“I’m not cooking tonight.” She spreads her gaze across the island by way of excuse. “But we could order something. Thai food, maybe? We haven’t done that in a while.”
“Sounds good. After I get cleaned up.” I resurvey her mess. “And you too.”
“One should never outgrow playing in the dirt.”
I laugh, but in the shower I try my hardest to wash off the dirt. The layer of dust Alec scattered with his too-hard very public kiss. The film of Gregg’s words, clinging to me like sin.
I don’t get dressed right away. I wrap myself in a towel and fall onto my bed. I focus on the tiny glowing stars glued to my ceiling. I remember the sixth grade versions of me and Lizzie pasting every sticker onto my indoor sky. I remember it like it was yesterday and it seems impossible how time refuses to follow rules. It claims to be linear, but it can bend and slip in too many ways. Parts of me want to be in sixth grade again, when things were easy. Next year was just next year and friends were friends. The past turns my head to the side, to the pictures of my friends from when time was predictable.
Gregg. Lizzie. My father holding me on my first day home from the hospital. My first field hockey uniform at twelve. My first visit to Boston College. The newspaper photo of me winning State. Finn as a pup. My eyes retreat. Return to the newspaper photo of me at State. It is graffiti-marked with the red strokes of a pen.
Thick red marker.
Four capital letters. Block letters. Painstakingly perfect.
And deadly.
SLUT
In the photo under this word, my post-win smile is smeared with the S of the word. S-L-U-T. My brain blurs the letters, wondering if I’ve read them in the wrong order. Or maybe I’ve imagined them. I shake my head clear. But the letters remain. All four. Standing at attention. In their persistent order.
My chest fills with more air than it can hold, or maybe not enough. It makes my brain spin. Who would do this? And why? How? I look for the joke, want to see it, but instead I see my full name, my signature in the bottom corner. Zephyr Marie Doyle. Every floating curve of my letters, even the capital Z and the way I draw a line through the middle. My handwriting. Gregg’s red sharpie.
I rip the clipping from my wall, the tack tearing a jagged line through the thin paper. I crumple it into a pea even as it grows to a boulder within my fist. And in the space I’ve just cleared, the collage photo under this clipping is the one of me and Gregg at Mara’s christening. Summer sun freckles my face, Gregg at my side. Except only his hand remains. Gregg has been torn from the photo. Leaving me in a blue sundress and a smile too innocent.
Time stiches, distorts my reality. I don’t know how many eternities have passed before I go to the kitchen. The island still holds a volcano of dirt, but Mom’s hands are clean and she’s putting on her coat. “I ordered our usual. I’m on my way to pick it up now. I’d ask you to come, but . . .”
I look to my middle, where Mom’s trained her gaze. I’m still in my towel. “Mom, was there . . . did you see . . . did anyone stop by for me today?”
Her brow creases. “No, why?”
“No reason.” I squeeze the pea of newspaper smaller in my grip.
“I’ll be back in fifteen. Set the table?”
I nod and Mom’s out the door with Finn, his whole body eager for the ride that holds endless possibilities. I wait for a beat before ducking out to check the key rock. The key huddles there, silver and small and completely unaware of its role in derailing my life. The cold outside is so cold that I want to stay here forever. Let the elements freeze my hair, then my blood, then my skin.
Instead, I scribble a note to Mom that I’m not feeling well, that I’m skipping dinner, that I need some sleep. The words smudge with dirt, mocking my illusion that anything in life is controllable. I crawl into my room, crawl into myself, a turtle retreating into its shell. I want to call Lizzie but can’t imagine how to tell her what’s happened. I can’t show her the photo or the red devil ink that pierced “SLUT” onto paper. Talking about this with anyone would make it too real. Realer than the real of right now, and I can’t carry that weight.
And I can’t call Gregg to ask him why he’d hurt me like this. Did he come over here after he saw Alec kiss me in the caf? He knows where the key is. Finn would have let him in—been thrilled to see him, even. And Gregg used his red autograph Sharpie to make sure I knew it was him.
Gregg had to sneak into my house.
Slip into my room.
Brand his jealousy onto paper—a paper I signed and gave especially to him.
Pin it to my wall.
Know that it would crush me.