Marisol Ortiz was perched on the couch, a nearly-finished piece of Statistics homework pulled up on her computer. She looked at the final problem and paused a second. She chewed her bottom lip, and her mouth twisted into a sneer at the bitter waxy taste of her lipstick, which she had yet to wipe off. The answer came to her, and she typed it out.

She whispered the answer under her breath as she typed it, a habit that greatly annoyed her dorm-mate, Harper Carys. Harper, however, was tormenting her pale-pink dyed hair with a hot shower, and wasn't there to interject. Marisol clicked to submit her work, refusing to let her brain wander to whether a degree in Statistics was what she wanted out of her life, and leaned back. She glanced at the clock, which pointed almost exactly to eleven. She might as well go to bed, then, and get a semi-decent night's sleep. She had just stood up when her phone rang.

Marisol swiped to answer it, holding it up to her ear.
"Hello?" she asked. 
"Oh thank God," came the rapid answer, exhaled on a sigh. "Uh, hey, Mari. It's Beckett." 
Marisol's grip on the phone tightened.
"Beckett Randall, you have some nerve!" she began, "Running *off* like that without telling *anyone* where you went-"
"I know, I *know*, geez. Sorry. I'm just...I'm not dead?" Beckett offered half-heartedly. 
Marisol gave a sigh herself.
"The bare minimum," she said dryly, then felt a twinge of guilt. "Come on, Beckett, seriously. Where the hell are you?"
A pause on the end of the line, and some fumbling.
"Sorry," came Beckett's voice, crisper now. "My wrist's still all weird. Had to switch hands quick."
"Did you ever get it looked at?"
"No," he said, "I never had the time, and hospitals freak me out anyways. It's *fine*, anyways, it's not like it's gonna kill me or something. It was a sprain, not some sort of tumor."
"I saw it, and it was definitely broken," Marisol insisted, and she heard Beckett scoff.
"It's fine anyways, okay? Besides, my *knee's* what's in bad shape now," he said, as if that was a decent answer to her concern. 
"What?" 
"My *knee*, alright? I was out on a walk, and--forget it. It doesn't matter."
"No, tell me."
"Al*right*. I was out on a walk, and I tripped, and spent the rest of the night pulling bloody *gravel* out of it, okay?" Beckett's voice took on a sharper, more irritated tone. "It doesn't *matter*, anyways."
"I think it matters," Marisol said, "And anyways, where *are* you?" 
"It was a nice enough walk *before* all that," Beckett continued, pointedly ignoring her question. "The trees were all nice. The *rocks* were nice too, until they were jammed into my knee."
"Beckett, I'm serious, where-" Marisol began, her voice pitching up.
"It'll hurt like hell when it heals up, I bet, since it's on my knee and all, but maybe there'll be a nice scar. Thank God that Phys Ed isn't required, or that'd be an embarrassing story." Beckett put on a deeper voice. "'What happened to your leg, Randall?' And I'll have to tell them that I tripped on a walk and cut it all open, which'll be embarrassing as *hell* and I'd rather *not*, you know?"
"I guess," Marisol, whose only prominent scar was from an appendectomy when she was twelve, replied apathetically. "Listen, Beckett, it's too bad about your knee--did you even get it checked out?--but everyone's all worried about you."
"I *didn't* get it checked out because I had a first aid kit in my car and that worked well enough," Beckett said, a bit defensively. "And listen, Mari, just tell Harper or whoever that I'm fine, okay?"
"'Fine' isn't good enough!" Marisol shouted, then winced. "The last time Harper and I heard anything besides the fact that you were *missing* was that some couple saw you sprint onto a half-frozen pond, so I'm assuming that you can see why we were all worried."
"There was some little kid out on the pond," Beckett said simply. "I saved her." 

And there it was, confirmation of the story Marisol had heard all week: that Beckett Randall had lost it completely and had tried to save a drowning child out on some tiny pond at three in the morning, in the frigid cold.
Except there had been no child.
Marisol didn't press him on it.

