Author's Note: Sometimes I write things that make me want to light myself on fire. Sometimes I wonder why I write.

For the purpose of this story, I took some liberties in making up locations in and around Bianca's campus.

HUGE HUGE HUGE thanks to jay-ell-gee who helped me brainstorm this story and iron out the details, basically co-writing this story with me. She is LOVELY! =)

Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)

Tumblr: welldeservedobscurity

I.

The heater in her dorm was so old and loud that it made it impossible to hear anything. Whenever she listened to music or Skyped Drew, she had to wear headphones to drown out the roar. Whenever she got a phone call, she had to take it outside to the hallway because the noise on her end made it impossible for whoever was calling to hear her. Sometimes it woke her up in the middle of the night, and sometimes it was too hard to ignore when she tried to fall asleep.

But after almost six months of living here, she didn't think much of it anymore. It was only at certain times, like when she was alone for the weekend when Caroline was visiting her boyfriend, or if she just woke up after a midday nap, that she remembered it was even there at all. The bang and clatter, the rattle and wheeze of the old unit just kept going, and after a few weeks of listening to it cough like an asthmatic she and Caroline had more or less gotten used to it being there. It was a constant background presence, a white noise soundtrack that slowly became the pulse to her life here.

It was only when Drew visited that she was reminded of its presence. He never went a visit without complaining at least three or four times that the noise bugged him, and whenever they shared her narrow dorm bed she felt him moving beside her all night, restless and irritated, with the ventilator sputtering above them. He didn't sleep well the nights he was with her, when they slept.

Sometimes she let her mind wander, and the hum was all she heard. It shook the silence, filled up the empty space.

II.

The blue stars hung from the windowsill of the deli. They rippled and twisted in the open-door gust, and the sun reflecting off of them blinded her eyes. She ended up sliding around the table until her back was to the door. She stared at the countertop instead of looking out the window, at the sky low and heavy. Ready for rain.

Because her back was turned, she didn't see the woman until she was waiting in line at the counter, and then it wasn't until she heard her sobbing that Bianca actually looked up to acknowledge the woman in the tan rain slicker.

The cashier was taking her order for a cranberry turkey club and Bianca was stirring her untouched sweet tea when the cell phone went off. A popular radio song, though Bianca couldn't place the tune right then, and wouldn't remember it enough later.

The woman grabbed the phone from her purse, and answered it with the words, "the baby died".

Bianca looked up, and the woman was sobbing. The cashier looked baffled, and the woman in the tan slicker stood at the counter and cried.

There wasn't any context given, just those words. The woman took her To-Go Boxed order and left the deli, and the cashiers looked at each other in uneasy silence, unsure of what to make of the woman with a tan rain slicker who had a dead baby somewhere in her life.

Bianca stood up. Left a ten dollar tip for a six dollar meal, and left.

III.

The rain started coming down as she got closer to campus. There was, though, a rainbow off in the distance, a glimmer of color knotted in the shadowy sky. From where she stood, it looked like it was shining right over her dorm. She frowned.

She went straight for the stairwell instead of waiting for the elevator, right upstairs to the room that had her and Caroline's names written on construction paper tulips made by Kimberly, their RA. There was also a little white board Caroline brought stuck to the door that said WE ARE ALMOST THERE! GOOD LUCK! written in Caroline's frantically enthusiastic blue scrawl. Someone had stolen their marker again, Bianca noticed.

When she went inside, she found him sitting on her newly-made bed. She saw the vinyl sack that had held her new bedsheets poking out of her trash can. Drew was turning down the comforter, smoothing his fingers over the dark purple fabric. She wondered what color he'd picked out.

He looked up, eyes looking at her like she wasn't fully there; like something was missing that he hadn't realized was a part of her until he noticed it was no longer there.

"You're wet," he said.

She peeled off her jacket, kicked off her muddy shoes and socks. He watched her the whole time as she kicked the mess of her wet clothes away in the corner.

"You should probably go," she said, finally. She memorized the tiles on her floor, searching for a pattern, her hands on her hips.

Drew didn't move or blink. "You want me to?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Not much of a point in you staying now."

Another silence, punctuated by the hum and click of the heater. Silence was never barren here.

