Studio class: I’m sitting in front of the room with my cello between my knees, tightening my bow, readying to play the Elgar. My audition is in one month, the second Saturday after we return from winter break. I remember how big and important the audition felt when I first arrived at school, how keeping this cello was everything.

It doesn’t feel like it matters much anymore.

I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath, try to recall the feeling I got when I played for Yarvik, when I thought of my mother, and then again later when I played for Garrett—when I first believed I had some kind of power over him.

You overwhelm me. You might as well strip naked when you play. A shiver washes over me, and I feel my elbow tuck into my body as if I’m trying to hide something. My bow slides across the string, caressing it luridly. Is it obvious to these people how dirty I am? That I am a nothing?

Something is wrong. My bow won’t cooperate. I force myself through the notes even though I feel that I am exposing myself in that slutty way Garrett has claimed as his and his alone. I botch the runs because I can’t stop looking out into the eyes of my audience, my class, trying to get a read on what they think of me. I can’t lose myself like I’ve done before, can’t bury myself in rage or sadness or regret; every mistake is too present, too right here in my face, glaring and judging and mocking.

Shit, I’m crashing. The more notes I fumble, the harder my heart slams in my chest. And then it hits me: Garrett has taken my music from me after all. He’s robbed me of it, and he’s done it on purpose because he was shrewd enough to recognize that it was tied to my dignity. But I accept the inevitability of it; I would have failed with or without him. I am not a cellist. I’m just Garrett’s fuck toy, his plaything.

I can dispose of you anytime I want.

I come to the end of the movement. The class is frozen in a collective wince.

And I’m frozen too, bound to my seat by this final humiliation. Winning that audition in January is a hopeless fantasy, as plausible as Santa Claus arriving on Aunt Bonnie’s trailer roof with his eight tiny reindeer.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” I say. My voice is small and sad and defeated. The room is painfully silent while I pack my cello into its case and leave the room.

Bethany follows me out into the hallway, and I am vaguely aware that she is talking to me, that she has put a hand on my forearm in an effort to get my attention. I stare straight ahead at the elevator doors, trying to grasp the thoughts that tease at the edge of my mind: What are you doing, Malory? You’re better than this. Fight! But these are pushed away by You are a worthless piece of shit. Disposable. You should have just climbed into the tub with your mother. It is as if the thoughts are coming from somewhere outside of myself, from a source that is less concerned with benevolence and more with hard truth.

A heavy numbness has come over me, and, against all logic, the only person I want to break through it is Garrett.

---

I message him on my way back to the dorms: Is it okay if I come over?

The sun hangs low and yellow in the sky, and the air is cool, blowing through the dry oaks with a crisp rustling sound. It is different now than in the summer when even the wind sounds warm and damp.

Christmas is only a few weeks away. An image flashes through my mind, of my family seated around a colorfully lit Christmas tree, but I view it as if through a thick layer of film. It cannot be real. Family, togetherness, normalcy…those things are far away. Those things do not exist.

I’m almost to my dorm when my phone buzzes in my hand, sending my heart up into my throat. It’s only Bethany: Want to hang out? You seem like you could use some friend time.

I roll my eyes at the phone. Who does she think she is? If she knew who I really was, she wouldn’t like me at all.

I could go up to my room, or I could go by Garrett’s to see if he’s there. I waver, standing in the shadow of the great oak in front of the dorm. I’ve never been audacious enough simply to appear at Garrett’s door. It seems like something that would make him angry.

I hold the phone in my hands, willing it to buzz with a message from him—willing myself not to send him another text. I know he wants me to beg, but there is a difference between begging while getting fucked and begging out of clinginess and desperation. I don’t think he would like the latter. It’s not a very orderly way of interacting.

Dejected, I take the stairs up to my dorm room and sit on my bed to wait. I should study; exams are next week. Come on, Garrett. I pull out my economics book and notes, but I can’t keep my eyes off my phone.

The door opens, startling me two inches off the bed, but it’s only Daphne, looking more gaunt than ever. Her cheeks are like shards of broken glass, and her knees are bulging knobs. I gape at her, still white-knuckling the phone in my hand.

“Oh, sorry, did I scare you?” She laughs and swings the door shut behind her. “I haven’t seen you in forever.” Her angular frame is swimming in a tank top and bicycle shorts, and her hair is in a ponytail, the ends of it curled with drying sweat.

I close my book. “Did you just come from the gym?”

“Yep. Spinning.” She pulls her hair tie out and her hair flops down her back. About fifty blond strands come out along with the tie, floating like dandelion tuft to the floor. “Oh my god, such a great workout.”

I’m sick to my stomach. We are killing ourselves. “Daphne…”

She’s brushing her hair now and for a second I see her totally bald, her flesh melting away until she’s nothing but a skeleton. Even her eyeballs disappear. Then I blink and she’s Daphne again, looking at me expectantly.

