The pre-med program admissions committee was not comfortable having such an unstable woman in the classroom. The Residence Life Team was not comfortable having such an unpredictable woman in their midst. What if she hung herself in her closet with a bathrobe belt? What if she slit her wrists with a bashed-up pink Daisy razor in shower stall number four? What if one of the bright, promising young students with wealthy alumni parents was traumatized because they found this bursary-dependant, loose-moralled head case from Cape Breton dead in the common room some morning? Allie Walker was a chance the powers-that-be just couldn’t take. So they withdrew their recommendation for her pre-med program admission on account of her slipping grades. And they kicked her out of residence on account of “complaints” about her partying. When Allie found out, she marched right into the room of the uncomfortable resident assistant, and that’s when things got very, very uncomfortable. Because Allie walked in on him screwing Char. It all went to hell in a handbasket right there.

Allie ended up being charged for destruction of property and uttering threats. Char ended up diving out the dorm-room window buck naked, and buying herself a one-way ticket to Germany the next day.

It was convenient that Char was ready to go within twenty-four hours of Allie charging into our place that night, calling her a psycho cunt face and wishing her a lifetime of rotting in hell. It was convenient that they left me out of all this because I had my own little dramas and traumas to deal with at the time, although none of them involved gut-wrenching choices and crushing decisions and showing up in court alone and scared to try to explain it all to a judge.

I listen as Allie recounts all of this. I choke back a gulp of guilt. I watch as the tide of colour around her head turns to a trickle. Except for this one little blob of blackened blue that sits squarely, staunchly, over her head. A fresher-looking bruise on Allie Walker’s long unhealed soul.

“Do you know what I was doing when my mother died?” The corners of her mouth inch into a flat smile as the edges of her eyes swell with the clarity of expectant tears. “I was holed up in a slummy motel room at the border, drinking a bottle of vodka and making a pros and cons list for dying or just disappearing. There were fourteen pros for disappearing. I was about to count the pros of dying when Lennon called to say Mum was gone.”

“But the job interview? In Boston?” I say. “You said it went fine.”

“It didn’t even happen.” Allie’s voice is cracking and choking, but her lips stay twisted in the smile of habit. “They wouldn’t let me cross the border. Pulled some file, started asking questions about the peace bond from the university, my mental illness. Told me I couldn’t enter the country. I’m a security threat.”