"I have to study," she said. "You should go."

He nodded, but made no move to leave.

"Need help?"

"No."

He drummed his fingers on the edge of her desk.

"Okay," is all he said.

He got up, put his jacket back on. Grabbed his keys, walked to the door. Stopped, turned, stood in front of her.

Bent down to kiss.

They stared at each other. The heater clicked, belched, filling the ocean between them.

"I'll see you," he murmured.

Bianca nodded.

It seemed to take him the rest of the year to cross the rest of her dorm. When he got to the door, he turned and looked at her one more time.

She looked back at him, and then he was gone. She was alone, with the heater, the tiles, and her ocean. And the new sheets, scratchy and unused, under the comforter but still there, waiting for her.

IV.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but when she woke up the air was buzzing like something alive in the cavernous dark. Her phone was on the edge of her desk, and she blearily grabbed for it, trying to look at the screen. No missed calls, no messages.

Bianca looked out the window. Rain still fell. The raindrops chased each other down the windowsill on the blurry glass. She read somewhere that insects could weave in and out between raindrops and never get hit. She wasn't sure if it was true, but imagined it was.

The sheets were too scratchy, and they made it hard to sleep. Bianca kicked off the comforter, tried to warm herself up. They were an ugly color, and they made her skin feel too rough. But Drew had gotten them for her without being told. He just knew, like he knew to get rid of the old ones and not tell her where.

She was glad he thought of that. She was glad Drew was the type to clean up bloodstains.

Another wave of cramps in her stomach tightened like a fist, aching and pulling at the new emptiness. She closed her eyes, pressed her forehead against the cold glass. Imagined zooming in between the raindrops, small enough to dart between each one, never being hit.

V.

She and Jill went for pancakes for dinner, after spending all day studying for their Victorian History test. Bianca always liked this place – it looked like it belonged in a history book, with the cracked vinyl booths and the shiny chrome finishings, the jukebox that played old songs that belonged in movies with poodle skirts, the onion rings and the ketchup that came in glass bottles. She and Drew came here for breakfast a lot, when he came to visit her.

"They're playing our song," he once said, when Elvis came from the jukebox. He'd wiggled his eyebrows, tried to coax her into dancing on the black-and-white checkered floor, giving her a little spin among the Sunday morning brunchers. She'd rolled her eyes.

"You're such a doof," she'd said. Threw a French toast stick at him, just to make her point. Laughed.

He hadn't. He'd looked disappointed.

Bianca spun the carousel filled with sugar packets. A little too hard; it nearly toppled.

Outside, rain still fell at a steady, drumming pace. It seemed to hum along with her heartbeat. She closed her eyes and again imagined being that insect –untouchable, hovering in the sky with nothing but its own wings and will to hold it up, darting through the silver needles and never being struck down.

Jill ordered coffee for them, and a stack of pancakes. Bianca took a sip from the coffee, then almost gagged – she forgot to add sugar.

Jill sliced into her pancakes and grinned.

"You know what the one perk of having a million exams at once is?" she asked. "Getting so stressed out that you don't feel bad about eating, like, everything bad. I don't even care that this stuff basically destroys your body." She took a big bite dripping with syrup. "It's so fucking good and shit."

Bianca nodded. She opened a packet of Sweet n' Low, but instead of stirring it into her coffee, she poured it onto the table, then dabbed her finger in the crystals. She licked it off slowly, staring out the window at the rain.

Jill watched her. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Bianca spun the sugar packet carousel once more. One time she and Drew came here, they had played some variation of 52 Pick-Up with the Equal and Sweet & Low, giggling like little kids. Drew had spilled his Coke. The waiter had given them a dirty look. That was a different time than the time with Elvis on the jukebox.

Jill furrowed her brows, fork paused mid-air. "The table's probably got, like, a million viruses on it."

Bianca dabbed the crystals with her finger.

"Hey. Earth to Bee." Jill frowned, waving her fork in her face. "Everything all right?"

Bianca stared at her glassy reflection in the mirror of her coffee cup. She wondered how much of it she had put away in the last few weeks. The amount of all-nighters she had pulled, all the junk food and caffeine, the lack of exercise. All because she had a few tests to take.

