Inside and Out
by S.M. Stevens
S.M. Stevens writes contemporary fiction. Her last novel Beautiful and Terrible Things was named Best Literary Book of 2024 by Indies Today. Her next novel, Unraveling Caro Dunn, will be published by Blydyn Square Books in early 2027. Get a free copy of her award-winning novelette The Wallace House of Pain when you subscribe to her newsletter at www.AuthorSMStevens.com.
*This story was originally published in Monadnock Underground.
“You can’t break up with me. We’re unbreakable. You said it yourself.”
“I was wrong. Nothing is unbreakable.”
Pain raced through Tamarind’s chest in the wake of her harsh words, wiping out the dull shock she’d felt since the revelation leading to this moment. She gasped and turned away from his accusatory eyes. Break-up concluded, she fled the dorm and rushed back to the house she rented with four other juniors, where she turned to her small array of plants for distraction.
She moved a tiny tin watering can along the row of succulents arranged on the marigold-painted windowsill, her movements reflected in the night-black windowpanes. Droplets shimmied on the sill. Brow furrowed, it took her a minute to realize her watering can wasn’t leaking; her hand was shaking. To ground herself, she ran a fingertip along the bumpy, corncob-like fleshy appendage of the donkey’s tail, and the tentacled, serrated spears of the aloe, not noticing the prick when an aloe spine nearly drew her blood.
A day ago, she would have done anything for Dash. What did that say about her—that someone capable of what he did won her love? Her ability to read danger cues, honed in childhood, had failed her. Clearly, she was damaged in more ways than she’d ever thought possible.
When they met, she’d thought he was the damaged one.
#
“Little too much to drink?” Tam had asked the prostrate form in the shallow ditch etched between the sidewalk and the road, amused judgment tingeing her voice. She stepped closer. “Oh wow, you’re really hurt.” She stepped into the ditch and squatted to enter his line of vision. “What happened?” She glanced down the street where music, laughter and shouts boomed from a frat party.
Dash groaned, an unscathed eyelid fluttering.
Tam scanned his body. A goose-egg pushed through his damp dark bangs. One eye was a mere slit in a walnut-sized swelling. A small blob of blood had congealed on his face. Fresh blood oozed from his split lips into a short dark beard. Writing on his chest caught her eye; she nudged his torn, half-unbuttoned shirt aside, revealing the scrawled word Faggot, the “o” sliced by a four-inch-long gash.
Tam swallowed down rising nausea, closed her eyes, asked for strength, and re-focused on him.
“Let’s get you out of here. I live around the corner.”
Tam maneuvered Dash to her place, where she settled him on the house’s front steps. She knew better than to let a strange guy inside, even a mangled one, when her roommates were all out partying. So she settled him on the second-to-top step leading to the scuffed porch. Dash eased back but immediately moaned and shifted forward, away from the hard step edge.
“Asshole homophobes. Dicks,” Tam muttered while taking a closer look at his injuries in the porch’s anemic light. Numerous thin, inch-long cuts marred his face like red mist. Blood matted the dark curls at the back of his head. His jaw was swollen and red. “I’m so sorry they did this to you.”
Dash’s eyes, blue, met hers for the first time. Tam watched as disgust and anger, leftover from his attack no doubt, morphed into an emotion she knew well: Shame.
He explored his split lip with the tip of his tongue. He put two fingers to his jaw as if bracing it. “No,” he croaked.
“Hey. It’s okay.”
His gaze wavered behind half-lowered lids.
“The college has all kinds of resources that can help, you know. And the LGBTQ community here is really active. You don’t have to be alone.”
Something unidentifiable swept across his eyes. Tam frowned, unaware that this would be the first of many occasions when she couldn’t recognize Dash’s emotion.
“Were you at the frat party down the street? Is that where this happened?”
His head swayed slightly as his face paled behind the bruises and blood.
“Ph—phone,” he muttered, looking at his hip. “Call Christian.”
She tugged his cell phone out of his pants pocket, found Christian’s number and told him what happened, then stood.
“I’ll get soap and water to clean the cuts while we wait.”
