Undecided (22 page)

“Once.
Two charges.”

He covers
his face. “Nora!” He’s practically squealing with joy.

“Don’t
tell Kellan,” I say sternly. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Who
knows?”

“My
parents. The Dean. The probation officer who monitored my community service.”

“This
keeps getting better.”

“One
night in May…” I try not to laugh at Crosbie’s enthusiasm. As many times as
I’ve replayed that dreadful night, I’ve never once found it funny. But now I
suppose I can sort of see it from where he’s standing. I clear my throat. “It
was the morning I learned I’d failed two of my five classes and was borderline
failing the other three. To cheer me up Marcela suggested we go to this party
she’d heard about. The point, of course, wasn’t the party, but the free booze.
We drank everything we could get our hands on, danced around, and acted like
idiots.”

“Or
college students.”

I smile
ruefully. My parents certainly hadn’t seen it that way. “Anyway, we decided we
simply had to have donuts and left the party to go to Beans. Marcela had keys
and we knew Nate would have already locked up, so we walked into town. Then we
realized Main Street was completely deserted. It wasn’t quite eleven, but the
street was empty. So we decided to go streaking.”

Crosbie’s
mouth falls open. “Naked?”

“Yeah. We
dropped all our clothes right there—” I point behind us to the barber shop on
the corner, “and sprinted as fast as we could toward the other end.”

“And you
were naked? Together?”

“Well, we
were together for the first few blocks. Then Marcela stepped on a rock and
stopped and I ran ahead.” I pause. “Then the police came. We both hid, but they
only found me. I was hiding behind a compost bin near the hardware store—”

Crosbie’s
laughing so hard I’m not sure he can hear me.

“The
policeman had to get a blanket from the trunk so I could sit on it in the
backseat. They’d found our clothes so they knew there were two of us and he
kept asking where my ‘friend’ was. I said I didn’t know and eventually he drove
me to the police station.”

“And they
charged you?”

“I was
the only person in the holding cell! They had nothing else to do.”

He gives
up the pretense of walking and bends over to hold his thighs as he roars with
laughter, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes. My parents had had a very
different response.

“Anyway,”
I continue primly, “they charged me with two misdemeanors: public intoxication
and indecent exposure.”

Now he
just kneels on the wet sidewalk and laughs his ass off.

“I got
three hundred hours of community service and had to collect trash on the side
of the highway all summer. That’s why I stayed at Burnham.”

I kick
him when he doesn’t stop laughing, and eventually he sobers up and gazes at me,
almost worshipfully.

“I like
you so much more now,” he says, slowly getting to his feet.

“Funny.
I’m liking you much less.”

“I mean,
don’t get me wrong—I really like the cardigan-wearing, library-obsessed Nora
who doesn’t jump on beds, but this… Well, I like the criminal side of you. It’s
hot.”

“Stop.”

“I mean,
the Burnham Police Department also saw it…”

“Crosbie!”

He teases
me the rest of the way back to the apartment, even though it means passing the
Frat Farm so he’ll have to double back later. We’re not at the point where we
spend every night together, and I’m definitely not ready for a sleepover at the
frat house, anyway.

“Remember,”
I say, sticking my key in the lock. “Not a word to Kellan. This is a secret.”

“Got it.”
He mimes zipping his lips. “Top secret.”

Suddenly
the door is wrenched open and Kellan’s standing there. “What’s a secret?”

“How long
have you been waiting?” I exclaim.

“I saw
you through the window. Come in here—I want to show you guys something.”

Crosbie
and I exchange bemused looks but follow him inside, stepping out of our boots
and climbing the stairs to the living room…where Kellan has erected a giant
easel with a huge sheet of paper with the numbers forty through fifty printed
on it. There are eleven spots for entries: seven have actual names, four have
descriptors. That bathroom wall is burned onto the back of my eyelids: the last
time I saw it, forty-one and forty-two were blank. Now forty-two reads “BJ at
May Madness party” and forty-one reads “Red Corset.”

