October came in a ferocious gust of orange and red. Long gone were the oilseed rape fields rising and falling over the countryside like sunny yellow parasols; now the ploughed fields were dark and browning, the sprawling woods aflame like a brilliant phoenix. Trucks of maple firewood arrived on campus, and the evenings hung with the scent of blackberry crumble and log fires.
Lottie and I hadn’t spoken since our conversation about mind imps. While the initial smart of her rejection the next morning had worn off a little, I still couldn’t bring myself to say hello again, to ask about her day, to offer anything that might be rejected or scorned. We moved through dorm life as though the other didn’t exist.
Unlike when I usually cut people out, however, it made me feel a little sad. I had genuinely enjoyed talking to her about my violent impulses. She’d offered a perspective that was so fresh and nuanced that it had cast my innermost demons in a slightly less monstrous light. She’d intrigued me. She’d made melaugh, something only Max and Noémie were able to do. To have that brief promise of friendship so swiftly snatched away felt a little like loss. That brief promise of affection, of companionship . . . I could barely admit to myself how lonely I was. How my skin almost hungered for the comfort of human contact.
Then I started to notice that Lottie was behaving a little strangely. Over the next week, a couple of times I woke up around midnight to find her missing from her bed, even though we’d both gone to sleep around eleven. Was she just going to the bathroom? Or was she sneaking out? If it was the latter, I had no idea why she felt the need to. I was just some stranger she shared a room with, not her mother. She could come and go as she pleased.
One thing that did irritate me was that she left the door hanging open on her way out. The first couple of times I got out of bed and pushed it shut, in case she was just at the bathroom without her key, but by the third I was so annoyed – and a little unsettled – that I locked it too. If she was sneaking out, she should be taking her key. She should be showing me the barest trace of respect by at least attempting to keep me safe.
I was awoken around three in the morning by a frantic knocking at the door. A flare of anger opening in my chest like a rose, I gritted my teeth, slid out of bed and padded over to the door, preparing to snark at Lottie for leaving it open in the first place, let alone forgetting her key.
The words died in my mouth when I saw the state she was in.
Her pale grey pyjama shorts were damp and dirty, as though she’d been lying on wet grass, and her knees were grazed and pink with fleshy blood. Her blonde hair had clumps of mud and twigs around her face, and her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from tears. Dressed in just a T-shirt, she had her arms wrapped around her waist, shivering uncontrollably.
‘Sleepwalking,’ she muttered flatly, not meeting my eyes as she pushed past me into the room.
‘Shit, are you okay? Your knees look –’
‘I’m fine,’ she snapped. ‘I just need to get my . . .’
Flicking on her bedside lamp, she knelt down on the floor, which must’ve stung her knees badly, and pulled a first-aid kit out from under her desk. Sitting back on to her butt, she got to work cleaning the wounds with antibacterial wipes, as though this sort of thing happened every day.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked, on the verge of going over to help her before swerving towards my bunk instead. I perched on the lip of it, legs swung over the side. ‘With the sleepwalking, I mean. I could lock up at night and hide your key so you can’t get out.’
Lottie finally looked up at me, her gaze milky and blurred, and choked out, ‘Yeah. Yeah, that would help. Thanks.’
For the most slender of moments, I wanted to go to her, to hug her, to tuck her hair out of her face so she could see what she was doing. To comfort her. To feel another person’s skin on mine.
But I couldn’t. She hated me just because of who I was. And honestly, who could blame her?
In the dim lamplight, I could make out something nestled in the hollow of her throat, just above her clavicle. A necklace pendant? But there was no chain. A cut or bruise? Narrowing my eyes and leaning a little closer, I realised it was the deep red hue of a ruby. It glittered as the pool of light caught it from different angles.
What’s that on your throat?’ I asked, feeling a little uneasy for no discernible reason.
Her hand flew suddenly to the place where it sat, a look of fleeting terror on her face. She recovered quickly and said, ‘Oh. Dermal piercing. Hockey girls talked me into it.’ She smiled weakly and got back to sticking plasters over her knees, angling her body away so her back was to me and I couldn’t see what she was doing.
Messaged received, said a snarling voice in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t so sure. There was something odd about the whole thing, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.
The next morning I decided to extend an olive branch. It was around 8.30, and she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, braiding her hair with a tiny compact mirror balanced on her grazed knee. She wore a giant, faded T-shirt that must have belonged to her dad, that inexplicable fleece, and a fresh set of frayed cotton pyjama shorts. There were shadowy bags under her eyes.
Fastening the gold buckle on my belt, I picked up her library copy ofIn Cold Blood. She was using a postcard as a bookmark and was around halfway through.
‘I loved this book,’ I said, and she froze at the sound of my voice. ‘Although did you hear that the lead investigator has since claimed that many of the scenes were totally fabricated by Capote?’
Lottie shrugged, a hair grip balanced between her lips. ‘I still think it’s a masterpiece.’ There was a defensiveness to her tone I didn’t quite understand.
‘Oh yeah, of course,’ I replied hurriedly. ‘The landscape of creative non-fiction wouldn’t be what it is without him. What did you think of . . .’
I trailed off when I saw what was lying folded on top ofFear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
A dorm transfer request form.
‘Oh,’ I said flatly, layingIn Cold Bloodback on top of it and turning back to my bunk to hide the scarlet sting of humiliation on my cheeks.
Lottie sighed, snapping the compact mirror shut. ‘I mean, you can’t have thought this was going well.’
‘Guess not.’ Hot tears prickled behind my eyes, and I blinked them fiercely away. What happened to ‘I am one persistent son of a bitch. I will continue to be nice to you against your will until you like me?