#
Tam couldn’t get much out of Dash that night. She’d only learned his name when Christian picked up the phone and said, “Dash, whassup?”
She put his reticence down to physical pain and possible awkwardness around his sexuality. Maybe he hovered in that tricky in-between state, one foot out of the closet, the other still firmly lodged in the old world with its socially acceptable mores and perceived safety.
She watched for him on campus for weeks. At last, she saw him with a group of guys huddled outside a popular college-town bar one drizzly night.
“Hey, Dash,” Tam yelled from across the street while dragging her roommate Kari to a stop.
Dash glanced at Tam and turned away, but one of his friends elbowed Dash and nodded toward the women. Dash’s head dropped to his shoulder and he slumped a bit.
“Come on over,” the friend yelled. “Have a drink with us.”
They settled inside, Jay—the one who invited them—scouring Tam with hard eyes. Her lithe figure, bronze skin, gently waving dark hair and full mouth called to mind Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes. Rain mist sparkled on her long eyelashes. Jay’s gaze traveled to Kari—the quintessential blonde girl next door. He turned to Dash, flicked his tongue a few times, then wiggled his eyebrows suggestively in Tam’s direction. “Hmm?”
Dash smirked, saw Tam’s horrified face, and turned to Jay. “No, dude, not cool.” He turned to the women. “I apologize on behalf of my crude friend.”
“Yeah, just kidding,” Jay added.
Kari laughed nervously. Tam just sipped her beer.
Dash’s three friends took turns vying for Kari’s and Tam’s attentions. Dash, on the other hand, didn’t send off any manhunt vibes, which made perfect sense to Tam, considering.
The swelling around his eye was gone, replaced by a yellowish bruise. A scab clung to his lower lip. But the red mist of scratches on his face had disappeared and he moved easily as if fully healed. Despite the dim bar light, his blue eyes radiated an unsettling intensity she’d never encountered before.
When she left for the bathroom, he followed and cornered her in the small vestibule outside the mens’ and ladies’. His fingertips dug into her arm.
“I know you think I’m gay, but I’m not. Don’t say anything to suggest I am in front of my friends, get it?”
Tam’s eyes widened as she wrenched her arm away and rubbed it. “I would never,” she said, emphasizing each word, “out anyone. Give me some credit.” She turned toward the ladies’ room.
“I’m sorry.” His soft voice stopped her. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk. I just—I just wanted to clear the air.”
She turned back. “Consider it cleared.”
He gave a small smile. “And I guess I should thank you. For that night.”
Tam shook her head. “Anyone would have done it.” She laughed at the ludicrousness of her statement, given the events of that night. “Well, maybe not anyone. Do you want to talk about it?”
His smile evaporated. “No.”
Back with their group, Dash relaxed and Tam studied him, intrigued. His dark lazy curls almost reached his collar. His trim beard suggested an independent streak—he wasn’t drawn to the day’s long beard fashion. And his eyes—so vibrant and compelling. His knowledge of environmental justice challenges and his passionate belief in global warming and vitriol for climate deniers excited her. She noticed he stiffened when Jay cracked a joke at his expense, but she’d known many conflicted people unsure of their identities and their place in society who took good-natured ribbing as personal attack. If anything, his vulnerability spoke to her.
She hesitated to separate from him at one o’clock when the bar closed.
On the sidewalk, Jay pushed Dash into Tam. “Go with her.”
Tam’s heart took one of those childish, crush-induced leaps.
Dash’s eyes bore into hers. He shook his head. “Tam’s not like that.”
She found herself hoping his earlier denial was legit and he did, in fact, like women.
#
He texted the next day, and the next, and soon they were together several times a week. She became more adept at reading his moods. But she wasn’t expecting the drawn eyebrows, the harsh squint obscuring the beauty of his eyes, when she dared to open up about her sexuality a month after they met.
“I should tell you, I’m bisexual.”
“No you’re not,” he scoffed.
“Yes. I am. Are you okay with that?” She grabbed his hand.
His face blackened. “Would have been nice if you’d told me that upfront.”
