A Happy Ending

For Addison Fulton's Social Animals.

Maybe everything was going to be okay.

She thinks everything is going to be okay.

~☽O☾~

Anna calls that night. Correy stares at her phone, its glow like a campfire illuminating her face. She wants to pick up. She wants to tell Anna everything, about the hot chocolate that got stuck to her fork, about the blood that dripped like honey, about the warm, sweet smell of the body she’d burnt. Animal brain wants Anna back more than she needs to hide her sins. Human brain stretches and yawns, hungry and sleepy, and before Correy realizes what she has just done, she dials the number she knows by heart. Anna picks up on the second ring. Correy’s stomach aches.

“Thank you, Correy.” Correy’s hand is shaking. She must have misheard her.

“Anna?”

“Correy, one of my forks went missing a couple days ago.” She can hear Anna breathing deeply. She seems eerily calm. “The hot chocolate tin was out on the counter, and there was blood on the floor. You’re the only one I know who uses hot chocolate powder in their coffee, in our dorm, at least, and, Correy, my fork went missing-”

“Anna,” Correy sobs. There’s something stuck in her throat. It feels like the bug she once told Anna she wouldn’t dare swallow for a hundred bucks. “Anna, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did it, I just couldn’t take it anymore-”

“Stop.” Anna’s breathing has slowed. “I wasn’t finished. Please don’t apologize. Thank you, Correy, I mean it. I know you killed him,” she says with a shudder. “I’m relieved, I am- you saved my life.” Correy doesn’t say anything. It’s not that she doesn’t want to say anything; she does, really, but she doesn’t know where to start. She doesn’t think she can.

I love you, Anna, she wants to say. Derren was ruining your life, and you were never going to recognize that on your own, and I just needed to protect you, because I love you. You get it, right?

“Correy?” Anna waits expectantly.

“I don’t-” Correy falters. “I can’t-”

“It’s okay,” Anna says gently, like she can understand Correy, like maybe she always has. “But I love you, so please come home. We can use antibacterial wipes this time, for the blood.”

“Ok,” Correy whispers, and she thinks she means it.

“Ok.” Click.

~☽O☾~

It’s the night of the full moon. All Correy wants to do is bury herself in blankets and dream about what she’ll say to Anna when she sees her again, if she sees her again, but alas, Correy’s tongue is already bleeding. Charlotte pokes her head in Correy’s doorway. “I’ll be in the backyard if you want to join me,” she says with a wan smile.

Correy shakes her head. “Thank you, though,” she replies. “Thank you.”

~☽O☾~

There’s a bus stop 43 miles from Correy’s house. She knows she has to leave soon; her vision is blurring and the toothy pit in her stomach is growing. She just has to make it there by dawn, Correy tells herself. Before she leaves, she cuts open one of the lemons her and Charlotte had bought from the grocery store and plucks out the seeds, removing the flesh that clings to them. Correy puts the seeds into a little bowl and places it on top of her father’s seat at the dining table.

It’s time. Correy exits through her front door, lifting onto her haunches. She thinks she hears echoes of howling in the distance, and she runs. Correy breathes deep and strong and fast. She is wild and delighted.

~☽O☾~

Wind, sharp. There is no hunt tonight, no feast. Just running, and the wind. The moon watches. Only the moon. Past oak trees, past white picket fences. Even Sunny the goldendoodle is quiet. Only the moon. Only silence.

Then the sun.

~☽O☾~

Correy wakes up squinty-eyed on a bench made of rotting wood. There is a bus in front of her, roaring to life and now closing its doors. It’s headed in the direction she needs to go. “Wait!” Correy cries. “Just a second.” The driver wordlessly glances at the gnarled branches in her hair, the dirt smeared all over her body, and lets her on. “Thank you,” Correy sighs. “Thank you.”

As she travels down windy roads she has no memory of, Correy presses her cheek to the rumbling window and closes her eyes. She falls into a dreamless sleep. A few hours later, the silhouette of Correy’s college campus comes into view. Nothing’s changed. Not the undulating hills and ridges of the desert, nor the people kicking rocks down the pavement; there’s even someone walking their dog up a brick path that leads to her apartment building.

It’s about 10 in the morning. Correy thinks she’ll be able to sneak into the dorm while Anna’s in class, but realizes with a jolt that it’s Saturday. How long has it been? Correy wonders. But Correy’s too tired to care, and besides, she doesn’t feel nervous. It’s the feeling she always as she opens the door to her building—it’s the glimmer of excitement in her stomach at the thought of Anna’s toothy grin. As she trudges up the cool gray concrete stairs of her building, Correy hears the faint sound of unfamiliar laughter. She opens the door of her dorm.

“So, Jamie,” says Elizabeth in between giggles. “What’s Avogadro’s favorite haircut?”

“I don’t know,” Jamie whines, chewing on his fingernails. “A bowl cut?”

“A mole-let, silly!” Elizabeth squeals, evidently proud of her joke. She puts her hand around Jamie’s fingers and holds them gently; Jamie reluctantly drops his hands from his mouth.

Correy’s been trying to be subtle, but she can’t hide her shock at this new development. “Hey guys!” She smiles. “Any idea where Anna is?”

Elizabeth and Jamie turn to Correy and back to each other, then to Correy again. “Correy!” Jamie’s mouth gapes a little. “I didn’t think I’d see you back so soon. Um, this is Elizabeth-”

“I know,” