[1]

A dark shape swirling there underwater. Looking like a slow leak from a submerged pipeline—an inky cloud, a black, viscous plume—then revealing itself as something else, something simpler. An expanse of brunette hair, rising from a submerged head. Moving and twisting with the current.

Blinking slow, the Regents Club carpet blurring in front of me. Knees liquid, free drinks sloshing in each hand. Staring at the knot of classmates on the far side of the room, surrounding this week’s visiting writer like shelter dogs waiting to be fed. His laugh braying, his goatee asymmetrical. Wearing his success with the self-deprecating confidence of a writer who came of age in another era, a time when you could send stories to The New Yorker and expect a fair hearing.

Last month’s boy is at the writer’s elbow, leaning in close. Like maybe some of that 1970s fairy dust will rub off on him. But then he’s white and smart and bookishly handsome—so who knows, maybe it will. The boy laughs affectionately as I crash into the circle, as I bang into his arm and spill his white wine across orange and blue carpet. Nuzzling his jaw as he asks the writer about a book of his from the early eighties.

The writer sighs, says, “Must we dredge up old mistakes?”

And then I’m falling backward. Unaware of the fingers thrust through the belt loop at the back of my jeans until I’ve landed squarely in someone’s lap. His breath hot in my ear; his dick hard against my ass. Calling me Kid and Babe and Little Lady, mouth fragrant with Jager.

Across the bar, the guy I really like plays with another girl’s curly blonde hair, kisses her softly beneath one ear. Summoning up a distant flash of jealousy. Making me wonder what I’m doing here, why I’m subjecting myself to this. But before I can wrangle my feelings, choose a better path, my body decides for me, pressing backward with all its weight. Reminding me how good it can feel to be wanted, to have someone crave my touch—even if it’s just a handsy douchebag in some divey student bar.

Trudging up from the basement on carpeted stairs, my hair smelling of cigarettes. Looking over at two girls seated together at the kitchen table, watching something on a phone. They laugh uncomfortably, then look startled, horrified. I duck past, take another beer from the fridge. So close that I can almost feel their anxiety, the nervous silence thick around them.

I glance up and see my face fill the tiny screen. See my boobs from an unfamiliar angle. And shudder long and deep, like I’ve just seen a ghost.

Currents pushing along the riverbed. Minnows and small stones rushing downstream to where the girl’s small pale feet are tangled with the branches of a fallen tree. A limp hand taps against the submerged trunk. Resurrected by the water, by swirling little eddies that move it the way it once moved in life.

[2]

The plane lands late, a few minutes before midnight. The county airport is empty, desolate. And when I drag my suitcase out through a sliding door and into the cool fall night, there’s only one cab waiting.

“Hi, sweetie,” the driver says, gold tooth flashing. “Climb in.”

The door locks automatically behind me; the A/C clicks on, though I’m already a little cold. No music. Just the whoosh of the air and the rumble of the engine—and the heavy way the driver breathes. Like he’s just back from a jog. Like he’s a wolf busy running down his prey.

“So,” he says, eyes meeting mine in the rearview, “you a party girl?”

She’ll be five miles out of town, driving fast through endless forest, when the first police car races by in the other direction. Watching it go, her body still in excitement’s grip, pulsing with excess adrenaline. Not registering what it means until she sees the next wave of cruisers, gunning past one after another. Rushing toward a future that they’d probably prefer never to reach.

Sitting on the quad in a patch of sun, reading a book for class. Something from fifty years ago, written by a stranger with his own experiences, his own obsessions—but somehow it’s also my life, in all of its colors. His words laying me bare, like he’s been watching. Like one morning he awoke with a vision of my life and where it’s headed.

Crying now, surrounded by sunbathing sorority girls and frat guys playing frisbee. By groundskeepers and nervous teens on their very first college tour, the guide telling them about rush week but not add/drop, about Jefferson but not Sally Hemings. Trying to finish this section, this chapter, but it’s all I can do not to look away. Not wanting the book to end—or, at least, not wanting it to end like this.

The words in front of me begin to vibrate, the pages suddenly so white that they seem to glow.

And then she sees herself, reduced to two dimensions. Not like a drawing or a photo, but in fragments—as though she’s been broken into a thousand pieces. Like a beach choked with seaweed. Like a corpse eaten away by insects, all of them ready to scatter when a light clicks on.

From a distance, the pieces start to take shape. Becoming letters, punctuation. Then full, coherent sentences. Rendering her both dead and alive. Allowing her to grow older or younger, depending on which way you turn the page, or the angle you happen to tilt your head.

But make no mistake: while you’re gazing down at the words, the words look right back. Seeing you, the reader, at your awkward, oblivious worst. Double-chinning at this unfortunate angle; offering an unflattering look right up your nose. Zeroing in on your eyes—squinting, confused—as they blink away behind cheap, smudged glasses.