Her lips pursed and un-pursed. “I don’t understand. It’s that big a deal to you?”
He pulled away and paced around her small living room, fists jammed in his jean pockets. When she said, “I thought you’d be more tolerant than that,” he stopped abruptly and faced her.
He studied her. “I don’t like surprises. And I’d rather not picture you sleeping with anyone else. But I guess I prefer the thought of you sleeping with a woman rather than a guy.” A glitter returned to his eyes. “Plus, maybe the next time you do that—with a woman, I mean—I could watch.” He grinned momentarily, then shifted on his feet. “What do your parents think?”
Tam looked to the side. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Do your friends know? Does everyone know?”
She wrinkled her brow before deciding he was simply being protective of her well-being. “All my closest friends know.”
He came to her and embraced her stiffly. “Hey. You’re mine now. That’s all that really matters.”
They never discussed his sexuality. Tam still sensed ambivalence on his part but as time went on, she didn’t want to encourage him to look at men romantically anyway. But she did invite him to a Pride Union meeting when she met up with him one day on the quad between classes.
“Why would I go to that?”
She hesitated. “To support me? Not everyone who goes is gay or bi, if that’s what’s worrying you. Come with.”
“Tell you what. I’ll come if we can hang out after. You know.”
His impish smile and the thought of sleeping with him that night sent a buzz through her flesh. He was an unexpectedly ardent, spontaneous and creative lover and some mornings she seriously thought about skipping classes to spend the day in bed with him.
“I can’t,” she said with a head shake. “The meeting lasts two hours, and I have to finish a paper when I get home.”
His eyes darkened, a behavior she was getting used to anytime she denied his requests. His disappointment-fueled scowl reminded her of a little boy deprived of his most-desired present under the Christmas tree, or a youth cut from the much-coveted soccer team. His clinginess in those moments endeared him to her even more. Both the man and the woman she’d dated sophomore year called things off when Tam got too close. She put their reluctance down to their status as students—ships passing in a four-year night—but a small part of her wondered if the problem was, in fact, her undesirability. Dash, on the other hand, loved being with her and being seen with her. “We’re such a wholesome and modern-looking couple, don’t you think?” he’d say with a smile.
She tugged on his sleeve and asked again. “Will you come?”
“Fine. If you really want me to, I’ll come.”
Tam kissed him fervently. “You’re amazing. It starts at eight. I gotta go but I’ll see you tonight.”
At five past eight, Tam clustered with a few acquaintances near the front of the student center’s large meeting room, her eyes regularly checking the door. She relaxed when Dash entered and leaned against the back wall. Prepared for flight, she thought, with mingled sadness and humor.
Her friend Anthony strode into the room, his bulk impressive, his face like a slab of carved granite. She watched in surprise as Anthony startled upon seeing Dash, pulled his shoulders back and approached him. Even from a distance, Tam saw Dash frown before Anthony’s back blocked her sight. When Anthony moved away, Dash’s eyes flickered around the room. He saw her watching, straightened from his slouch and gave a big smile. She motioned him to come sit with her, but he was already looking away.
Anthony took the chair Tam had saved for Dash.
“You know that guy?” she asked. “In the back of the room?”
Anthony grunted. “Yeah, sort of. He’s bad news. I told him to leave but he wouldn’t.”
“Why is he bad news?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Men, Tam thought, as the president called the meeting to order.
Two hours later, she saw a text from Dash. Sorry I had to go. Can I at least walk you home? I’m not far.
That’s OK. Anthony always walks me home after meetings. He only lives two blocks from me. Talk tomorrow?
He didn’t reply for minutes. Sure, was all he wrote.
#
Tam loved being out in the thick hush of night, a subtle aura suggesting that behind closed doors clandestine meetings were in progress, clothes were being ripped off lovers’ bodies, brains were insisting on being further educated even though the carriers’ flesh begged for sleep. Plans were being made. Dreams dreamed.
So after the Pride meeting, when Anthony threw up on the walk home, victim of a bad burrito, Tam insisted he go and let her cover the last two blocks alone. She felt safe with the secrets whispering around her.
