Why? I thought we—was it something I said? Something I did?”

  I shut my eyes, squeezing my eyelids till my vision swims red, and shake my head. The world spins and sways. Please let it be just a continuation of the nightmare. Please let me wake up, any second now, and be in Emmanuel’s bed, snuggled up against his sleeping form between silken sheets. Happy. Whole.

  “Please don’t argue. It’s better like this for both of us, just trust me. This thing we have—it’s only going to ruin our lives.”

  “How can you say that? You’re the only thing that—”

  “You can’t see it, and maybe I couldn’t see it either. But you were right all along, it’s like you and Vanessa.” Seeing him flinch at the mention of h
er name like I slapped him makes every cell in my body writhe in agony. “It’ll creep up on both of us, and we won’t know until it wrecks us. We have to stop. You understand me? We have to stop.”

  His nostrils flare, and he takes a tiny step back, nearly stumbling. “You can’t just end it like this.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “You need to think about it more.”

  “Please understand. Don’t argue. It’s over, okay? It’s over, for good this time.”

  I see the understanding work its way in. He hides it as best as he can, but I know him too well—every tremor, every twitch, his jaw tensing, the barely-there flutter of an eyelid. “We will talk about this again,” he says in a firm voice. “You’re not feeling well. When the fever comes down, things won’t look so bad, I promise.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “You—you can’t. It’s not just you, there’s two of us in this thing, you can’t decide for the both of us, that’s not right…”

  “Please,” I whisper. “Just go, okay? Right now I need you to leave.”

  He backs away. He’s hurt and bewildered, taken aback, disoriented and lost—I see all these things flit over his face, before he can hide them under the mask of normalcy.

  “I’ll call you,” he says.

  I close the door. For a few seconds, I lean on it with my full weight; holding my breath, I listen to the steps on the other side. He doesn’t move. For the longest time, he just stands there, inches away from me, nothing but a thin panel of painted plywood between us.

  Just when I think I will never be able to breathe again, I hear him walk away.

  My knees buckle and I let myself slide to the floor, where I curl up and hug my knees to my chest. My cheek against the rough, dirty floorboards, I start to cry, little by little, a trickle that escalates into a flood, a tsunami, a torrent of pain.

  I have never been more alone in the world.

  “I would like to drop out.”

  The second assistant to the associate to the program coordinator—whoever this girl might be—regards me, stunned, above her big square glasses.

  I stand at the Academic Advising window, back straight, chin up. I’m aware of how my skinny neck sticks out of the collar of my oversize sweatshirt, of how red blotches cover my face, free of even a speck of makeup. Whenever I close my eyes it’s like the inside of my eyelids turned to sandpaper. Every blink is slow and painful, scrape, scrape.

  “But you can’t drop out,” she says dumbly.

  “I considered it carefully, the implications and all,” I say. “And I do want to drop out. Now give me whatever paper I need to sign and let’s get it over with.”

  “Is this a personal situation?” she asks. She’s trying to help, I can tell, and it’s her job to try and help hopeless losers like me stay in school and not throw their lives away. I have no right to be so angry with her. But in my pockets, I squeeze my hands into fists till my fingernails cut into my palms.

  “It’s personal,” I say.

  “…because if this is a personal situation, like a family emergency, exceptions can be made,” she chirps.

  “I don’t need exceptions. I need to drop out.” God, does no one in this city understand proper fucking English?

  “Well, you see, you can’t drop out at this point,” she says. “The deadline for academic withdrawal was back in October. If you stop attending classes now, they’ll be marked as failure, and your GPA…”

  “I don’t care about my GPA,” I snap. “And it’s not just for the semester. I want to withdraw from the program. From the school. I want to drop out, completely, no coming back.”

  “The classes for this semester will still be on your record,” she repeats. Her lips press together in a thin line. I can tell she’s losing patience. “But if you want to withdraw from the university, you can do that after the exam period. Just come by this same office, and…”

  I groan under my breath. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  She sighs. “If it’s a personal situation…”

  I realize I’m not getting anything out of her. I turn on my heel and start down the hall, with her astonished and annoyed gaze on my back.

  Leary’s class is taking place right now. And I’m sure he already noticed I’m not present.

  Either way, no need for theatrics and pretenses. I wait for him in front of his office, crouched next to the wall.

  When he appears at the end of the hall and sees me, his face lights up, like I’m some long-lost relative. Or his girlfriend who dropped by for a visit. It makes my stomach twist.

  Luckily I hadn’t eaten a thing for I don’t even remember how long.

  “Hannah!” he says brightly. “I was hoping I’d see you. It’s nice to have a student who’s serious about her work.”

  He draws a barely there emphasis on the word work.

