“Mmm,” Karina moaned. “Claire?”

“Henry was sweet to take you home. He is cute, girlfriend. And such a good guy. Patrick’s known him for ages. We’re all going to that diner near the highway for pancakes. Five bucks for a tall stack. You in?”

Karina clenched her eyes closed. “I can’t,” she said. “I have a big paper to work on.”

“Okay,” Claire said. “We’ll miss you. Especially Henry.” She giggled. “Hey, next weekend we might go out to the harbor waterskiing. You should come.”

Karina murmured something to get Claire off the phone and turned off her cell before tossing it on the floor. Why hadn’t she said anything? And what was she supposed to say? I can’t remember what happened last night because I drank too much? I think Henry might have forced me to have sex? I lost control of myself and everything that makes me me? Claire might not even believe her, given her loyalty to Patrick and her impression of Henry as such a good guy. And she’d seen Karina doing those tequila shots, flirting with Henry at the bar. Maybe Karina was also to blame. Had she led Henry on? Had she really told him no? She rolled over onto her side, folded her knees up to her chest and cried quietly until she fell asleep again.

When she woke again mid-afternoon, the pounding in her head had subsided. She took a long, hot shower, scrubbing every part of her body until she felt clean. Afterwards, she took her supplies from the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity, lay everything out on the counter and took extra care to swab all edges of the razor blade with disinfectant. The release she felt as the blade cut into her skin was immediate, and she remained sitting on the closed toilet seat, a trickle of blood down her inner thigh.

She fell asleep on the couch Saturday night and woke panicked the next morning, recalling fragments of a bad dream. She’d been in the middle of an ocean, swimming from island to island, trying to find a place to hold on, but each island dissolved into sand when she reached it. After Prem’s death, Karina had stopped worrying about something bad happening to her, since nothing could ever be as bad as losing her brother. This was faulty reasoning, she now realized: Prem’s loss had damaged her so irreversibly that she had never found her equilibrium again. Every loss she suffered now hurt her more, not less, stealing more of what little remained of her. But still, there was something left, something worth preserving. On Sunday evening, Karina pulled out a notebook and turned to a fresh page. She needed a plan.

Should she tell someone what had happened with Henry? She recalled the presentation at freshman orientation about the dangers and temptations they would face: fraternity hazing, alcohol poisoning, sexual assault. Karina, like most freshmen, heard little of it. It was like trying to feed broccoli to a group of children peering into a candy store. They might have choked it down, but only to get on with the real reason they were there: freedom, independence, a chance to make their own choices and chart their own lives forward as adults. Karina had heard the stories of girls who had come forward on campuses all over the country to report sexual assault. They carried mattresses across campus, they were called sluts, they had to tell their stories over and over, losing some of their dignity and privacy every single time, to a bunch of adults who only cared about their endowments and football stadiums.