Page 89 of The Way I Am Now
Breathe. I need to breathe.
I lie flat on my back, close my eyes, and concentrate on the hard floor under me, find the points where the floor supports my body, like my therapist told me.
I place my hand on my stomach and feel it expand and contract with each breath. In and out, over and over. I’m nearly asleep when I hear my phone vibrating from my bag, and I realize I never texted to let anyone know that I made it home.
I sit up too quickly and pull my purse down on the floor, digging through it until my hand finds my phone. But the text waiting there isn’t from Josh or my mom; it’s from DA Silverman.
I have news . . .
No.
I won’t open it. I can’t. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know yet. Either our case is dead or it’s moving forward. And I can’t know either of those things right now. I stand, leaving the phone there on the floor. It lights up again, and I kick it away from me this time. It skids across the floor and under the dresser, out of sight.
I lug my bags onto my bed, start unpacking. Keep my hands busy—that’s another tip my therapist gave me. I can still hear the vibration of my phone, rattling now, shoved up against the baseboard.
I open my laptop, cue up my moody sad-girl playlist. Florence + the Machine croons out in a darkly lyrical dance. But I can still feel the phone vibrating—inside my chest now, somehow. I turn the volume up.
I put away all my clothes, literally fold every article of clothing, even my bras and underwear. I match up every last sock with its mate and divide half a drawer for all of Josh’s clothes I’ve found lying around. I hang up my sweaters in the closet and line my boots up with my other shoes. Carefully, I slide my clarinet case up on the top shelf of the closet. Next, I organize my desk. Move my hair and makeup stuff over to my dresser. I line up my meds in a row, rounding them out with the packet of birth control pills and the bottle of Tylenol I’ve been popping like candy all week for my never-ending headaches.
I had an in-person with my therapist on Wednesday. She asked how I’d been feeling with the new meds, and I had to admit that I forget to take them a lot, so I couldn’t be sure if they were really helping much. When she asked me why, I didn’t tell her it’s because I keep them hidden half the time; I just shrugged. The thing is, I know Josh is literally the last person on the planet who would make me feel weird about any of it—he understood about the sleeping pills, as I knew he would. It’s me.
So I decide—force myself—to just leave them there, out in the open.
My playlist comes to an abrupt end, plunging me into silence.
I look around. Everything’s in order here. Bed made. Books lined up in neat rows. My life ready for me to dive back in. But I don’t dive. I drag myself over to my bed. I don’t even have the energy to lift the covers. I lay my head on the pillow, curl up inside my sweater, and face the wall, just waiting to feel normal again.
JOSH
After practice, Coach calls us all together for a meeting in the locker room. There’s a tightness, a tension in the air. Everyone’s tired and hungry and ready to go. I just want to get to my phone to see if she’s texted me back yet.
“All right, guys,” Coach begins. “Quick announcement. This is coming down directly from the dean. We’ll be talking to all the teams, so don’t feel special. Okay, I’m sure some of you have heard about the sexual assault case involving a student athlete over at Eastland U.”
My heart starts racing.
“Obviously, there’s no tolerance for this kind of thing at Tucker Hill,” he continues, looking down at his clipboard, reading. “Zero tolerance for any form of harassment or so-called ‘locker room talk’ on this team or any team on this campus. Got it?”
I look around. There are heads nodding.
Someone raises a hand. “Uh, Coach, has someone complained, or . . . ?”
“No. Thank God. The dean wanted us to preemptively talk with you all, as a reminder that this shit won’t fly here.”
Okay, so this is just a general PSA. I start to relax.
Coach squints at his clipboard again. “THU will be issuing a formal statement regarding its commitment to . . .” He trails off, skipping ahead. “So, basically, the moral of the story is eyes are on teams like ours right now, and we can’t afford any bad press, gentlemen.”
Bad press, so that’s really all that matters here.
“Such bullshit,” I hear someone mutter under their breath. When I look up, Jon, one of the bench players, has a stupid shit-eating grin on his face. He leans in to the guy next to him, whispers something, and I see both of them Jell-O-shaking with silent laughter. Something inside me picks up like a swelling wave, and I can feel my fists tightening at my sides.
Coach dismisses us, and I look around—I completely missed the end of the meeting.
I try to shake off this feeling.
I’m finishing getting dressed at my locker, checking my phone—still nothing from her—when I hear Jon’s dumbass guffaw over the bank of lockers.
“You know she wanted it, and then when he didn’t want a relationship, she decided to screw his career.” That wave returns now, and I can feel my face getting red. “That is exactly why you don’t dip your dick in crazy.”