Seeing into you, through you. Revealing your weakness and intellectual vanity. Your foolish, childish pride. Reminding you sentence by sentence that in a matter of years—or months, or even hours—you’ll be gone. But these words will live forever.

Waiting shyly in the back of a big box store. Watching families push carts past her in both directions, then steeling herself and walking over. Hefting free weights, one after another—frowning and frowning and then nodding approvingly, like this is the one. Tiptoeing deeper into sporting goods. The middle-aged clerk flirtatious from the very start. Asking if she needs fishing equipment for the hubby’s birthday, if she wants to see their tennis rackets—you know, they just got a shipment in.

Dragging it out. Making her sweat. Enjoying it.

And when most everything’s been ruled out, he pounces. “I see. Little lady wants something with a bit more…kick.” Eyebrows up. Like she’s just admitted there is no hubby, that she’ll take his number if he offers it.

“Guess so,” she says. Eyes staring daggers, mouth wearing the smile she reserves for door-to-door salesmen and male English professors.

They’ll find her car parked in a lot that the locals use each summer. Following a path through the small marsh and a stand of pines, the imprint of her shoes in the soft mud leading them to the river’s edge. To the large gray rock where the wet footprints stop. Where she stared out at the water. Releasing angry tears. Summoning up visions of fire and blood.

Imagining the whole world in flames. Imagining steam drifting off the water like a pillar of smoke. Until the riverbed is empty, until there’s nothing left to see, nothing on Earth.

[3]

You get to class early. Grab a seat in the back. And frantically get to work. Thinking as you pull the printed pages from your messenger bag that the professor warned you about this, that you’ll be in deep shit if you’re still writing comments on this week’s story when he walks in. So you pull out your diary, hoping you can play it off like you’re just journaling. The professor will understand—he was probably an angsty, pink-haired queer boy, too, back in the day. He’s got that vibe.

The classroom door swings open and you freeze—caught! But no, it’s just a kid from the Chaucer class before this who forgot his coat.

She’s stepping off the building’s L-shaped stairs and down the long hallway when the brownout hits and the lights suddenly vanish. Her flats clacking against institutional tile, her bulging backpack heavy on one shoulder.

Striding into the darkness with the confidence of someone who’s made this journey a hundred times—and the urgency of someone who knows that she’ll never come this way again. Her jaw set. Her reflection flashing on the plate-glass windows, on the machine-polished floor with every pulse of the fire alarm.

The lights go out and you sit in darkness. Surrounded by startled classmates, by the fire alarm’s roar.

You’re almost finished with the story, just a few pages left to go. And part of you wants to call it here—but who’s going to believe that you thought the first two-thirds were worth marking up, but the end’s perfect. (No one, that’s who.) So you sigh, long and low. Reach into the pocket of your jeans. Pull out your phone. And read by its flashlight glow.

Other kids laugh. Say, “Now that’s commitment!” or complain that the light’s blinding them. But soon they’re all doing the same thing—reading books or doing homework or doodling beneath the stark electronic light flowing out of their phones.

She’s in the hall outside when the lights return, when the fire alarm finally falls silent. Sweat at her temple; backpack at her feet. Struggling to stuff the clip into her semiautomatic pistol, a price tag still on the handle. Worrying that the safety’s on. Wishing she’d watched that YouTube tutorial a couple more times.

Someone gasps.

She turns her head. And down the hall, at the water fountain, there’s an underclassman, a first-year girl. Staring. Paralyzed with fear. Water pouring endlessly from the spigot in front of her.

“I’m not here for you.”

The first-year nods emphatically, like these five words are the affirmation that she’s been waiting for her whole life. Then bolts down the hallway, every breath a sob.

The girl hefts the pistol. Checks the safety. And turns back to the classroom door, to what awaits her inside.

You’re leaving one last comment in big red letters on the final page when the room fills suddenly with light. And you blink, dazed and surprised. Expecting your instructor to stroll right in, hair flopping into his eyes, looking gorgeous and intense. But when the door opens, it’s someone else entirely. A girl. The girl who always sits in the corner. The one that all the straight MFA kids gossip about. The girl whose story you’re reading.

Her eyes blazing. Her hands wrapped around a pistol.

And there it is, the last sound you’ll ever hear. Like the crack of fireworks, like the echo of a bouncing ball. Sharp and swift, but hollow somehow. As though there’s something missing. Something vital.

You feel the first bullet like a bee-sting on your shoulder. Feel the second just above your hip, the pain rougher, deeper. The impact knocks you clean out of your chair, leaves you sprawling across the floor. Staring at the cute second-year dying in front of you, watching as blood slowly trickles out the corner of his mouth.

Your vision fuzzy now, your heart beating faster and faster, until it’s all you can do just to experience it. Until the girl and the room and everything else just drifts away, never to return.