A few doors from her apartment, a form leaped from the shadows.
Even now, several weeks on, knowing what she knew, Tam’s mind shut down as it had at the time, allowing in only shards of memory. Blurred images of dark shifting shapes muffled by a clouded moon. Footsteps and grunts. Confrontational talk amongst several men. A confused sense they were looking for someone. Words like dyke, slut and what a waste hurled like fists and feet. Moistness, moistness everywhere—saliva, sweat, blood. Moistness in the air portending rain that Tam begged to come and end the assault.
The last few minutes, though, she remembered with horrifying clarity. Facedown in a shallow puddle. The third man pinning her down while one breathed heavily nearby and another laughed harshly. Inhaling clammy, muddy water. She sputtered and squirmed. Wrenched her head to the side, scraping mud into her eye and mouth. “I can’t breathe,” she pleaded. “Please let me breathe.”
“Eat mud, you freak lesbo whore,” the man said, his voice repulsed and excited, growly and impatient. He stopped pumping and tunneled his fingers through her black hair in a bizarre simulation of a scalp massage. Gripped her head in both hands. Yanked her head back before forcing it forward again. “You’re dirty inside and out now.”
She held her breath as her face splashed into the puddle. When her attacker’s attention turned back to his own movements, she dragged her chin forward in the mud to keep her nose above the puddle, snot dripping into the foul water.
After minutes? An hour? Pounding rain scattered her attackers. Tam rolled from the puddle and lay there, the water cleansing her clothes, skin and hair in tiny rivulets. But nothing could wash away the putrid disgust and blind anger the men heaved upon her so liberally. Tam allowed their disgust to worm inside of her, knowing one way or another it would end up there in the dark interior of her soul anyway. It would congregate with the ignominious insults, side-eyed suspicion and caustic hate accumulated during her childhood and her years out of the closet. Tonight’s sheer utter blatant assault on her body mind and spirit almost seemed the inevitable inalienable conclusion, the grand finale, of all the lesser attacks she’d withstood to date. As if life were preparing her for this all along.
She pushed herself up, hands squashing in the soft earth. She zombie-walked the remaining fifty feet to her apartment, splayed hands held out from her sides, safe from the mud dripping off her fingers.
#
“Tam, look who I found.”
Kari towed Dash into the living room. A white moth followed, riding the door’s sudden indraft, lured away from its brethren mesmerized by the porch light. Kari shut the door against the night’s now rain-free but still damp air. Blue lights circled the room, refracted by the bow window. A female police officer next to Tam rose from the couch and went outside.
“He was standing across the street,” Kari said.
Dash dropped to his knees before Tam. “I wasn’t sure if I should come in. What’s going on? Were you in an accident?” He squinted at her split lip, touched a mauve bruise on her cheekbone.
She slumped toward him and released a cloudburst of tears.
“I was attacked on the way home. By three—at least three men.”
“What?! Motherfuckers! I’ll kill them. Did you see them? Are you okay?”
She shook her head then nodded. Kari came to Tam’s side. “Can I get you something? Tea?”
“I’ve got this. Give us some space,” Dash commanded.
Kari winced, looked at Tam who nodded, and went upstairs.
“What did the police say?” he asked.
Tam stared at the wall across the room. “Not much. I can’t identify them. It was dark and they had balaclavas on.” Her chest rose and fell. “They want me to go to the clinic for a forensic exam.”
“Hm. Looks to me like you’d be better off getting some rest and maybe doing that tomorrow.” He swallowed. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She shook her head. “I’ve bled enough for now.”
His eyes widened. “Where else are you bleeding? Where?”
“Inside. I’m bleeding inside.”
He stayed with her for three days, drawing baths, steeping tea, reading poetry. In his arms, she slowly regained some semblance of security. Inner peace, however, would never return to its previous level, having taken yet another hit, making her wonder what remnants of peace would remain when she reached thirty or fifty or eighty.