Fuck. Me.
Aka “Red Corset.”

“What’s
this?” I ask, trying to hide my terror.

“I’ve
eliminated sixty-two through fifty-one,” Kellan answers. “They’re all clean.
This is the next batch.”

“Good
job,” Crosbie says, studying the list. “You’re making progress.” He taps the
blowjob entry. “I’d forgotten about this.”

“Me too,”
Kellan replies, as though that’s totally normal. As though getting a blowjob
while a bunch of your friends look on is par for the course. “Except then I
remembered that she—” number forty-three,
Karina (brunette)
, “mentioned
it when we hooked up the next week. Which made me remember that right before
the BJ there was a chick in a closet.”

I want to
die.

“A closet
or a corset?” Crosbie asks, squinting at the writing.

“Both. I
banged her in a closet, and she was wearing a red corset. I remember watching
her tits bounce as we fucked.”

“That’s
hot.”

“It’d be
hotter if I could remember her face. I was so drunk, man. I’d messed up at
finals, coach put me on probation for the team… I was just doing everything I
could to forget.”

Crosbie
looks wholly unconcerned with this reasoning. “Looks like it worked.”

I try not
to gag. It’s absolutely nauseating to have your roommate and your boyfriend
discuss your most regrettable sexual encounter like it’s nothing. Like
you’re
nothing. Which, if “Red Corset” is anything to go by, is entirely accurate.

Crosbie
pulls out his phone and scrolls through, muttering, “Do you have contact info
for any of them? I might have Karina in here somewhere.”

I look at
him sharply.

“Dude,”
Kellan whispers.

“What?”
He finally clues in. “She’s in my chem lab,” he says hastily. “That’s it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kellan
tries to change the subject. “I’m pretty sure Susanna still works at The Sling.
I can drop by there tomorrow.”

Susanna
has been written in alongside her scratched out descriptor,
Smells like
French Fries
. The Sling is a campus greasy spoon, known for serving late
night breakfast to drunken revelers. And possibly STIs. This sounds bad, but I
hope it’s her. Then the search is over and “Red Corset” stays in the closet,
both literally and figuratively, because now that I think about it, I know
exactly where that tacky thing is.

“And
Purple Hair still has purple hair and sits in the front row of my English Lit
class, so I can talk to her on Friday.” Kellan thinks. “Assuming it’s not
another girl with purple hair. I never really looked at her face.”

“Oh my
God,” I mumble, running my hands over my heated cheeks. “Oh my God, Kellan. Did
you
ever
look at their faces? Ever ask their names? Even once? Did that
not matter? Did they really matter so little that you can’t remember more than
the color of their hair or that they smell like grease or they blew you at a
party? Is it really that easy for you?”

He looks
startled.

“Nora.”
Crosbie puts a hand on my arm. “Calm down. It’s—”

I jerk
away. “Why don’t you see how many of their numbers are in your phone, Crosbie?
Do you have an entry for
Sparkly Green Shirt
or
Parking Lot at
Grocery Store
or
Walks with Slight Limp?”

“I don’t—”

“I mean,
they’re people, you jackasses!
Blowjob at May Madness
? That’s a person!
Red
Corset
? That’s a person too! And they have names and they have feelings and
it’s so fucking infuriating to hear you talk about them like they don’t
matter.”

“It’s—”

I swipe
angry tears from my eyes. “Maybe it’s a big deal for them. Maybe they loved it.
Maybe they hated it. Maybe they regret it. But maybe it’s more than some stupid
game or some bathroom wall or some list in my living room.”

“Nora,
we—”

“I
can’t,” I say. “I can’t look at this. I can’t look at you.” I storm into my
room and close the door, slumping against the wall before sliding down onto the
carpet. So much for playing it cool. So much for putting last year behind me.
I’d tried my very best to not be the non-entity I’d been in high school, the
invisible girl hiding behind baggy clothes and tangled hair. And now here I am,
hiding behind cardigans and library books and nowhere closer to knowing who the
hell I am. “Red Corset” is the most exciting girl I’d even been, and all that
got me was a bi-monthly meeting with the Dean, three hundred hours of community
service, and not-so-prime placement on Kellan McVey’s “Did she give me
gonorrhea?” sex list.