  “I need to talk to you,” I say curtly. I don’t want to gaze up at him from below like a frightened animal, so I get to my feet. Too fast. Black motes explode in front of my eyes and I have to hold on to the wall.

  “Of course, of course. Gladly.”

  The office door creaks. Clicks shut.

  The musty, humid smell of this place turns my stomach.

  He wastes no time. The second the door is closed, he goes straight for my breast, kneading and pawing it through my sweatshirt. “Will you lift that thing up?” he mutters as his hands go for the hem. “Could’ve worn something nicer.”

  I catch his hands by the wrists. Not that I’m strong enough to hold them. But he stops and looks up at me with cold disdain.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m not doing anything. We’re done.”

  He heaves a sigh, rubs his temples—like a teacher explaining something to a dumb student for the millionth time. “I don’t think you get to call the shots here, Hannah. I think you forget—”

  “I broke it off,” I say. “I broke it off, and I’m dropping out first thing in December. I’m going back to the United States. You don’t have anything to hold over my head anymore.”

  His gaze is stony, but his lips spread into a greasy smile. “Well, isn’t that so noble of you, Hannah. What a sacrifice. And all I asked was a little stress relief. Was it really so horrible you’d rather go back to Minnesota?”

  “It’s over.”

  “I don’t think so.” He grabs my forearm and crushes it in his grip until I cry out. “You forget who has the power here. I have access to all your information you used to register, remember? Your address, your parents’ phone number, your goddamn social security number.” He twists my arm till I think my elbow will snap, and I grind my teeth in mute agony. Panic spills in my chest. “Do whatever you want, drop out if you want. But we’re not through here.”

  He lets go of my arm so abruptly that I stumble, cradling it to my chest. It’s throbbing. I’m sure I’ll have a bruise tomorrow—shaped like fingers.

  If I even make it to tomorrow.

  “I’m not going to force myself on you. I don’t want claw marks or bruises, and anyway, it’s no fun. You can walk right out of this office, right now. The door’s unlocked. But if you do, I’ll make sure you’ll never leave any of this behind. I will call and tell your parents what you do. Think they won’t believe a concerned teacher? Especially since they already know what kind of daughter they have?”

  My body is a leaden shell filled with nothing but heartbeat. My stomach rolls. I want to run or to scream or to do something, anything, but I’m rooted to the floor, a will-less marionette, a voiceless statue.

  “I won’t stop you from dropping out next semester,” he says casually, crossing the distance between us. His breath washes over me. Rancid. “That’s not what I want anyway. I just want us to part on good terms.”

  I don’t move. Somehow I don’t even sway when he starts to grope me, when his raspy breath leaves a damp trail down my collarbone, not even when his hands find their way under my swe
atshirt, then my t-shirt, and his rough fingers sink into my breast. He pants into my ear. My gaze focuses on a scratch on the door, a long, deep mark running down along the cloudy glass insert. The snaking scratch, made God knows when or by whom, is my lifeline.

  I bite down on the inside of my cheek to stifle a cry when his fingers crawl under the stretch waist of my yoga pants and start tugging them down. His cold, rough hand settles over my pubic bone, scraping against the stubble there.

  I let go. I close my eyes, shut down my senses one by one, withdrawing inside my frail shell of skin and muscle and bone. Fading.

  His voice in my ear is a million miles away. “Don’t just stand there. If I wanted to fuck a blowup doll—”

  My lips part and a weak little whimper escapes. He hoists me onto the table, pushing away a stack of papers marked up in familiar ugly red scrawl. My tailbone smacks hard against the tabletop, drawing another cry out of me, and in a moment of shock my eyes fly open.

  The ghostly neon light floods my vision. All the colors look washed out, like in an old film photo, but without the mercy of blurring the edges. Everything is as sharp as ever. The posters, the door, the scratch, the panel of cloudy glass.

  And beyond it, a dark shape.

  I don’t have time to react. All my muscles lock and my scream gets stuck halfway up my throat. Oblivious, Leary is still trying to tug off my pants when the door crashes open.

  Over his shoulder, I see Emmanuel in the doorway, and the look on his face—if it were shock, or anger, or horror, I would be okay with it. I could live with it. But it’s none of these things. His face is perfectly impassive, peaceful, except for a slight curl of his lips. Disgust.

  “I knew it,” he says, his voice even and matter-of-fact. “I should have known it all along.”

  He turns and walks down the hall, leaving the door ajar.

  Leary is no longer grunting and huffing. He slides off me, adjusting his belt. He’s chuckling, his face red and sweaty.

  “Well, looks like that problem took care of itself, didn’t it?”

  I slide off the table and crouch on the floor, hugging my knees. Leary towers over me, tugging at his crotch. I can’t bring myself to look up. I only see his belly bulging over the waist of his pants.