UI 101

by M. K. Claeys

  “I—er, sure,” stammered Robert. “Yeah, sure. Just…just fix her, okay?”

  The doctor stitched me up and gave me strict orders to follow for taking care of my newly concussed head, most of which I didn’t even hear, but Robert remembered them all. We met up with Mitzy in the waiting room, and she had smartly stopped off at home to grab my purse with all my medical information so she could fill out paperwork.

  “Oh, Rae, are you all right?”

  I started to nod but stopped because it made my head hurt. “Ooh…Yes. I fell off the ladder in the barn. That’s a lot higher than your bunk bed, Mitzy.”

  “It definitely is, Rae. Let’s get you home, all right?”

  I rode with Robert in the truck, and Mitzy followed behind us in the Jeep. When we got home, Robert carried me up the stairs, and he and Mitzy put me to bed.

  A boy is carrying me up the stairs. A very, very cute boy.

  Mitzy’s mother babied me for the remainder of the time I was a guest at their house. I didn’t mind. I hadn’t been spoiled by a mother since I was eight years old. I slept mostly, and I ate a lot of soup. When it came time to leave, I was sorry to go. I felt stupid about my bout of clumsiness, but I also felt like part of a new family. I would have gone back into the barn and climbed the ladder again, just to prove to myself that I could, but Robert said he would strangle me and Mitzy said she would help him if I tried. So I left it alone. But I did go back and pet the kittens a lot. I thanked her parents and siblings for the fantastic time and said I hoped when and if they invited me back, I wouldn’t be such a pain. They, of course, said that I was being silly and I was welcome back at any time.

  I let Mitzy drive back to school, not only because I was tired and on pain pills, but also because Robert had printed off several sheets from the internet about all the things I could and could not do while my concussion was healing itself, and operating heavy machinery was definitely on the suggested list of things not to do. So I cuddled with my and Ryn’s new kittens in the front seat while Mitzy made the miles speed away behind us. We stayed another night at her aunt’s house on the way back, where I was babied some more and they refreshed my memory on how to play spades, although I still wasn’t very good. As much as I didn’t want spring break to end, I was excited to pull back up to East Williams hall when it did.

  “Welcome home, Mitz.”

  “Yeah. A home away from home.”

  23

  Kathryn

  They were gone. And there was nothing I could do about the fact that I’d changed my mind and wanted to go with them. Not that I hadn’t tried, believe me. I’d attempted to call my parents and see if I could borrow a car, and they’d denied me access because they felt I was making the right decision by staying to study. Apparently they had requested a copy of my transcript after they “never received one” last semester, and it had just arrived. I wasn’t in trouble, per se, but they were going to be stricter on checking up on me to make sure I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, and they threatened not to pay their two-thirds of my tuition anymore if I didn’t pick it up. Oh, and they also said that any class I had to re-take later because I needed a higher score on my permanent record I would have to pay for. I supposed it was only fair.

  So then I’d called my brother and asked if I could borrow his car, but he’d said that he was using it all week to pick up overtime at work and that even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t lend it to me anyway because mom and dad had actually called him and asked him not to.

  So unless I wanted to rent a car—which I couldn’t, being under twenty-five—or steal a car or borrow Brian’s, I was stuck in my dorm room, alone for the entire week until people started drifting back in.

  I had talked to both Rae and Mitzy, of course, and while they were super nice in letting me know that I was missed, I couldn’t help but feel that they were having a better time without me. Because I mean, seriously, who wants to hang around with someone who’s moping about her ex-boyfriend dating someone new? Not to mention someone who was described by my brother as being “fugly”—translation: fucking ugly. Brian had gone from me to fugly.

  Honestly, it’s one thing if a girl is ugly. I mean, that’s genetics; she doesn’t have control over that. It’s not her fault. But what about the fact that she had no fashion sense? I knew she didn’t because I’d looked her up on Instagram. And Facebook. And I’d looked at all her photo albums.

