The foam-tiled gymnasium floor beneath them smelled of perspiration and Windex. Their Thanksgiving feast of dollar rolls of donuts, energy drinks and Pringles was spread across the floor. They sat cross-legged facing each other.
“You said you’d tell me what happened,” began Jeremy, “yet all you’ve done all night is ignore the subject entirely. Are you sure you’re alright, love.”
“Hah, I’m fine!” Donna answered, aiming to seem less fragile than she felt at the moment. “You want me to tell, I’ll tell. All you had to do was ask, dear.”
Terms of endearment always sounded disjointed when they sprung from her overly chapped lips, whereas when Jeremy let them slide, they flowed like melted butter.
Donna shifted position again, pulled her shirt back down, her pants back up, and began the story.
“So here I was, being uncharacteristically good by going to bed before midnight. I had just trudged all the way from McDonalds, feeling good about myself that I had forced myself to both do math homework (I hate math) and give my leftovers to an old homeless guy. I felt all warm and fuzzy inside, so I curled myself into a blanket that matched my feeling. That’s when I heard the cacophonous cry from outside my door. “That bitch! That fucking cunt!” it cried. Though disembodied, I could recognize that shrill shrewish soprano anywhere. It belonged to my roommate; any humanity she may have possessed had been washed away by the copious amount of alcohol she had consumed. “
“Worse than Emma?” Jeremy asked wide-eyed.
“Oh God yes!” Donna replied, her voice dropping to her worldly contralto tone; a tone that always kept the boy listening.
“She kept on with it, “I fucking hate Donna, that bitch blogged about me!”-“
“Well did you?” asked Jeremy, attempting to be fair. He knew how easy it was for Donna to win him over, and wanted attempt to not be as much of a pushover as he usually was.
“Of course!” Donna chuckled. “She yelled at me for singing!”
“No, you’re a lovely singer!” Jeremy whined.
“Thank you.” Donna replied flatly, opening her disintegrating canvas backpack and grasping her computer out. “Want to see the poem I wrote about her that pissed her off that much?” She asked superfluously, knowing she had him hooked. Anything that persuades a person to call the author a cunt is worth reading, even if only to chuckle at how awful it is.
“Of course!” Jeremy shrieked, grabbing the laptop right out of Donna’s hands. The page was already up. The watercolor background she painted herself lined the blog like wallpaper, and the words stood out in the bold typewriter font as always. Jeremy read aloud. He preferred reading aloud. His crooner voice reverberated off the mirrored gym walls as he read a poem Donna feared hearing read.
“ DONNA, STOP SINGING! By Donna McClendon
I was washing the red out of my hair when I got the notion to sing.
So I sang.
I decided to triumph in spite of the hideous atmosphere that surrounds me daily and stifles my singing.
So I sang in a muffled voice.
Subdued still, but steady.
My tone was softer than that of a church mouse when I began to hear some rumbling.
I briefly recoiled, imagining a wanna-be Norman Bates prowling about the dorm.
I decided to sing anyways since it made me less scared.
And, if I were to choose, I would like to go out singing.
And as I sang about being stifled
The bathroom door swung open
And a voice imbued with more vitriol than had ever before been directed at me screamed,
"STOP SINGING, DONNA!"
And that same meek soul from my former freshmen year answered without a second thought,
"Okay."
And as my roommate slammed the door, I whispered in defeat, “Goddamn.”
I tightened my lips, though I then could think of endless songs that felt the way I now felt.
And my internal monologue started screaming,
"I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it more than the hoarding house!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it more than Saint Marks!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
At least there I could sing without being screamed at!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!”
And then my inner monologue cried
"I want Ms.Hart."
After that I shattered
Millions of pieces of me lied along with the stray hair and stubble on the shower floor.
I wanted to scream catharsis to spite my roommate, but then I remembered I’m a nice person.
So I merely cried.
It’s a Thursday, and I had done so well this week going this long without crying.
But I needed to.
I also needed to sing and scream
But because of niceness, which shrouded meekness, I just went about with my tears.
Her hateful voice rang inside my head and got me angrier.
And the imp of the perverse made me think of all the clever things I could do with the razor.
For her and I both.
But I’m still strong.
And she’s a mean soul, and I’d rather not be killed at such a young age.
She’s quite content with killing herself, and I doubt I could appeal to her humanity.
If she ever had any to begin with.
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I want home, where I don’t get hurt when I sing.
I need it.
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!
I hate it here!”
Jeremy finished reading and looked back up at his friend who was avoiding eye contact at all costs. She instead was staring into her own squinted eyes in the far mirror.
“Aww, love-“ He began, meaning to comfort the girl.
