by Vera Kurian
How anxious do you feel right now?
2
How angry do you feel right now?
7
30
Day 23
I’m dying to know your assessment of Charles, I texted. I was sitting on the landing halfway up to the sixth floor of the psych department. Andre was already locked inside one of the experiment rooms, doing the preliminary surveys before his planned experiment.
20 yr old used yacht salesmen, he wrote back. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Good, though—that meant he didn’t trust Charles. I wasn’t entirely sure if Andre trusted me, however. Just before we got here I tested the waters flirting with him, grabbing on to his arm affectionately as we walked over, but he seemed to never notice when I did stuff like that or to find it bewildering, like he thought I was a silly girl who used a lot of emojis. (As if emojis aren’t a deliberate linguistic tactic!) I wondered if he was one of those Black guys who only likes Black girls, or if, perhaps, he knew exactly what I was doing.
But at least he was still willing to work with me. The stakeouts were actually boring—on my turns I just played with my phone or tried to get some homework done, but often it felt like a waste of an hour. I did French homework for the twenty minutes Andre was in the experiment, which was apparently some competitive task about allocating play money to different student groups. Ok, just answered the last question—get ready, he texted.
I stood up, positioning my phone as if I were taking a selfie when I was using the outfacing camera. There were some footsteps headed down the stairs. I recognized him the moment I snapped the picture. “Reek!”
“Oh, hi,” he said, awkwardly readjusting his book bag.
“What are you doing here?”
“If you do these experiments for Intro Psych, you can get up to three points of extra credit for your final grade.”
“Was it interesting?” I asked. He shook his head, making a dopey sort of expression, then mumbled a goodbye before moving past me on the stairs. Could Reek be the killer? He was a freshman, which for me put him in the “likely no” category—how could someone who just got here so quickly understand the ins and outs of campus to never be detected? Also, he was exceedingly awkward, but that could all be an act. I made a mental note to ask Charles or Chad about Reek, whose real name I didn’t even know.
Come on slow poke, I texted Andre.
It’s not over—I have to do some personal assessment.
I began to trudge up the stairs, wondering if the tasks we were assigned each session were staggered so the subjects left the area at different times. When I got to the top of the stairs my eyes lit up: the door to Wyman’s lab was open and someone was sitting at the RA desk. When I came closer, I saw that he was pale and rabbity looking, his eyebrows so white they barely seemed to exist. He was typing on the computer and eating a bag of pork rinds. I had been hoping to run into the perfect RA to run a circle around, but a lot of them were super organized Elena types. Girls, specifically. And one thing I will tell you about girls—they don’t think with their penises.
I smoothed my hair and walked right up to him. “Hi, I’m Becky?” I said, as if he should have been expecting me.
“Yeah?” His eyes were really pale blue.
“I talked to Elena Torres earlier about applying for an RAship?”
His pale brows knitted together. “I didn’t think we were hiring any others.”
Hmm. Maybe he was worried about someone else encroaching on his territory. “Well, I heard that what’s-her-name, you know, with the hair?” Here I made a vague gesture to my head that could have really meant anything.
“Angela?”
“Yeah, Angela. I heard she was leaving, so I was going to apply for her slot.”
“You know you have to be an upperclassmen to be an RA in this lab,” he said. I already disliked him. Who was he to say I wasn’t qualified? Elena would totally hire me!
“I am,” I said, forcing the crispness out of my voice and aiming for dumbly nice. “We were going to have a meeting, and she said to pull together a CV and write a statement. A CV is like a résumé, right?” I was pretending to be so dumb that he could never see me as competition.
He smirked. “Yeah, it’s like a résumé but longer, with stuff about your research and conference presentations.”
“Conference presentations?”
He looked like he was withholding an eye roll but it seemed to take him off the defensive—I was not going to steal the limelight in his lab, after all. “I’m assuming you want this RAship so you can apply to doctoral programs in psych?” I nodded. “Well, you’re going to need to get some conference presentations or maybe even publications if you want to be competitive. A PhD isn’t just College 2.0.”
He sure liked the sound of his own voice. I was already picturing myself weaseling into his dorm room and stealing his keys—Hurricane Becky, here and gone within the space of a night. “I think I could put together a decent one—I have all the other stuff, but not so much conference presentations. Do you think you could look at my draft when I have it? Maybe give me a leg up?”
You have to ask in just the right way. And when you strike just the right note, you always get what you want.
31
“We know this is a stressful time for everyone on campus,” Leonard said, feeling a twinge of guilt. Of course, Chloe would have no way of knowing that the two students who had been murdered had been in the program. Handing over information like that to a psychopathic student was a bad idea. Leonard was already uneasy with Charles somehow finding out or at least suspecting, although maybe their two-year relationship was what made Charles feel comfortable attempting to pump him for information.
