You know, I don't even think about it now. I have no concept of what my life would be like if Lavery hadn't happened. If you had asked me before whether I could even see that happening to me I would have said no. But it did.
Something was being forced into the door knob and the handle turned suddenly.
I tensed and did a kneejerk dive over the side of my bed.
"Shit."
I mean, if it hadn't happened, and I had gotten on that plane in the morning and flown to LA, what would have been? Would I have finally met the right coach and gotten myself a transfer? They remembered me at those tournaments and had been pursuing me actively after the previous year. Texas Christian, The University of Alabama, a few grad assistants at Western had even asked me about going somewhere I could actually be coached. Would my disgust with the 04 elections and all the ignorant elitist remarks have finally gotten to me and made me want to uproot?
"Mary, listen, something happened tonight. I can't-- I'm not supposed to go on the trip any more. I'm sor--"
"What happened?"
"I can't talk about it now. I have a meeting in the Dean's office at 2. I'm not supposed to talk about it until then."
"Geez. I hope you're okay. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"What are we supposed to do with your ticket?"
"I don't even know. They called my sponsor. He's supposed to do something about that later. Don't worry."
"I don't like not knowing whats going on here. This is not normal."
No shit.
I could have been a better me. I could have kept myself from so much. It wasn't anybody's fault but mine, though. I knew what I was getting myself into when I went to that right-wing cult of a school.
Its just that so much that happened after that was directly related to me defining myself by that moment. It was like nothing had happened before it. And everything that happened afterward hinged on this one fact.
"How did your meeting go?"
I was ripping down posters. My eyes were hot and swollen.
"How does it look like it went?" I snapped. I shouldn't have snapped at Ellie. She was a good roommate. She was the best roommate I'd ever had.
"Oh my god..."
"Watch out," I said, swiping my hand over the dresser and wiping everything I touched into a black garbage bag, "don't say that too loud, El, or they might send you away too."
"I can't believe this." She put her bookbag down on the floor and stood there, watching me like a whirlwind around the room. "When do you have to be out?"
"The end of the weekend." I picked up a program from the talent show I'd performed in. It sickened me, and I let a couple tears out. "I just-- I don't want to be here anymore. People are starting to find out."
"From who? Him? Is it just you that's going or is it him too?"
"No, we're both out." I crumpled the program and threw it into the wastebasket. "I mean... I really didn't think they'd do it, you know. I thought they'd give me counselling or something. I probably need that anyway. Wouldn't that be logical? Wouldn't they want to give the screwed up girl on the cusp of being bad a second chance?"
Ellie just stood there. "Do you want me to help?"
"--but nooooo, they want me out. I'm not good enough. I never was good enough for these stupid people. Well guess what. Everybody in this stupid place can laugh now because they were right. I'm a liberal. I like to feel things, so sue me. I'm not a dried up lilly white page out of the Bible!" I ripped the last poster off the closet door. "I voted for John Kerry, damnit!"
I had waited for the resident director for thirty full minutes before we were able to head over to the Dean's office. She looked at me with these sad eyes. Pity, I thought. She wants me to think she pitys me. She's so good and wholesome and I'm the broken one. I'm the one who needs help.
I sat on this seventies style green couch in the lobby waiting for the jury to be out. The girl behind the desk there was a student and I knew she recognized the deer in the headlights look on my face. She could sense something was going down. Ten minutes later Dean McDonald stepped out of his office and picked up something off the printer. I thought nothing of it.
"These situations are... difficult."
He sat behind his huge desk. There was a purple sash and a rather large crown of thorns on the wall behind his desk. He was staring at me, hands together, fingers pointed in an arch. Here is the steeple, I thought. There was a glossy picture of his happy family angled halfway between himself and my chair. How perfect, I thought. I might have felt more sarcastic if I weren't ready to crawl on my hands and knees to keep myself at the school. Not even that! They'll send me off campus. I'm okay with that.
