Chapter 31 Monroe
MONROE
Five Months Prior to Present Day,
Thursday Before Spring Break,
Junior Year,
Dornell University
Iglance out of the corner of my eye at my shadow.
Harrison sits two seats down from me with his laptop out, pretending to be a student in this class.
I don’t know what he’s doing; maybe he’s working on one of the courses he’s actually enrolled in, or maybe he’s typing a minute-by-minute update for Kieren detailing what I ate for lunch, how many times I’ve taken a piss, and how many breaths I take per minute.
This is madness, and I’m convinced there is something deeply wrong with me.
When Kieren declared I would be monitored at all hours of the day for my own security, something inside of me started to shut down.
At first, I found having a constant companion to be irritating, because most of the time, it wasn’t Kieren, it was one of his henchmen.
Barrett I cannot stand, although Harrison is not much better. At least he rarely speaks.
After nearly two weeks of my new normal, I no longer feel like I’m living.
I’m just… existing. I’m living in a void, and I don’t understand how I got here or how to get out.
For days on end, I’ve done nothing but wake up, shower, wait for my escort, go to class, come back, and wait for Kieren.
I’m physically present, but mentally and emotionally gone.
My brain registers sounds and visuals, but everything is muffled, like I’m under water, listening, watching, drowning.
A pestering feeling lingers at the tip of my cortex, like I’ve been here before, but I can’t remember when or how or why.
It’s a memory I cannot recall, and the nagging sense of déjà vu haunts me.
I can tell my body recognizes this state of being because the numbness I feel is less like a shell and more like armor. I don’t feel fear. I feel acceptance.
Unable to focus, I open a new tab in my browser and type in the address for Dornell’s campus news website, Dornell Daily. My blood turns to ice as the page loads. On the homepage of the website is a picture of a smiling female student with the headline: Rory Copeland, Freshman Student Missing.
My breath grows choppy as I click on the article.
A quick glance to the right tells me my shadow is engrossed in whatever he’s reading on his laptop screen, but I don’t want to take any chances, so I shrink the size of the browser window down to a small, barely legible box.
I scan the news story, squinting as I read.
Rory Copeland, freshman architecture major and recent pledge of the sorority Delta Delta Delta, has been missing for over seventy-two hours.
Friends and classmates reported seeing Rory this past Saturday at her sorority and with her study group at the library.
If you have any information on Rory’s whereabouts, please contact the local police immediately.
I study the picture of Rory, and an image of a woman with shoulder-length, chestnut brown hair, just like that on the webpage in front of me, pops into the forefront of my mind. I see her backside, her exposed buttocks, her red lace thong, her hair pressed flat against her head from the blindfold…
Cold sweat beads along my hairline and upper lip. My fingers quiver. A tightness in my chest makes it impossible to get a breath down.
Suddenly, the auditorium floods with noise.
The professor must have delivered his closing remarks because students begin to pack up their belongings.
With uncertainty, I do the same, realizing I didn’t absorb a word said during the seventy-five-minute lecture.
Harrison’s prying eyes find mine, and I wonder if he can see the panic on my face.
“I need to stop by my sorority,” I state, standing with purpose.
I don’t bother asking Harrison if he minds driving me across campus.
The new pledge class is doing roommate and room selection tonight in anticipation of moving into the sorority house at the start of the next academic year.
Kasey undoubtedly will be there, and I desperately need confirmation that I’m not crazy.
Grey clouds blanket the sky, threatening rain or possibly snow depending on how low the temperature drops tonight.
After a teasing glimpse of spring weather, the cold has returned.
Students are still bundled in their winter coats and boots to trudge through the dirty slush on the sidewalks.
Everyone is eager for a sliver of sunshine, a signal that the relentless upstate New York winter is loosening its hold at last.
The tires of Harrison’s Toyota Land Cruiser slosh through the half-melted, muddy snow, creating a soothing lull.
I close my eyes and drift to the gentle rocking motion of the car as we drive the main street connecting the south-east campus quadrant to north campus, where many of the sorority houses reside.