I shift in my spot on the bed and steal a look at my phone, then direct my attention back to her. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“Oh, I dunno.” She turns away from me, pulls off her tank top and throws it in the hamper. I can count the vertebrae in her back. “This morning, I guess?”

“But…did you like…keep it down?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She throws me an irritable look.

I shrug. I’m not helping. Nothing I say can help her. She’s going to end up dead like my mother. “I just…I mean, you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“Have I?” I can hear the grin in her voice. She’s grabbing toiletries off her dresser, pulling clothes from her drawers.

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

She freezes for a second, then turns slowly to face me. “Look, Malory. I’m eating, okay? I’m just working out a lot. I’m healthy. And I don’t appreciate your condescending tone.”

I sigh, peek again at my phone. Nothing. “I’m not trying to be condescending. You just…don’t seem healthy.”

“You’re being pretty hypocritical, if you ask me.”

I remain outwardly calm, but my insides recoil. “Beg your pardon?”

“You’re hardly ever here, and when you are, you’re distant and dead in the eyes, and then you come home all distraught one day and throw yourself into bed and lie there for three days straight staring at the wall like a fucking vegetable. You wouldn’t even talk to me. What the hell is going on with this Garrett guy? How obsessed can you be?”

I grab my purse and phone—still nothing—and stand up. “Fuck you, Daphne. Go eat a fucking hamburger.”

I wait just long enough to see her jaw drop in surprise, and then I leave our room and head for the stairs. Garrett would beat the shit out of me for where I’m about to go, but fuck him, he didn’t message me back, did he? I climb two flights of stairs, the bare walls echoing my fury back at me with every footfall.

I rap on Rome’s door once, twice, and I still have my hand up when it opens. It’s his roommate Jack, dressed in a basketball uniform, and I almost burst into tears because I just really need to see Rome right now, not his stupid roommate who I barely know.

“I…” I clench my fists at my sides. I’m shaking all over. “Sorry. I was looking for—”

“Rome’s here,” Jack says, pulling the door open wider. He’s tall, over six feet. I look past him and see Rome, sitting at his desk over an open textbook, pencil in hand, hat pulled low over his eyes. When he lifts his head and realizes it’s me, he stands and pushes his chair back with a brassy scraping sound.

Jack tucks a basketball under his arm and grabs his wallet off his dresser. “I’m out, Rome. Sure you don’t wanna come?”

“Nah,” Rome says. “Exam tomorrow.” He taps the brim of his hat with his pencil, though his eyes are on me.

Jack brushes past me with a wave and I’m left standing in the middle of Rome’s open doorway. I realize this is the first time I’ve come to his room like this, unannounced.

“Sorry,” I say, turning to go. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your studying.”

“You better get your ass in here, girl.” He pulls me inside, closing the door behind me. “What’s going on?”

I sit down on the edge of his bed, and he turns his desk chair to sit across from me. “Fuck, girl, you’re shaking.” He nudges my knee with his fingertips. I don’t reply. “Hey. Tell me. Did Garrett…do I need to kick his ass?”

My face flushes and panic wells up inside me. I cannot believe how wrong everything is, how I’ve let myself fall into this awful pit of despair. I can’t explain to Rome what has happened to me…what I’ve allowed to happen to me. I try to speak but only a gasp comes out, and then I’m hyperventilating, wheezing, trying to compose myself, but the harder I try, the more difficult it is to breathe.

He’s up and out of his chair then, sitting beside me on the bed, wrapping an arm around me. “Breathe, girl, just breathe, deep in and hold…and out slow.”

It’s ridiculous the way he’s talking to me, like he’s a shrink or something. I’m sure he probably learned that from his social worker mother, but it doesn’t match him, nothing about him matches. He looks like a thug and he’s smart and nice and funny—he’s the kind of guy I’m supposed to like. But he’s just too fucking easy, and anyway I don’t deserve that gentle kind of love.

I follow his stupid breathing exercise until my shaking dies down, and then once again I’m looking to see if Garrett has responded to my message, why the hell am I looking? He hasn’t, but I can see that he’s read it. I’m so fucking dumb.

Rome sees me check my phone and chuckles in exasperation. “Man, you’ve got it bad, girl. You gotta stop this shit.”

Tears run down my cheeks. “God, Rome, there is literally nothing I can do to get his attention. I’ve tried…oh my god, you wouldn’t believe…oh, fuck. I’m the worst person, Rome. I’m such a nothing. I’m such a fucking nothing. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

He grabs my chin and turns my face so I’m forced to look him in the eye. He’s actually scowling at me. “Don’t you ever say you’re a nothing. You are everything. What’s fucked up is that you don’t know it. And he’s taking a piece of you, too, every day you spend with him, he’s taking another piece of you. That fucking psycho.”