She completely fucked her body up, these last few weeks.

A fierce tremor went through her hands. She gasped, couldn't control it. Hot coffee sloshed in her lap.

"Shit," she swore, too loudly. It wasn't even that hot, but the stain was already spreading on her pink pants.

"Shit," Jill echoed, grabbing napkins and handing them to Bianca. "Are you okay?"

Bianca dapped uselessly at the stain. Finally, she threw the napkins aside. Shoved her trembling hands in her lap, then slipped them under her thighs. The sweat on her palms clung to the vinyl seats, like skin in a car on a hot day.

"Bianca!" Jill said, sounding worried this time. "Are you okay?"

Bianca pushed the rest of her coffee cup away. "I'm not hungry."

VI.

Caroline was putting new pictures of her Spring Break trip to Costa Rica on the wall above her bed when Bianca got back from class. Bianca scanned the dozens – seemed like hundreds – of photos that lined Caroline's wall, right above the headboard. They were slightly crinkled at the edges, but everywhere she looked above Caroline's bed there were faces smiling back at her – some of them Caroline's, some her boyfriend Mitch's, some her parents Bianca had met when she moved in, others friends she didn't know and would never meet. There were dozens of locations, some local and some Bianca couldn't place, but there were others she knew – the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, the Golden Gate Bridge.

She stopped in the doorway, scanning the mural of Caroline's life.

"New pics?" she said, unnecessarily.

Caroline grinned. "My boyfriend's mom emailed me a ton from our trip. Like I didn't take a million on my phone."

It used to freak Bianca out, especially when she first moved in – all those faces staring back at her, frozen smiles and awkward expressions – but mostly, it reminded Bianca of what she didn't have. Who she was, and who she wasn't.

She looked down at her ringless finger, then back at Caroline's wallpaper of faces.

She found a new picture of Caroline and her boyfriend, Mitch, standing in front of a waterfall. Mitch had his arms around her waist, and Caroline was kissing his cheek, wearing one of Mitch's baseball caps on backwards.

"Looks like you guys had a lot of fun," Bianca said.

Caroline nodded. "It was great. You would love it there. They have THE most gorgeous beaches, and the zip lines are soooo much fun. We even convinced my dad to get on one. I thought he was gonna pass out, but he did it."

Bianca nodded, looking at each of the photos in turn. Caroline's smile seemed brighter in these pictures, her eyes shining. She looked young. She looked excited.

A jolt went through Bianca, except she didn't move. She felt young, just looking at these. Looking at Caroline and Mitch, backlit by the Costa Rican rain forest, made her feel younger than she remembered ever being.

She WOULD like Costa Rica. And France. And Italy. There was a whole world out there that she could go to.

She could hop on a plane right now, she realized. It made her feel almost breathless. Disappear. Leave her scratchy clean sheets and the loud heater behind. She'd run on the sand and jump headfirst into the ocean. She would be horribly sunburn and have to sleep on her stomach. She would get drunk off colorful drinks with foofey umbrellas and names that sounded like crayon colors. Dance the entire night under a fat island moon. She'd stand under the stars and open her arms towards the world. Be breathless and young, so full.

She tried to sleep that night on the scratchy clean sheets, but dreamed about the ocean instead.

An entire life was waiting to be lived. She felt young and untethered, breathless, able, full.

When she woke up, the cramp in her empty belly returned. She grabbed her phone, charging on the corner of her desk, and tried to see if it was vibrating, or if her hands were what couldn't stop shaking.

VII.

It had been raining for days, but now things were starting to dry out. She sat on the campus green on a spread-out beach towel, staring up at the clouds.

She could fall asleep here, under this sky. There was sunshine dusted her shoulders, a cool breeze in her face. She hadn't slept in days. She didn't like her bed anymore, didn't like the scratchy bloodless sheets and the comforter Audra bought and the rattle of the heater, filling her space, her pauses.

Drew hadn't called her, and she hadn't called him. She didn't like to think about him, so she thought about psychology instead. Empiricism, Charles Darwin, introspection, developmental psychology, 1879. Blank notecards with her writing scrawled on them like something important. Words that were supposed to mean something, but didn't. They couldn't stay with her.