#
“I’ll never hurt you. I want you to know that,” Dash said as he stroked Tam’s forehead. She had returned to classes that day, a week after the attack, but her strong exterior crumbled when she and Dash crossed her threshold at four o’clock. They’d been lying in her bed since then, fully clothed, Dash gently stroking different parts of her body in sequence—her arm, her back, now her brow. “What can I do to make this better?”
Tam shifted onto her side and pushed her bottom back against him. His arm reached over her. She grabbed his hand and held it under her chin.
“Nothing will make that better. But I want us to get even better. I’ve been thinking.” She had in fact been thinking, about a possible future with Dash—which was far preferable to fixating on that night—and what requirements she had for that future. “I won’t ask you to come to any more Pride Union meetings. God knows, that’s dangerous. But will you come to a rally with me tonight? I want to go. I need to fight more for what’s important.”
“You’re going to a rally tonight? Really?” Concern coated his voice.
“Focusing on the big picture seems like a good idea about now.”
Her back moved with his deep inhale and exhale.
“What’s it for? Gay rights?”
“Environmental justice.”
He wriggled closer, his body heat seeping into her. “Sure, that’s important. I’m in.” His groin inched against her lower back.
Tam smiled sadly. “Seems like you want in in more ways than one.”
He pulled his crotch back. “Too soon?”
She rolled over to face him. “A little. But don’t worry. We’ll get back there. Dash?” She stared into his eyes, getting used to her inability to decipher their mysteries. “I know it’s early days, but I’m falling for you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Tam thought his eyes watered a bit before he shut them. “Same, Tamarind.”
She kissed each of his closed eyelids in turn.
#
Dash’s passion for activism delighted Tam—together, they got increasingly engaged in the college’s environmental justice club. Never LGBTQ issues, but Tam was pretty sure he was one-hundred-percent hetero after all. Maybe the frat incident was a case of mistaken identity.
He turned protective, insisting on walking her home personally after nighttime meetings, concerned when she went out with girlfriends. He wanted to know where she was at all times, which she found oddly comforting since the attack.
Dash accepted her. All of her, from her unwillingness to discuss her childhood to her tendency to talk to her plants.
“My Dash.” She kissed his hand. They sat on a bench on the sunny quad, Dash perusing the people who passed, Tam focused on him. “Dash,” she repeated as if dissecting the word with her tongue. “You’re an English major. What’s the official meaning of a dash in writing? A pause? A waiting? A held breath. A change in direction.” She laughed.
His intense gaze made her wriggle in her seat. “Which one am I?”
“You’re the start of a new thought. The edge of the cliff I went over when I met you. In a good way.”
“Hmm. What does Tamarind mean?”
“It’s a spice.”
“So, if you put us together, you get a dash of tamarind—the perfect addition to any recipe.”
They laughed at their gooey, mawkish sentimentality, turning heads on the quad.
#
Then it all crashed down. Tam had kissed Dash goodbye at the student center entrance before the next Pride Union meeting. The second she got inside, Anthony stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“You know him?” His voice was constrained, tight. “Never mind. Of course you do. You just kissed him.” He pulled her aside. “We’ve been friends since freshman year. You trust me, right Tam?”
Tam nodded slowly.
“We have to talk. Dash isn’t what you think he is.”
Tam cocked her head. “I know he’s conflicted about his sexuality if that’s what you mean. But you know as much as I do how common that is.”
“No. That’s not it.”
He led her to a bench at the side of the lobby and proceeded to tear her life apart sentence by sentence.
She went into the meeting, not wanting to walk home alone, not ready to confront Dash. None of the meeting discussion penetrated her brain, which was busy attempting to complete the blanks in Anthony’s story and coming up empty.
#
“That’s not dark enough. Let’s use a Sharpie.”
Dash squinted at Jay. “Are you sure? That shit’s hard to get off. I’ll be branded for days.”
“It needs to show up to work.” Jay dug a black Sharpie out of the desk drawer in the fraternity’s office and carefully traced ‘faggot’ on Dash’s chest.
“Hurry up. It doesn’t need to be a work of art. I want to get this over with.” Dash’s nerve threatened to desert him. He was so close to being admitted to the college’s most coveted frat. He just had to get through this latest test.