"Anyways, even beyond *that* bit, you haven't even *called* anyone until now," Marisol said, an errant bit of worry seeping into her voice. 
"Listen, I couldn't find a *charger*, okay? You know how my phone is, it needed a decent *charger* or it won't do *anything*," Beckett said. Marisol, suspicious, doubted him.
"For the love of God, Beckett, will you tell me where you are?" she half-shouted. 
"I'm in the Twin Cities, alright?" Beckett answered unconvincingly.
"Right, you drove five hours up there completely by heart since your phone was dead, and have been just camped out in some hotel since." Marisol used the same voice she used to read off statistics in class: collective and analytical, no matter the topic at hand.
"I didn't call for an interro*ga*tion, Mari," Beckett complained. "God, my wrist hurts. But anyways, what's it matter to you where I am? We barely even *know* each other."
"Do I need to remind you who called first?" Marisol replied, her voice dry. This entire discussion was beginning to get on her nerves.
"Fine, *fine*, alright, I'm sorry," Beckett said. "Why's it so hard to believe, anyways? My sister and I went up to the Cities all the time as kids."
"You have a sister?" Marisol asked softly. This was news to her, although it shouldn't be. There was a lot that she and Beckett didn't know about each other. There was a long pause, and for a moment Marisol wondered if Beckett had hung up. She could practically picture him then, his battered flip-phone in one hand and some sort of cigarette in the other, leaning against that barely-functional grey car of his, and with that ragged old grey beanie pulled down low over his forehead. 

It's cold as hell now, which is the sort of stupid oxymoron I can't stand but can't keep from thinking. You add "as hell" to the end of anything and it gets the intensity it needs. Anyways, it's cold as hell and the snow's got that thick, wet texture that drenches you even if you're in a coat, then freezes you right up again. Thank God I stuck the cigarette package so deep in my bag, else they'd be as soaked as me. 

I look up and gaze at the skyline like I'm trying to commit it to memory. All its ups and downs and curves make me want to draw it, but I've never been an artist. You can only really have one artist in a family, and Cora got that gene. My eyes catch the soft glow of lights and I walk to them, slush spreading into my shoes. Feels like my toes'll freeze off, but I keep going until I reach the lights at the field. 

They're tall, the kind of height that tempts kids to climb up them, and the kids are dumb enough to try. Nothing's more irritating than being all set with your glove way out there and hearing some goddamn kid cry because they tried to climb that stupid pole. Stuff like that happens more than you'd think. And no matter how many times they see their siblings and friends fall, they all try anyways. It's like a damn magnet, I swear to God. I walk to the bleachers before I'm tempted to try again. I've probably still got the scar from my first attempt. 

The snow is starting to pile up as I clamber up each row, and I sort of hate that I leave footprints. I wipe a clump of snow from the top row and sit, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. Dropping my backpack to the riser below, I unzip it and feel around until I fish out my cigarettes and lighter. I open the box and clench one between my teeth, then flick the lighter on. Its glow is harsher than the muted lights, and I touch it to the tip of the cigarette and hope it lights. Hope succeeds for once, and I lean back and take a drag, exhaling smoke. 

Looking at the field stirs something in me, and I can't name what. I can almost feel the sand under my cleats, the weight of a bat as I hold it at home plate. The ringing crack of a solid hit, and the odd reverberation of an off one, the type that makes your bones feel like they're shaking and you can barely regain the awareness to run. They always put me in outfield, probably because I was liable to be distracted by things like screaming kids who try to climb the lamp post and so they didn't trust me in the infield. Never had to do much, since most of the teams we played could barely get a swing in off of our pitcher. Until he graduated and everything sort of went to shit, but we had a solid three years of winning. I had to swap in as pitcher once and nearly broke my goddamn sternum. Come to think of it, that might be why they kept me in the outfield. 

All this sentimentality must be getting to me, because I sob so hard that I nearly choke to death on my cigarette. It falls into the snow and I sort of just look at it, dumbfounded for some stupid reason, as if I didn't realize it'd fall if I opened my mouth. Something feels frozen on my cheeks, and I can't tell if it's snow or tears or some mix of both. I hug my arms across my chest and my jacket actually feels stiff from the snow, and I become acutely aware of the fact that I do not want to freeze to death. It's a slow way to die, and I'd rather go out fast and painless. I'm equally aware of how high up I am, and how easily I could *accidentally* slip and fall on the slick metal and snap my neck. I stand up and shakily climb down to a lower level.