  But that wasn’t even the worst part. I mean, yes, her name was Catherine, which was like, “Hello? Warning flag!” just like Rae had said. But she didn’t even care about the underground system. I mean, Christ. Her political views were registered as Republican, for crying out loud! What does Brian think, that her daddy is going to be the financial backer to his band? The only good thing about trophy wives is that they keep their mouths shut.

  Because at least then if her husband fucks everything up, no one can hold her responsible. The ability to plead ignorance has been the saving grace of numerous women throughout history. Don’t believe me? Just ask Mitzy.

  And what about her blog? Seriously, have I ever read anything so stupid? The girl is a burden on the social network. It is one thing to moderate your drinking habits, but then when you drink one beer to go around acting like a completely wasted heifer and puking all over the place? God, I should introduce her to that girl who always pukes at everyone’s parties she goes to. Come to think of it, maybe they’re related.

  So yes, I can look past her lack of external beauty. But can I forgive her for being lame? No. Because beauty is something you cannot help, unless you want to fork over thousands of dollars that could be helping charities for plastic surgery, but lameness? That is internal and totally something you have complete control over.

  But I digress. I’m not even supposed to be surfing the net. I’m supposed to be catching up on three months’ worth of reading.

  So that was what I did. For five days straight, I went and got Café to Go over at Madison Hall so I could store up my leftovers in the fridge for when I wanted them and not have to leave the dorm room unless it was completely necessary, and boned up on an entire semester’s worth of text.

  And surprisingly, the reading didn’t come that hard to me. I alternated subjects so I wouldn’t get bored, highlighted the important parts in each chapter that I read in the morning—and by morning, I really mean afternoon since I usually slept until eleven and then had breakfast and a shower before starting—and then typed up notes on my computer at night like I always saw Rae doing. It was cake. Total cake.

  Until I started thinking about Brian every other chapter. So I would take a break and cry a little bit. Crying wasn’t so bad. In fact, I think it was helpful. I’d have a little five-to-ten-minute cry, make some tea, and then go back to studying. Cake. Total cake.

  And when it got to be too much and crying wasn’t enough, because I was starting to cry halfway through every chapter, I would berate Brian in my own blog, although since I know how to use security settings—unlike some people I could mention but won’t because I’m better than that—I blocked it from anyone’s access but my own.

  No biggie, right? Venting is something every girl needs to do from time to time. And I have to vent somehow because if I don’t get this out, I’ll start dwelling again and fall back in the hole. Just like Dr. Hector warned me about.

  I mean, he was the first guy I’d had sex with, sure, but it wasn’t something we had planned. It had been more of a “heat of the moment, hell, why not?” kind of thing, and then we just kept doing it afterward because it seemed silly to stop on any sort of moral principles once we’d started. And he was also the first guy I had ever introduced to my parents, let alone my extended family. But they had always seemed as though they didn’t like him too much, as though they were constantly evaluating him, seeing if he was hiding something. Which he was. He was hiding the fact that he was a complete and utter jackass to me. Brian is a musician. A showman. He knows how to schmooze, and that is exactly
what he did to my family. He’d schmoozed them into thinking he was worthy of me—which he so wasn’t!—and then he’d schmoozed me into thinking it too.

  And after I started blogging, that’s when I started going downhill. I took Friday afternoon—or morning, whatever—off on my seventh day alone in my dormitory and started reading. Only this time, it wasn’t academic. I read every single entry in my blog since I’d started dating Brian. And all I kept reading over and over again were paragraphs like, “I just ruined the best thing in my life. Brian will never forgive me for what I’ve done! How could I have accused him of not loving me? How can I not see that he loves me more than life itself?” and “I saw Brian with Mika again today in his car. They were talking, but still, I’m so jealous of her. She spends more time with my boyfriend than I do. I wonder if I should talk to him about it. No…it’s not worth it. I know they’re not doing anything. I just know it. Brian loves me. He would never cheat.”

