Long May She Reign (87 page)

She wanted to go straight to bed for the rest of the night, but she made herself stop by the JAs' suite, first. She said hi to Dirk and Mikey, who were throwing a Nerf football back and forth, and then found a mopey-looking Gerard on his way out of Susan's room. He and Tammy—who had been throwing a fair amount of her caution to the winds, since breaking up with her boyfriend—had ignored an unwritten cardinal rule over the weekend by engaging in a drunken, intra-entry, one-night stand, and while Tammy had shrugged the whole thing off the next day, it had been all too obvious that Gerard was crushed by the rejection. And was
still
crushed, three days later.

Something she might find mildly funny, if she weren't feeling the exact same way herself.

Susan, who was just picking up the phone, saw her and lowered it.

And smiled, ready to greet her next patient.

“I just wanted to make sure Garth and the others didn't bother you today,” Meg said.

Susan shook her head. “No. They're just sorry the whole thing happened.”

So Garth had kept his promise, at least.

“You don't look so hot. How you doing?” Susan asked.

Meg shrugged. “Tired. Embarrassed. The usual.” And then some.

“They made it into a much bigger deal than it had to be.
You're
not the one who should be embarrassed,” Susan said, and then hesitated. “Did you see him today?”

“In psychology,” Meg said.

Susan nodded. “Did that go okay?”

No. But, Meg just shrugged.

It was quiet.

“You want to talk about it?” Susan asked.

Very definitely
not
.

After she had made her excuses and went up to her room, she couldn't resist checking her messages, and her email—only to find that he still hadn't bothered trying to get in touch with her.

Christ, would it have
killed
him to send an “I'm sorry it didn't work out, but I still think you're a nice person” email? To say that it wasn't her, it was
him
. To show some sort of common decency, or at least, courtesy?

But, fine. Whatever. No great loss.

She wrote Beth an “It's no big deal, but Jack and I broke up last night. Do me a favor, and don't mention him anymore, okay?” email, and a similar one to her father, assuming that he would pass some form of the information along to the rest of her family. Her mother was off on an overnight West Coast swing, touting some economic initiatives and appearing at a North American environmental conference addressing global warming, and such, so she didn't expect to hear from her, anyway, until she got back to Washington.

It was obscenely early, but she got ready for bed. When she put on a clean t-shirt, she saw that her right elbow was covered with a dark, puffy bruise and was so swollen that she couldn't straighten it all the way, but decided that she was probably okay. Her hand and knee hurt like hell, of course, but when
didn't
they?

As a rule, taking two pain pills was usually enough to make her very drowsy, so she took
three
, just to guarantee that she would have no trouble dropping off.

The sooner this day was over—in fact, the sooner the entire
semester
was over, the better.

48

SHE FELL ASLEEP
right away, but had long, confusing nightmares—mostly about terrible things happening to her brothers and Vanessa—and would wake up, trembling and gasping, before crashing out again. The drop-line rang a couple of times, and so did her medium-secure phone, but she neither answered the calls—nor checked her messages. Hell, she didn't even bother turning on the
light
.

In the morning, she still couldn't bring herself to go to the dining hall, but when she tried to get out of bed, she had another intense dizzy spell, and had to quickly sit back down and take deep breaths until it passed.

So, she ate one of the granola bars from her Easter package, and a somewhat stale brownie, since she wasn't completely sure when she had eaten last, and that might be why she felt so terrible—and had a monster headache, to boot. The pain pills didn't seem to have worn off completely yet, to the degree that she almost felt hungover, so she took a couple of ibuprofen with the dregs of the open bottle of flat Coke on her desk.

Before leaving for her classes, she checked her email yet again—nothing, of course, from
him
, but a few from her family, and Beth, and so forth. She zapped her father an “Everything's fine, on my way to class, more later” reply, along with a similar one to Beth—whose two emails seemed more concerned about her than her pathetic romantic failure probably warranted. When she retrieved her voice-mail from the medium-secure line, it was, indeed, Beth who had left the two messages, the first one telling her she was sorry to hear about Jack, and to call her as late as she wanted, and the second one asking, more anxiously, if she could
please
call her back, and let her know that everything was okay.

