“Look, I’m just here to try and do a project, then I’m out. Don’t take all of your angst-y teenage issues out on me.”
“You’re a teenager too.”
“Yes, but I’m a mature eighteen years old. You’re only thirteen. There’s a world of difference.”
“Yeah, ok. Whatever.”
I throw open my notebook and he slams his pencil on the ground, making the girl next to him screech out of sheer terror—the tip of his pencil brushes against he skin.
“You can give me lead poisoning, Marcus! I’m going to tell!” she cries.
I laugh. I can’t help it.
We make a great team, Marcus and I. Such maturity.
“So can you please tell me why you are considered the class bully?” I ask as I force myself to look at his face, searching for some sort of acknowledgement that he understands what I’m trying to say. My Psychology professors keep insisting that eye contact is the best way to connect with people. It’s not my favorite thing to do, that’s for sure. Apparently not Marcus’ either—he spins around in his seat and starts kicking the desk next to him.
“Probably because I don’t put up with people’s bullshit.”
I want to laugh out loud and tell me how much a whole-heartedly agree with his outlook on life, but I restrain. We both look up when we hear the teacher tell Marcus’ flying pencil victim to sit on the other side of the room and finish her work. Marcus laughs. I know I should scold him, but I just can’t. That girl does nothing but whine. I would be tempted to chuck various school supplies at her if I had to sit next to her every day, too.
“So tell me why you’re here.”
“What?”
“Tell me why you’re here, Ms. Maura.”
He’s never asked me this before. He’s never engaged in any sort of worthwhile conversation with me, actually. I’m temporarily frozen.
“Because I want to be a counselor someday,” I say as I sit up straight and do my best impression of a productive college student.
“For real? Why?”
Why?
I’ve never been asked why.
Why do I want to be a counselor?
“Because I enjoy learning about people. Analyzing why they do the things they do.”
There, that sounds official.
“That sounds like an annoying job. You like talking to people?”
“I don’t know, I think so.”
I sound surprised at my own answer. When did I start enjoying communicating with others? Why do I feel the need to talk about other people’s problems when I clearly have my own plate full of ridiculous hang-ups?
“Oh. Ok,” Marcus says as he resumes kicking the desk next to him.
“I like talking to you.”
I do?
“You do? Why?”
Say something real, Maura.
“Because you’re interesting. And I see a lot of myself in you.”
“Well I feel sorry for you then.”
“Don’t do that. You’re a good person, Marcus. You just have to figure a few things out.”
My voice sounds vaguely familiar. When the hell did I turn in to, Ms. Bishop? Am I going to start having weekly in-depth conversations with Marcus now about how he feels about the reading assignments and what he wants to do to make a difference in the world?
Shudder.
“I just want to get out of middle school. It’s a hell of a lot better in high school, right?”
“Umm…”
I try to cover up the giggle that’s pressing through my lips.
“College?”
“How about I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out for myself.”
He lays back in his chair and smiles. My heart swells.
“I like talking to you too, Ms. Maura. You help sometimes. You would be a good counselor.”
00:00:02.313
When I lost the only friend I (thought) I had
I need to tell her.
She’s my best friend.
Best friends talk to each other about situations like this.
Right?
I know that Darby doesn’t have any classes today and the lunch crowd should be gone from the house by now. Nice and quiet. No uncomfortable small talk with virtual strangers. If one more obscure sister asks me about my classes and how I’m enjoying the sorority, I might literally pull my hair out.
So I need to get up off of this bench, go inside, and just fucking talk to her.
In five more minutes.
Last week in Psychology we learned about Kiersy’s sixteen personality temperaments. He claims that every person in the world falls into one of these categories, explaining everything from why they think the way they do to how they work with others. I took the test and discovered that I’m an INFP—in short, I’m an introspective person who focuses more on my inner world and makes all of my decisions based on feelings. I also learned that I will forever be on the search for meaningful relationships, and I will forever have extreme difficulty expressing my emotions.
Awesome. Glad to know things will never look up for me.
Since I have refused to step foot in this sorority house or speak to anyone else in the world, I’ve taken up a new hobby of picking strangers out of the crowd and guessing what their personality type is. I scan the clusters of people walking on the sidewalk in front of the house and let my eyes settle on a guy with basketball shorts and a torn high school varsity jacket. His hair is stuffed under a hat and his backpack looks empty. I’m guessing that he’s probably an…ESFJ. He works had and efficiently to complete his assigned tasks by their deadlines, and he strives to ensure that everyone around him is happy. But he also talks too much and is reluctant to try new things.
He’s too far away now. But this red-headed girls looks like she could be…
A sister is suddenly standing next to me, digging for her key card to get into the house. I shake my head and try to clear all of the ridiculous bullshit out of it.
Just do it, Maura. Stop fucking around.
As I grab the door behind her, I make one last ditch effort to talk myself out of this. But a group of my pledge sisters materializes behind me, and now I have no choice but to go inside and actually carry through with it.
