Ransom(8)

Can’t wait to see you in Cleveland again! It’s been way too long since you’ve been home!

There are dozens of responses to her post, no doubt from other Cleveland fans looking forward to the band’s homecoming performance at the end of the summer, but I’m transfixed by her name and the tiny picture next to it. Joanie Hartfield. She used this very website to make my life a living hell only twelve months ago.

I close the browser and slam the laptop closed. Images are racing through my mind. Horrible, evil, hateful words. Pictures of me. Threats. All of the things that Joanie and her friends had flung at me, relentlessly, gleefully even, for months, until I finally broke, until I went to pieces and decided sheer nothingness would be preferable to living in the kind of world where people could be so cruel.

My breathing has become heavy, and beads of sweat pop out on my forehead. I know a panic attack is imminent. How could I be so stupid to go to that site, of all places? And what are the odds of her posting there on the one day that I actually logged on? Can the universe hate me any more?

I half-laugh at the thought, because the universe has made its opinion of me quite clear in the past year. But the strangled laugh actually manages to calm me somewhat. I grab my water bottle from the table and take a long gulp before beginning my counting exercises.

It’s one thing to want to be strong, to want to move on and just get back to normal. But to actually do it is a different thing entirely. The truth is, I’m not normal. I shouldn’t have to keep reminding myself of this, not after everything that has happened. The fact that I’m sitting here, alone, in an empty apartment without a single friend to my name should be all the proof that I need. I am broken, and I’m not going to be fixed any time in the near future.

The sooner I finally accept that, the better off I’ll be.

***



I don’t expect to see Paige again until our next class, so I’m surprised to find her sitting in my usual seat in my twentieth-century lit lecture the next day.

She, however, doesn’t seem surprised to see me. “I thought it was you,” she says, smiling broadly. “I usually sit back there”—she points across the room—”and I remembered seeing someone in this row with hair like yours. After we met yesterday, I wondered if maybe it was you. And it was!”

I smile, feeling nervous. I had planned to hide away in the back row of econ next week, hopefully avoiding her for the rest of the semester. No such luck.

“Sit down,” she says, gesturing to the empty seat beside her.

Not seeing much choice in the matter, I do as she asks, pulling my sweatshirt sleeves over my palms as I do. Instinctively, I hunch into my hoodie, wishing she would stop looking at me.

“So you’re pretty shy, huh?”

I gape at her, momentarily forgetting how uncomfortable I am. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as bold as this chick is.

“Sorry.” She gives me a rueful smile. “Karen is always telling me I need a filter between my brain and mouth.”

“It’s okay.” I stare at the space just below her chin. I’m really bad at eye contact, which I guess kind of proves her point. “Yeah, I’m pretty shy.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I should probably work on being more shy, you know?”

I laugh a little, feeling slightly more comfortable. “No, it’s better to be confident, believe me.”

She sighs. “There is a such thing as too confident. Sometimes I fall into that category. It’s gets me into all kinds of trouble.”

I think about the history class I’m failing. “Shy gets me into trouble too.”

I stopped going to class midway through the term when I found out I would be required to work in a group and give a twenty-minute presentation in front of the whole class. I just couldn’t do it. My father had been furious when I finally admitted it to him. If I would have called him when I found out, he could have talked to someone in the counseling office and gotten me excused from the assignment. I knew that, but I was just so sick of him making “arrangements” for me. I wanted to show him that this whole college thing was out of my league.

The professor starts her lecture far below us in the hall, and I’m relieved to have an excuse to stop talking to Paige, but I really hate this class. Professor Davis is an ancient-looking, soft-spoken woman who spends the entire lecture hunched over the podium in the center of the room. I can barely hear her half the time, and the murmuring of classmates who know they can get away with goofing off is very distracting.

“So,” Paige whispers, “have you thought at all about coming with us? I think you’d have fun.”