I stare at him and swallow hard, still sniffling. A tear rolls down my cheek, but I make no move to wipe it away. Rome leans in and I hold my breath, because what is he doing? He kisses the tear from my cheek.

“Rome—”

And then his mouth is on mine, slow and soft and gentle, not minty, but sweet, and his lips are thicker than Garrett’s, and warmer and so much more…giving. I stay where I am, stunned, as he releases my mouth and moves lower, to my throat, slow kisses, little butterflies on every inch of my neck. Delicious prickles of heat radiate over and under my skin, awakening nerve endings—coaxing me alive. I can’t tell if my body is responding this way because I like what he’s doing or because this is a terrible, naughty thing to do, and I am a terrible, naughty girl.

“Rome,” I breathe. “What are you doing? Rome, you know I don’t…I can’t return these feelings.” His hand is in my hair, combing gently at the nape of my neck while he lands soft kiss after soft kiss. Oh my god, Rome.

He stops, pulls away, looks at me. “I know. And if you tell me to stop, I’ll stop. But I only want to…I just want to show you another way. I expect nothing in return.”

My curiosity is cruel. I know it will hurt him to let him have me this way, and yet…I want to see how I affect him. I can’t help myself. I’ve been the giver for so long. It’s my turn now, my turn to take from someone, my turn to hurt someone, my turn to be overwhelmed without ever actually having to feel anything, because isn’t that how it is for Garrett? And I want to do something wrong and bad and dangerous—I want to flirt with the possibility of Garrett’s wrath. I’ll never tell him, but I want the secret anyway. I want this little thing for me.

I nod slowly, and Rome brings his mouth to my neck again, and then he’s sliding my shirt up over my head, unfastening my bra and drawing it down my arms over a new field of goose bumps, every movement a slow dance in itself. His face and his eyes devour my skin—he is hungry for me. In spite of myself, my breath quickens.

“Here, turn on your stomach,” he says, so I lie on his bed facedown and it is strange now, how the fear is missing, how I can turn my face from him, give him my back, and trust that no pain will come.

He kneads my tense back muscles, his strong hands careful and knowing like before, and it occurs to me that if he knows where the muscles in my back are, he might know other things about my body too. He works his way down my back until he arrives at the waistband of my jeans, and then he pulls them down, slow, and I lift to help him, and at first I think he’ll pull them all the way off, but he leaves them at mid-thigh. It’s funny, I think, how having my naked skin only partly exposed is far more erotic than if he had taken them all the way off.

Rome is kneading the muscles in my buttocks and a bad thought passes through my mind: I wish Garrett would treat me this way.

I give him nothing. I lie there, limp and selfish, growing wetter and wetter as his hands begin to tease between my legs, then touch me, sliding along my wetness, seeking, exploring.

I was right; he understands anatomy.

He turns me over now so I’m on my back, and he’s stroking my breasts, so gentle and slow, but god, he’s good at this, holy shit. My breathing is loud and fast and I’m embarrassed at the noises I’m making because it sure sounds like I’m enjoying what he’s doing. He flicks his eyes at me and I close mine—I can’t stand for him to see me this way. It’s awful that I’m letting him do this to me. Awful that I’m letting him hope.

He pulls my jeans and underwear all the way off. I’m lying naked in his bed. Rome’s bed. God, what am I doing? He lays his hands on my thighs and my body jerks a little, like I’ve been shocked.

“Are you okay?”

I open my eyes to look at him, and his face, smooth before, is a mask of concern.

I lick my lips, try to sort out my thoughts. “I…don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Should I stop?” He lifts his hands from my thighs. “I’m sorry, I can stop.”

“No,” I say, surprised by the firmness in my voice. “If you’re really okay with me not…um, reciprocating…it feels good.”

I see a hint of a smile on his lips but he lowers his eyes and returns his hands to my thighs, massaging, inching upward, pressing my thighs apart, everything very slow—so slow that I throb with desire for him to really touch me. And when he finally does, little moans escape me, almost like sad whimpers, and maybe they are—I have forgotten, or never knew, what it felt like to be touched with such reverence.

The bed shifts a little and I open my eyes to see him moving his face closer to me, between my legs, and then he’s kissing me there, his tongue slow and gentle, but I’m already so wound up that it doesn’t take much to set me buzzing. He stops kissing me just as I’m about to go over the edge; and when I shift my hips, push myself at him, he doesn’t give me his tongue, just slides a finger into me while my body recedes from the edge of orgasm, kisses my inner thighs while I catch my breath.

He finally resumes his kissing, and this time he does not stop when I become frantic. He builds me up and licks and fingers me until I’m trembling and groaning and clutching at his bedsheets. I want to grab him and wrap my legs around him, but I can’t—I can’t give him that. I’ve already done a bad, bad thing here.

When my breathing has returned to normal, he pulls his sheet over top of me and kisses my shoulder. I’m still shaking.