Brody continues calling for me through the door I’ve slid down, hugging my knees to my chest, trying to catch my breath and staunch my tears. Violent knocking rattles the door and vibrates down my spine, and I jump farther into the room, putting as much distance between Brody and myself as possible.
“Go away!” I sob.
His voice is muffled through the door, but I can make out, “…just want to talk…please, Beth…”
I wonder if he’d told Liz he just wanted to talk. Nausea rises in my gut and I fall into a chant, begging him to “go away, go away, go away!”
I’m still chanting when I realize my voice is the only one filling the room. That Brody’s voice is gone, and his knocking has ceased.
I quiet.
I listen carefully, not daring to take so much as a step toward the door. And then I hear the distant sound of a voice that reminds me I’m not alone.
I hurry to the bag I dropped when I stumbled through the door, and grab my phone. The screen displays David’s name and his Facebook photo, a particularly handsome shot of him wearing his trademark lopsided, roguish smirk. The timer on the screen indicates that the call has lasted only twelve minutes.
How? How can only twelve minutes have passed since I answered his call?
The phone shakes in my hand. “H-hello,” I rasp. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I don’t tell him what happened. Why I don’t beg him to help me.
Maybe because, deep down, I know he’s already on his way.
“Bea? Bea? What the fuck! Where are you? I’m on my way to Standman,” he confirms.
“M-my dorm.”
“Fuck, Bea, I’m losing my mind over here! Are you okay? Who was shouting?”
“It was him.”
“I fucking knew it! Damn it, Beth, he’s dangerous!”
“I know!” I cry. “He followed me! I didn’t—”
“How did he get into Standman?”
I pause, my voice tiny when I say, “He lives here. In my building. I didn’t know.”
David rattles off a string of colorful expletives, their familiarity in his deep tenor calming my nerves. He sucks in a settling breath. “Is he gone?” he asks.
“I think.”
“Look through your peephole.”
I approach my door warily, as if the moment I reach it, the shouting and banging will start up again. But when I look through my peephole, no one is there. “He’s gone,” I confirm.
David sighs. “I’m gonna hang up—”
“No!” I cry. It’s irrational, but having him on the phone makes me feel safe, like more than his voice is here with me, ready to take up for me like always.
“Bea, he’s gone, and your door is locked, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to hang up, and you’re going to call campus security, and report him. Right now, okay?” He talks slowly and carefully, as if to an hysterical child—I suppose that’s what Brody has reduced me to, and the thought has resentment brewing in my chest.
It morphs into anger, and then resolve.
I am not a helpless little girl, and I will not be victimized by someone I’ve shown nothing but kindness.