I grind
the heels of my hands into my eyes, willing myself to get a grip. I’m just
barely hanging on when there’s a tentative knock on the door. It slowly eases
open and Crosbie sticks in his head, spotting me on the floor.

“Hey,” he
says softly.

“Sorry,”
I mumble, twisting my fingers. Sorry you think “watched her tits bounce as we
fucked” is hot. Sorry I’m
Red Corset
. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

He joins
me on the floor. “You don’t have to apologize. All that stuff you told me
outside—I mean, I thought it was funny, but if it really upsets you, I won’t
make any more jokes about it. I mean, you obviously beat yourself up for stuff,
and maybe you’re right. Maybe all the girls on that list regret being on it. I
know one does, for sure.”

My breath
snags in my throat until he clarifies: “The gonorrhea girl.”

The heart
attack I was about to have subsides. “Oh. Right. Her.”

“And I’m
going to ask them to paint over my name in the Student Union building. All that
meaningless shit isn’t worth boasting about. The best girl I’ve ever known is
sitting right here, and I’d die before I saw her name on some list like that.”

I’m about
to start crying again.

“On
my
list,” he adds, making it all so much worse. “How bad would that be?”

I can’t
speak, so I just shake my head.

“Are we
okay?” he asks. “I don’t want to go if we’re not okay.”

“We’re
okay,” I mumble. “I’m just tired.”

“Sure.
All this gray weather makes people depressed. I saw a thing about it. Did you
know they sell lamps specifically designed to give you vitamin D?”

“I did
know that.”

“Should
we get you one?”

I laugh
helplessly. “I’ll be fine tomorrow. I just need to sleep.”

“Of
course.” He leans forward and kisses my forehead. “Feel better.”

“Thanks.”

He stands
to go, putting his hand on the knob. “And please don’t kill Kellan in his
sleep. He’s a jerk sometimes, but he’s my best friend. I’d hate to have to help
bury him.”

“I can
hear you,” Kellan calls from the living room. “And I keep mace under my pillow.
Just FYI.”

* * *

At two-thirty in the morning, I’m still wide awake. At some point I’d
ventured out of my room and apologized to Kellan, who promised to keep the
easel turned facing away in the corner of the living room, as though it were
being punished. Now, however, it’s an entirely different kind of guilt keeping
me awake.

Try as I
might, every time I close my eyes I see that stupid red satin corset, the one
that cinched up so tight I couldn’t take a full breath. Paired with a leather
mini-skirt and a pair of Marcela’s stilettos, I’d thought I was the pinnacle of
high fashion. Certainly not the invisible girl whose high school yearbook photo
is a large question mark, since the school accidentally misplaced my picture and
only realized it an hour before the book was set to be printed.

It didn’t
matter, I vowed. I would reinvent myself at college, be somebody people
remembered. Because if I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure only a handful of my
high school classmates would recognize my photo even if it
had
appeared
in the yearbook.

Turns
out, being memorable is not that easy.

I roll
onto my side and stare into my darkened closet. I know I’m imagining things,
but I swear I can see that red corset winking out at me, reflecting in the
slivers of moonlight easing through the gap in the curtains. The wind howls
outside, the promise of yet another storm, and even as I shiver, I sit up and
swing my feet to the floor. I flip on the bedside lamp and hurry to the closet.
When I moved in I’d tossed all my…less tasteful clothes into the back corner,
buried safely behind my boring new wardrobe of jeans, T-shirts, and cardigans.
Now I rummage through the pile, finding mini-skirts and sequined halter tops,
dangerously tiny cut-off shorts and the neon pink bikini I’d paired with them
for a pool party probably no one remembers I attended.