“Don’t be such a wuss. Have fun with it.”
“Letting people think I’m gay is not my idea of fun.”
Jay glowered at him. “Do you want a bid from us or not? Just do what I say. You can wear a hat if you’re so nervous about being recognized.”
“What if someone says something? Reports us?”
Jay shook his head and laughed. “None of these guys will talk about tonight. Trust me.”
Dash threw on his faded, light blue Oxford shirt, cuffs artfully frayed, and left it partially unbuttoned to reveal “aggo”. He grabbed a baseball hat embroidered with the university’s logo and shuffled into the mix of drunken students in the frat’s double-sized front room, where high-decibel music and shouted, non-sensical conversations competed for air in the stuffiness. Immediately, he recognized someone. He lowered the visor of the hat and moved on.
Down a hallway off the great room, he exited via a side door, slumped on the short staircase to the side yard, made sure some of the writing on his chest was visible, and waited.
“Holy shit, what happened?”
A buff football-player-looking dude walked up to the bottom of the steps. Dash stared at his feet. His leg jiggled. The guy slid the placard of Dash’s shirt aside, his fingernail sending a shiver across Dash’s chest.
“Looks like they got you. I heard this frat was full of gay-bashers but the other guys on the team wanted to come.” His eyes settled on Dash’s with concern, then darted away. “I’m Tony. Why are you still here if they did this to you?”
Dash let his eyes zip around the yard as if nervously searching among the small clusters of people. “I’m just waiting for my friend so we can go. He said he’d be right back. But I think he’s blowing me off.” Dash waited until he could snag Tony’s gaze. “Wanna get out of here?”
Tony scanned the yard around them with what Dash knew was feigned casualness. Turning back to Dash, he pulled his lips between his teeth and nodded.
Dash led him to a shed far behind the frat house, cloistered in trees. As they reached the door, laughter floated out to them.
“Whoa, dude, there’s people in there.”
Dash grabbed Tony’s hand. “It’s okay. They’re like us.”
He guided Tony across the threshold, a hand on the small of the football player’s back.
“Score!” yelled two of the eight men in the shed, their arms shooting in the air like gridiron referees.
“That didn’t take long.”
“He’s a natural!”
Tony’s nervous smile froze. He turned to go but the men surrounded him. Four held him down while the other four pummeled him. Then they switched. Dash watched from the sidelines, thighs itching, fingers twitching, breath erratic. He wasn’t allowed in on the fun because he wasn’t a brother yet.
Ten minutes later, Dash and the frat’s treasurer propelled an unstable Tony out of the shed and through the lilac bushes bordering the yard. They shoved him into the cross street and laughed when he stumbled to his knees.
Two victims later, Dash was slapped heartily on the back and relieved of his pledging duties.
Savoring the beer he’d denied himself earlier—he hadn’t wanted to be so drunk he couldn’t perform his task—he scanned the women on the dance floor. After picking out a primary target plus a backup, he went outside to take a leak first. All the usual dark spots were occupied so he traveled the sidewalk past a few other houses.
He sauntered down the driveway of a house-turned-student-apartments, faced the hedge lining the driveway, and reached for his zipper. His head snapped forward before he registered the loud smack of something hard hitting his skull and searing pain radiating from the point of impact. He fell face-first into the hedge and was dragged back by hands on both his arms. Pointed holly leaves scrabbled at his hair and beard, scratching his face. Two well-placed punches to the kidneys took his breath away, bent him double. His assailants turned him around and propped him up. Tony’s inscrutable face stared back at him. Emotionless. Tony gave the slightest of headshakes and launched an uppercut to Dash’s jaw. Dash’s eyes clamped shut as his head shot back. Blows pelted down like the proverbial rain. Muscles screamed. Blood spurted. But never a spoken insult. As if the men were simply taking care of business.
When Dash could move again, he opened his good eye. Nobody there. He eased onto all fours, then up, moving weakly to the street and away from the frat. Twice he stopped to let his vision steady. Near the end of the block, he swayed off the sidewalk. His foot slipped in the night-damp grass and the rest of him followed. He thumped ass-first into a ditch between the sidewalk and street. His chin rested on his heaving chest.
