I snort. Like that’s fucking happening. “Bea, I pass out watching TV on this thing most nights anyway. It’s comfortable. It’s no big fucking deal.”
Her eyes narrow subtly, and I remind myself she knows me well, too. Enough to know I definitely don’t watch TV nightly, or much at all besides sports. But she doesn’t call me out on it.
Our first awkward moment announces itself with deafening silence. We say good night, facing each other uncertainly across the room. It feels like I should do something. If she were leaving, and we were saying “good-bye” and not “good night,” I’d give her a hug, or maybe playfully muss her hair. But she’s staying. So, like an idiot, I give her a halfhearted salute, and she lets out a hiccup of a giggle, and gives me one back before heading to bed.
I curl up on my couch and grab Angels from the side table, planning to read until my eyes close of their own accord. Because this couch is uncomfortable as fuck to sleep on.
Chapter Ten
Beth
I scroll through my emails and check my assignment for my Shakespeare class, glancing at the clock yet again. Fifteen minutes more. On Wednesday evenings I’m the only one who mans the new student chatline—the anonymous messaging guidance program Professor Bowman recently implemented. It’s usually all but radio silence, save for your random bored prankster, and, once, an exceptionally unimpressive dick pic.
But there have been a few students using it sincerely, and slowly but surely it’s been gaining popularity. Well, as popular as a student mental health outreach tool can be expected to become, anyway. But this particular shift tends to be especially quiet, and aside from getting a good amount of studying done, I’m all but bored to tears.
And as much as I care about volunteering, I’m anxious to get home to David’s—to banter and bullshit and talk about our day.
I text Lani to check in. She’s still staying with Elise—who I’ve become pretty friendly with—but even if Brody hasn’t been on campus since the attack, we’d both rather be safe than sorry.
Ping.
I’m so surprised by the chime of the incoming message that I actually jump in my chair.
Hi, the message says.
Hi, my name is Beth. How are you doing today? I reply with the standard greeting. It’s up to us whether we use our real names or not. I couldn’t think of a reason not to. I’m not ashamed of who I am.
I’ve been better.
My attention focuses and I sit straighter in my chair as I realize this is not, in fact, a prank. Rough day? I prompt.
Ha.
I wait for a follow-up, and it comes a second later.
Rough life.
I swallow hard. I can empathize. But I also know there’s a way back from the emptiness. What should I call you? I reply. It’s a non-pressure tactic, but I already doubt I’ll get an actual name from this one.
You? Fucking trash, probably.
My heart aches for this stranger. That isn’t true, I assure the person who thought I would refer to him as fucking trash.
You sure about that, Beth?
The response sets my anxiety alarm off hard. Even though I know I gave him my name, something about his using it now, in this context, makes me uneasy. I don’t even actually know that it’s a him at all, and I don’t know why the few messages he—or she—has sent have given me that impression. But they have. That I wouldn’t call you trash? Yes. I’m sure, I reply. When two minutes pass without a response, I add, No one deserves to be treated that way.
The application lets me know he’s typing, and I wait. And wait. But when the next message comes, all it says is, No. They fucking don’t, Beth.
My pulse accelerates and my palms dampen with nervous sweat as I type. Do you know me? So much for the script.
You sure as fuck don’t know me.
I’m trying to craft a response that doesn’t violate half of Bowman’s guidelines when whoever it was abruptly ends the conversation. But part of the appeal of the software—beyond the expected anonymity—is that it only keeps record of the last exchange. So I can’t even go back and re-read the strange conversation. I can’t even be sure that it was a strange conversation. Especially considering some of the exchanges I’ve seen or heard about since I started volunteering here.
But I can’t escape the unsettling feeling that there was something uncomfortably intimate about the way he used my name—in the way he didn’t answer whether he knew me or not, but instead said it was me who didn’t know him.
Did it mean something?
