Harder (Caroline & West #2)(35)

Krishna plays this album a lot. I never noticed before that all the songs are love songs.

I go out for a run with Bridget, long sleeves and long tights on a cold morning as we jog in a rectangle around Putnam’s campus, turning left, left, always to the left. She runs slow for me, because I’m not as good a runner as she is, and because my pace falters every time I hear some new lyric, a fresh tilt to a tune I’ve never paid attention to.

I find myself waving her ahead, Go on, I’ll see you at home, because I need to listen hard, cupping my hands over my earbuds. I’ve just discovered—yes. This one, too. Another love song.

Angry love songs. Plaintive ones. Complaining ones, ecstatic ones, sexy moaning ones, cute ones, smug ones, turbulent bleeding aching disastrous ones.

Everywhere I go.

I stand by the side of the road on a cold morning, frost on the stalks in the ditch beside me, a crow on the telephone pole, a cloudless sky, listening to a woman pleading over a line of throbbing drums, Take me back, take me back, take me back, baby, take me back.

At home, Krishna’s music pulls me down the hall another time.

No Bridget today. They argued about something after dinner, and I haven’t seen her since.

“You okay?” he asks me.

I’m not sure what to tell him.

I’m in love.

Sometimes it feels like a terminal condition. Killing stupidity. Dangerous to my well-being. It makes me do dumb shit like fly to Oregon on a moment’s notice, and shred a hundred cigarettes to nothing.

Krish and Bridget are in love. It makes them do dumb shit like lie to each other about how they feel, pretend not to feel it, f*ck and touch and kiss and then run, run, run.

Am I okay?

Is love like this okay?

It doesn’t feel okay. It feels necessary.

In the daytime I hear music, and I start to think that whatever is wrong with me might actually be what’s wrong with everybody.

I start to think it might be normal, because if it’s not, then what does it mean that all the songs are love songs?

What does it mean that I hear them now, everywhere I go?


Fall break is the last full week of October before Halloween. I spend a few days of it at home with my dad.

Home is like a thrift store shoe—I love the way it looks, but when I put it on, it feels stiff, creased in weird places. I can pretend it fits if I need it bad enough, but when I’m honest with myself I know it never will.

“You okay?” he asks.

Everybody asks. The other morning I caught sight of myself in the mirror coming out of the shower. I’m too thin, and I look like I haven’t slept through the night in about a year.

I haven’t.

“Sure.”

I’m fine. It’s just that I feel some days like I’m moving through liquid, and I have trouble sleeping. When I do sleep, I dream about burning alive. I dream about alien pregnancies. I dream about losing all my teeth, losing a baby I didn’t know I had and searching all over campus for it, in every classroom, in the post office, under every table at the library.

I sit in class and think about West’s arms, West’s hands, West’s smile.

West.

“You seem kind of down,” my dad says. “Are you worried about the case?”

Nate’s attorney responded to our petition with across-the-board denial and a request for summary judgment. This was what we expected, and in the two days I’ve been home, Dad’s told me no less than four times that there’s no way the judge will go for it. We have a strong enough claim that the case will keep moving forward toward trial, gliding along on well-greased wheels, until the money runs out or something dramatic happens to stop it.

I’m not worried about the case.

I think he’d be surprised to learn how little I actually think about it, except when he brings it up.

I haven’t told him that Nate is living in a house two hundred feet from the one I’m renting, or that I pass him on my way to class sometimes and we both look down and away, like strangers.

“I’m okay,” I tell him.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I picked up bananas and ice cream for dessert. Want to do the honors?”

“Sure.”

I build banana splits: a scoop of each stripe of Neapolitan ice cream, a banana cut neatly in half, hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, and nuts. An old ritual with my dad and me. As I’m swirling whipped cream on top, he comes up beside me.

“Hey, Dad?” I ask.

“Mmm-hmm?”

“Are we not going on vacation at Christmas because of the lawsuit?”

He sighs. “We already talked about this.”

Money, he means. We talked about how I was supposed to handle my side and he was supposed to handle the money side, and I didn’t need to worry about it. But why shouldn’t I know what my revenge costs?

“You talked about it. I still don’t understand why it has to be a secret. And if we can’t afford it, then maybe it isn’t worth it.”

“We’ve put so much into this already. We have to see it through.”

“But as much as it’s already cost, it’s just going to get bigger, and I start thinking, you know, what are we doing this for? Because what Nate took from me—I already can’t get it back.”