Sometimes I sort of scare myself. 

Marisol throws a blanket to me and I wrap it around my shoulders. The hat is on the heater and slowly drying out just like everything else. I probably look like a deer in the headlights. I realize how ridiculous I must seem. My nose is leaking blood, hair's plastered across my forehead and half-frozen, lip's split. One wrist all swollen up. Cut across my chin. I probably look like I was in a fistfight or something, and maybe I'll lie and say I was. It's a better story than "I fell trying to slide down a railing like Mary fucking Poppins". My coat's sprawled across the heater, same with my sweatshirt, and I feel almost naked in my shirt and jeans.
"You gonna say anything about why you're walking around alone in the middle of the night?" Marisol asks, and I burst out laughing, mainly because I'm not sure why either. If I had any nerve, I'd have killed myself already. 
"Jesus Christ, Beckett, if Harper hadn't been out you'd have frozen to death!" she slams her hand on the table and I must flinch or something, because she looks sort of guilty after. I don't answer.
"What the hell's your problem?" she asks, and suddenly I'm back in Graham Rowland's kitchen, my face pressed against the wall. 
"I-I don't have any problems!" I say sharply, "I-I'm perfectly fucking *fine*, Mari, just out for a fucking *walk*!" My voice is shrill-ish, still a bit thick from my busted-up face, and I stand up so quickly that the chair's knocked back. I sort of stumble back too, eyes wide. She looks so goddamn scared, scared of *me* that I want to die right then and there. I don't want people to fear me. Not the way I-
Don't think about it. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" I stammer, "I didn't mean to-"
"Are you drunk or something? Are you high?" she asks, pitch rising, and I shake my head. 
"N-no. I don't d-drink." I reply, trying to ignore the words bubbling to the surface. *You were drunk and you were there.* 
"You seemed pretty drunk at Homecoming," Harper says, handing me a washcloth. I hold it loosely in the hand I can still close.
"Yeah. Homecoming," I say dully, forcing my voice to steady. I bite down on the inside of my cheek and hope that I don't seem as on edge as I feel. "Load of good booze did me then." I try to laugh, since maybe that'll ward off questions, but it just makes my face hurt more. They look at me like I'm crazy or something, not that I can blame them. I know I look like I've lost it.

Marisol's picked the chair back up and sat on it, leaning forward. Her eyebrows knit together with concern. 
"Beckett, you...you don't have to answer this if you feel uncomfortable, but..." her gaze flicks to Harper's, who's rocking back and forth on her heels. I know what's coming, I know what's she'll ask me and I'm not sure what to answer with. I bite down harder on my cheek, tasting blood again.  I don't want to lie to Marisol and Harper. I don't want to think about it. 

"Did something happen at Homecoming?" Harper asks.

I can't look her in the eyes. I nod. 
"Y-yeah," I choke out. I wrap my arms more tightly around my chest, ignoring the shooting pain in my wrist. Somehow I'm crying again, and I feel so fucking pathetic. Sitting on the floor of my classmates' dorm at 1 am, with blood streaked all down my face and a broken wrist and damn near hypothermic, and now I'm *crying*. God, it's like my own body's betrayed me. The sooner I shove off this mortal coil the better.
"Who?" Harper asks, and I flinch. Marisol gives her a look, and Harper looks sheepish. "Sorry. You don't have to answer." 
"Graham Rowland." The name slips out more easily than I expected, and I wait for any sort of response. 

"Shit..." Marisol breaths, and Harper echoes it.

"*Shit.*" Despite it all I almost laugh, since Harper never really swears like the rest of us do, but I can't make myself. 
"God, isn't he Casey's-" Marisol begins.
"Stepbrother? Yeah," I say.

"Just stop it, alright?" I yell loud enough to scratch my throat. "Stop telling me you know how I feel when *I* don't even know how I feel!"