Which she wouldn't have time to do before her political science class started, so she would just have to take care of it later.

After her classes were over, she was going to go into Paresky, and grab something to eat, but she saw Jack crossing the Chapin Lawn, apparently about to do the same thing, so she retreated to the library, instead. Did a little more research for her political science rewrite, skimmed and took notes on a couple of the articles her English professor had put on reserve, as supplementary reading material, and got through twenty-five more pages of Aristotle.

By then, she was so tired that she was starting to get dizzy again, and it was obviously time to go back to her room, and take a nap. A
long
nap.

Although, considering how truly wretched and miserable she felt, she just might spend some time crying, first.

When she got off the elevator, she could have sworn that she heard a very familiar voice, but decided that it had to be her imagination. Wishful thinking. She started down the hall towards her room—and saw Beth, sitting in the chair by the security desk, talking to Dave.

Meg stopped short, and stared at her. “Hey. What are you doing here?”

Beth shrugged. “Took the bus up.”

Oh. It was a somewhat dislocating surprise, but also, a good surprise. An excellent surprise. “Okay,” Meg said. “I mean, hi.”

Beth nodded, looking her over slowly, and then frowning.

Which was—weird. Unfriendly. Something else seemed different, and it took her a minute to figure out what it was. That is, other than the fact that she was wearing old jeans—
torn
jeans—and a black turtleneck, instead of something fun. “Your hair's brown,” she said.

“Dyed it back last night,” Beth said.

They had never been inclined towards demonstrative greetings, but there was a strange energy in the air, and—hmmm. “Well—it looks good,” Meg said, warily.

Beth shrugged again.

Now, she was a
lot
wary. “I'm sorry I hadn't gotten a chance to call you back yet,” Meg said. Since she definitely would have made sure to head her off, before she came up here, if she had. “But, I was working on a paper, and—I'm sorry.”

“Yeah.” Beth stood up, carrying a faded orange Newton South Lions bag from their old high school. “See you later, Dave, it was nice talking to you.”

Afraid that she might look too frail and unsteady, Meg tried to unlock her door
without
fumbling around or dropping the keys.

“What's wrong with your arm?” Beth asked.

Which she still couldn't really straighten, but she hadn't realized that it was obvious. “It's fine,” Meg said. “Just post-surgical junk.” She pushed the door open. “It's really good to see you, but I wish you had—” Called first. “I mean, don't you have a midterm or something tomorrow?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Beth said.

Christ, was she really so pissed off about not having been called back, that she thought it was worth coming all the way up here? Except, maybe something was wrong with
her
, like another pregnancy scare. “Are you okay?” Meg asked. “Did something bad happen?”

Beth shook her head and put her bag on the floor next to the bed, then looked around the room. “So, this is it, hunh?”

Meg shrugged, knowing full well that she could have made more of an effort to decorate. Or, any effort at all, beyond the few photos she'd set out the very first day she'd arrived.

“What happened with Jack?” Beth asked.

If she'd dropped everything and rushed up here because of a stupid breakup with a jerk of a guy, it had been a complete waste of time. “No big deal.” Meg eased herself down onto the bed. “He just—he turned out to be a schmuck.”

Beth frowned.

“He didn't do anything awful—” exactly— “We just—I don't know,” Meg said. “I don't really feel like dating anyone right now, anyway. Too much other stuff going on.”

Beth folded her arms. “So, you're not upset at all.”

“No,” Meg said. “But, I'm sorry if I made it seem that way.” Time to change the subject. “Um, how's Nigel?”

Beth looked annoyed and shook her head, which Meg interpreted to mean that he was still a schmuck in his own right.