  Later on, I read things that disturbed me even more. “God, where did all these bruises come from on my arms and legs? I mean seriously? Ooh…there’s one on my stomach too. God, does that hurt. Like someone kidney-punched me or something. Let me think. Oh…wrestling with Brian. I mean, he knows I hate it when he tries to wrestle with me because he hurts me. But then he always tells me that he’s not hurting me and that he’s being gentle about it, and I believe him because I know he’s a lot stronger than he shows when we play around. But then these bruises always show up a few days later. God, I’m such a wimp. I must bruise so easily if this is happening. I wonder if I’m anemic or something.”

  And then there was the beach entry. Where he and I and some friends had all driven to the beach together, and he’d told me to keep my shorts and tank top on because he didn’t want people looking at me. And then I’d noted that after everyone had left to go play football in the water, he “asked me to take my extra clothes off, so that way he could be seen with me because I was so hot and he wanted everyone to know I was his. Mmm, I felt so special!”

  I mean, what the fuck, honestly?

  Had I been that messed up where I could stomach something like that? How could I have missed how possessive he was over me? And how could I have missed how I always did everything he told me to do? Like Illington, for example. I had wanted to go away to college so badly that even Brian had given up on trying to convince me to stay home and get an apartment with him and go to community college together. And so yeah, he did finally convince me that I could probably get into college, but then he also convinced me that Illington was the only school worth going to. Because I would be easily accessible. Because I would be right there where he could keep tabs on me and everything I was doing the entire time! Oh my God!

  And then there was earlier this year. At Christmas. How he had told me that I was the lucky one. That I was lucky that he put up with all my shit. That no one else would ever want me because I was “fucked-up” and had been in therapy and was taking psychotropic drugs—even though he called them “psychiatric drugs,” which just goes to show how well he paid attention to me. Last Christmas wasn’t the only time he had brought up that he was keeping up pretenses so “everyone else” would think that I was the picture-perfect girlfriend who just lived to exist vicariously through his spotlight at the local underground gig halls and coffee shops. That I was nothing without him because without him, all everyone would see me as was a shell of a person. A freak on meds. A crazy chick.

  And what if I am nothing without him?

  What if, after everything I knew was true that he’d done, what if he really was right? What if I did need him? What if no one really would want me because I had persistent depressive disorder with intermittent major depressive episodes—and I thought I was coming out of partial remission and falling back down the hole? What if no one really would want me because I’d had that brief stint back in junior high where Dr. Hector had to put me into a psychiatric hospital because my parents had gone to a conference and they weren’t sure if my brother would be sufficient enough to make sure I didn’t hurt myself?

  Brian was the only person I’d told about that happening, and it was only because I’d been in a moment of weakness where I was feeling really down—and he would have done anything, even listen to my “personal problems,” to get sex from me—that I’d broken down and told him. I’d never told anyone else because I was too scared. Ha. Maybe it should have been because I was too embarrassed, but that wasn’t true. I was scared that if I told people what had happened, then I would have to personally acknowledge that it had, and by acknowledging it, I would therefore make it real. I would make it real that I was that far down what I had come to familiarly address as “the hole” that I couldn’t even see the light of day at the top of it any longer. Being scared of going back there was the reason I had never told anyone at Illington about my diagnosis.

  Oh, my God. What if I’m back in the hole?

  I closed my web browser and turned off my computer. I couldn’t take it any longer. I couldn’t stand reading all those words I had written over the past two and a half years and sitting there knowing that the signs and the clues had been there all along, but I was just too wrapped up in Brian supposedly loving me to even see them. I was sick, and I was disgusted. I didn’t even know if I could live with myself any more…live with knowing how stupid I had been. Because if anything could make me feel worse about myself, it was knowing that I had been an idiot.

