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noun. lines intersecting the yard lines on a football field.
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RENATA KNOWS SOMETHING IS UP.
I can't even think of two Sundays ago without wanting to cover my face. Since I left Callum's house, as shamefully as anyone as has ever walk-of-shamed, all my safe spaces have become dangerous, all my danger zones oh-so-tempting. The band room, once a haven, is now a minefield, where Callum might approach me at any time. Drill rehearsals, already exhausting physical games, become a mental game in eye contact avoidance and wide berths. My bedroom? Tainted with dreams of him, though every other time I have had sex, my dirty dreams usually take a hiatus.
My mind, my firmest defense, my oldest stronghold?
Callum is inside, proving every disparaging thought I'd ever had about his prowess wrong, one jagged memory, one flash of skin at a time.
The times I don't come back to the dorm, I'm never embarrassed to tell Renata the truth. I told her about fucking Justin the postgraduate student and I told her about the time Callum let me (made me) stay over at his house when I wasn't clear-headed enough to make my way back across campus. This time, when I slipped back into the room wearing my party outfit, she asked where I'd been, if I was safe, if I had fun.
I couldn't tell the truth, but I didn't want to lie to Renata either. She knows everything about me, and I don't want Callum to be the reason she stops.
"I'll tell you when I'm ready," I settled on saying. "Don't worry, I was safe."
I could tell she was suspicious that I was being so cryptic, but I quickly peeled off my shoes and gathered my things to take a shower. I was out of the room before she could inquire more.
By the weekend of the sixth boys' football game, which kicks off late, Renata's curiosity has ebbed away in the face of all her pressing extracurricular commitments. We step out of the residence hall in the bright, cool morning. Our stomachs are full of cereal and fruit and armed for the long day ahead—today she's on tailgate duty, and I have a drumline sectional from ten till two.
Each home game day, WISA runs a tailgate stall in the Quad, where tents line the footpaths and students in maroon and white mix together like different types of alcohol. I can smell booze in the air already, feel on my cheeks the electrostatic kiss of a giant sub-woofer playing party hits and Halston fight songs.
The other member of the executive committee helping to set up at the tent is the WISA Treasurer, Vivian.
"Yoohoo," Vivian calls, shading her eyes with her palm and squinting in our direction. "Big summer blowout!"
"It's October!" Renata yells back.
Renata—white ribbons in her hair and two stripes of burgundy lipstick on each cheek—reaches the WISA tent and deposits her box of biodegradable plastic cups on the fold-out table. I'm carrying a shopping bag full of gallon soft drink bottles, sweating from their overnight storage in the common room fridge.
"How have you been, Bay?" Vivian asks me.
"Busy. I have a drumline practice..." I slip my phone out of the pocket of my hoodie. "—Now, pretty much."
"Drumline, that's right. How has the season been so far?"
Vivian and I follow each other on Instagram, and whenever our mutual friendship with Renata brings us into the same social settings—WISA bar quizzes, birthday parties, feminism panels—Vivian goes out of her way to talk to me. She's Pre-Med with a Biochemistry major, beautiful, fashionable, outgoing, total Type A. Whenever she smiles at me, it's secretive and affirming, like she wants me to know that she likes me.
The disconnect I feel from other people doesn't alleviate with women. In fact, I think it gets worse. I just want to be neutral on 50% of the human population whom I don't even know, as if that's somehow radical, and yet modern feminism asks for solidarity; that I support women's rights and their wrongs—because a three-dimensional human being is not denied their wrongdoings.
Believe me, I want global emancipation from patriarchy and racism and capitalism. I fucking want that. I want it now. I want to stop questioning whether I have internalized misogyny or secret jealousy every time I mistrust or dislike a woman but can't instantly articulate why. Do men meet each other and think how can I show up for him, how can we be in this together, how can I smile just-so such that he'll know I'm not a pick-me girl? No, they don't, because they are free.
I want the day to come when female solidarity becomes redundant. I want my humanity to come before my womanhood.
Vivian says she wishes she saw our last show, Sun, but Renata interjects jokingly: "Vivian hates football. She doesn't go to games on principle. I think you'll have to miss the next two shows as well, Viv."
