In the Stillness(21)

No.

*

By March 2002, Spring semester was back in full swing, the snow was melting, and Ryker was still in Afghanistan. We wrote each other constantly and talked as much as possible. For the meantime, school was going fine. I’d always been a good student, so even if I spent more time writing letters to Ryker than studying, I was staying afloat for the time being.

My social life, however, sucked. It bugged me to go out and listen to girlfriends whine about what “*s” their boyfriends were being. After snidely telling one girl, “At least he’s around for you to be mad at and not fighting strangers with a gun right now,” Tosha put me on party probation for a few weeks. She said I was a buzzkill. I was.

However, when Tosha wanted a friend to go to a party at UMass with her to scope out a hot girl she’d met at the Amherst Brewing Company a few weeks prior, you bet your sweet ass she begged me to go.

“Please? Come on, it’s at her house so it’ll mainly be lesbians anyway.” As strange as it may seem, that was actually a plus.

I was thoroughly uncomfortable at the prospect of being hit on while Ryker was so far away. Even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong, it still felt wrong. I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks, and I was starting to go a little stir-crazy. I missed him. I needed to get out.

“God, whatever. I reserve the right to drive your ass home at any point if you start making a total ass out of yourself.”

“Yay!” She hugged me and kissed my cheek “Now, go change into something hot.”

I gave her an incredulous look. “I’m not going to pick anyone up, Tosh.”

“Yeah, and neither will I if I show up with someone looking like you do now. Go. Change.”

A while later I was in the middle of some lesbian fantasy a college guy would kill for admittance to.

“Natalie, this is Liz. I met her a couple of weeks ago at the ABC. Liz, this is my kick-ass-roommate-for-life, Natalie.” I shook the gorgeous girl’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Liz. Now, someone point me to the beer.”

I left my denim jacket on as I wandered through the house to find the kitchen. I recognized some of the girls from around our campus, and smiled politely to a girl who was in one of my sociology classes. While at the keg, someone came up close behind me.

“Yellow ribbon, huh?” A lanky girl with messy blonde hair pointed to the lapel of my jacket.

“Yep.” I smiled, filling my cup to the top.

“So are you just making a statement or something?”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, pulling my eyebrows together.

“Most of the girls here are anti-war. Are you, like, trying to be ironic?” She put air-quotes around ironic. She really did.

Oh, you’re a bitch.

“How is supporting troops and wanting them to come home ironic?” I mimicked her air-quotes.

At this point, Tosha and Liz were making their way to the keg. My cheeks started to warm under my anxiety.

“I’m just saying, don’t you think this is kind of a bullshit war?” She shrugged as if she had it all figured out. I felt Tosha’s hand on my lower back.

I kept my tone even. “I don’t know. And, no one will know for a long time. But, what I do know is that soldiers agree to follow orders when the President deems their service necessary. They don’t question it. They just protect us because it’s in their guts to do it. Even if you don’t support the mission, you have to support the soldiers.”

A few people stopped talking to listen to our conversation, neither one of us cared.

For a chick wearing a “Hampshire College” shirt, she sure didn’t seem to know when to shut up. “Typical. Jumping on the bandwagon cause-of-the-minute. Meanwhile those ‘valiant soldiers’ you talk about are making bank on our dime while they’re drinking on a base somewhere in the desert and f*cking the local women, or the women in their own unit.”

In a flash, the beer left the bottom of my Solo cup and splashed all over her face. A few people applauded and some gasped. My eyes clouded in rage and tears.

“You’re a f*cking bitch. In spite of that, my boyfriend would still serve your ass, since you’re too much of a coward to do it yourself.”

“Okay.” Liz stepped between us as the girl muttered an unflattering c-word under her breath. “You,” Liz turned and addressed her, “get out. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked, trying to avoid bursting into tears in a room full of strangers.

Liz pointed the way and I pushed past the crowd and locked myself into the tiny bathroom. Closing the lid, I sat down on the toilet and buried my face in my hands, letting out every guttural sob I’d been holding in all semester. I hadn’t been questioned about the war, or my connection to it, at all. My first round did not go so well. My friends on campus knew about Ryker, and would ask from time to time, but I was mostly left alone about it.

A single confrontation with some hardened bitch left me trembling with anger and more anxiety. I shakily unclasped the ribbon from my jacket and stared at it in my hands.

“Please come home, Ryker. Please,” I whispered to the ribbon, as if it had a direct line to Ryker’s ears.

The tip of the pin caught my eye, and instantly I remembered how good it felt when I punched the shit out of my bathroom the day Ryker left. Immediately, my mind scanned to the Sociology of Women class, where we’d recently discussed self-destructive behaviors of women in the United States. I nodded along during the self-mutilation lecture, understanding a small bit of how it could feel good inflicting physical pain to try to dull emotional pain.