“Little too much to drink?” chimed a voice from above.
#
“We’re unbreakable,” Dash had said when she confronted him at his dorm.
“I was wrong. Nothing is unbreakable,” she’d replied as a sharp pain raced through her chest. Her mind processed the pain, raising possibilities for its origin in rapid succession. Was she in pain because she’d been fooled? Conflicted because maybe Anthony was mistaken and she was throwing away the best relationship she’d ever had? Afraid because Dash could hurt others so callously? She hung her head. The pain of shame most likely. Shame that she’d loved him. Shame for being so wrong.
“I’m a good guy, Tam. You can’t do this.” His eyes took on that little boy disappointment and, worse, a betrayed man’s agony. He clutched her hand and held fast when she tried to yank it back.
“You’re not who I thought you were. Anthony told me what you did. That night of the frat party.” Bitterness crept over the sadness in her voice. “I thought you were hurt because of who you are.” A hoarse laugh escaped her. “Ha. I guess you were–it just wasn’t what I thought.”
The sorrow in his eyes retreated behind something hard. He stood and circled the tiny dorm room, stopping at the window before spinning back toward her, blue eyes black.
“Anthony’s that blockhead football player, isn’t he. The one I saw at the Pride meeting—he told you about the frat party. Asshole.” His seething words formed accusations, not questions.
Her heart sank into her gut, which rolled over. “So you admit it. You weren’t the victim. You were bait.” She stood and moved toward the door. “I kept hoping that somehow, it wasn’t true.”
“You can’t leave yet.” Steel girded his voice. “We’re not done.”
“Yes. We are.”
She fled from the iciness seeping out of his cold eyes.
He didn’t follow, but relief, regret and melancholy trailed her down the corridor.
Anthony waited outside the dorm, staring at the clock on his phone.
“Finally. You okay?”
Tam nodded and turned for home, Anthony’s arm brushing hers every few steps.
#
After watering her plants, she filled her old-fashioned copper kettle and put it on the stove for tea, tossing “bye” over her shoulder when Kari passed on her way to the library. Anthony had wanted to hang a while, but she’d pushed him out, wanting to be alone in her post-break-up funk.
She plodded to the couch to wait for the water to boil and pulled a quilt tightly around herself, like a protective chrysalis in turquoise, cobalt and sky. A few tears dropped onto the taut fabric and quivered before disappearing into the threads.
Dash’s voice thundered through the wooden front door. She jolted upright.
“Tamarind! Let me in!”
She unraveled herself from the blanket and stumbled, nearly tripping, to the door. As she reached for the deadbolt, his rage reverberating through the wood, the doorknob jiggled and turned.
He pushed his way in and loomed over her. She shrank back.
“Leave me alone, Dash. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I ought to kill that faggot football player.”
His hate fired her up and masked the numbness traveling through her body. “At least he didn’t lie to me! You lied to me. All along. And I felt sorry for you!”
His face twisted. His tone softened into a submissive whine. “Give me another chance, Tam. I’m sorry for anything I did wrong. I don’t like who I am when I’m not with you. I love you completely. Inside and out. Take me back.”
“I just can’t, Dash.” She swiped her eye with the back of her hand. “Go.”
He studied her, eyes searching. When she didn’t move or react, his eyes closed off, like a lizard’s third eyelid drawing across the cornea. Pleading was replaced by something dull. Muted. Dead, almost.
She stepped back.
“No.” He matched her step, pushed her onto the couch and flipped her onto her stomach before she knew what hit her. “Like I said before, we’re not done yet.” His voice shifted into a chilling timber new to her. She couldn’t see his eyes but knew she wouldn’t recognize them if she could. Trembling, she tried to get up.
He straddled her, pinning her to the couch. His knee dug into her back. His hands tunneled through her hair, yanked her head back, then shoved it deep into the couch cushion. “Eat mud, you freak lesbo whore.”
The kettle screeched in the background.