Before that night, Claudia had assumed people who said they didn’t remember what happened when they were drunk were lying. Or at least they weren’t being literal. The idea that she’d said and done things she had no memory of was disturbing—and, in the case of her alleged Edgartown exclamation, mildly humiliating—but sitting alone in her dorm room now, staring into the black hole in her mind, she realized she hadn’t even considered how lucky she’d been that night on the island. She could have fallen off the dock, hit her head on one of the night-silent boats, and been washed away by the black water. She could have tripped stumbling home and gotten hit by a sleepy driver. She could have been raped.

Claudia took three Benadryls and slept for twelve hours on the shitty dorm mattress, dreaming of banging on doors and falling down stairs. In the morning the fear became more acute: the infection was coming. She needed the pills and she needed to find her phone.

Trevor knocked about an hour later, while she was working up the courage to go outside.

“I’m on my way to the library,” he said. “I can pick something up if you want.”

He was very good-looking: symmetrical features, clear skin, dark brown eyes, a hint of muscle beneath his T-shirt. As he waited for her answer, Trevor fiddled with the chain on his neck, revealing a simple gold cross. A week ago, Claudia would have considered hooking up with him, even though she was pretty sure her roommate already was. A week ago, she would have taken in his scent and imagined what he tasted like. She might have smiled and flirted and wondered if he could make her stop thinking about Ben for a little while. But not now. Now there were whole pieces of her that seemed to have been swept away. Why couldn’t she remember? Claudia looked at Trevor and thought: I need to get outside.

“I’m gonna head out, too,” she said. She looked around. Wallet, sunglasses, hat. Was that all she needed? “Maybe the sun will feel good.”

“I bet it will,” he said.

But it didn’t. The dehydration that had sucked at her brain the day before was quenched, as was the woozy slosh of alcohol in her stomach. But that delicate feeling of a hangover remained. The very air felt aggressive and the missing hours thrashed behind her eyes. The hole in her mind seemed to have its own gravity.

“Are you going anywhere specific?” Trevor asked as they walked toward Broadway.

“The health center,” she said.

“I went once for a flu shot. I bet it won’t be crowded now, since it’s spring break.”