"Hey," she protests, tearing open a packet of disposable cups and stacking them by the drinks dispensaries. "There are legitimate flaws in collegiate football. It promotes a violent hypermasculinity, buries all the concussions and brain damage it gives to players, and..."
Seeing her trail off, I add, "Steals thunder from the marching band," knowing full well football pays for the marching band.
"Steals thunder from the marching band," Viv repeats happily, snapping her fingers and shooting me a grin.
"You say this," Renata scoffs, "while being best friends with the Tanner twins."
Ah, the infamous Tanner twins. Campus celebrities. They're both seniors, starting string. I remember watching them play earlier this semester. They're built like gladiators but reportedly soft-mannered like puppies. Vivian argues that people with different opinions can still be friends, and for a moment I hear my exact reasoning in her impassioned tone of voice: people who hate each can still fuck.
Just like that, I fall back inside my head, unable to stop replaying the mind-blowing sex with Callum. An ache settles in my throat that can't be exhaled or coughed away, echoing the tension in my gut.
And I was so nonchalant when I told him no-one else could make me orgasm. How embarrassing.
People who hate each other can still fuck.
But do I sound coherent and assured like Vivian, or do I just sound delusional?
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The State of Massachusetts' foster transition program comes with many conditions, legal intricacies, sign-here-initial-heres, but my least favorite is the mandatory semesterly visit to the school counselor.
They treat growing up in foster care like a pre-factor for mental health challenges, given that statistically we have zero personal finances, weaker social ties and buckets of childhood trauma. I would say that that's not me, but it is—I probably need counseling, but I don't want it. I get what the university is going for, providing every student with quality, attentive healthcare worth the thousands we're forced to pay (or the state pays on my behalf in return for a 3.0 GPA) in insurance, especially in high-stress environments such as academia. The various institutions I'm beholden to want to make sure, in the event that I kill myself, they can tell the press they took all necessary precautions. (Not that I would do that. I'm going to die old and unproductive just to spite the world.)
Besides, the mental health support system at Halston is notoriously overworked. I refuse to make any extra appointments, and finish my mandatory meetings as quickly as possible, because I don't want to take up space that would better serve someone else.
I've had the same counselor since freshman year—which is rare, because part of the overworked mental healthcare system is that underpaid staff keep leaving. Her name is Florence. She wears bright blouses and statement belts, the type with woven straps and big circular buckles.
The student health center is all very familiar to me; I swing by on Monday, taking the stairs to the third floor.
"Good morning, Bay," she opens her office door. "Come in, come in."
I drop my bag by the armchair and sit down. "How's school?" Florence asks.
The trick to navigating these sessions is to open up just enough, share just enough. A taciturn, glowering girl is a big problem. A girl who's just peachy is also a big problem, because who's just peachy with a bloating student loan and no post-graduation prospects? No, the sweet spot to get a believable 'stressed but coping' diagnosis from Florence lives between an unbelievable lie and the ugly truth.
She asks me how I feel living in the residence halls, what my class schedule looks like. In my answers I sprinkle details of Renata and I studying together, marching practices and game days, and trying to get enough sleep.
I wonder what notes she writes about me when I leave, or if she even writes notes. Maybe there's just a database to punch dates and session lengths into. Maybe there's a Google Form—'check the box corresponding to the risk level of this student'. Florence doesn't do a pen-and-notebook thing. Nor is she on her computer. She's not a therapist, she's not a doctor. I know that if I were to indicate I had more serious mental health needs, she would refer me up the professional ladder—to someone I definitely I don't have the time and money for.
So why pick at a scab you don't have the resources to heal?
"Sounds busy. Full class schedule, work, and marching band. How are you feeling about that?"
"I kind of like the stress," I tell her, honestly. "Without deadlines or the idea of competition, I find it hard to get excited about schoolwork and being on campus. I think I only came to university because it was a logical next step, and everything off this path was murky."
Florence nods in understanding. "Anything new in your personal life?"
"No," I say, a little too quickly. I fight not to squirm in my cushy, sunken-pillow armchair—or worse, blush like a fucking damsel—when her lips twist in an amused smile.
