by Kiley Roache
I just need a nap, or another cup of coffee, or a shower, and I’ll be all right.
Which is always the part that makes me more confused. How much is self-care, and how much is actually needing coffee to keep myself together?
Where’s the line between getting enough sleep so my mind is healthy and giving in to the desire to sleep my life away?
I squeeze my eyes closed and reopen them. Another one of the moves my therapist talked about.
It works about as well as when you smile and hope it makes you happy.
I exhale and start to make my way across the quad, empty at 8:00 a.m. in a world where life begins at ten in the morning as people rub their eyes and crawl out of their twin beds.
They say this campus is like a bubble because people get so caught up in this tiny world.
And I feel like I may suffocate inside it.
It’s not until I reach the door that I realize I don’t have my key card. As I dump out the entire contents of my bag, I think I may start sobbing. I’ll just have to sit here until someone comes along to find me crying on the steps of my frat.
But then I remember the back door.
After shoving everything back into my bag, I walk around to the back, where luckily the door is propped open. The screen door slams as I stumble into the kitchen.
I set my messenger bag down on the island with a thud.
“Walk of shame?”
I spin around. I hadn’t even realized anyone else was here. Jordan is standing near the cereal cabinet, wearing a worn T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and tight workout shorts. My eyes linger on his really quite beautiful arms and—
Nope, nope, nope, look away, Cassie—this is a bad idea.
“What?” I make a concerted effort to meet his eyes, which also aren’t too bad a view.
“Those are the same clothes you were wearing at dinner last night.”
I look down. He’s right, of course. I roll my eyes. “Saddest walk of shame ever.”
“Long night?”
I laugh, and it barely floats across the room. Slumping onto one of the stools by the counter, I take off my glasses, rubbing my eyes.
“Long night, long week.” I rest my head in my hands.
“Final papers?”
I nod. You literally don’t know the half of it, I think.
He tosses his gym bag onto the stool next to me. “Well, I just got back from practice and don’t have class for another hour, if you’d like to have breakfast and talk about it.”
I look up, and even given my blurry vision, his smile is cute.
“I mean, if you’re going the nap route, I don’t want to keep you, but if you want caffeine, I can make coffee.” He grabs the pot in a sweeping motion, and a bunch of cups clatter to the ground. “Oh God,” he says under his breath as he scrambles to pick them up.
I slip my glasses back on and smile. “Sure.”
“Okay, first coffee, and then tell me about what has you doing the walk of shame.”
“It’s not really—”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands innocently, coffeepot still in his right. “But you can’t blame me for thinking that.”
He fumbles with the filters and then pours in what’s probably way too much coffee.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He turns around. “Oh, c’mon, there must be so many guys after you. Didn’t they just beat up that Sig A that was being an asshat? Terrible taste in guys, by the way—and I’m not just saying that because of his frat.”
I laugh. He pulls out a frying pan and stares at it. He turns it around and examines the back, as if there might be instructions or something.
“So yeah.” He turns on the burner and flinches slightly when it lights. “It’s not a ridiculous suggestion. I mean, that story alone proves there’s at least one person here you’re sleeping with.”
“Actually not. That, uh, that would be why he got mad the other night.”
He looks up. “Are you shitting me?”
“Uh, no. Believe it or not I am an eighteen-year-old virgin. We do exist.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I mean, that’s what he was mad about?”
I nod.
“Shit, Cassie, I’m sorry.” He pours two cups of coffee, hands me one and then pulls a carton of eggs from the industrial-size fridge.
“Yeah, I mean, it happens.”
“Well, if you ever want to talk or, like, for me to beat the shit out of him—”
“Fire!” I stand up and yell. A dish towel too close to the burner has erupted into flames. The smoke detector begins to blare.
He spins around and looks rapidly from the fire to me and back to the fire. “Shit.”
He grabs the pot and dumps the coffee over the flames, which sizzle and then fade.
His shoulders fall, and he turns around to face me. When our eyes meet, we both burst out laughing.
“That was impressive.” I raise my cup to take a sip, smiling.
He shrugs. “How about cereal?”
I nod quickly. “Yeah, that’s probably a better idea.”
He pours the Lucky Charms carefully and then sets the bowl in front of me. “Madame.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
He grabs the milk from the fridge and presents it like a bottle of fine wine. “Alta Dena’s finest skim.”
I inspect it. “That’ll do.”
He nods and unscrews the top, pouring the milk into my sugary cereal with a show of ceremony, holding it high above the bowl.
Milk splatters, and I let out a squeal that turns into another laugh.
“The finishing touch...” Jordan yanks open a drawer and slides a spoon across the counter to me.
“Thank you, sir.”
I take a bite, and I must say, it may be the best cereal I’ve ever had.
“You know, I’ve never made a girl breakfast before.”
I cough as I try to swallow. “Huh. I would’ve pegged you as the type to have a lot of girls coming in and out of the house.”
I mean, I’ve seen them, I add silently.