Sunday night, after Kieren drove me to DG and waited for me outside in his car while I facilitated the weekly chapter meeting, neither of us spoke to each other.
I stayed in his room, compliant, and finished my classwork due on Monday, alone.
He said he had to oversee Sigma’s weekly fraternity meeting and then preside over some hazing bullshit of the newly admitted brothers.
He stumbled in around one a.m., drunk and smelling like weed.
When I was bored last week, I went through his medicine cabinet for answers, but it only resulted in more questions.
Namely, the only medication present was a bottle of prescription-strength pain pills for his ongoing TMJ issue after a high school car accident rearranged his jaw structure.
I’ve gone through his medicine cabinet before, when he first brought me to his house in Connecticut our freshman year, and I remember seeing several other medications for the treatment of anxiety and mood stabilizers.
I know Kieren has a lot on his plate, not to mention all that happened last summer with his father, and I wish he would consider therapy.
I’ve mentioned it before, but my suggestion clearly triggered him.
Apparently, I’m the one who needs therapy to work through my daddy abandonment issues and the tumultuous relationship I’ve always had with my mom.
Frankly, I don’t disagree. I know I need a fuck ton of therapy, but therapy is expensive and unfortunately for me, cost prohibitive.
Monday morning of this week, while I was getting ready in Kieren’s en suite bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, he woke up, stalked into the bathroom to pee, took one long, rakish look at me, then ravaged my body with a raw desire I hadn’t felt since he returned at the top of the year.
No chains, no nipple clamps, no e-stimulator machine like he normally enjoys using, just fucking and kissing on his bed until our lips were swollen and our need satiated.
I missed my first two classes that day, and it took every modicum of strength I had left to leave his bedroom.
If Harrison weren’t my designated chauffeur, I probably would have skipped the entire day of lectures.
But when I got back to Sigma Monday evening, the earlier version of Kieren had vanished.
He was cold and distant, hardly acknowledging my presence, gone again for hours.
What I don’t understand is which version of Kieren is the real him.
Just when I think we’ve settled into a way of being with each other, things shift.
This hardened version of him is the one I remember from our freshman year.
Back then, I chalked it up to exhaustion and anger from the Sigma pledge process, but I’m not sure that conclusion holds.
Sophomore year, I watched him lose himself, and when the alcohol wasn’t enough, and the cocaine and ketamine weren’t enough, he let the demons that plague his mind win.
I walked away at the end of my sophomore year.
But these oscillating versions of Kieren, a detached, power-hungry monster one minute and possessive, love-starved boy the next, have stripped me to the bone.
I worry the former version of Kieren is most aligned with his true self, and that the fleeting moments of insatiable desire and doting concern are nothing more than performative.
Maybe Kieren isn’t the only one who battles addiction issues, because somewhere along the way, I’ve become the addicted princess who willingly cohabitates with the devil, trapped in a castle of my own volition.
I know this, and yet I’m still here.
Why?
Why am I still here?
I’m living with my boyfriend, and yet why do I feel so empty and alone?
Why can’t I find it within myself to leave him?
I have a phone, a car, and friends, even if my friends are currently living on the other side of the Atlantic.
Tears break free under my closed eyelids. I force every muscle in my face to tense, to freeze, as I collapse in silence. Only when I’ve held my breath to the point of fainting do I succumb and suck in a ragged breath.
“Are you okay?” Harrison asks in that lifeless, monotone voice of his that makes me want to throat punch him. I almost forgot he was here, which is stupid because he’s always fucking here.
No Harrison, I’m not fucking okay.
But I don’t say that because I know where his loyalties lie, so instead I say, “I’m getting my period.” I don’t explain further. There’s no need, because what more does a simple man require than the thought of a bleeding vagina to get him to shut the fuck up.
“I just need twenty minutes,” I say as I slam the car door. Honestly, I don’t know how much time I need, but I also don’t give a fuck.
I wipe the tears of my impending nervous breakdown away and march up the stairs of Delta Gamma. The padlock flashes with acceptance, and I swing open the front door only to be blasted by a panic-inducing ruckus of fifty-plus female voices talking simultaneously.