Undecided(72)

“Me too,” Kellan replies, as though that’s totally normal. As though getting a blowjob while a bunch of your friends look on is par for the course. “Except then I remembered that she—” number forty-three, Karina (brunette), “mentioned it when we hooked up the next week. Which made me remember that right before the BJ there was a chick in a closet.”

I want to die.

“A closet or a corset?” Crosbie asks, squinting at the writing.

“Both. I banged her in a closet, and she was wearing a red corset. I remember watching her tits bounce as we f*cked.”

“That’s hot.”

“It’d be hotter if I could remember her face. I was so drunk, man. I’d messed up at finals, coach put me on probation for the team… I was just doing everything I could to forget.”

Crosbie looks wholly unconcerned with this reasoning. “Looks like it worked.”

I try not to gag. It’s absolutely nauseating to have your roommate and your boyfriend discuss your most regrettable sexual encounter like it’s nothing. Like you’re nothing. Which, if “Red Corset” is anything to go by, is entirely accurate.

Crosbie pulls out his phone and scrolls through, muttering, “Do you have contact info for any of them? I might have Karina in here somewhere.”

I look at him sharply.

“Dude,” Kellan whispers.

“What?” He finally clues in. “She’s in my chem lab,” he says hastily. “That’s it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kellan tries to change the subject. “I’m pretty sure Susanna still works at The Sling. I can drop by there tomorrow.”

Susanna has been written in alongside her scratched out descriptor, Smells like French Fries. The Sling is a campus greasy spoon, known for serving late night breakfast to drunken revelers. And possibly STIs. This sounds bad, but I hope it’s her. Then the search is over and “Red Corset” stays in the closet, both literally and figuratively, because now that I think about it, I know exactly where that tacky thing is.

“And Purple Hair still has purple hair and sits in the front row of my English Lit class, so I can talk to her on Friday.” Kellan thinks. “Assuming it’s not another girl with purple hair. I never really looked at her face.”

“Oh my God,” I mumble, running my hands over my heated cheeks. “Oh my God, Kellan. Did you ever look at their faces? Ever ask their names? Even once? Did that not matter? Did they really matter so little that you can’t remember more than the color of their hair or that they smell like grease or they blew you at a party? Is it really that easy for you?”

He looks startled.

“Nora.” Crosbie puts a hand on my arm. “Calm down. It’s—”

I jerk away. “Why don’t you see how many of their numbers are in your phone, Crosbie? Do you have an entry for Sparkly Green Shirt or Parking Lot at Grocery Store or Walks with Slight Limp?”

“I don’t—”

“I mean, they’re people, you jackasses! Blowjob at May Madness? That’s a person! Red Corset? That’s a person too! And they have names and they have feelings and it’s so f*cking infuriating to hear you talk about them like they don’t matter.”

“It’s—”

I swipe angry tears from my eyes. “Maybe it’s a big deal for them. Maybe they loved it. Maybe they hated it. Maybe they regret it. But maybe it’s more than some stupid game or some bathroom wall or some list in my living room.”

“Nora, we—”

“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t look at this. I can’t look at you.” I storm into my room and close the door, slumping against the wall before sliding down onto the carpet. So much for playing it cool. So much for putting last year behind me. I’d tried my very best to not be the non-entity I’d been in high school, the invisible girl hiding behind baggy clothes and tangled hair. And now here I am, hiding behind cardigans and library books and nowhere closer to knowing who the hell I am. “Red Corset” is the most exciting girl I’d even been, and all that got me was a bi-monthly meeting with the Dean, three hundred hours of community service, and not-so-prime placement on Kellan McVey’s “Did she give me gonorrhea?” sex list.

I grind the heels of my hands into my eyes, willing myself to get a grip. I’m just barely hanging on when there’s a tentative knock on the door. It slowly eases open and Crosbie sticks in his head, spotting me on the floor.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Sorry,” I mumble, twisting my fingers. Sorry you think “watched her tits bounce as we f*cked” is hot. Sorry I’m Red Corset. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

He joins me on the floor. “You don’t have to apologize. All that stuff you told me outside—I mean, I thought it was funny, but if it really upsets you, I won’t make any more jokes about it. I mean, you obviously beat yourself up for stuff, and maybe you’re right. Maybe all the girls on that list regret being on it. I know one does, for sure.”

My breath snags in my throat until he clarifies: “The gonorrhea girl.”

The heart attack I was about to have subsides. “Oh. Right. Her.”

“And I’m going to ask them to paint over my name in the Student Union building. All that meaningless shit isn’t worth boasting about. The best girl I’ve ever known is sitting right here, and I’d die before I saw her name on some list like that.”