The sky was a lifeless dome of swirling cotton, the same stark white as everything beneath it. It was drowning the world under a howling plague of white-winged locusts, blinding swarms that slowed my pace to a rumbling crawl.
I'd found the highway somehow, heading south and east toward campus, on autopilot. I checked my rearview mirror every few miles for the flashing doom of red-blue lights, ready to drag me down like a weary antelope, but they never appeared. I should have felt terror at the very thought of it, should have been choking on my own nerves, but I wasn't feeling anything at all. Half a dozen hours came and went as I drove through them, beyond them, but they were just as meaningless as the terror, the pain, and every grim possibility I had shut away inside. There was only the road, empty and frozen, and all things safe and warm at the end of it. I knew I'd be okay, once I reached the end of that road...
The flurries had receded by the time I reached the dorms and parked my car. It was a shadowy Sunday afternoon, cold and miserable and devoid of human life, as if the world were dead under a blanket of nuclear ash instead of inches of snow. I don't think I'd ever seen that much snow before in my life, and neither had many people on campus; most were shut away indoors, nursing hangovers where it was comfortable and warm.
This was good. Even through the bleary haze of my brain, I knew I didn't want to be seen. I stepped out into the biting cold, held the laptop against my chest, took a deep breath...and then I put my head down and walked fast toward my dorm, feeling naked. I was limping under the pain of my broken toe, bleary from the massive headache throbbing along my spine, every last bruise as vivid and screaming as the touch of his scratchy boxers, which clung to my aching nethers like mold. I knew I was in some kind of shock, too drained to pretend otherwise, just as I knew my sorry state would invite all kinds of questions I didn't want to answer.
I got inside and up the stairs without running into anyone, relieved to find an empty hallway at the top. I was breathing ragged through my nose as I unlocked the door to my room, finally ready to crumple into a corner...but a pair of voices rose as it swung open, and I found myself in the presence of other human beings.
Kevin was at his desk, headphones loose around his neck, leaning back in the chair he'd swiveled to face the door. Jennifer was standing only a few feet away, nodding and smiling as Kevin's voice snagged in his throat, conversation dying as they turned their heads to greet me...their eyes widened. Casual boredom instantly stiffened into confusion - followed quickly by shock.
Kevin's chair creaked as he sat up straight, like he might rise to his feet. Jennifer's slender hand fluttered inches from her soft, dark lips, and she gasped...and now their mouths were opening, trying to form questions they didn't know how to ask...but nothing came out. Only silence. My ears were ringing, skin itching and tingling, and I began to sweat.
"Mike?" Jennifer's voice was delicate, unsure. She was bundled against the cold, brown curls gathered under a favorite wool hat, just as beautiful as she'd been the last time I saw her...but in that moment, she was a stranger to me. "Are you...?"
I grinned the same way I always grinned around her, an instinctive twitch of muscle memory - but it only made her flinch, when it should have made her swoon. "Hey, Jenn." My voice was crunchy, and it hurt my throat. "Long day. Call you later?"
I didn't wait for an answer. I just nodded to them as if it were any other day, tossed the laptop on my bed, and walked straight into the bathroom. Shut the door, locked it, and then I was alone. The silence bled into soft, careful murmurs on the other side of the door, so I got the shower running to drown them out.
I leaned against the counter, feeling very heavy, staring down into the clear white bowl of the sink. I wanted to fall into the perfect black drain at the bottom...wanted to die. My breath was shaking deep down in my lungs...and then it was my shoulders, my arms, my legs. I was actually afraid to look at myself in the mirror...but I pretended my nerves were pulleys and levers, my neck the machine they controlled. Pretended it wasn't my real face I'd see. Just the face he'd forced me to wear.
Man up.
I was a wreck. A big, ugly bruise spread across one side of my neck where his knee had crushed into it, yellow at the edges and purple-brown at the core. My short black hair was a sweaty, snow-dusted thicket, most of it smeared to one side, and the stubble of the last few days clung to my face like dirt. Red bands of raw skin marked each wrist where the cuffs had dug into them for so long, and my jacket hung off my shoulders like an old tarp...but my eyes were the worst. The flesh around them was saggy and gray, set too deep in their sockets. They were bloodshot from lack of sleep, blue and empty, crystalized...
I blinked. The mirror was fogging up, and the shower would only stay hot for so long. I dumped my jacket and striped myself naked, mechanical and quick. I stuffed his shirt and boxers into the trashcan under the sink...and my jeans and socks as well, when I noticed the little dried flecks of jizz on the denim, and couldn't figure out where they'd come from. I almost stumbled into the shower, narrow and scummy with plastic walls...but the water was searing hot, purifying my skin. I smothered my lungs under the steam and covered every last inch of myself in layers of soap, body wash, shampoo...
I almost cried out when I pushed more soap up into my puffy, ravaged asshole. It sent a burning lance of rancid pain along a tight, splitting wound in the channel of my ass - his parting gift to me. Probably the most honest thing he'd done. I bit my lip and pushed through the pain, worked the soap even deeper, tears leaking steadily even though I had no energy to cry. It cleared my brain, at the very least.
The showerhead sputtered, beckoning me. I leaned into the torrent, let it drench me from scalp to toes...until I was sure every last flake and particle of him had swirled down the drain...and then I started all over again. I stayed in the shower until the water began to cool, and stood dripping for an empty moment after I turned it off. I carefully dried myself with a towel that seemed too heavy, wincing at each little bloom of ache, every creaking swell of soreness awakened by even the smallest, most routine locomotions...God...I felt like I'd barely survived a train wreck...
A polite knock on the door set my nerves on edge - ready to fight or die - but it was only Kevin.
"You okay, Mike?" he called softly through the door. I almost answered him - but my throat still hurt, and I couldn't catch my breath, and I didn't know what to say either way. "Jennifer took off, so...hey dude, just uh - just so you know? She was here looking for you; said she'd been texting you. Just dropped by, that's all - er - that's why she was here." He laughed, but it was forced. He was actually nervous. "Just so you don't get the wrong idea, that's all. I know you two were...well, anyway..."
I was shaving my face in front of the mirror as he rambled on, trying to focus on gripping the straight razor in my wavering hands as it stripped the lather and stubble away from my skin, wishing he'd just leave me alone...
He knocked again, short and sharp. "Dude, seriously. Just say something, so I know you didn't pass out or whatever - okay man?" His voice was clear and steady now, finally saying what he was thinking.
"I'm good," I croaked. The lie was a reflex, nothing more. I splashed the lather off my face, inspected the job I'd done. No cuts, no rough spots, jaw shaved clean...couldn't do anything about my eyes, though, except sleep. Maybe. I was exhausted in every way, body and mind...but sleep seemed like an alien thing, a memory of a past life; something beyond me.