So, maybe she had just wanted to get out of town for a couple of days, and had, therefore, manufactured an excuse to do it. And, after all, they hadn't seen each other since right after New Year's. Although that didn't explain why this all felt so horribly strained. Or what the hell it was that was simmering below the surface.

“You look awful,” Beth said.

Nice. Meg nodded. “Thank you. It took some effort, to look this bad, but—”

“I'm not kidding,” Beth said.

“Well.” Meg touched the bridge of her nose, feeling the crooked part. “I—”

Beth shook her head. “You know that's not what I mean. I mean, you look
awful
.”

Oh. Not anything she wanted to hear—although she pretty much always looked awful now, so it didn't fall into the category of new information. “I didn't sleep very well last night,” Meg said, “and I guess maybe—”

“Christ, don't be an idiot,” Beth said. “Okay?”

Great. Now she was an idiot, in addition to looking ugly.

“And what the hell's the matter with your parents?” Beth asked. “Why did they let you come back here, looking like this?”

Now, she was starting in on her
family
? What the hell was going on here?

Beth leaned over, unzipped her bag, and took out a few magazines. “You're a lollipop girl, Meg,” she said.

What? Now she was
really
confused.

Beth pointed at the glossy tabloid on the top of the pile. “I saw this on a newsstand last night, and then you didn't answer your phone, or your email, and—” She tossed the magazine onto Meg's lap. “So, I went down to Port Authority this morning, and got on the fucking bus.”

The cover showed all of the usual—predominantly too blond and too thin—celebrity types, plus a photo of her in the top right corner, with the headline “Wasting Away.” Meg shoved the magazines aside. “So what? They just want people to cough up a few dollars and buy the damn thing, so they try to create news.”

“Look at the picture,” Beth said.

It wasn't worth a second glance, but Meg humored her, and gave it one. Sunglasses, purple cap with a gold W, gripping her cane—because God forbid they
not
print a photo with her looking as crippled as possible. It was hard to be sure, but it might have been taken the previous Monday, when she was on her way to PT.

“You look like one of those skeletal, fucked-up starlets,” Beth said.

Albeit lacking a wildly overpriced designer bag—or a jittery, equally expensive, little dog of some kind.

Or the smug satisfaction of having had a whopping opening weekend at the box office.

But Beth was staring at her, accusingly.

This was ridiculous. “You know they go out of their way to find the worst possible pictures,” Meg said. “And then, they Photoshop the hell out of them, or whatever, until the person doesn't even look human anymore.”

“You
do
look like that, Meg,” Beth said.

Maybe, maybe not. And, frankly, she didn't care much.

Beth reached over and yanked her left sweatshirt sleeve up partway. “Is that what a normal wrist looks like?”

Jesus
Christ
, but she was getting tired of hearing this from everyone. And, so what if her wrist was a little skinny? Since it was her good hand, she couldn't pull her sleeve back down, and had to press her arm against her headboard, and hook the cuff to the corner, to do it.

Beth sighed. “Meg, all I'm saying is—”

“If you just came up here to yell at me,” Meg said, “I really don't feel like hearing it.”

“Tough,” Beth said. “You
have
to start hearing it.”

Well, no, as a matter of fact, she didn't. She could hear any damn thing she pleased—or not, whenever she pleased—or not. She folded her good arm across her chest, and they glared at each other. During their entire friendship, they had never done more than a little minor snapping at each other, and Meg was afraid to push it any further than that—because it suddenly seemed as though one of them might go too far. Irrevocably so.

Beth was usually as good at stare-downs as she was—maybe even better, but she was the first one to sigh, and look away this time.

Good. Maybe this wasn't going to get worse, after all. Maybe they could relax now, and slip back into their normal—

“You're letting him win,” Beth said quietly.

Oh, she was not. “Jesus, Beth, I only went out with the guy for about twenty seconds,” Meg said. “I'm already over it.” Sort of. “Hell, I wasn't even that
into
it.” Sort of.