There are fuzzy blankets on the couch. There’s a bowl of ramen on the coffee table, next to another giant Market Street Cafe cookie and an open bag of potato chips.
“Oh, hi,” says Harper, as though she wasn’t expecting to see me in my own apartment. “We were just about to eat this junk food and watch a historical drama called Reign about Mary, Queen of Scots that’s supposed to be ridiculously over-the-top. There’s also this extra bowl of Margaret’s ramen, do you want it? And to join us?”
Bending over the laptop, Victoria’s trying not to laugh at Harper.
“Yes,” I say, and sink into the couch, then put my head on Harper’s shoulder. “Thank you.”* * *We do that for nearly four hours. I’m sure they have ten thousand things to do besides watch dumb sexy teenagers in period costumes make bedroom eyes at each other, but they don’t act like it. Instead, we sit there and eat junk food and watch, entranced.
Around episode three, I start talking. I watch overly attractive people whirl around a ballroom in big ball gowns and half-face masks, and little by little, I spill the whole story.
The bar bathroom. The date. The classroom. The Madison Scholars banquet and the hospital; the office hours where we talked half about calculus and half about life; the walks home from the library.
I admit to the organ concert, and if they’re even one percent surprised, they don’t show it. I admit to the affair, to finally losing my virginity, to sleeping with my professor again and again and again and not even being slightly sorry about it.
And then, finally, I get to this week while Mary is sitting on the throne and the show cuts between shots of her face, looking toward a window, and her handsome lover riding a horse away from the castle.
When I tell them about the letter, they both gasp in unison. By the time I’ve finished with the phone call to my father and the fight, I’m crying again but it’s a normal crying, not the ugly, breathless, snot-filled sobs of the last forty-eight hours.
“I think I might just be an asshole,” I conclude, shoving a crumpled dining hall napkin against my eyes, trying to get them to stop leaking. “He’s right, right? He did a nice thing and I should be grateful but I just feel so bad about it.”
The front door opens, and there are footsteps on the stairs. Margaret comes in, looks at us on the couch, looks like she’s about to say something but then just nods and takes herself into the kitchen without saying anything.
“Sure, fine,” I mutter, mostly to myself.
“I don’t think you’re wrong to be mad that he didn’t tell you,” Victoria says, slowly. “That’s a lot to spring on a person.”
“It could also be a control thing,” Harper says, reaching for the bowl of chips and settling it on her blanket-covered lap.
“Go on,” I say, munching one.
“Well,” she says, and then stops. She thinks. “Is he gonna be a martyr about it if you go back to him? Is this part of a pattern, where he decides things for you and performs some sort of self-sacrifice, and then expects you to be happy and grateful afterward?”
Victoria’s just nodding.
“Exactly,” she says. “He could have done this out of love, or as a mechanism for control.”
I blink at the screen. Someone is dragging a feather over someone else’s nude back. It looks… tickly.
“That’s a lot to do for control,” I say.
“It’s a lot to do for love,” points out Victoria.
“That’s the big question,” Harper says, and we both turn to her.
We wait.
“What’s the big question?” I finally ask.
“Is he pure of heart?” Harper says, as if that’s the obvious answer. “If he found a unicorn in the forest, would the unicorn befriend him or stab him?”
She crunches another chip, as if this is a totally normal thing to say. Which, for Harper, it kinda is.
“I thought that was virgins,” Victoria says.
“He’s not that,” I point out.
“It’s open to interpretation,” Harper says.
“How do I find this out?” I ask, suddenly pragmatic. “Where do I find a unicorn? Is there witchcraft I can do?”
“Too bad you don’t have ready access to virgin blood any more,” Victoria says.
“Actually, that’s a misconception,” Harper pipes up. “Virgin blood in most rites doesn’t refer to blood from a virgin, it just means blood that hasn’t already been used. Like olive oil.”
Victoria and I look at each other.
“Actually, that makes sense,” Victoria says.
“I think you just have to use judgement about Caleb, though,” Harper adds.
“Can’t I at least ask a magic eight ball?” I say.* * *I shower again Sunday morning, and this time, I don’t cry during it.
I still feel crappy, like my skin is lined with lead, making all my movements heavier and slower than they should be. I stand in front of the fridge for a full five minutes, trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast. I wear pajamas for the third day in a row, though I do change into fresh ones again.