She traced her loopy handwriting on the card marked structuralism.

It's not like she ever wanted it, anyway. She made the appointment, had the date saved. Drew didn't want to go through with it, but it wasn't his choice. He hadn't even wanted it, either. So the date was made, scrawled on the calendar she had on the dresser in her dorm room, and she was going to go through with it. This wasn't what she wanted.

She laid on her stomach on the towel she'd spread out, and winced when she turned over onto her chest. Her breasts were still sore. She didn't know why. They felt too hard and heavy, not a part of her that she remembered. Her clothes didn't fit the same way, either, her jeans too tight on her and her shirts too stretched over the front. She felt too heavy; her skin was not her skin.

Bianca ran over the list of terms on her study guide again, and couldn't remember any of them. Their meanings floated just beyond the tip of her tongue.

Her breasts hurt too much to sit like this for long. She flipped over on her back, the hard ground digging into her spine. She stared straight up at the sun, closed her eyes. Colors exploded behind her vision in the blackness. She closed her eyes and tried to drift through it. She had blocked out the appointment sketched on her calendar, painted it out in heavy strokes of black marker until she couldn't see the words anymore but it didn't matter, because she still knew they had once been there and that's how it would always be.

VIII.

She can't sleep on these sheets. They're too clean. Too cold, too scratchy. There's no warmth in them, no memory, no worn grooves from her body molded into the fabric or smell of something other than the wrappings they were packed in when Drew bought them from Target. They smelled like sleeping in a hospital gown, or a morgue.

She threw them down the trash chute after the fourth night. Covered the naked mattress with her comforter, smoothed away the wrinkles obsessively, until each petal looked vibrant. She closed her eyes and curled into a ball on the top of the sheets. Maybe she'd look like she was falling asleep in a bed of flowers.

The cold from outside beat against her window. She put her hand against the glass, waited for her fingers to go numb. Her stomach tightened like a punch to the gut, and the hollow, gutted feeling afterward. Like scooping away the insides of a pumpkin. She tried to breathe, and matched the heater's stutter and gasp instead.

IX.

"Hey."

He called her, the first time in six days. It's the longest they'd gone without speaking to each other since getting engaged. Both of them knew it and pretended not to.

"Just…" she could hear him sighing heavily, could picture the slump of his shoulders, the shadows and valleys of his face. She wondered if people could see the shadows and know what they replaced, what used to be there, where now only a gaping nothing remained.

"I know you have that paper due tomorrow," he said. "So you don't have to call me back or anything."

"Nothing's wrong," he added. "I just…wanted to hear your voice. But don't worry about it."

She closed her eyes, listening to the white noise of his breathing through the miles.

She could just make out what he was trying to say but wouldn't, because neither of them could. It sounded like scratchy new bedsheets and not knowing what happened to the bloodstained ones; throwing her old pajamas down the dorm trash chute and wrapping herself in the rumpled sweats Drew had brought; scratching the appointment time off her desktop calendar in black permanent marker but still being able to see it through the marks. Throwing away the scratchy new bedsheets and lying in the cold, watching another day slowly bleed into black.

"Anyway," he said. She could hear his eyes closing, see him running a hand over his tired face. "I love you. Just, wanted you to know that."

She closed her own eyes, feeling dizzy.

"I love you," he said, and then it was over.

X.

Fiona called her directly from Italy, and Bianca flipped through the dozen and a half photos on her Facerange profile, photos from Fiona's life in Venice. It looked like a fantasy, but Fiona joked that it was cheaper to live in Heaven.

"How is everything with you and Drew?"

Bianca flipped the page of her geology textbook so hard it almost ripped. A papercut seared itself across her thumb.

"Shit," she said. Beads of blood streaked down her finger. Bianca watched, mesmerized, as it got bigger and bigger.

"What?"

"Nothing. What did you say?"

Fiona hesitated. "Is now a bad time?"

"No." Bianca grabbed a piece of paper out of her printer and dabbed her finger. She stared at the smears of blood on the untouched surface. "What were you saying?"

