Chapter 33
THEN: MAGGIE
Maggie grimaced as Lighthouse’s Hanging By a Moment started to play.
It was a party for fuck’s sake, and she definitely didn’t want to hear some song dedicated to the elation of falling in love.
Maggie had already fallen in love, and while she had not even spoken a word to Diana in the last two years, she would be lying if she said she didn’t still love her.
Two years.
Two fucking years.
But perhaps, Maggie thought as she scanned the frat house while sipping a lukewarm warm beer from the Solo cup she’d been nursing for the last half hour, she couldn’t move on because she had entombed herself in Diana that day.
The last time she’d made love to her and she walked out.
There was a part of her that remained with Diana in that bed, a part of her she wasn’t sure she’d ever get back.
And aside from her ever present state of longing for that missing piece, which she knew was really for Diana, the last two years hadn’t been bad.
She had decided on Middlebury College because it was another good school, and it was close to what Maggie knew; it felt safe.
It was also worlds away from California.
She was having a good time exploring what she liked, and thought she would make early childhood education her focus, along with a minor in early childhood psychology.
She figured it had something to do with feeling like she wanted to help children learn and understand themselves in order to accept themselves.
Perhaps if there were more teachers like that, then there would be less like—well, her.
She had always been amazed at how accepting Julia and Diana were of themselves, but she thought it had a lot to do with having each other.
Maggie shook her head again, trying to shake Diana from her thoughts, but of course she was on edge.
She hadn’t answered a single one of Diana’s emails thus far, her ex-girlfriend writing her monthly with happenings going on in her life.
She was with Jay and Michaela, a fact that Maggie was both happy and bitter about.
She felt like it wasn’t long ago she had been fighting with Diana over the emails she sent to Jay, and here she was now greedily reading her emails.
She hadn’t responded to any of Diana’s emails until tonight.
Tonight had been different. Tonight she had broken down.
Middlebury wasn’t bad at all; she had friends.
Of course they didn’t know the real her, but she had made it work with Mary and Em for all those years, before Diana anyway.
Now in college, she’d even gone on dates with guys, just in case she found one she could like.
One she could marry and be normal and safe with.
Her mother asked her about it every time she called.
“What is the point of college if you don’t meet a man who can take care of you?
” her mother would say anytime she broke down and called home.
As she surveyed the party around her, various people her age, in varying stages of inebriation and flirtation. She thought about the last party she went to just for fun, instead of the party she was at now, for escape.
One of those guys she’d tried with, Mike Williams, had been asking her out for two whole semesters, and she had finally relented.
She hadn’t wanted to. There was something in his sneer, something in his lightless green eyes that made her uneasy.
But he’d caught her one day after a particularly unpleasant phone call with her mother, and she had finally decided to go out with him.
Her acquaintances, Jason Bloom and Robyn Evans, had told her not to go.
They were probably the closest thing to actual friends Maggie had, and it wasn’t lost on her that it was likely because Jason and Robyn were deeply into each other and just kept inviting Maggie out with them so they wouldn’t show it.
It was uncomplicated, transactional, and safe.
Robyn had said she thought Mike had a reputation for being a ‘ladies man’, but that didn’t bother Maggie.
If anything, she thought it meant he would grow bored of her after a date or two.
So they’d had dinner, which Mike had ordered for both of them, a salad for her, and a burger for him, and then he took her to a party at one of the on-campus themed houses.
Mike had showed her off, and Maggie had felt the echoes of all of her dad’s friends, and the reasons she’d avoided home on his Friday game nights.
They’d chatted with people Maggie didn’t know, and Mike kept handing her drink after drink, which she’d only pretended to fully consume, finding convenient dark corners to lose her half-full cups.
There was a song change, bringing Maggie back to her present party.
She instinctively scanned the attendees again to ensure that she was safe.
That he wasn’t going to show up. She took another micro sip of her warm beer for something to do.
It settled her, and once she realized she wasn’t in danger, her mind went back to that night.
Mike had offered to walk her home. One minute she’d been talking about her recent fascination with public policy and the next she’d been shoved up against a building, with Mike’s tongue shoved into her mouth.
The more she tried to push against him, the more he pushed his oversized body into hers.
She had a moment when she was able to pull to the side, but his hand had gone to her throat, pressing just hard enough to suppress a scream.
All she could see was black and a distant light hanging over the path they had just been on.
The building, she knew, was unoccupied at this time of the night, not a class in session.
She had thought that moment was it, the moment when all of the luck of being able to outrun and outsmart her father’s friends would run out. Maybe all those times had led her here, had prepared her for this moment. He’d whispered something against her ear, and she had felt her stomach curdle.