“Well, I mean...” He puts the milk away and turns back to me. “I’ve hooked up with girls, but I guess I’ve just never had any of them stay for breakfast—or the night, really.”
“So what you’re saying,” I grumble through a mouth full of cereal, “is that you’re usually an asshole.”
He laughs. “I guess so.”
I raise my eyebrows. Part of me wants to ream him out, rant about the sexual politics of college hookup culture, about objectification and third-wave feminism.
I don’t do it.
“Well,” I say as pick up another spoonful, “I, for one, am happy that you changed your ways today, because this is delicious.”
He laughs and settles onto the stool next to me with his own cup of coffee. I look over at him, trying not to smile so much so I can sip my coffee. And something about it just feels right.
Chapter Thirty-One
So there’s this acronym. I’m not sure where it started, but somehow it’s the only thing all college students seem to know, besides, let’s say, the price of Natty and how messed up the military-industrial complex is.
And that acronym is FOMO.
Fear of missing out.
It plagues us all. It’s the devil on our shoulders, in contrast to the angel that says we should just go to class, study, work out and sleep.
And it’s the reason that after the most exhausting week of my life, after sleeping through the day despite the incredibly strong coffee and missing sociology (we’d already turned in our papers online—what could they possibly be doing today?) I decided to go get drunk. I’ve spent too many days writing about life in this house, goddammit; I want to live it.
I wa
ke up at eight, eat a quick dinner of cereal and have my first beer in the shower. As I’m doing my makeup, I text Jackie.
Me: I have a problem
Jackie: Oh no!
Jackie: what’s up?
Me: I think I may like a boy
Jackie: lol why is that a problem...
Me: Because he’s in my frat
Jackie: omg WHO?!?!
I roll my eyes, probably not a good call since I’d just put on liquid eyeliner that’s probably now duplicated on the creases of my eyelids, creating what probably looks like a second set of thinner, darker eyebrows below my original ones.
Me: It doesn’t matter. It can’t happen anyway
Jackie: oh shut up. Whooooo?!!!
Jackie: I won’t tell anyone. I promise.
Me: ugh, okay, Jordan. But don’t u think it would be a shit show? even IF he did like me, which he probably doesn’t, it would create a whole mess, he’s in my frat ffs
The frat I’m spying on, I add in my head.
Jackie: omg!!! yay!!! He’s sooo cute!
Jackie: and you guys could double date with me and Duncan!!
She gives no regard to the Huge Problem that made up the majority of my text. I shake my head and lock my phone, heading downstairs just as people start filing in for the progressive, a sort of mixer where different groups progress through mini-parties throughout the house.
We break into groups of four, split between us and the girls from the sorority visiting tonight, and I look for Jordan despite myself.
But he’s already by the door, with a tanned blonde on his arm. Kappa Alpha Delta Barbie, comes with her own bottle of rosé and monogrammed halter top.
I swallow whatever weird feeling it is that’s risen inside me and turn around, almost bumping into Duncan.
“Cassie!” He smiles goofily and pulls me into a big hug. He already reeks of beer. “You’re in my group.”
I laugh. “Okay.”
Also in our group is a junior DTC, who just nods to me, and a brunette on his arm, who rolls her eyes.
Which is fine.
Which is expected, honestly.
The theme is PAC 13—the football conference Warren is in. The first room we enter is Arizona. There’s red tissue paper over the lights and the window air-conditioning unit is off. “Because the desert or whatever,” the upperclassmen running the station informs me.
Someone hands us iced tea mixed with tequila and margarita mix, which is surprisingly good.
The next room is Arizona State, where we do kegstands, “Because ASU partaaaays.”
My cell buzzes, and I’m about to check it when we’re ushered to the Cal Berkeley room. I slip the phone back into my pocket, the text unread. I’ll deal with it later.
Here we’re assigned to make “fratty protest signs.” My group comes up with “Ass or Boobs? Why must we choose?”
Then we all read our signs aloud.
“Lower the drinking age now!”
“Legalize coke!”
And the pretty edgy, so much so that I’m pretty impressed with the KAD who came up with it, “Repeal Title IX.”
Shots of Jägermeister are allotted accordingly.
The University of Colorado, Boulder, is just a room with half an ounce of pot and a bong on the table. Creative.
The evil party masterminds redeem themselves with the next station: our rival, the University of Southern California, USC, or, as it’s often referred to around campus, the University of Spoiled Children or U$C.
We’re divided into teams of two and have to race bikinied Barbie dolls in their convertible Corvettes down a hill (a table tilted by a number of $500 textbooks under two of the legs).
If your car wins, you get an “acceptance letter”—a shot of Grey Goose. If you lose, you have to take a pull of Taaka with a Post-it taped to the bottle that says, “Financial aid kid.”
Well, that’s certainly making it into my next journal entry.
I’m starting to feel the booze as we make our way to Stanford, where we have to race through simple learning-to-code games, taking a shot if the person across from you finishes a level before you.