There had been an incident seven years ago where a student in the program, failing most of his classes, attempted to sue the school for exposing him to “dangerous characters” through the program—despite his knowing the exact parameters of the program when he signed up and not ever meeting the other panel members. Adams had placated him rather than going through with the lawsuit, allowing him to drop the failing semester and still graduate on time. Since then, Leonard had altered the consent forms to account for this kind of situation, but there were always risks.
Chloe nodded, her eyes wide. She was sitting cross-legged on the leather chair she typically picked for sessions. “I feel bad for their parents.” Did she feel bad, or was she good at making it seem like she did? Chloe never said anything in therapy that didn’t sound like it came from a can labeled Wholesome American Coed. She loved talking about herself, but there was a careful distance he had not yet broken through. She was unwilling to say anything truly vulnerable. “Do you think it was drugs?”
“Let’s not talk about that, Chloe. Let’s explore something about you.”
“My life is boring! Can I ask you questions instead, so we can get to know each other?”
“Some people like to test me to deflect attention from themselves. It’s understandable—therapy isn’t for everyone. It takes an intelligent client with emotional sophistication to really be good at therapy.” Wyman paused to take a sip of water. “So, do you want to talk about something that’s been on your mind, or do you want to talk about me?”
She fidgeted. “Can we talk about a disturbing dream I had?”
“Sure.”
She averted her eyes to the window. “In the dream I was in a public bathroom. I had this big bruise on my back. A man came into the bathroom and touched the bruise.” She paused, flushing. “It was sort of erotic, in a weird way. What do you think it means?”
“I’m not a Freudian, I admit. I tend to think of dreams as just image salad. Was the man the same person who made the bruise?”
“I don’t think so, but why would I react that way?”
“Well, what is a bruise?”
“Damaged blood cells under the skin.
”
“A bruise is a physical mark. It says, Someone’s hurt me.”
She met his eyes head-on, a genuine, intense look of anger crossing over her face for only a moment, and then was gone. Back to the sweet coed act. “I just make bad decisions a lot with romantic partners.”
“Oh?”
“Well, I’m sure my mom or my last therapist told you about what happened with Alexei.” Here she offered a nugget, a topic she had selected that would be good to talk about because the dream was too dangerous a territory. Was it to show her “emotional sophistication,” to brag about some misdeed, to win him over with her cleverness?
“I know a little about that.”
“It’s not what people were saying,” Chloe said coolly. “Everyone made it out to be like he was this predator but that’s not what happened. He was this young teacher—all the girls had crushes on him. I wasn’t some innocent virgin. My ride left me stranded at school one day and he drove me home and we talked the whole way. We had so much in common.”
“Do you think a fifteen-year-old and a twenty-two-year-old can have a lot in common?”
“We were on the same wavelength. I had boyfriends before, but this was like the first time I felt real chemistry with someone. He just happened to be my teacher. The first time I kissed him he told me I shouldn’t. I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘Because of our ages.’ I said, ‘Why should we have to adhere to some arbitrary law that says what age you have to be to touch someone?’”
“Let’s do an exercise right now—I think you’ll be good at it.” This, of course, piqued her interest. “Let’s say that you don’t agree with the age of consent laws. But there’s the problem of living in the world where rules you don’t agree with exist, yes?”
“Sure...” she said, her inflection indicating that she didn’t see where he was headed.
“What happens if there are these rules and you get caught, regardless of whether or not you agree with them?”
“But I didn’t think we’d get caught.”
“Did you think about what the consequences would be for you or for him if you did?”
“I’m the one who got talked about!” Chloe exclaimed, scratching at her leather armrests with her nails. “Everyone talked about me and posted mean things. They wouldn’t have even known if he hadn’t been so stupid.”
“What do you mean? I thought your mother found out and brought it to the school?”
“Is that what she told you?” She examined one of her nails, which was painted a bright shade of lilac. “It turned out that Alexei was seeing another girl. They were so stupid sneaking around, hooking up in the drama room—someone walked in on them.” It was sly, the way she said the last part. She couldn’t resist being proud of herself. “All the parents got into an uproar.”
“What were the consequences?”
“He got fired. They wrote articles about him so I doubt he could be a teacher again. My mom tried to make me switch to a boarding school, which didn’t even make sense because it’s not like he was there anymore.”
“Tried to?”
“I didn’t want to go,” Chloe said. “I didn’t want to leave my town—I was busy with all my extracurriculars.” You could almost mistake her for a dreamy girl, preoccupied with the same things that college students were preoccupied with. But Chloe’s mother had told Leonard that she didn’t end up sending Chloe to a different school because she was scared that Chloe would retaliate against her if she did.
She was swinging her legs now. “But everyone forgot the scandal within a week. Someone who graduated from our high school was visiting for Thanksgiving, one of the local golden boys. He got into a bad car accident, drove his car through a field straight into a tree. Apparently, a deadly car accident was much more interesting to the town gossips.”
“Did you know him?”
“Sort of. Everyone was talking about it. The car exploded but no one knew for a while, so he burned. By the time they found him he was gone. A total crispy critter.”
