In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

Chapter 36

February, senior year

The edges were fuzzy, but here’s what I knew: I was a dark goddess, a rageful, vengeful force, slicing through the night. Crossing the streets, away from the Greek houses and toward the administrative offices at the heart of campus. As I strode, I gained a second wind, my steps strong and swift. I passed a group of Chi Os decked out in pink and red, surely on their way to Sweetheart. They laughed and wobbled on slender heels, stopping to take pictures of themselves every ten feet.

I stalked past them and scoffed, loud enough for heads to turn. Imagine thinking the Sweetheart Ball was the most important thing happening. Tonight, when only hours before, lives had been torn asunder and scales had been tipped, injustice seeping out like a poison.

But I would fix it. Restore the balance, right the wrongs—take back what Heather and Dr. Garvey had stolen from me. It was simple, really. An idea the whiskey had unlocked, or maybe the pills—either way, I had a plan. I’d take what was mine. Take a page out of Heather’s book, or Courtney’s, all the powerful girls who got what they wanted.

The Student Affairs office loomed ahead, a small, dark cottage, nonetheless imposing. Inside it, a group of strangers had gathered around a table and made a decision that ripped away the dream I’d worked for.

At the front of the cottage stood tall double doors. I wrenched the handles, heels sliding in the grass, but the doors didn’t budge.

No bother. I moved along the perimeter, a thief in the night, feeling the prickling needles of bushes catch my legs. There had to be another way in. I finished my circle around the cottage, feeling a trickle of sweat creep down the back of my neck. Either the evening was strangely mild for mid-February or the whiskey was at work, warming me against the cold.

But there was no second door. I couldn’t let that stop me. Eyes searching the building, lit faintly by Duquette’s old-fashioned lanterns, I spotted my chance.

A single window, low to the ground.

I tried to pry it open, to jiggle and shimmy the panes, but the window was as securely locked as the door. I would have to dispense with politeness.

It’s funny how the world reshapes itself according to your desires, if you demand it. The wooden placard in front of the office, announcing Student Affairs in scrolling letters, was no longer a sign but a stake, especially once kicked until it snapped. A perfect battering ram.

I took the sign and swung it into the window, relishing the heavy smack it made when it connected with the glass. I laughed as I swung, again and again, almost wishing for an audience, wishing the administrative buildings weren’t tucked away in a part of campus students never bothered with.

The window cracked like it was supposed to. The glass made a musical sound as it fell, half into the bushes, half inside the office.

There. I’d made a door.

I heaved myself up, taking care to place my hands away from the glass shards that still poked like jagged teeth out of the windowsill. Up and over, through the window, landing almost gracefully on a rug inside.

I prowled through the office. So quotidian now that it was dark, the decision-makers gone, leaving behind boring desks and chairs and potted plants. I searched until I found the storage room and, inside, the file cabinet. A drawer labeled—almost comically—Post-Grad Fellowship.

Could this plan work? I felt a quiver of doubt. It had seemed so right in my bedroom. But now, standing in front of this file cabinet, in front of this tower of official documents, all this solid, printed proof of the committee’s decision, my plan seemed flimsy. Childish, a stupid shot in the dark.

No more doubting. I could fix this. I would pull my father out of that hole in the ground and take him with me, up, up, up.

I slid the drawer open. So many files, each labeled with a different student’s name. I found Jessica Miller, pulled it out. Found Heather Shelby, pulled it. Then another caught my eye: 2009 Committee Notes. I grabbed that too.

I opened Heather’s file first and parsed the papers. There it was, on thick Duquette letterhead, from Dr. John Garvey, just like Heather said. In the weak light, I squinted and scanned.

Dear Fellowship Committee, I write in support of an outstanding candidate, Heather Shelby. Heather is not an economics major, and normally I would not write to endorse her, as is my policy. But Heather stands out among my undergraduates. Last semester, she approached me after failing her first exam in my class and asked if I would write her a letter of recommendation for this fellowship if she could prove herself, turn her grade from an F to an A. This was highly unusual, to say the least. Disarmed by her brazenness—and frankly, expecting her to fail—I said yes.

That semester, she worked harder than any student I’ve ever witnessed to turn her grade around. And though she ended my class with a B and not an A, I felt that she proved herself to be intellectually capable. But more than that, Heather is dogged in the pursuit of her goals. She goes after what she wants, and she clearly wants to win this fellowship. It is this single-minded attention to achievement, this ability to hold steadfast in the face of obstacles, that will serve her well in graduate school and life after. And that is why I am wholeheartedly recommending her for this award.