It turns out that the brunette is a Computer Science major, so I am well on my way to wasted by the time we finish that station. Some of these sorority girls may be more than I pegged them for.
I stumble my way to the kitchen—Utah—where they give us Irish coffee, booze mixed with caffeine apparently being “the ultimate Mormon sin.”
With great concentration I grab an empty cup and walk over to the sink. I take a deep breath and center myself before turning on the faucet.
I sip the water and try to refocus, knowing I’m going to need to remember all this bullshit later.
My phone vibrates again, but I am decidedly waaay past the point of coherently texting. I leave it in my pocket.
Apparently they had no ideas for Oregon and Washington, because after this we finish at the main room, which is Warren themed.
The theme is a dance party “because we go hardest,” as a junior explains to me.
Someone shuts off the lights and turns on the music, and we dance on the tables, screaming the words to pop songs that depict women as objects, as the liquor starts to catch up with me more and more.
As more groups finish the progressive, the crowd grows and the windows start to steam up, and someone props open the back door.
“Here come the geeds!” Duncan yells over the music, and I just laugh and hiccup because I’m too bubbly and loopy to object.
People start to slip in, and everything gets dizzy, happy and sweaty.
Dancing there in the flashing lights, I feel alive. Part of my mind knows it’s bad, considering how I felt this morning, to finally—only?—feel alive drunk. But someone offers me a handle, and I drown that thought in Taaka.
I should’ve realized how screwed up I was when the Taaka didn’t go down so bad. A lot more people show up, and somewhere along the way I start blacking in and out.
Images swirl in front of me, lights and colors and pretty eyes and smiles.
Then it’s the tile of a bathroom floor. I giggle to myself as I pee and look down at my shoes, which are so red, and the floor, which is so white, but they make pink between.
I close one eye, two shoes. I open it, four.
Flash and I’m pushing through the crowd, using strangers to stay upright.
Flash and I see him.
Connor.
And he’s smiling at some blonde girl.
Kissing some blonde girl.
I spin around, so he won’t see me crying when he pulls away.
I push through people.
And I run.
I don’t even know why I am so upset. I mean after everything that’s happened I know he’s the scum of the earth. It’s not that I care that he’s kissing someone else; I just hate seeing him. Especially seeing him looking so goddamn happy. It’s not fair that he can be so terrible to me and then just go on to be awful to another undeserving girl. I lock myself in the bathroom and pull out my phone to call Alex. Because that’s what I’ve always done when boys have made me cry.
I have four texts from her, but the letters keep turning into alphabet soup.
I click the phone icon next to her name.
“Thank God, I’ve been worried.” She’s talking a mile a minute, and my alcohol-soaked brain cannot keep up. “I’ve texted you, like, a million times. Traffic’s a bitch, so I thought that might be it, but it’s been like an hour and a half.”
Huh? “Huh?”
“Where the hell are you, Cassie?”
I hiccup. “The house.”
“What?”
“Delta Tau—” hiccup “—Chi.”
“Cass, do you know where I am right now?”
Whoo
ps, I might be in trouble. “Your house?” My voice gets high at the end, and I sound like a small child.
“No, Cassie, I’m in San Francisco, at the Art House in the Haight-Ashbury. Do you even know why you should be here, Cassie?”
Fuck. Alex’s art show, of course. I’d promised weeks ago I’d be there. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” But I would for a stupid progressive, apparently.
“Oh my God, Alex, I’m so sorry. I’ve been so busy with project stuff, I just forgot.” It’s a pitiful excuse, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Oh yeah, it sounds like you’re working very hard right now. Does Captain Morgan get a research credit, or is Jose Cuervo your coauthor?”
“Don’t be a bitch, Alex—you know this is my job.”
“Oh, is part of your job being awful to everyone who’s ever cared about you? You spend all day judging the fuck out of them in your little reports and then every night being one of them. Pick one or the other, Cass, but don’t expect me to be best friends with a hypocrite.”
“That’s not—”
“Look, I know you have to live in a frat house to get free college, boo hoo, but no one said you had to become a frat-boy asshole.”
“That’s unfair, Alex. I’m being a feminist. If they get to get drunk and hook up with girls, why are you mad at me for doing the same thing?”
“Sinking to their fucking level isn’t exactly the type of equality I’ve been dreaming of.”
I open my mouth to say something, but dead silence buzzes in my ear.
She hung up on me.
And that’s enough to push me over the edge. I make my way out of the bathroom, stumbling through the swimming lights, people crowding into me, closing in on me.
Sobbing, I stumble upstairs and collapse at the top. I’m hyperventilating and try to focus on my breath, but it escapes my control. A giggling couple steps over me on their way to someone’s room.
When I’ve had panic attacks in the past, I’ve used a strategy called grounding. You touch, feel and smell things to establish that they’re real and calm yourself down.
But all my senses are drowning in alcohol, and grounding seems next to impossible.