32
Day 20
The cell phone search has been a bust so I needed to take a more direct approach. Will had blocked me from all his social media accounts, not surprisingly after the mess I made at his place.
The next part of the plan was almost fun, something I could do on my phone while socializing with the girls as we experimented with new face masks and traded the latest campus gossip in Molly’s room.
I downloaded the dating app I knew Will used to my burner phone. The phone had been a significant investment a couple years ago: I paid for it in cash and purchased a pay-as-you-go plan with a cash card, but never actually turned on the cell reception. I used the internet on it, but only after installing a VPN app.
I began making fake accounts on the dating app using pictures of random hot girls from Instagram, putting in one or two dumb sentences as descriptions, i.e., “Netflix and chill” and “I like hanging out.” Then I downloaded MassSwipe and used it with every profile I had made. The app would automatically swipe yes on every man aged nineteen to twenty in the area, leaving me with a list of every guy who liked any of my harem of girls. I could then sort through the matches in case Will showed up.
Within minutes tons of matches started pouring in.
I leaned back, trying to parse facts from rumors as my friends talked about the murders.
“They’re going to start a curfew on campus,” Yessica said, spreading a rumor I had already heard before. Two dead students—parents were starting to talk.
But a curfew? I needed that like a hole in my head.
My phone pinged, and I looked down to see a mass text from Charles inviting me to some event. I clicked on the included link and saw the news: Charles had officially been elected student body president, apparently without the help of my vote. I send him an emoji of a champagne bottle and immediately started wondering if I should go.
It was a Thursday night and I had avocado smeared all over my face, and I needed to start going through all the matches on my dating profiles. Then again, I had just signed up, and what was the probability that Will would swipe me right away? Besides, currying favor with Charles was also something I needed to do. I stood up, announced that I was going to the party, who wanted to come with, and the coven helped me get dressed. An hour later, fresh-faced and wearing an eggplant-colored minidress and Yessica’s borrowed silver necklace, I was ready.
Several of us met outside the dorm and headed to a nightclub called SAX. There were red brocade curtains everywhere, gold paint on ornate wooden trim, velvet walls. Employees circled in burlesque outfits and a strange mix of people danced. There were some young people, but also old dudes who looked like they worked at the World Bank accompanied by suspiciously good-looking Eastern European women.
The Adams party crowded the dance floor. Charles stood in the corner with Kristen and Derek. I huddled with a few girls, then spied Chad at the bar, who I figured was either twenty-one or had a fake ID because they had given him a wristband—score! Apparently, I could be social and productive on the same night. I went over to him and his white teeth nearly glowed in the dark. He shouted something and bought us vodka shots.
“What?” I said, leaning closer and putting my hand on his forearm. It was furry and veined. He repeated himself and I could hear him smiling. He didn’t look like a killer. Then again, neither do I.
I danced with everyone except for Charles and Kristen. I pretended he wasn’t there even though it was his party, because if I wanted to have fun, the center of gravity for fun was right in me. Chad expectedly danced in the typical style of large boys, barely nodding his head. I didn’t see Will and he hadn’t been on Charles’s mass text.
We danced in the circle, with Derek in the middle being silly. We laughed hysterically and took sips of our watered-down appletinis and beers. The music pulsed, the beat seeming to vibrate al
l the liquid in my body. My hair was sweaty, but I didn’t care because everyone was sweaty.
A group of strangers pushed across the dance floor, breaking up our circle and squishing us together. I found myself right up against Charles. The darkness and strobe lighting made his white V-neck T-shirt seem iridescently bright. He was only moving a little to the beat, holding a beer in one hand down by his hip, pushing his sweaty hair off his brow with his other hand. I looked up at him, aware that our bodies had never been closer and that his girlfriend was somewhere in the vicinity behind me, beyond the crush of strangers. A small smile curved his lips and I could see only a thin band of color around his dilated pupils.
“Dance!” I said, making fun of how he was barely moving. He laughed. We were practically touching, anyway, so it didn’t feel like much of a stretch when I felt his hand at my lower back. I folded into him naturally, responding to the subtle direction of his hand. We moved in sync and I tilted my head down, feeling his shirt with my forehead. Then his beer was gone and then I felt both of his hands on my hips. I slipped an arm around his neck and pulled my hair away from my sticky skin with my other hand. I dared to look up at him for only a moment, our eyes locking across the darkness and flashing lights. A drunken headiness filled me.
There was only the music and Charles pressed against me. I closed my eyes, wanting to give in to all my other senses: the hypnotic beat of the music, the smell of him, the lower halves of our bodies locked together. He had one of his legs wedged between mine and the grinding friction between my legs was starting to make me crazy. He was hard and I could feel it through his pants. I can’t think of another time when I danced with a boy like this and he didn’t kiss me. I could already feel his breath warm against my neck and it seemed like only a matter of seconds before I would feel his lips on my skin.
