Fragmented (10 page)

She didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned and softly, but forcibly, pushed me back onto her bed. And I let her—which was weird—because even in the dream I knew I had a girlfriend. Then she straddled my waist. Again, I realized something was wrong. I knew about her injury, but I didn’t comment on it. It was like my dream persona was afraid of offending her by pointing out that she shouldn’t have been able to use her legs, and yet there she was climbing on top of me.

Despite my initial confusion, everywhere her body touched mine felt on fire. I couldn’t remember us getting naked or even taking off any clothes at all, but it was totally wild and exciting with soft cotton rubbing and sliding along even softer skin. But just when it was starting to get really good—she was holding my arms above my head, having pinned my wrists to the mattress and was breathing warm and wet air against my neck—I woke up. I could have screamed. I tried closing my eyes and willing myself back to sleep, but I wasn’t able to bring myself back to that point.

What had made the dream all the more awkward was waking up to my lightly snoring girlfriend. It had been an uneventful night. Jenn had shown up at my apartment with pizza and a six-pack, we’d watched some TV, and I had fallen asleep with her rubbing my feet.

I leaned my palm against the cool tile of the shower to steady myself. My free hand snaked down to my shaved sex where I found myself swollen, warm, and ready. My fingers fluttered over my clit, causing my knees to shake. I pressed the tip of my middle finger against the sensitive nub and moved in tiny, slow circles.

My fingertips trailed over my outer lips, collecting my arousal. One finger, then two, slid into my wet hole, and I spread my legs wider apart to accommodate the intrusion. Water beat down from the showerhead and my hair clung to the sides of my face. I felt the telltale tightening in my lower abdomen and in my clenching sex. I pushed harder and faster, pulling and pushing my two fingers in and out. Small sighs and grunts tumbled from my lips.

I thought about Jenn—smooth and chiseled, like a statue of a Greek goddess. It was an ethereal beauty, both masculine and feminine at the same time. I thought about Raleigh. Even in her wheelchair I could tell that she was soft where Jenn was hard. I thought about her perfect mouth and perfect teeth and the perfect way she formed her words. Her hair always looked a little wind-blown as if someone followed her around with a fan or like she’d just stepped off a beach. Soft, almost tangled waves tumbled down the front of her shoulders. It made me want to wrap my fingers around the strands. It was hair that begged to be touched and played with.

I had wanted to kiss her, sitting in my car in front of her aunt’s house after Harvestfest, but I didn’t like what that suggested about me. I had never cheated on a significant other before, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Raleigh. I knew that if I wanted things to work with Jenn, I needed to forget about the gorgeous, complex blonde who I would see in an hour’s time in anatomy class.

I leaned my head forward until my forehead pressed against cold tile. I felt Raleigh’s lips at my tight nipples. I felt her silk soft hair brushing down my stomach and tickling against the heated flesh of my sex. My hips thrust forward and my fingers bottomed out. My knuckles mashed against my throbbing clit. My eyes closed, and my lips parted in a silent prayer.

As soon as my climax hit, I felt ashamed. I had masturbated to orgasm thinking about someone who wasn’t my significant other. On top of that, she was someone I barely knew. We’d spent one evening together, and now I was coming undone by my own fingers with thoughts of her mouth in the forefront of my mind.

I turned the shower hotter and stepped more directly into the spray, hoping the scalding heat would absolve me of my sins.
 

+ + +

I fidgeted on the lab chair before my first class of the day. I opened my notebook and tried to relax, writing the date in a careful scrawl at the top of a fresh page. The lab chair beside me screeched against the floor and my hopeful eyes jumped off the college-ruled page.

“Hey, Harper. Mind if I sit here?” Andrew—a boy I’d had a few classes with over the years—stood in the space beside me, his hand on the back of the empty seat. His handsome, earnest smile was trained on me.

The pen twirling between my anxious fingers nearly snapped in half. “I do actually.”

I watched a kaleidoscope of emotions pass over his face: good humor, then confusion, followed by a stoical mask of indifference. “Oh. Ok.”

I frowned and glared back down at the blank notebook page. Where was Raleigh? I glanced at my phone, noting the time. Class was going to start any minute now.

Not thinking, I typed out a quick text to the missing girl:
Where are you?
I pressed send before I could second-guess the reason behind my curiosity or begin drafting multiple versions of the same, probing text.

I stared at my phone screen, willing it to text me back. Too many scenarios, each more dire than the last, flashed through my thoughts. Maybe she had another physical therapy session today and had to miss class again. Maybe she’d had a horrible time with me at Harvestfest and was taking a personal day to get over the trauma of my company. Maybe she had changed her class schedule so she wouldn’t have to see me again. Maybe she knew what I’d done that morning in the shower.

Professor Berry blustered into the classroom to signal the start of class, but the space beside me remained empty. I bent my head closer to my notebook page as the instructor began his lecture, and I did my best to concentrate on his voice instead of the fresh memory of slightly parted lips and corn silk blonde hair.

+ + +

I dumped my lunch tray at a vacant place at our usual table in the cafeteria. Maia and Kelley looked up from their own lunches and their conversation stopped at the sound of the ugly plastic rattle. Lauren had yet to arrive.

“Hey, Harper,” Maia greeted. “How was your weekend?”

“Fine,” I curtly supplied. “Kelley, was Raleigh in World Literature this morning?”

My friend’s features scrunched in confusion momentarily before recognition settled there. I realized that Raleigh’s name might not be on the tip of Kelley’s tongue as it was my own. “Nope. Why?”

I bought time by opening the cap of my bottled water and taking a drink. “I borrowed a notebook from her,” I said as impassively and noncommittally as possible. “She wasn’t in anatomy this morning, and I wanted to give it back.”