"There is SO much going on, I feel like I never get a moment to breathe around here!" Fiona laughed. "When am I going to see you guys? This is exactly where you should be. Europe is calling, Bianca DeSousa!"

Bianca tried to picture Fiona talking. She saw Drew instead.

Fiona sighed somewhere across the continents. "I miss you guys. Italy is beautiful. You would love it here. Got any summer plans? Like, say, a visit to a certain foreign country to visit a certain ex-roomie of your man's who also helped plan you two's wedding?"

Bianca could hear the smile in Fiona's voice. "We could."

She closed her eyes.

Italy was very beautiful. When Fiona hung up, Bianca listening to the dial tone. Tonight, she wanted to dream of the ocean. She stared at the blood streaked across her palm.

XI.

She was leaving her geology class with Breanna and Jill, stepping out of the lecture hall and into the union, when the music blasted them. Someone had set up a booth, a stereo, a few volunteers in white shirts passing out little packets Bianca couldn't make out. They saw a bunch of guys batting what looked like giant tan balloons up in the air, shouting and cat-calling as they hit them towards each other.

Breanna wrinkled her nose when she saw them.

"Seriously?" she groaned. "Are they all ten years old?"

Bianca looked harder at one of the balloons as it drifted closer to her. She realized what they were blowing up – condoms.

The volunteers all wore shirts that said "Stay Positive!" as they handed out little brochures – "How To Stay Sex Positive & Have A Safe Summer!" – with the packets of free condoms. Campus Health Initiative had gone a little overboard the past few weeks, giving them out almost like school pens and free food at almost every campus event, along with the pamphlets. They put the same words up on the sign outside the wellness clinic on campus.

Bianca had found her own information packet and two condoms in a small bag outside her room earlier that afternoon. Volunteers from the CHI had been passing them out in the dorms, apparently. She'd ripped them off her door and thrown them straight down the trash chute, overwhelmed with a fury she could not name.

Jill rolled her eyes. "The library will be too noisy if this is going on."

Breanna nodded. "Yeah, let's go to my room."

Bianca's eyes were glued to one of the "balloons". It slowly drifted towards her, like it was trying to find her.

Breanna was calling her as they headed towards the dorm. "Bee, let's go."

Bianca watched the tan cloud drift further toward her. She watched it bounce through the air, landing close to her feet. She stabbed at it with the heel of her shoe. Instead of bursting, it it kept slipping out from underneath her. Finally she grabbed it with her hand and tried to pop it herself, but the slippery rubber refused to budge.

The guys who had been blowing up the condom-balloons were laughing, whistling, some pointing, some yelling – but most just staring at her, like they thought she'd completely lost her mind. Maybe she had, but that hardly registered.

"Bianca!" Apparently the guys weren't the only ones watching, because Jill and Breanna were staring at her with open mouths. "What are you doing?"

Now you decide to not break, she muttered to herself, her teeth gritted. Her head spun a little as she tried, again and again and again, biting her lip. Son of a bitch.

The thought made her almost dizzy, and suddenly she couldn't stop laughing. She just poked, and poked, and poked, and tried to force the bubble to burst. Instead it just squeaked in her hands, so she just kept trying, and the harder she tried the more she laughed, and found herself gasping as she tried to controlling her hiccupping spurts of hysteria.

She knew people were staring, but it wasn't until Breanna gently touched her arm, as if she was a crazy person, that Bianca looked up.

"Umm, Bee?" Breanna said, worried. Her brows were knitted together. "You, uh, okay?"

Bianca didn't respond. She threw the balloon down on the ground, and finally stamped on it with full force, until it exploded with a startling pop that made everyone who could hear her over the music turn her way.

The boys broke into applause.

"Someone likes it rough!" one of them called.

Jill glared at them. Breanna called something Bianca didn't hear. The boys jeered again, some of them making faces, gestures.

Bianca stared at the broken bits of rubber, then just laughed harder. Doubled over and buried her hands in her lap, unable to catch her breath, as she wheezed into her hands, shaking from laughter.

There were footsteps, and a hand on her shoulder she could barely feel. Bianca kept her face in her hands. Her hands felt wet, her eyes itching, and when she tried to breathe, it came out wet, and filled with salty bitterness. Like she was trapped in a riptide, with salt water waves washing over her again, and again, and again, dragging her farther out to sea.

