roommates. Robin was tall and athletic, and the first time I saw her she
was wearing running shorts that were much too short, but I didn’t gape
at her. When I met Jenni she was drinking a Diet Coke. I didn’t stare at
that, either, because I’d seen Charles drink dozens of them.
Robin was the oldest, and for some reason she was sympathetic to
me. Somehow she understood that my missteps came from ignorance,
not intention, and she corrected me gently but frankly. She told me
exactly what I would need to do, or not do, to get along with the other
girls in the apartment. No keeping rotten food in the cupboards or
leaving rancid dishes in the sink.
Robin explained this at an apartment meeting. When she’d finished
another roommate, Megan, cleared her throat.
“I’d like to remind everyone to wash their hands after they use the
bathroom,” she said. “And not just with water, but with soap.”
Robin rolled her eyes. “I’m sure everyone here washes their hands.”
That night, after I left the bathroom, I stopped at the sink in the hall
and washed my hands. With soap.
The next day was the first day of class. Charles had designed my
course schedule. He’d signed me up for two music classes and a course
on religion, all of which he said would be easy for me. Then he’d
enrolled me in two more challenging courses—college algebra, which
terrified me, and biology, which didn’t but only because I didn’t know
what it was.
Algebra threatened to put an end to my scholarship. The professor
spent every lecture muttering inaudibly as he paced in front of the
chalkboard. I wasn’t the only one who was lost, but I was more lost
than anyone else. Charles tried to help, but he was starting his senior
year of high school and had his own schoolwork. In October I took the
midterm and failed it.
I stopped sleeping. I stayed up late, twisting my hair into knots as I
tried to wrest meaning from the textbook, then lying in bed and
brooding over my notes. I developed stomach ulcers. Once, Jenni
found me curled up on a stranger’s lawn, halfway between campus and
our apartment. My stomach was on fire; I was shaking with the pain,
but I wouldn’t let her take me to a hospital. She sat with me for half an
hour, then walked me home.