She took a hand and slid it up his thigh and then unsnapped his jeans. She knew she had only one chance at this. He could seriously hurt her. The way he was pushing into her made her think he would hurt her. His grip had slackened slightly as he realized what she was doing.
Remember, people always call weak things ‘pussies’ but pussies can get kicked no problem. It was bizarre that these old words from Diana would come back to her at a time like this, but perhaps her mind had been trying to take her some place happy, somewhere she’d felt truly safe.
“Yeah, you all like it eventually,” he had said and she had almost vomited right there.
She got the top of his pants undone, and then slid her hand in as if she meant to pleasure him, he made room for her slightly with his hips and his hand completely loosened on her throat, instead resting on the brick wall behind her.
It had been her opening. She grabbed his already hard dick, cringing, and then she’d bent it quickly with her hand till she’d felt a soft pop.
Mike had howled in pain, and she’d run all the way back to her dorm.
She hadn’t seen him since, but she had seen some of his buddies hanging around her dorm, and had been called “slut” and “whore” and whatever else the girls who hung around his group had called her. Maggie didn’t care though, because she had escaped him.
They hadn’t gotten to her; what had though, was a note in her bed that read, Fucking Bitch, signed by Mike.
She assumed he had no issue signing his name, generic as it was.
It had been inside, which meant her roommate had had no problem letting him in, and of course she hadn’t.
Maggie and her roommate weren’t close, and she hadn’t told anyone what had happened.
She had learned a long time ago no one would care because nothing had ended up happening.
She had begun to hyperventilate, and when she came to, she was under her dorm room bed clutching the note.
When she had finally collected herself, she had moved over to the laptop she’d purchased herself as a graduation present, costing her half of her summer wages, but now she was so glad to have it.
She didn’t have to go to the library or a lab; she had it right here.
She pulled the phone cord out of the phone her roommate had in the room, and she plugged it into her laptop, breathing a sigh of relief at the oddly soothing screeching noise that meant she had access to the web.
She’d opened her email, and in her haste randomly opened one Diana had sent her. A quick glance let her know it was one that Diana had sent her just after the fall of their freshman semester had started:
Maggie,
I know you won’t reply, and I can’t even pretend like this will be the last email.
You’ll have to tell me to stop, because I don’t know how.
Anyway, California is kinda wild. I thought it would be warmer than it is, but everyone is really friendly here.
I got to meet Jay and Michaela’s friends today which was pretty cool.
They’re so free here it’s like we have a little bubble.
It isn’t perfect, but we have each other.
I wish you could see it and hope you find this too.
Women kiss women here, right in the open.
Anyway, I hope I get to hear from you soon. I hope you are okay. I still love you madly. No matter what in the end, it will still be us.
—D.
Sniffling, and wiping away tears after the last line, she’d hit “reply”:
Something happened. I was almost hurt. Badly. I am fine now. But I would have had one regret: I am sorry. I still love you too. Might always. I miss you.
—M.
It had felt dramatic, but she’d sent it. And then she had realized that the mere idea of just sending a note to Diana had made her feel safe for just a moment. Before she realized Diana wasn’t there with her.
Another song change brought Maggie back to her present party, the email she’d sent earlier that night still looming in her mind.
She was out now just so she wasn’t at home alone.
Or alone with her roommate who would no doubt answer the door for Mike again.
So she’d come to a party where there were plenty of people who could see her. Who would hear her scream.
As her thoughts meandered in her head, she caught the eye of the only Black guy at the party.
He looked kind, friendly, but there was something in him that she recognized.
A wall she knew he’d built because she had built the same one.
She didn’t miss the way his eyes seemed to flit to the mouths of the men around him.
As if feeling her eyes on him, he looked in her direction and their eyes locked as Maggie’s face flushed.
Pulling her eyes away, she drained the very last dregs of her disgustingly warm beer and then made her way to the keg in the corner of the room.
The music was still painfully sappy, and Maggie fought the urge to leave once more by expertly pouring herself more beer, the same way the Blake girls had taught her one summer on the orchard.
“Nice pour,” a deep voice said from beside her and she jumped, almost spilling her beer.
“Sorry, sorry I didn’t mean to scare you, it’s just that when I do it I tend to get mostly foam.
” Looking up, she saw that it was the Black guy she’d earlier made eye contact with and felt herself relax a little.
“I can show you how if you want,” she said, and he nodded.
“Just show me one time, and then I will be good for the rest of the night. I won’t need you to do all of my beers for me, just to be clear. Anyway, my name is Damien,” he said with a kind smile.
“Maggie,” she said and felt herself give back the first genuine smile of the night.