XII.

She hadn't been this drunk in a long time. Not in years, she thought, but maybe she was wrong. And never on wine. Always gin, vodka, whiskey if they were lucky. Tequila, if Owen could smuggle it without his parents knowing. But never wine. Bianca SeSousa was no wine-sipper, she reflected, as she poured herself another cup.

Wine tasted different from any other alcohol she'd ever had before. It was like swallowing glass after glass after glass of rotted fruit. Or ice so cold it filled the hollow inside her with a flame. Or like forcing herself to dwell in a bitter memory.

Her tongue felt too heavy for her mouth, her eyes like they were sliding off her face. It was like sinking, like being dragged by her numb throat and iron-weight arms. She didn't like it, she decided. But filled her coffee cup anyway, and took another swig, chugging down the bitterness that was filling her with rotten flames, crumbling away the insides like ash.

She hated this. But took another cup, and then another, and then waited until it came up in the bathroom. The freezing tiles dug into her knees, the bowl slippery around her hands. The haze in her head cleared and left her heart pounding as she retched, but it was nice to feel something other than the heaviness she carried around, for once – it made it feel less important. She had a hard time holding onto it here, flushed out by the smell of bleach and lemon and sour vomit.

Another ripple ran through her, another heave, another purge that left her gasping. With pain or relief, she didn't know.

XIII.

The heater shut off.

As loudly as it banged and clanged and whistled, it roared to silence.

It was a jolt Bianca felt even deep into sleep, and she sat up abruptly, feeling dizzy. The air was too still, the emptiness too much; it was like getting hit with all of space.

She stared up at the vent, but didn't feel anything.

For the first time, she wanted it back. The nothing was suffocating.

XIV.

The doctor at the campus clinic said she was fine. Bianca could find a couple dozen holes in that argument, but medically, at least, nothing was wrong with her. Everything was in place and where it should be, except what wasn't.

The clinic room was freezing. Bianca shivered in the gown they made her change into. They let her keep her socks on, but they didn't stop her feet from feeling like ice. It was as cold in here as it was in her dorm room, though she couldn't hear the heat blasting. The quiet in here was almost stifling, as soon as that heavy wooden exam room door closed.

They had had a bucket of those damn free condoms in the waiting area, with a hand-drawn sign in purple and teal markers that said "FREE TAKE WHAT IS NEEDED! NO SHAME!" with a smiley face drawn. A smiley face. Bianca had stared at her hands in her lap, tried not to scream. "NO SHAME!". Her fists had been clenched so tightly that little half-moons started to appear across her palm. They were still there, and she looked at them, absorbed in the indents in the soft skin.

"Do feel anything else?" the nurse asked her.

Bianca stared at her.

"Cramps?" the nurse prompted. "Nausea? Sharp stomach pains? Anything?"

Bianca blinked.

"Cramps," she said. Her throat was dry. She tried to swallow and almost felt like gagging. "Like I'm on my period."

The nurse nodded. "That's normal. So's the spotting you mentioned. It's all very typical, nothing to worry about."

Bianca would beg to differ, but she nods anyway. There's a taste inside her mouth that she can't wash out.

"Do you have any other questions?" she asked. "Concerns?"

She stared at her hands, crinkled the bottom of her tearing paper gown. It reminded her of the scratchy clean sheets she had thrown out. It made her feel like a paper doll.

"I think I did this," she said. There's a dull thud in admitting that, something she feels tugging inside her. "I was cramming for my exams, staying up all night drinking coffee and eating junk food…I wasn't taking care of myself. It was stupid."

The nurse shook her head. "Most of the time we never know what causes it. It just happens. It's awful, but that's usually the truth. There's really nothing you could have done differently."

"Still." Bianca kicked her legs under the table. "I wasn't helping anything, eating crap and not sleeping right."

The nurse put a hand on her shoulder.

"Bianca," she said. "This isn't something you could have prevented. It's just something horrible that happened. Most of the time we never know what causes it. But you can't make this your fault, because nothing about it is."

