I jab a finger across at the door, at where she was sitting. “I’m not going to fucking kill myself just to get rid of you. That’s not how this ends!”
I do not want to go out a coward. I do not want the last thing I do on this earth to be dictated by my disease.
That is not going to be my final act.
I kick the plastic Orange Crush bottle like a soccer ball and the force sends it careening into the corner, after which the laws of physics take it on a tour of the boiler room, introducing it to the stack of chairs, the spindly legs of a stool, the snake of some metal pipes that run along the floor. The soda comes to rest under the boiler, like it is taking cover in case my foot gets another bright idea with its name on it.
I’m going to turn myself in to the police.
I am going upstairs to my room. I am getting the knife. I am walking down into town, to the police station, and turning myself in.
I’m going to confess and take responsibility for actions that were not my choice, but are my doing. And then I will be put away for life, after which my disease will be treated into a remission that will be permanent, because everything will be permanently managed by professionals.
I will still be alive, and I will exist to taunt my disease. Trapped behind prescription bars, my bipolar madness will be reduced to a restless tiger that paces with fanged impotence. If I have to be in a mental institution or a jail for the rest of my days to finally win? Standing up to my disease makes the sacrifice worth it.
My hand is not shaking as I open the door, and when I step out, I take a deep breath. Things shut behind me with a click, and the finality of the sound spurs me on. I am grim and focused as I march my way to the nearest set of stairs, the ones by the laundry room.
Upstairs. Get the knife. Go into town—
“Sarah?”
I ignore whoever says my name.
“Hey, Sarah, stop,” the voice demands.
Now is not the time, I think as I turn around with impatience.
Keisha is leaning out of the laundry room. She looks exhausted, dark circles rimming her red, puffy eyes. She looks like she’s been crying. For, like, days.
“I can’t talk right now,” I say. “I’m in the middle of something—”
“Wait.” She comes out. She is taller than me, physically stronger, too. But she seems very fragile. “Please.”
As I shake my head, I think of the way my illness just manifested itself outside of me. I don’t want to hurt anybody, especially not this girl. “Keisha, I really can’t be here right now—”
My roommate’s ex drops her voice, even though there’s no one around. Or at least no one that I’m aware of.
“I need to talk to you about Strots. And the night Greta died.”
chapter THIRTY-FIVE
As I part my lips for another I-gotta-go, something in Keisha’s face makes me slowly close my bitter-tasting mouth. Her eyes are steady but scared, and her expression is like she’s physically in pain even though she seems not to be injured in the flesh. More than all that, however, she is positively urgent, and I know how that desperation feels.
“Come on,” she says softly. “I can’t talk to anyone else. This is important.”
We go into the laundry room. Her load is in the dryer, some zipper making the rounds of the tumbler, the hiss of metal on metal irregular.
Keisha’s homework is spread out on the table where I did mine when I used to have to guard my black clothes against bleach. But I don’t need to worry about that ever again. For a whole host of reasons.
We sit down together. I take the chair with a clean shot to the doorway because I have to go turn myself in to the police for the homicide I committed.
“I don’t know where she went after she broke up with me,” Keisha says.
“What?” I ask, even though I don’t care and I’m not really listening. I’m just trying to figure out how to get free of this without seeming rude.
“She left my room after she broke up with me—”
I do a double take. “Wait a minute.” I rub my head, which has started to ache. Good thing I took two aspirin. Or three. “You broke up with her.”
Keisha frowns at me. “No, I didn’t. Who told you that?”
“Strots.”
“She lied.” Keisha is emphatic, leaning toward me over her chemistry book. “She came up to my room and told me we had to stop seeing each other. She said she wasn’t going to be responsible for getting me kicked out because of what Greta accused her of. She said… she loved me, but that it was over.”
I recoil. “I don’t understand. She told me you broke up with her.”
“I didn’t. Fuck, you think I don’t know what it’s like to be talked about? And I don’t care about what Greta threatened to do. I don’t care about any of these bitch asses. I’m going to be just fine, with or without Ambrose. Without Strots, though…” Her eyes flood with tears. “There has to be a better reason for us not to be together than this bullshit school and that whore who lives across the hall from you guys.”
Lived, I correct to myself.
I lean forward, too. “What exactly did Greta say she was going to do?”
“She threatened to go to the administration about the two of us.” Keisha’s face hardens. “She told Strots she was going to get me kicked out because she knew that even if Strots could get around the rules, someone like me can’t.”
“Did Greta confront you, too?”
“No. Just Strots.” Keisha shakes her head. “And right after, Strots came to my room and broke up with me. It was a fucking mess. She was crying. I was crying. I was like, why the fuck are we ending this? But she wouldn’t listen to me. I begged her. I told her she didn’t need to be making decisions for me. I can take care of myself. She’d made up her mind, though. And you know her. Once it’s done, it’s fucking done.”
Keisha goes quiet for a minute and then sits back, her long-fingered hands playing with the corner of her open textbook, fanning the strict edge of the bound pages.
“When she left my room, it was, like, nine o’clock.” Keisha goes back to looking at me. “About an hour later, I decided it’s bullshit. So I went to your-all’s place. I knocked. No one answered. I opened the door. You were asleep. She wasn’t there.”
“Maybe she went for a walk to clear her head and have a cigarette,” I offer. “She does that sometimes.”
“That’s what I thought. So I came down here and went out the back door. It was too cold, though, and I needed a coat. I ran back upstairs, and by the time I came down again, someone had come in the door. There were, like, damp footprints across the parking lot and into the dorm, and then prints down the corridor to the stairs.”
That was me, I think to myself.
Except… if Keisha said she saw me asleep, how did I get to the river, kill Greta, and go back to my room so quickly? The basement is hot and dry because of that huge boiler. Wet doesn’t stay wet for long. Whoever made the prints had just entered the dorm.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “When you looked in our room, I was asleep?”
“Yeah. You had a towel wrapped around your hair like you’d just taken a shower. You looked like you’d passed out before you had a chance to unwrap it.”