I dropped the letter, stunned. Heather had lied to my face. She’d said she applied on a whim, that Dr. Garvey had approached her, but this letter said the opposite—proved she’d been planning her application, had maybe even wiggled her way into Dr. Garvey’s class in order to get his all-important recommendation.

A second thought punched me in the gut: If Heather had lied about that, could she have lied about what she’d done to get the letter? Did she go to dinner with Dr. Garvey and then back to his house, just like me? When I’d asked her, heart in my throat, if she had—with all the other questions thrumming underneath: are we the same, do you understand why I did it, do you lie awake at night and feel his hands on you—she’d denied it. Had she meant for me to be buried alone under all this shame?

Swallowing nausea, I tore open my own folder, searching until I found twin letterhead, a twin signature slashed across the bottom of the page.

Dear Fellowship Committee, I write to recommend Jessica Miller, whom I have taught in four classes here at Duquette. Jessica is a talented student, as evidenced by her high grades. She has demonstrated sophisticated thinking for an undergraduate, as I have remarked on her papers.

My heart started to sink. I scanned down the letter, the words hitting like fists: pleasant, important contributions, sure to have a successful career.

It was so tepid, so perfunctory. So unlike his letter for Heather, full of tangible respect. He could have slipped any name in place of Jessica Miller and gotten the same result.

This was what I’d bought with my soul?

I slumped to the floor, dizziness from the mix of pills and cheap whiskey making my vision swim. I’d thought, for a few stupid, hopeful minutes, that I could steal Heather’s file so there was no record of her application, and the fellowship would have to go to me, the runner-up. I’d thought I could scratch her name out and write mine in. Type up a new decision on Duquette letterhead, forge committee signatures, if I had to. Whatever it took.

Now that I was here, the dumb futility of my plan was plain. The righteous rage that had convinced me it was possible was dissipating. Numbly, I flipped open the folder labeled 2009 Committee Notes. My breath caught.

It was the line-up of winners. First, second, and third places. I should be there, typed in black and white print, under second place. But there was no Jessica Miller.

First place: Ms. Heather Shelby. Second place: Mr. George Simmons. Third place: Ms. Katelyn Cornwall.

I wasn’t even on the list. I stared at the names, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a different kind of truth hit me.

My father was dead, and he was never coming back. I couldn’t rewrite him, couldn’t turn him into a person who was successful by proxy, who loved me, who was happy. Nothing I could do was going to change the man he’d been. He’d squandered his chances. Hadn’t lived up to what anyone expected of him, least of all himself. And that was who he was going to be forever—a man with wasted potential, who died bitter and alone. That was who we were going to be forever, him and me—never close, never forgiven, never redeemed. The ink on the story of my dad and me was dry. The book was shut.

I clutched my chest, heart hammering. Coming here had been a terrible idea. I had to get out.

I shoved Heather’s file back in the drawer but couldn’t bring myself to put mine back, let them have this record of my failure. I slipped the committee ranking into my folder and slammed the drawer shut, then ran to the window, wanting to be out under the night sky where there was room to breathe.

I threw the file out the window and scrambled after it, thinking only of getting out. But I was clumsy—the window’s jagged teeth caught my hands and thighs, tearing at me, trying to keep me pinned. I cried out at the pain, like lines of white-hot heat opening in my skin, felt the slickness of blood on my hands. I used all my strength to keep moving, to tip and tumble out the window.

I landed in the grass, the wind knocked out of me. Air. I clutched my chest with bloody palms. Breathe. Steady. Breathe.

I had to leave before anyone found me. Had to think of a place to go, somewhere safe. But the truth was—the truth was—I wanted more than safety. I wanted…

Oh, how I wanted. I could finally confess that now, couldn’t I? Now that I was at my lowest, now that there was no use keeping the mask of indifference on, now that I had so little of myself left to protect. It was my secret shame: I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

A woman who wanted was an ugly thing. I knew it made me childish and vulnerable. My whole life had taught me that lesson. But still. For one moment, laid out on the grass, all my ruined, pointless, pent-up wanting was too great to contain—

I threw open the doors to my heart. The pain flooded in. I’d wanted so many things and lost them all. This was the cost.

I lay on the grass and sobbed. The stars looked on, cold and unblinking.