Callum is such a bad idea. An idea I shouldn't even be having, one that needs to leave my brain. He is a lot of things to me—enemy, rival, peer—but that all fades, blurs, muffles, when I picture his face, glazed over with lust (or see his hands, the way they wrapped around me), wanting repeats on repeats. The more I try to make the dreams stop and the feelings abate, the hotter I burn at night.
Thoughts are a dangerous thing. One day you picture being adopted into a loving family, and the next it avalanches into forcing your entire black soul into a pretty pink box with a ribbon. One day you realize you've cut your line back to shore, and every following day you just watch other people drift further and further away. One day you fuck someone, and if you're not careful they'll get you bent out of shape, catching feelings, pining after someone who doesn't deserve it, someone who won't want you back.
My lips twitch into a casual smile. "Blissfully unattached."
Florence nods, chuckling. "That always seems to be your way, Isabella."
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Tuesday's full band practice starts with conditioning.
We have to run the usual laps of the football field, then perform reps of core, arm and leg workouts until one of the flute girls passes out and needs to go sit on the bleachers with her head between her knees. I hate to think how much longer Keller would have made us keep going otherwise.
Halfway through the conditioning, Callum peels off his shirt in the most insipid way, reaching to the nape of his neck with one hand and smoothly tugging it over his head.
Even worse, my mouth dries up. I've seen Callum shirtless before. The fittest drumline boys never care about baring skin under the sun, muscles and veins mostly obscured by marching rigs. I've even ogled him before, surreptitiously, in my periphery, never admitting it.
But this picture—during the push-ups, his body held firm above the ground—just makes me think of him in his bed, rising on his knees, the tanned expanse of his toned torso interrupted by the low hem of his jeans, and below that the intimidating bulge that officially killed any future small dick jokes I'd ever hoped to make.
I need to stop thinking about it. I need to look away.
But my stare is still glued to Callum by the time we rise for a series of warming-down arm stretches, to be performed by walking freely around the grass. Callum stretches one arm across his chest and braces with the other. His eyes slide sideways to mine. Caught.
"Voyeur," he mouths, falling into step alongside me.
"Exhibitionist," I whisper, the memory of Toby Minhas' party, our first kiss, pressing against my heart. "If you don't want people to stare, cover up. Don't you know you're asking for it?" (I say it ironically.)
Keller yells into her microphone for us to switch arms and we do.
"Free the Nipple," Callum counters. "Maybe you should take your shirt off, too. It's so humid today."
He is so infuriating. I pull my water bottle from the hem of my shorts and squeeze a jet of water onto his chest. Callum yelps and stares daggers in my direction.
"What?" I shrug, tipping my head back to drink. I sigh in relief and say, "You said it was humid."
Callum leans his head close enough to whisper, "Wow, squirting on me already—"
—my balled fist flings out towards his shoulder, a moment of uncontrollable fury mixed with panic mixed with pent-up lust. Do you know how many restful nights I've had since Callum? None. He is ruining my fucking life.
With damningly quick reflexes, he swerves away from my hand and shakes his head in disappointment, wet blond curls swinging. My punch arcs through emptiness. The water droplets snake down the valley of his abs, past the V of his hips and into the light smattering of hair like they're racing towards—
Nothing. Racing towards nothing.
"A sadist, too, my my. You are way kinkier than I imagined."
I grit my teeth. "Your mother should have swallowed you—"
Keller's usually water voice booms out through her megaphone. She's perched on the watch tower with a glinting metal thermos of coffee. "Okay, kiddos, get your instruments!" The megaphone whines shrilly, effectively slicing through our bickering. "Places everyone!"
Callum narrows his eyes at me as he strides ahead, making a beeline for the snares perching on the third row of the bleachers. Like a toddler, I can think of no better comeback than to stick my tongue out at him. Even though Keller is too far away for me to read her expression, I get the feeling she's watching very closely.
Her arrangement before the summer rings in my ears. If either of you do not perform, you will lose the position. I've been doing so well up until now. Callum and I have managed to keep our rivalry from bubbling over—in public at least—for months. And now, look at me. Losing my composure over a few immature sexual innuendos.
I need to get Callum out of my system.
Before he ruins the most important part of my life, the one thing that makes me feel at home.