Was that picture of the blonde on the wall in the tunnel Winslet?
And what does Hawke want with all of it?
I step onto the grass, the summer breeze rustling the leaves, and a few groups of students lounging on the ground and trying to catch some rays.
Maybe Hawke wishes it wasn’t me last night. Maybe that’s why he likes that story and it helped. Because Winslet is untouchable. He can idolize her, because he’ll never achieve her, and it’s a goal that he’ll never have to reach.
He’ll never be faced with failure.
Or maybe it’s me.
In my head, I know that’s stupid. Hawke’s not like that.
But some people have hang-ups they don’t realize. Mexican girls aren’t worthy, and girls who aren’t virgins are dirty. People wish they didn’t feel this way, but they do. I feel it when they look at me sometimes. It’s not how they look at people like his ex or his cousin.
I’m a body, built for service. His ex is a prize, built for position.
Maybe he wishes he’d never touched me. I can tell he doesn’t want to touch women he can’t picture honeymooning with. Or bearing his children. Hawke wants to love every woman he has sex with.
I stroll, keeping my hand tight around my phone in the center pocket of my hoodie. Which he insisted I wear to protect myself, in case we fell off the bike.
Pulling my hat down, I walk around the green, the bell of the clock above ringing and signaling it’s four in the afternoon. A few clouds dot the sky, a Bluetooth speaker plays “Dark Matter”, and I inhale, the air smelling different here.
We’re technically still in Shelburne Falls, but it’s like a different world. Still beautiful, but a community within a community. Without the Trents, the Caruthers, and High Street.
I enter the library, the tables sparsely filled with students in the summer session and the smell of books, coffee, and sad obligation lingering. Most of them don’t want to be here.
A guy pushes past me. “Sorry,” he calls back.
But I barely notice him as I stumble. I gape up at the mural on the ceiling and the solar system sculpture spinning over my head. So many books on the floors above.
I picture myself, dressed in a Clarke sweatshirt and carrying books back to my table, like I don’t have Matty and Bianca and I’m not completely broke.
I back out, slowly turning and leaving before I venture in any farther. A different life, maybe. I don’t think I would even know how to study anymore.
The building across the quad says Saber Science Building. I walk over and enter, letting myself forget for a minute like I do when I’m with him.
I let myself pretend.
Clarke University has an astronomy department, and I don’t know if this is the place, but I pass classrooms, some still empty and some filled with students. I climb one floor after another, stopping when I see a video of the Sun on an instructor’s board. I hide behind the door, peering in the window just enough, and watch the star flame and burn as it zooms in and out. Text appears on the screen, too small to read, and I wish I was in there. With my laptop and my ponytail and preparing for the work I want to do someday. Maybe Hawke is texting me as I sit in class and begging me to stay the night in a house he shares with some other guys.
What a life it would be, to only have to worry about my boyfriend unable to keep his hands off me.
“Hi,” a voice says.
I startle and step back, out of view of the door as a girl stands in front of me.
“Hawke meeting with his new advisor?” she asks.
What?
And then I see her lip, a cut hidden behind the makeup from when I kicked it.
I straighten my spine.
“Me too,” she replies, not waiting for me to speak. “And you? Getting your schedule, maybe?” She smiles, smug. “Books? Meeting your new roommate for lunch?”
I look at her, not giving her an inch. She’s in shorts and a T-shirt, but I see the red bikini strap tied around the back of her neck. The same one she was wearing in that Instagram picture.
The day Hawke let her kiss him.
“I’m excited,” she says. “My parents think that since I’m so close to home, I’ll be back all the time, but I think as the weekends go on, more of my life will be on campus. I won’t want to miss study sessions, parties, athletics…”
Like Hawke, she’s telling me. I won’t be here with him, and he’ll eventually move on, making a life here.
“I don’t think I’ll be back to town much at all, once school starts,” she muses.
I’ll be here with Hawke and you won’t, she doesn’t have to say it out loud for me to understand.