10/29/2009 — 9:45PM
Her black eye. Her welling lower eye-lid.
“He said he’d never and then he did and now I have to hide until it heals,” she fumed. Tears etch her face.
Carrie, hand on Roslyn’s chin, moves her face in the light. Upon Roslyn’s brown and gold-flecked and curious and seeking right eye a plum-rose blossoms.
“Have you thought of how you’re gonna get him back?”
“Like what, like how…” Roslyn, exasperated.
“Like maybe how he did you.”
“C’mon, I’ve never hit someone in my life.”
Carrie cocks Roslyn head to make clear eye contact—sky blue staring deep into murky waters—“You need to pay him back.”
Roslyn leans back, away from the harsh light of the desk lamp Carrie insisted be brought out to aid in Further Inspection. She leans her head on the wall, hears the muffled rain through it. Arcata awash, ever and always. The evergreens and her deepest lows. She wishes it’d patter softly.
Carrie watches her. “You need to,” she says, “You need to do something.”
“Cops?”
“What would they do? Probably high five him.”
“I dunno. I dunno what anyone’s gonna do.”
“Well, I know the guys won’t be pleased.”
Roslyn, quietly, “Don’t tell them yet.”
Roslyn thinks, yearns to remember once more what she aims to forget—process it all through the old meat grinder one last time before temporal redaction: she lies on her back in bed atop the comforter. Shoes on, unsure of how to act. Her face throbs. She synthesizes, she processes, she thinks:
Tex ma’am, right? That’s how he introduced himself. And I had seen him and wondered. I’m getting older. Know better by now. I’m trying. I should. Two years and virginity lost and twisted by him.
Shit, Roslyn, Shit. What do we do? “Throw it back! Throw it back!”
She lets out a sigh, swings her legs out, and sits on the edge of the bed. Focus Roslyn Focus as she listens to Carrie’s reality TV du jour for a long moment.
Strength growing stronger.
She goes out to Carrie. “If I’m doing this, it has to be tonight,” she says.
Carrie mutes her show, looks up, blonde hair shading away from her face.
“Are you coming or what?”
Carrie drives. They are quiet as they pass through the plaza where people mill around outside the bars and on the lawns around McKinley’s statue.
“Do you have a plan?” Carrie asks.
“Hurt him,” Roslyn shrugs.
Carrie pulls up in front of Tex’s house, turns off the car.
Roslyn gets out and calls him. She’s immediately soaked. She sees the light come on in his room shortly before—
“You know not to call right now. You better be dying.”
“Can you come outside?”
“What?”
“I’m here.”
The blinds closed over his window bend and contort. His eyes grow visible.
“What, goddammit,” he says from the porch, appearing after a moment.
“C’mere,” she says.
“You’re standing in the rain, crazy lady.”
She approaches, grows tender before him.
“I thought—I really am sorry, Roslyn, I didn’t—”
She reaches him, her glance catches him dumbstruck. Tex takes it as a come-on, steps into her.
She puts her hands on his shoulders and leans up to his ear, whispers, “I can be worse.” She knees him in the balls, full force, hard-swingin’. He doubles over and dry heaves. She steps back as he drops to his knees.
“We’re done, Tex. Don’t call, don’t text, don’t talk to me in class.”
“How could you?” He asks.
Fury grows within her, “How could I? You fuck!” She slaps the side of his downturned head. His ear reddens. “Goodbye, Tex.”
Rain pours, Roslyn turns from Tex on his knees toward the car. She sees Carrie laughing in the driver’s seat and smiles as she rushes to get back in.
“I said goddamn!” Carrie, elated.
Roslyn turns to put on her seatbelt and catches Tex, restitute, watching her leave. His roommate now stands in the doorway.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him that bad, Carrie, I just—” Roslyn stops, slumps his shoulders, “Damn him.”
“What?”
“I don’t wanna feel like an asshole all of a sudden.”
“Then don’t, you gave him what he deserved,” Carrie says, “And y’know what you deserve? Ice cream!”
Roslyn bursts out laughing.