I walk like a zombie through the hallway, dropping my backpack like a rock because I miss the wall hooks. I glance into the television room without stopping to see if she’s in there, and I don’t make eye contact with any of the other girls when they meekly raise their hands to offer half-hearted waves. I trudge at a snail's pace up the stairs, letting them creak below me. I’m trying to play over the upcoming scenario in my head.
Hey, Darby. I have something to tell you. That guy that you think is amazing…the one you pushed and pushed me into hooking up with? Well…he…. he…
I can’t even say the word in the safety of my own head.
How the hell am I going to do this?
Darby’s door is cracked open and I see her sitting on her bed with a book propped in her lap. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen her studying. I feel like I’ve caught a rare glimpse at some kind of endangered species in her natural habitat. She senses my presence and looks up without any words from me.
“Hey little sis! What’s up? Don’t you have classes this afternoon? I never see you around the house at this time.”
I tiptoe in and grab at her doorknob. She has her high school graduation tassel hanging from it. I rub the strings between my fingers until they feel warm.
“Yeah, I didn’t go today,” I say, keeping my eyes on the floor and trying to prevent my voice from doing its shaky/on the verge of tears thing it does when I get really distressed.
She waves me in. I oblige. I go to sit on her roommate’s bed but she reaches out, grabs my hand, and pulls me to hers. I turn my body so it’s facing the wall—not her. I can only catch glimpses of her through my peripheral vision off to my right.
“Is something going on, Maura? You seem…like, I don’t know, som
ething’s on your mind,” she says, cocking her head to the side and doing her very best impression of a serious person. It almost comes off as laughable—nothing about Darby Malloy is serious.
She inches her way closer to my face. I may be able to hide my haunted eyes at this angle, but my fidgeting and excessive throat clearing is much more obvious. She narrows her eyes and I can sense that she’s about to repeat the question yet again.
Now or never. Just get it out already.
“Well, I kind of need your advice about something,” I say, my voice sounding a little more than a desperate snivel.
“Ok. I can do that. What is it?” she chirps, ready to help me solve my inevitable ‘boy problems’ or ‘outfit problems.’ As I take a deep breath and try to dry off the excessive sweat on my palms and forehead, I see her close her book and place it on the bed next to her. She’s all in now. I can’t turn back.
Fuck.
“Is it Owen?”
“Umm…”
“Please tell me you aren’t getting back with him—it would simply break my heart, little sis. You deserve so much more than that.”
“It’s about the Alpha formal,” I blurt, closing my eyes and saying the second prayer of my lifetime. Please God, strike me mute right now. Make me unable to ever mumble my idiotic inner thoughts to anyone but myself forever. I promise I’ll start going to church…
“Ok…” she says, scooting in closer.
I bring my hands up to my head and tug my hair. The shooting pain feels good.
“Maura, what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t want to start drama, Darby. That’s the last thing I want to do,” I say. This terror of revealing the truth to her is spreading through my body like a horrific cancer—debilitating me into a puddle of nothingness.
I don’t think I can do this.
She starts to rub my back and pulls my head down on her shoulder. I don’t fight it.
“Maura, we’re more than friends. We’re sisters. You can tell me anything,” she whispers, using her thumbs to wipe away the tears that snuck away from my face. When did I start crying?
My brain aches. So much more than it usually does. I’m so sick of being so exhausted all of the time. She runs her fingers through my hair like my mother always used to do when I was all worked up. My breathing slows as the memory of her love takes over.
“So, formal…” she says, interrupting my thoughts. “You wanted to tell me something about the Alpha formal?”
She monitors my facial expression, waiting for the answer to come. But I’m immobile. Expressionless. Practically dead. I am a zombie, after all.
“And what happened afterwards…” she pushes.
I pull my legs up to my chest and dab my eyes.
“You’re killing me here, little. Just spit it out already.”
She cares. She can help.
Just fucking do it.
“Well, when I went up to Doyle’s room with him…things happened,” I squeak like a petrified little girl—like someone way too young to be mentioning what I’m about to.
Darby brushes my hair out of my face so that I have no choice but to look up and at her. “You guys had sex?”
That question makes my whole body break out with a fiery heat. I can feel my skin turn red with shame. I would do anything to not have to answer that question.
“Yes.”
She relaxes and leans back. “Well that’s great. As long as you were safe—which I’m sure you were!” she says, hopping up and grabbing another book off of her desk, along with a purple flask. She twists off the cap and holds it out to me. It takes all of the effort in my body to shake my head no. “So, are you hoping that this will turn into something more? Because as much as I adore Doyle, I must let you know that he isn’t the most reliable guy in the world.”
She continues to carry on about how great it is that Doyle and I have ‘taken things to the next level,’ but I’m on the verge of blacking out. I can’t see colors anymore.
“Darby, I don’t want to have anything to do with him,” I growl, my voice burning my throat.
“What are you talking about? What happened?”
She’s my friend. The only true friend that I’ve ever had.
What if I lose her over this?
