I am the master.

I will never hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it ever again.

-8-

3 Years

48 Weeks

4 Days

Kayla understands everything because she understands nothing. She’s like a dry sponge that I throw buckets of water on. And sometimes piss. With copious sides of vinegar.

It’s a beautiful sight to see after a week of sporadic texts – her on Skype and me on Skype, both of us painting our toenails and talking at the same time.

“Isis, you’re killing me,” Kayla groans.

“Not literally, one would hope. Unless you want to be a zombie. I can dig being the only girl in the world to have a zombfriend.”

“I am not actually dead. What I am is disappointed. I can’t believe you and Jack aren’t just…like…”

I raise a brow, daring her to go on. She sniffs indignantly and then nearly tips over the green polish bottle with her sudden fist of rage.

“He left, and you left, and now you’re together in the same place and I told you so and why aren’t you taking this very obviously predestined opportunity to hook up like crazy monkeys?”

“Because, sweet Kayla, there is more to life than being a crazy monkey. Bizarre, I know.”

“Look, I just mean,” She grits her teeth and carefully adds a stripe of green to her big toe. “I just mean even if he is doing some weird Jack-like stuff, that’s never stopped you before! You were hitting on him constantly –”

“Actually hitting on him. With my fist,” I correct.

“ - when he was in the Rose Club, but now suddenly he’s slept with a girl for info and you’re all angry at him?”

“I – I –” I splutter concisely. “That was before!”

“Before what?”

“Before I –”

Kayla looks expectant. I wail.

“You know what I’m going to say!”

“Say it anyway,” She demands.

“No!”

“Yes!” She shouts.

“You present a compelling argument.”

“Isis, don’t get smart with me!”

“Fine! I like him. I like him, okay?”

“So you like him,” She leans back. “You want to make him lunch and hug him platonically once a year.”

“No, because then we would be in 17th century England.”

“That’s what like is,” Kayla continues. “Like is just so-so. It doesn’t really mean anything. Like, like me and you! I don’t like you. I love you.”

“Um.”

“In the way where you keep your pants on, ew. I love you and you love me and you also love Jack. In a different way.”

“Kayla –” I say warningly.

“In the hot way.”

“No.”

“In the ‘hug me until I run out of breath’ way.”

“Wrong.”

“In the ‘invade me with your penis’ way.”

I screech like a horrified fruit bat and slam the lid of my laptop closed. I can hear my own flustered, angry panting. I fling the lid open again and argue at the screen.

“There are no invading genitalia thoughts going on here.”

“Really?” Kayla asks airily, sanding her nails. “Because I can guarantee you Jack’s thought about it. Repeatedly. While jerking it.”

“Kayla! When did you get so – so –”

“Awesome? All thanks to your influence.”

I’m silent and stare-y.

“And Wren’s,” She relents. “He’s very informative and methodical. One time I got to hear a history lesson of the condom while I was putting it on.”

“Ugh,” I gag. “I don’t know what’s more miraculous – the fact he only did that once, or that Wren of all people in the conceivable universe has turned you into a sexpert.”

“All I’m saying is,” Kayla huffs. “If you want Jack to date you –”

“I don’t!” I harp. “I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t. I’m not dating anyone ever again.”

“If you want Jack to sleep with you –” She corrects.

“I DON’T. Why do people even say ‘sleeping with’? There is no sleeping involved! Sleeping is peaceful and nice and sex is like…the opposite of that.”

“You can’t say that,” Kayla fires back. “You’ve never had it.”

“I’ve had it once,” I defend, suddenly exhausted.

“That wasn’t sex and you and I both know it.”

“Look, it’s great that you’re all gung-ho about sex and me and Jack all at the same time,” I sigh. “But you’re forgetting the part in which I’m never touching a dude again. And he’s never touching me. Besides, Jack wouldn’t even like touching me.”

“He would.”

“I’m fat.”

“You are surprisingly not-fat.”

“I’m not as pretty as like…any other girl he could get. You’ve seen his face. He got you. He could get freakin’ Scarlett Johansson if he really wanted to.”

“And I’m sure Ohio State is just teeming with Scarlett lookalikes.”

“In black bikinis.”

Kayla sighs. “It’s hard, I get it. After everything that’s happened…I don’t know what it’s like, but it’s gotta be hard. And I’m sorry. But he really likes you, Isis. And you really like him. And you guys are like, really interesting together and you light each other up in a weird, symbiotic way. And life is short. Sophia taught us that. And I think you deserve a shot at each other before you write each other off completely out of misguided martyrdom.”

“Wow. ‘Martyrdom’. You might be the only one in the universe paying actual attention during college.”

“Shut up,” She flushes, and leans in to close her computer. “And don’t call me back until you’ve at least kissed him.”

I slam my face on the keyboard of my laptop and roll it around, groaning. Yvette chooses that exact moment to burst through the door and collapse on her bed, likewise groaning.

“My life is over.”

I get up and collapse next to her on the bed.

“Finally. Time to die.”

There’s a long silence of us just breathing into pillows, experimenting with suffocating ourselves. Yvette breaks first, coming up for air gasping.

“I’ve been sleeping with somebody,” she confesses.

“I know,” I look up. “I heard.”

Yvette goes red down to her skull earrings. “Sorry. I mean, shit, I’m not sorry. It was damn good.”

“Mind if I ask who?”

“Yes, actually. Very yes.”

I welcome the distraction. “It’s Steven. From Socio.”

“Wow,” Yvette claps. “Ten points to you for saying the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”

“Brett with the weird t-shirts.”

“Yes, because I want to turn my vagina into a gonorrhea culture lab.”

“Give me a hint. Like, at least seven hundred whole hints. In essay form, with citations and footnotes.”