Nice Girls(67)

“Carly!” chided the other girl, but they broke out into a fit of laughter.

Their friend suddenly left the toilet stall, complaining about constipation. The girls cleaned up and left, talking about heading to Carly’s room.

I was too afraid to move until they were gone. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, livid and bitter. Carly had slashed me apart. Everything that I’d tried to abandon in Liberty Lake had come rushing back—I could never leave that place and that fat, boring girl behind. She followed me wherever I went.

I felt the fury well up inside me, the rage that a couple of eighteen-year-old brats had the nerve to look down on me.

Then, there was the shock. Carly had seen me for who I was. She hadn’t liked me at all—she’d pitied me. That was what hurt the most.



I stayed in my dorm room all through Thursday morning. I skipped my thesis class. I had a couple of granola bars and a bit of water, and I texted some of the other RAs that I was locking myself up to work on some projects.

But I was afraid to leave my room. The floor and the rest of the building felt hostile, unsafe. I couldn’t bear to run into Carly. Normally, she would want to stop and talk. But I couldn’t face her anymore—I knew what she truly thought of me. It was humiliating, and I couldn’t pretend otherwise.

By the time lunch came around, I was starving. I left my dorm room and smelled the pungent odor of weed in the air. The scent was only a few doors down the hallway. It came from Carly’s room. There was laughter and loud trap music inside.

Looking back, I should have ignored them and walked away. Weed was a trivial matter in the dorms. It was more trouble than it was worth.

But that day, I was hungry and tired and bitter. A part of me snapped.

I knocked on the door. When nothing happened, I knocked on it harder, my fists pounding in quick succession. The music died down, and the door opened.

Carly was staring at me, her red hair falling down one shoulder. It was lovely hair, the kind that glowed even in poor lighting. Behind her, there were two other girls sitting on the floor, smoke wafting up behind their backs. I could see the glass of a bong peeking out behind one knee.

“What’s up?” Carly said breezily.

“Where’s the marijuana?” I asked. It sounded like someone else’s voice, flat and robotic. “Dorm policy says I need to confiscate it.”

Carly didn’t move. She just stared at me, her face placid. Behind her the two girls started shuffling the contraband behind them.

“Chill, Mary, we’re not doing anything,” said Carly.

“I need to confiscate it. Now.”

Carly frowned, immobile.

“Why are you acting like this? You don’t have the right to be here,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Is it because I’m a try-hard? Maybe I should slit my wrists?”

Carly only stared back at me. None of it had registered in her mind. I was getting heated, growing angrier by the second.

“We’ll stop if you don’t like the smell,” said Carly. “Just stop being a cunt, Mary.”

A second later, I slammed past her into the room. The two girls looked alarmed, their eyes bright pink.

Carly grabbed my shoulder. I spun around.

And I slapped her. I could hear the clap of skin echo down the hallway. The pain spurting in one palm as the other clenched shut, my fingernails digging into it.

Carly just looked at me, her pale cheek blazing bright red. She was seething.

When they later asked me what had happened, I said I couldn’t remember the details. I wasn’t lying. I just remembered my hands digging into her hair, pulling at her scalp. Her hands yanking on my shirt, scratching at my throat, my neck. Her friends screaming in the background. The sound of my shirt ripping near my neck. Her nails digging into my skin, my nails digging into hers. The ache in my fist as it flew toward her face.

Then there was a yank as an RA pulled me off of her. Carly’s long hair was wild and knotted. Her dainty lips were split open, blood dripping down the middle. The skin around her eye was dark. I saw the rage in her face, white-hot, but instantly it disappeared. She was crying.

The RA, Vince, yanked me to one end of the hallway. Another RA took Carly and her friends down to the front office. I heard Vince mumble on his cell phone about what to do with me. And I only stood there, listening to the growl in my stomach. I was almost giddy. He took me down to the ground floor, but instead of stopping at the RAs’ office, he walked me outside.

A police car was waiting for me. It was in there that I realized that my hands and my arms were bleeding with small cuts. My face had been spared.

By late afternoon, the police had taken my fingerprints and my mug shot. A police officer gave me some bandages and some ointment to clean up the cuts. They tried to interview me, too, but I could only blurt out short answers.

Yes, I slapped her.

Yes, she sort of threatened me.

No, I didn’t feel like I was in danger.

Yes, she instigated the whole thing.

Afterward, they brought me to a cell in the police building. It was comically small, barely big enough to fit a small bed and a contraption that doubled as a toilet and sink. I was so exhausted that I collapsed on the bed. The sheet was dotted with suspect brown spots, but I didn’t care.

The day seemed both faint and clear at the same time.