Her mother didn’t even know about James or that she was sexually active, so this would definitely be too much for her. Dad understood that college kids drank and might have sex, but he would get angry, vengeful, lash out at the school and Henry and make a big deal of the whole thing, which was not what she wanted. What she wanted was for this to go away. She wanted to forget it ever happened, to have no lasting effects on her life of this one bad night, this one lapse in judgment, this one reduction in her defenses.

“Izzy,” she wrote at the top of the page. She would call her tomorrow.

“Student Health—STDs,” she wrote next. Shit. She’d been so careful her whole life, holding off through high school, waiting until she found someone she loved, someone who loved her. A tear dropped onto the page and she brushed it away.

“Job,” she wrote last. She wanted what her old roommate, Stephanie, had: a schedule so busy she barely had time to study and sleep. No free time to go to bars or pancake houses or waterskiing. No downtime to think. No empty hours to fill.

Night came quickly, and though she was tired, Karina had trouble sleeping. Every time she was close to dropping off, images of Henry ran through her mind: him laughing with her at the bar, pushing her onto the bed, dancing up close to her at the club, her elbow banging into the wall as she tried to squirm away. Finally, she took her duvet out to the living room couch and slept there all night.

The next morning, on her way out, she dropped a bag containing her favorite jeans and purple blouse down the incinerator chute.

25 | Karina

October 2014

Karina’s phone rang and her father’s smiling face appeared on the screen. She deliberated for a moment before sending the call to voice mail. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever, but right now, it seemed like the only thing to do. Her mid-term grades had just been posted and they were the worst she’d ever received: one B, two C’s and a D. She had a tougher course load this year, and she’d been struggling to focus in her advanced science and math classes since the term started, falling further behind. Yesterday, she’d received a notice reminding her of the minimum requirements to maintain her scholarship. If she didn’t pull her grades up by the end of term, she would be on probation, and after the next term, her scholarship would be revoked. The thought of having that conversation with Dad was something she just couldn’t face.

Karina’s scholarship covered her tuition each semester, but she had to call her dad every month for money for her other living expenses. He always transferred the funds right away, but he waited for her to call first so he could talk to her once in a while. During her freshman year, she’d enjoyed those conversations. When she was done with an exam or paper, she would lie on the bed to call him and spill out all the details, in sheer exhaustion and relief of being done. Once she began to spend all her free time with James, those calls morphed into what her calls with Mom had always been: short, obligatory conversations providing assurance that everything was fine and her grades were good. This year, after the breakup with James and the incident with Henry (as she now thought of it, unwilling to give it more import in her life), she’d been avoiding calls with Dad altogether, trying to get by with text messages and email. If she had to hear that thin layer of concern in his voice, always there just below the surface, she was afraid she might crack. Karina was trying to form a new life, a new skin over the scarred one; she had to be protective until it grew strong enough to shield her.