  The tears were coming. And as foolish as it was, I didn’t want anyone to see me cry. Logically, of course, I knew I was alone, but I didn’t want to leave the memory of myself losing it here in my dorm room where the walls might tell on me to all my friends. If these walls could talk, they would tell everyone that I was a complete basket case. I stripped off my clothes, scratching myself in the process as if I was shedding my broken self with each article as it hit the floor. It wasn’t enough.

  I walked naked to the bathroom and turned on the shower as hot as I could stand it, hoping that maybe the water might wash away this feeling of stupidity and hopelessness. It still wasn’t enough. I scrubbed my hair three separate times with shampoo and then left the conditioner on for ten minutes as I stood sobbing in the water, wishing with every fiber of my being that I could stop being the person I was. That I could be better. That I could be stronger. That I could never fall for such a horrible person ever again. That I would never hurt, ever again.

  Not like how I’m hurting now.

  And that was when I realized it didn’t matter how many years I had been in therapy. It didn’t matter how much progress I had made. It apparently wasn’t enough. I apparently shouldn’t have ever terminated. Dr. Hector and I both thought that I would be all right coming to college and that I wouldn’t need another therapist while I was there, but I guessed we were wrong.

  I don’t know how long I was sitting on the floor of my shower before I realized that the tears that had been leaking out of my protesting eyes had turned into full-blown, snotty sobs. I don’t know how long I had been sitting there before I realized that I had taken the safe guard off my razor and was holding it poised above my naked arm. I also don’t know how long I sat there, debating somewhere in my unconscious mind whether to make that first cut, but cut I did.

  You know how when you shave your legs and you nick yourself, it hurts beyond all fucking get out? This didn’t hurt. The burn was only slight, and it felt almost…cooling. It felt definitely comforting.

  I cut even, parallel slices up the top side of my right arm and then haphazardly switched the razor to my less-proficient right hand and began slicing up my left. I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t any more. It just kept hurting all the time, and with every slice of my razor it felt like I was bleeding out all my pain. I knew I still missed him deep down inside, even though both my heart and my head knew that he wasn’t worth my time. I may have been over him, but that didn’t change how much he’d hurt me. It didn’t change how he’d ripped my heart out. It didn’
t change how he’d used me. It didn’t change how he’d treated me, and it most definitely didn’t change how he’d lied.

  I know he’d tried to hit on Rae. She’d told me. And I know she’d rejected him. But it didn’t change the fact that he’d done it. He’d gone where he was off limits. If he hadn’t betrayed me before, he certainly had now. And I hated him for it. But most of all, I hated myself for loving someone as low and as despicable as that.

  Fucking bastard.

  A fresh wave of sobs ensued, and I turned my right arm over and bared the as-yet-unmarred flesh of the underside of my wrist and made my first shallow cut.

  And then the bathroom door opened.

  “Ryn? Are you in here? It’s Paul. I came back early because Ann Arbor sucked more than usual, and your door was unlocked. You want to watch SLC Punk! when you get out? I have caramel popcorn.”

  I didn’t know what to say. In the end, I didn’t say anything. I choked out a pitiful sob, and Paul, being the type of friend that he was, came right in to the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and stepped up to the closed curtain. The razor fell from my hand.

  “Ryn, are you all right?”

  I shook my head and then realized it was a fruitless effort since he couldn’t see me. Another sob choked out.

  “Um, Ryn, I’m going to open the curtain if you don’t answer. You’re scaring me.”

  It was too late by the time I’d sucked in enough air to squeak, “No, don’t!”

  Paul saw everything. He saw me naked, sitting bare-assed and hugging my knees to my chest on the nasty shower floor that I normally always wore shower shoes on and never touched anything more than was necessary. He saw my face, a beet-red mess from the heat and all the crying. The razor on the tile next to me. The blood running in rivulets down my arms and legs, across the floor, and down the drain. Paul saw me in a way that I never let anyone see me—in all my physically and emotionally unprotected glory.