“He…”
I can’t bring myself to use that word. It sounds like pure poison. And I don’t even think I fully understand the scope of what went on in that room. Her eyes concentrate on my face, and I can tell she has a burning question just dancing on the tip of her tongue.
“I didn’t want to have sex that night,” I whisper into my chest, not even sure if I pronounced my words correctly.
Darby glares, her eyes twitching as she searches for what to say. My manic breathing is the only sound in the room. We sit still and listen to the front door of the house open and close a few times. Everyone’s here for lunch now. I decide to just push through and break the awkward silence.
“I just…I want to understand what happened. What I should do now. I’m so fucking lost I can’t see straight.”
She twists open her purple flask and throws some vodka down her throat. Her pink-socked foot bounces and her eyes narrow and she stares out the window.
Shit.
“I already went to the doctor, and she said everything looks ok. But she suggested that I report him if not to the police, at least to the university. So, I just wanted to know what you think I should do, I guess.”
There. It’s out. No more tears. Just straight, simple facts.
Darby takes a deep breath and sits up straight. She’s staring at me—a long, searching stare, almost like she’s scrutinizing my face for some sort of clue that I’ve gone completely insane—and I suddenly feel very uncomfortable.
“That is social suicide. Absolutely not,” she snaps without further thought. She grabs her textbook and throws it back up to the spot she left off at when I walked in the room. She’s done.
“But Darby…”
“If you report this, you will destroy our relations with Alpha, the best fraternity on campus. You can’t do this, Maura,” she says with a distinct edge of impatience creeping into her voice. “It will be devastating for the house. They will never have another social with us. They won’t invite us to their formals anymore. And our status as one of the top houses will be drastically affected. You have to think about your sisters.”
My sisters? What about me? What about the fact that I can’t erase that moment from my brain? I keep seeing it play over and over again like a broken film reel. How can I get rid of it any other way? Do the fucking sisters care about that?
“Darby, I didn’t say I was definitely going to report it. I just wanted to talk to you about it. To get your opinion.”
“My opinion?” she says, her voice shrill. “Well, my opinion is that sex in college is never black and white. And once alcohol gets involved, it’s nothing but shades of gray. I’ve had several nights where I drank too much and woke up next to a guy, unable to recount what happened the night before. But I’ve never had the audacity to call it rape. You got wasted that night, Maura. And you went up to his room. That is the universal signal to guys that you are ready and willing to have sex.”
I feel all of the blood drain from my face. I’m crying now. I can’t stop it. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted in the beginning…” I mutter in between surges of tears. “But once things started I…I got so nervous and realized I didn’t want to go through with it. But he insisted that we did.”
She doesn’t reach out to comfort me. At all. A bulky, icy wall is between us now, and I have to wrap my arms around my body just to warm myself.
“Did he hit you? Push you? Drug you?” she snaps, pacing the room now.
“No…”
“Look, Maura. I know that you are regretful that you had a one-night stand. But think very carefully before you go around crying rape. It could have some serious repercussions for everyone involved. Including yourself.”
> She stands above me, staring down like she’s some kind of deranged elementary school teacher scolding a disobedient third grader. I cower as she narrows her eyes and looks at me with confusion and shock.
Bitch.
Darby’s the girl who spends her days living a charmed, playful life, completely unconcerned with annoying daily errands and other various problems that the common college student worries about—I bet she can’t even describe what it feels like to be worried. Terrified. Ashamed.
We’re sitting on the back deck of the sorority house. We just finished our first chapter meeting of the year, and Darby insisted I go out with her and sit as she smokes a much-needed cigarette. She informs me that chapter meetings always drive her to smoke. She holds out the pack, signaling for me to take one. I do.
“Maura, you are such an amazing girl, why is it that you are so self-conscious?” she asks, taking, a long, drawn-out drag of nicotine. She holds it in her lungs for what seems like years.
Her face is unrecognizable now. I have no idea who Darby Malloy is.
“I don’t know,” I say, doing my best not to choke on the toxic fumes that are creeping through my lungs. “I guess…I guess I’ve just never done anything that’s worth being proud of. I feel like I’ve always just been a loser. That doesn’t exactly make me feel confident in myself.”
Apparently, I have no idea what a best friend is either.
Darby leans forward, gently blowing a smoke ring into my face. “Well, dear little sister, I can tell you that those days are over—I may have only known you for a short time, but I can already tell. You’re going to do amazing things here, Maura. And I can’t wait to see it all unfold right in front of my eyes.”
I try to open my eyes and return to my horrendous reality, but I have this peculiar feeling—like everything around me is floating and made of air. Like I’m floating through a dream. A dream that I can wake up from if I force myself. I pinch my arm. Nothing. I pinch harder. It cuts through my skin and a droplet of blood forms.
This whole situation couldn’t be more real. I pull myself upright and shuffle to the door in silence. I hear Darby throw her body back down into a horizontal position on her bed, open her book, and resume her fake studying as if nothing ever happened.
6 Seconds of Life Page 17