Kelley shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since class on Friday.”

My phone buzzed and my gaze slid to the cell’s display. My immediate reaction was hopefulness that Raleigh was responding with her whereabouts.

I don't want to do this anymore.
It was a text message from Jenn.

I frowned at the words. What was she talking about?

I sent a single question mark back as my response.

“Is everything okay?” Kelley asked.

My eyes snapped up from the text message. “Yeah. Why?”

“You made a face.”

“It’s nothing,” I insisted. “That’s just my face.”

I was about to send a more detailed text message asking Jenn to clarify what she meant, but she was a step ahead of me:
I can’t be in this relationship anymore. You're closeted and you're too busy to spend time with me. It’s just not working for me.

My throat tightened. Was Jenn breaking up with me? Over
text message
?

I jumped up from the lunch table. “I’ll be right back.”

“Is everything okay?” Maia asked. “You seem a little jumpy today.”

“More than usual,” Kelley added with a sympathetic smile.

My friends appraised me with curious eyes, but I didn’t have enough information to explain myself to them. This could be a false alarm—Jenn trying to scare me into action with an ultimatum. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

I called Jenn’s phone as soon as I got to the closest women’s bathroom, but the call went unanswered and her voicemail picked up. I hung up and tried again, but this time my call was sent directly to her recorded message. My thumbs flew across the text keyboard, and I sent a flurry of text messages, each imploring her to answer her phone. I could feel the cold, clammy sweat in the small of my back as seconds passed, feeling more like hours, without a response. I called another half a dozen times, but she still refused to answer. By the time I gave up, I was vibrating with anger.

I turned on both of the bathroom faucets and let the water rush down the sinks. I stared at myself for a few moments in the wide vanity mirror much as I’d done earlier that morning. No change.

The tears that pricked the corners of my eyes were a surprise, and I struggled to suppress the sudden sense of sorrow and despair that had wallowed up my throat. I knew things hadn’t been as solid as over the summer, but what did she expect? I had school. I was working. I had responsibilities. I didn’t have the time or the emotional energy to deal with this right now. I resisted the urge to leave a nasty text or voicemail saying as much.

My thumb hovered over our last text message conversation. Jenn had been trying to get a hold of me on Saturday evening, but I’d been out in the country painting pumpkins with Raleigh. She hadn’t tried to contact me on Sunday and I’d been too busy with homework to reach out to her.

I splashed my face with cold water to dull the redness of my eyes and turned off the running water. I ripped a piece of paper towel from the machine and dried my face. I looked back at my mirrored reflection with new determination. This was for the best, I decided. I deleted the text messages and Jenn’s number from my phone.

I was still feeling unsettled and annoyed by Jenn’s text message when I arrived at my next class after lunch. But seeing Raleigh in her usual seat for our afternoon psychology class brought an unprompted smile to my face. She hadn’t changed her class schedule to avoid me.

“Hey, I missed you this morning,” I remarked, sliding into the vacant chair beside her.

Her normally bright eyes looked tired. “I know,” she sighed. She ran her hand roughly through her hair, which for the first time since we’d met, seemed to lack its usual luster and shine. “I had a fight with my aunt. Her punishment was not bringing me to school where I’d be exposed to the university’s liberal agenda. I had to take the bus instead, and it took forever to get here.”

“She can’t do that,” I gasped.

Raleigh made a face. “She did.”

“What were you guys fighting about?” I hoped it didn’t have anything to do with my unannounced visit at her aunt’s home or me taking her to the harvest festival.

“It’s not important,” she dismissed. “Suffice to say, my aunt is the worst, and I can’t wait until I don’t have to live with her anymore.”

I could appreciate her desire for privacy, so I didn’t press for more details about their argument. Instead, I grabbed my anatomy notebook out of my bag. “Here’s the notes from this morning.”

“Thanks.” She pushed her long hair out of her eyes and leaned her elbows on the tops of her thighs. “God, I can’t wait for this day to be over,” she sighed miserably.

I couldn’t agree with her more.

I wanted to be able to cheer her up, to have just the right words to bring a smile to her face, but I was understandably having a pretty terrible day as well. I shoved all of those external distractions out of my head, however, when our professor walked into the room.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” Professor Glasglow addressed us. “Today we’ll be discussing a mental condition that often gets mistaken with multiple personality disorder.” He picked up a piece of chalk and began to write on the blackboard.

My heart sank into my stomach after only the first five letters: S-C-H-I-Z.

“At its core, schizophrenia is a disorder of perception.” Professor Glasglow wiped the chalk dust from his hands. “The sights, sounds, and experiences perceived by a person who suffers from the illness seem just as ‘real’ as those experienced by anyone else.”

He paced in the front of the classroom, and I tried to focus on his movement rather than on the reactions of the students seated around me.

“Many hear voices that others don’t hear. They may believe other people are reading their minds, plotting to harm them, or controlling their thoughts. It can be a terrifying experience, causing people with the illness to become withdrawn or extremely agitated.”

He turned his back to us and began to write on the chalkboard again. “There are three categories of symptoms: positive, negative, and cognitive.”

I stared down at my notebook. At the top of the page was the day’s date, but I hadn’t written anything else yet. I sucked in a sharp breath.
You can do this, Harper,
I told myself.
You can think about this sickness objectively and not make it personal.
I focused on the movement of my pen across the page and began writing down everything my professor said.

“Despite its name,” Professor Glasglow continued, “positive symptoms are defined as psychotic behaviors not seen in healthy people. The patient loses touch with reality, often manifested in hallucinations and delusions. Who can tell me the difference between the two?”