“So anyways.” Donna blurted. “She kept on with that god-awful ranting of hers until it got to the point of death threats. She said, “I’m going to kill her! I’ll murder that bitch! I’ll shoot that cunt!” and kept on like that. I, of course, saw it as an overreaction. I wrote the truth and didn’t use her name; if that’s not ethical, I don’t know what is! Besides, many fine authors have received death threats. Hunter S. Thompson could’ve probably insolated his cabin with all he got from the Hell’s Angels! I know it’s morbid, but I couldn’t help but pride myself in having yet another thing in common with Hunter, but I digress… Anyways, she’s twenty-four for God’s sake! She should know better, but of course she’s a charming New Yorker, so… well, you know how they are…”
“What did you do?” Jeremy demanded like a kindergartener. He gravitated to every word Donna uttered in spite of her ineloquence. He had barely touched his junk-food dinner since Donna began her tale. She continued.
“She then began throwing all her god-awful belongings at me: crayons, lighters, her triceratops statue with horns that dug into my hip, all as I pretended to be asleep like an angel. Then it got stupider. She turned to her friend who was beside her all the way and said, “You know she’s a fucking pervert. She watches me undress- and she’s a lesbian; it’s fucking sexual assault!” I got annoyed and thought of how, one, I had never even seen her naked and two, the fact that I never even remotely wanted to. They left and I tried to get comfortable enough to actually fall asleep. I tried to memorize my lines for acting and recite my favorite movies and songs in my head, but I couldn’t distract myself. I was trembling like an idiot. When she returned she just restarted her idiocy. It was awful.”
“I’m so sorry, love…” Jeremy began, taking Donna’s hand. She couldn’t help but meet his gaze.
“Thanks, dear.” She said. “The next morning I went to math, and had a god-awful test, as if things weren’t bad enough. After that I snuck back into my dorm, gathered my most cherished belongings into a garbage bag and left. It was a fight or flight thing, and you know I’m not a fighter. I just walked. I had no plan. I just walked. I called my Dad back home, and though well meaning, he was no help. He just said, “Get a hotel or tough it out with the bitch. You can do it. That’s my girl.” And that was it. So I kept on walking aimlessly until I had no other option but surrender my dignity and ask to couch surf. I like the term couch surfing, though I slept on the floor. Couch surfing makes it seem like less of a mooching sort of thing. So I couch surfed.”
“Who did you stay with? I thought you said you didn’t have any friends.” Jeremy asked, tripped up by her continuity regarding the stories she’s told.
“Well I suppose that was a bit of a hyperbole. I had one friend, and she’s who I stayed with.”
“Well alright then.” Jeremy shrugged, still thinking Donna was selling herself short in amount of friends she had obtained in college. “Then what happened?”
“Well I stayed there a night only to have to get up ridiculously early since she had a morning class. I followed her to the door only to see my roommate lurking around smoking her signature Salem’s, so I ran once again. I circled the block in an entirely counterproductive circle of sorts only to get the run-around from security for two days straight until I was bestowed the generous gift of getting to live with someone who doesn’t want to murder me.” Given the opportunity, Donna could be just as sarcastic as Jeremy if not more so.
“Then what?” Jeremy demanded.
“I camped out at a café and spent my final few dollars on a bowl of soup to keep body and soul together. I then found out that my friend Marji was minutes away from taking a plane back to India.
Jeremy stopped her once again. “I thought you said your only friend was the girl who took you in and let you stay on her floor. Who’s Marji, then?” He was beginning to become skeptical of her sob story. After all, the poem wasn’t the nicest thing in the world. Could it be that she was just being neurotic about the alleged threat?
“Well, I told you I was being hyperbolic earlier, besides it makes a better story if I’m utterly alone in the world, don’t you think?” Donna behaved as if his questioning was an affront to the integrity of her recollection of what happened. Jeremy didn’t answer.
“Anyways, due to having to move my stuff, I didn’t get to say goodbye to Marji- it was super sad. I nearly cried over the phone.”
“I thought you said you were at the café while she was heading off for the plane…” Jeremy longed for clarification.
“I was.” Said Donna, matter-of-factly.
Jeremy left her be. “It was her story after all,” he figured, “she can mangle it all she wants, since she did seem traumatized by the predicament, and all was well now, so what’s the harm in a little fabrication?”
“I was super sad that weekend.” Donna concluded, “But it makes it all worth it to be reunited with you, dear.” With that, Jeremy returned to being the same pushover he always was. He uncrossed his stork legs, inched closer and hugged Donna. They hunkered down among flattened pillows on the cold foam-like floor and slept, just as they had done last year and the year before that. As odd as it was, it was tradition, and neither of them would trade it for the world.
