There he is, standing in front of the dorm with his friends like always, with that ridiculous hat turned backward and his clothes—Why do you want to look like a thug, Rome? I don’t get it. Pull your fucking pants up. But he’s a good guy, the best kind of guy, and he leaves his friends and comes to me, grinning, and says “Knock knock.”

And I play along and pull my cello to a stop just a few feet in front of him. “Who’s there?”

“Bitch.”

“Bitch, who?”

“Betchyer gonna come chill with me up in my room and tell me all about your audition!”

I roll my eyes and laugh. I’m supposed to call Garrett but of course I will go with Rome for a moment—he’s my friend, isn’t he? So I pull my cello into the elevator behind us and drag it all the way to his room, and yes, I tell him about the audition, how at ease I felt, not nervous at all, how I played maybe better than I’d ever played. And his smile, his crinkling eyes, Oh, Rome, you sure know how to be happy for someone, don’t you?

He asks me to play my audition for him, tells me he’s jealous, that it’s not fair that he didn’t get to hear me play, and he’s right: that’s not so much to ask. So I unlatch my cello from its case—not my cello, actually, but someone’s cello, because someone is going to love this cello very, very much—and as I begin to play the Elgar, I feel jealous too. It’s not fair how I’m going to lose my cello, not fair that I can’t take it with me.

Why does almost nothing bother me but that? There are people who love me—not very many, but there are a few. They’ll be pissed, and hurt, and maybe even a little depressed. Then they’ll move on…and I? Will be free. For now, though, here, with Rome, with his sweet brown eyes all filled with longing as he watches and listens to me breathe the music in and exhale it out…this feels like something, not freedom exactly, but something softer, like contentment. He’s leaning at me with a posture of devotion—edge of the bed, hand on his knee, arching toward me with his mouth slightly open like he needs to catch more air, like his nostrils aren’t enough. He’s practically crying. Haven’t you heard this before, Rome? Why do you look like you’re about to fall apart?

His emotion is palpable, blasting out from him like a nuclear shock wave, and I feel like it will hit me and I’ll be blown against the back of the chair. I do sit back, actually, and there’s something on my cheek—am I crying? When did that start?

“Malory. Please. Please, I don’t know what to say. How can I help you?”

Geez, Rome, would you stop looking inside my soul like that? “There’s nothing wrong with me,” I say, but my chest spasms as I’m speaking. My body has always been such a fucking snitch.

“I can feel it, Malory. Really. It’s—”

“You can’t feel shit. I’m crying, I know. It’s obvious I’m…struggling.” I pop up out of the chair and shove my cello—the cello, not mine—back into its case, latch it in fast like it’s a bad dream I need to forget.

“No, it’s more than that,” Rome says, and he reaches over to grab my wrist, pulls me to him, presses my arm to his face like before, inhaling my skin with his eyes closed like he’s trying to drink me. I take his hat off and toss it on his desk, then stroke my fingertips through his hair.

“Tell me,” he says in his gentle voice, and though I hesitate, because I really don’t want to go there, I kind of can’t stop myself. Also, it doesn’t matter anymore.

With my arm still pressed against his nose and lips, I say, very soft like a whisper, “I don’t expect you to understand. And I know you’ll disagree, and I think you might even be right that I have a warped image of myself, but you can’t change what’s in my head.” I inhale, let the resolve well up in me. “I…I’m not good enough.”

He makes a sound like he wants to speak, but I talk over him: “Not good enough for anything. Not to be a good cellist, not to succeed at a career, not to be a good daughter, or girlfriend, or wife, or mother, or any of the things I could ever be. And even if you don’t agree with me, it’s how I feel in my bones, Rome, in my gut, in the vacant spot where my heart is supposed to be. And you know what? I am sick of pretending it’s any other way.”

For so long I’ve been pretending like this, feigning indifference to these thoughts, these truths that are right there nibbling at the edges of my consciousness. I am fucking exhausted from trying to stuff these voices down, trying to overcome, trying to be something I’m not.

“It’s every goddamn day,” I say, “all day long, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, convincing myself I’m enough, I’m enough, I’m enough, but there’s another voice that is so much louder than the first one, and it’s screaming LIAR, LIAR, LIAR.”

Rome opens his mouth to speak but I hold up my hand.

“You know what would be nice? Just a few minutes to stop pretending, for someone else to say it’s okay to believe this about myself, to validate that it’s really true that I am a piece of shit. It would be so fucking nice.”

He’s looking up at me and shaking his head, and his forehead is very wrinkled, his nostrils flared. He thinks I’m insane. And I know I sound insane to him, I really do know. I mean, who gets tired of thinking positive things about themselves? Who doesn’t want to believe they are a decent human being? There is something very, very wrong with me at the core of who I am. That is the truth: I don’t know how to be anything but a nothing.

Rome lets out a whoosh of air, his chest caving in as though my words are a bag of bricks I just flung at his gut. He is sitting back now, pulled away from me, so maybe I’ve gone too far, but that’s okay—it was the right thing to do. Maybe he’ll understand now. Maybe he’ll be the one to explain that I did what I had to do. That it was inevitable.

“Did he—Garrett—did he do this to you?” He’s breathing so hard, his gaze darting all over the place, scanning the room…is this rage? His tongue darts out of his mouth, quick, to wet his lips, and he swallows, hard, audibly. Yes, he’s very angry right now.

“No, Rome,” I say, just as calm as I was in my audition this morning. “I did this to myself.”

He stands up. I step back. He steps toward me, I retreat. My hand reaches for the cello case, fumbles for the handle. Grasps it.

“He…I know it’s something to do with him, Malory. I saw…I saw the bruises. I saw them.” He puts his hands up to his head like he’s looking for his hat, but there’s nothing there. “Fuck, and I did nothing. I did nothing.”

“Stop, Rome.” I don’t want to see him get worked up like this.

“I thought I could…I don’t know, show you that there is a better way to be loved, that it doesn’t have to be his way. I thought—”

“Oh, really, Rome? I was your project?” He was playing games, too—just like Garrett. And suddenly I’m boiling with rage, a volcano. “That’s nice, Rome. That’s nice to know.”

“What? No, you’re taking it wrong, Malory, that’s not what I—”

“I am really nothing but a fucking puppet. It’s incredible. And you puppet masters, you and Garrett, both of you, literally with your hands up my ass.”

“Don’t compare me to him. I would never—”

“Nope. I’m done. I’m fucking done.” I grab my cello and yank the door open, ignoring Rome when he comes after me, even while I stand there like an idiot waiting for the goddamn elevator door to open. God, I wish he’d stop looking at me like that. He is pathetic, trying to fix the unfixable.

He tries to get in the elevator with me. “Don’t follow me.” I’m ready now. I’m ready to be done. I’m boiling and calming, sizzling and cooling at the same time, and it’s tearing me apart on the inside. Yes, I am done.

“Malory, hey, can I just come sit with you?”

God, does he know? Can he see it in my eyes? “I’m going for a run,” I tell him, and it’s true; I am going for a run. I’m not lying.

He’s holding the elevator door open, leaning through the opening like a desperate fool. He doesn’t believe me.

“Rome,” I say, shrugging and huffing like a child. “Let the door go. Some time in nature will do me good. If you’re so worried about me, let me go run off some steam.”

He holds my gaze a little longer, then slowly, reluctantly, his hand lowers from the rubber lining of the elevator door pocket. “I’ll check in with you later.”

“Whatever.”

His arm drops to his side, the elevator slides shut and I drift down away from him, away from Rome, alone.