"You see," he continued, "My sister experienced a rough time in her life too. She got a boyfriend. She did some of the same things you've done. And she... wasn't so lucky." He paused and looked to another picture on his desk. "She ended up pregnant."
The resident director next to me let out a sigh.
"Even if this was experimentation like you claim." lie. "Even if this was the first time for you," lie. "We can't let you think that this kind of thing is okay."
"I know its not. I'm so sorry." The director grabbed a box of kleenex and held it out. My nose was running like a faucet and I realized that I was crying too. Despite my urge to chuck it back at her, I pulled a tissue out, making a little whooshing noise. I balled it up and focused on its soft edges.
"The fact that your parents have divorced, that's hard. Your long term relationship ending, thats hard too. You are young, you know. Lots of us go through hard times." You have no idea. "How long did you know this boy? From last night."
"I knew him last year... we were in the same class together. So. I've known him a year or so but we only started dating like two months ago." I was still crying. I hated myself for it.
"Two months. Thats all it took for you to be ready for that kind of step in your relationship?"
Is there an appropriate length of time? I thought.
"You kids just don't get it. You can ruin your life in a total of five minutes." Or forty five. "You can get pregnant. You can even send yourself into eternal damnation just for those few moments of pleasure." He made it sound like porn. He spat the word pleasure like a bad taste in his mouth.
"I understand this is a hard time for you. We understand that. We hope that you seek counselling and we can even help you set that up. But we cannot let these kinds of things go unpunished here at Lavery."
"I completely understand," I gripped the kleenex into a hard knot, my nuckles white, waiting for what was next.
He pulled the piece of paper out of a drawer in his desk and I got this sick pit in my stomach.
"Our principles are very high at Lavery. We pride ourselves on that. We hope you will come back, apply for re-enrollment, and come join us again in fellowship. But, for now, we are going to immediately suspend you from the university."
Immediately suspend you from the university.
The words were like rocks I couldn't swallow. I felt like I couldn't breathe. He said some other things, he held out a pen. I stopped crying suddenly, as I began signing my name. This cold hum set in along my entire body. I was electric. I was drained and pumped up at the same time. Numb, but buzzing with static.
If I pass out now, I thought, what will they do? We stood up. It was over. It was all over.
"This can't be just a phase for you. You need to understand the weight of this issue and turn from it. God will always forgive you."
But you won't. I thought.
"We'd like to see you out by the end of the weekend," he said.
"Do you want to call your parents, or do you want me to do it?" I had completely forgotten the resident director until then, and I hadn't even thought of my mother.
Oh God, my mother.
I said goodbye to Mark just outside the parking lot of my dorm. My mother was in the car, and for whatever reason I felt a little ticked off at Mark for the whole situation. He was wearing a light yellow polo shirt and some khaki shorts. His light blue eyes smiled, eerie and calm at me.
"When do you go back to LA?"
"My mom's buying me a plane ticket for Sunday."
"Its funny, right?" I laughed a little.
"What is?"
"The fact that you're going home to LA when just yesterday I was supposed to go."
"Yeah. Irony."
"My mom's over there." I knew she was shooting daggers at us. Probably blaming him for all this.
"Oh. Yeah. I'll call you, okay."
"This really sucks, you know that?"
"Yeah. I know. Fuckin bitches."
"I just want to get gone."
"Okay. Well. Bye." He hugged me, and that was the last time I smelled his cologne. The last time I saw him wave. The last time I saw him, period. He disappeared behind some bushes and it wasn't until we were halfway down the street toward my house that I crumpled up and bawled like a two year old. It was really all over. I would never see anyone there again. I wasn't even allowed on school property. It would never be the same.
Dean McDonald had absolutely no idea about what a "phase" he had created for me. It was my fault, sure. But whatever phase I was going through hadn't hit full swing until I had Lavery under my belt.
Even I had no idea what Lavery put in motion.
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