Bianca felt the woman's hand on her, clinical and smooth. It was reassuring, she supposed, but the words washed over her without sticking. There was more to all of this than what this woman knew, because Bianca knew who she was.

Briefly, she wondered what it would be like to hear this same spiel from Audra. If that would make this any easier. Then she figured no, because Audra would only be angry; angry and disappointed, with probably a healthy dose of wondering the same thing Bianca was feeling. Audra may not want her and Drew to get started now, but surely one day she'd want to be a grandma.

But Bianca was Bianca. And she let the thought come forward for the first time. You didn't do everything that she did and just get to live and be normal.

She tore her gown off. Stared at her flat stomach, her slim waist. It was probably next to a miracle she even got pregnant this one time. It made sense, that she'd lost it. That she was damaged inside.

XV.

She left the clinic with a prescription for birth control pills and a card pressed into her hand, a number for the university counseling center. Her hands had rebelled taking it from the nurse, but her fingers had closed around it anyway, stiff and heavy. The card curled in her clenched palm from sweat.

She didn't realize it was raining until she stepped in a puddle outside her dorm, and cursed so loudly that two guys walking past her turned to stare. She unstuck her shoe from the mud and went inside, hurrying up the stairs.

She was almost to her room when she realized who was sitting in the hallway by her door. He looked up at her, slowly pulled himself up with no grace or ease. It was like he was old, and moving took a real effort not to break.

She didn't know which of them moved first, but somehow their arms were around each other, clutching each other's shoulders and hanging onto the threads of their wet clothes. Breathing in each other's exhaustion and hollow spaces, their damp, waiting questions, gasping and gripping and leaning, trying to hold each other up.

XVI.

"I wasn't gonna have it."

Drew looked over at her. "I know," he said.

Bianca grabbed the blanket at the edge of her bed and pulled it around her shoulders. Her fingers felt frozen stiff as she pulled it around her.

"I would have gone through with the appointment," she said.

Drew fiddled with the laces of his shoe. "Why are you telling me this now?"

She propped herself against the wall. "Because having it was never an option. Not for me."

"Yeah." Drew leaned back next to her, their shoulders touching. "I know."

He sighed.

"I didn't want to, either," he said. "I wasn't…I didn't want you to have it. I didn't want to be a dad."

"Then why didn't you want me to go through with it?"

Drew ran a hand through his hair.

"Cause I didn't think it was right," he said finally.

Then, he added, "I don't know."

Bianca pulled her knees to her chest. She dug her toes under the comforter, trying to warm them up.

He shook his head. "But I guess now it doesn't matter. It probably would have been better than this, anyway."

She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. She felt Drew take her hand, closing her entire fist in his palm. His hands were warm and dry, the most solid thing she'd held onto in days. It brought the smallest sensations back to her frozen fingers.

"Either way," she said, and then it trailed off because where was it really going, anyway? She bit her lip and didn't know.

For a long time they sat there. The heater clanged above them. The rain hit the windows outside, and the shadows seemed to come alive as they twisted and cut their sleek blades across her tiled floor.

"I keep thinking that this was my only chance," she said.

Drew looked at her. "What?"

She bit her lip. "Having kids."

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't…you didn't want any."

Bianca stared at her knees.

"I might," she said, after a minute. "Someday."

She met his eyes. "With you."

He squeezed her hand tighter. His other arm came up, his hand touching her chin. He gently brought her face level to his. His fingers were so soft on her skin, comfortably calloused, gentle and hard as leather. They were hands of someone who fought and lost, tried and won, held broken things together and let whole things slip through the cracks between his fingers.

"I should hope so," he whispered, and a small grin dimpled the side of his face.

And she almost smiled. Almost wanted to. But then felt her face crumble, and she had to close her eyes, look away from him, hang her head down.

"Bianca." He was so warm, and she felt cold everywhere, somewhere she couldn't warm herself up.

She met his gaze, her eyes stinging.

"What if this is all I get?" she whispered. "And I never get another chance?"

Drew bent his forehead to hers, stroking her damp cheek with his fingers. He used his thumb to wipe the wetness away, and cupped her face gently.

"You don't have to worry about this now," he said. "Okay? It's not like we're gonna try to have a baby tomorrow."

"But we might!" she said. "One day. And what if I can't? Because of this?"

"Then we'll adopt! Or do all the…weird science-y stuff that sticks eggs into people and gets them pregnant. Okay?"

He pulled her into him, pulling her into his arms like she was small.

"We'll figure it out," he whispered. His lips nuzzled her ear. He stroked her hair. "Someday."

He sounded so sure, and it almost convinced her. But then Bianca remembered that she was empty, and it made her hurt, everywhere she never knew it was possible to hurt. She never knew something that wasn't inside you could hurt more than anything that was.

Her eyes squeezed shut.

"I don't know," she mumbled. "I'm just…"

She covered her face with her hands.

"I didn't want it," she mumbled, once again.

Drew's arms wrapped around her, and her head rested on his collarbone.

She couldn't tell if it was her tightening chest or his frantic grip on her that made it impossible to breathe.

"It still sucks," he said, his voice wavering, as he held onto her and knotted his fingers into her hair. "It hurts."

"But I wanted it gone," she said. Her voice came out in stuttering bursts. "I was – "

Relieved –

She stopped herself from saying it. Just barely stopped. She could barely think it without sounding like some sort of…monster.

Relieved, she thought.

I was relieved.

And angry. And ashamed. And confused.

But relieved.

Drew tilted her face up. His eyes were glazed and red, and he pressed their foreheads together, taking a shuddering breath as he tried to steady himself.

"We lost our baby," he said tightly, and sniffled. "I think we're allowed to be sad."

She closed her eyes, pressed her face into his neck.

Relieved –

"We lost our baby"

– I was relieved.

She tried to respond, and ended up letting out a gasp instead. Drew's shaking hand came up, stroking her wet, tangled hair.

"Stop making it harder on yourself," he said tightly. "It hurts enough."

She pressed against the wall, away from him. Curled her knees to her chest, ducked her head away. He put his arms around her, rocked them both. Bianca looked away, face burning, while Drew's wet face soaked her shoulder. They tried to figure out who was breathing for who, then figured it didn't matter.

XVII.

She just barely talked Audra out of coming up to help her move out of the dorms. She and Drew could handle it, and with two cars they'd have more than enough space for all her stuff.

They folded up her comforter. Drew didn't ask where her scratchy clean sheets had gone, just like she didn't ask what he'd done with the bloodstained ones that night.

The heater was still on when she hauled the last of the boxes out of the room. It looked smaller somehow, without all of her and Caroline's stuff. Now it didn't remind her of either of them – Caroline's pink lamp and wall of photos of her friends and family, Bianca's bulletin board and lime green alarm clock. Now it was just two mattresses, two desks, two dressers. A window that looked out at the campus green. It was just an empty space.

Bianca stood in the doorway. She glanced down at the checkerboard of maroon tiles. There was never a pattern, as hard as she tried to make one.

Almost two months since, she knew. It might been noticeable by now, except it didn't matter. She remembered the appointment she was supposed to have kept, blacked out with thick, heavy marker.

Drew touched her shoulder, making her jump.

"Sorry," he said, scratching his head. "Car's all loaded."

She nodded.

He stood next to her, looking into the little room, full of shadows and clicking air. The lack of stuff made the barrenness of the space seem less personal. This could be anybody's room, anybody's space; anybody's nothing.

He bent down, kissed her forehead. Wrapped his arms around her middle.

"Wanna eat before we leave?"

She sighed. "Let's just go."

XVIII.

When the heater in the Torres house clicked on in the middle of the night, Bianca woke up and pulled her clothes back on. She still felt cold all over, even with Drew's football sweatpants and his arms around her to keep her warm.

Drew slept, his arm still around her waist. She put her head to his chest and closed her eyes, trying to find comfort in how steadily his heart beat into her ears. The whole ocean curled into a seashell.

The stars were out, and she watched them. She took astronomy as her first science credit. Stars created themselves against all fate. They would self-destruct in a burst of light in the dark, endless silence of space. But still, they came to life. A whole galaxy, defying explanation.

She remembered the woman in the deli in the tan rain slicker. Her cell phone ringing, "the baby died". She wondered who that baby was. If that woman would be okay.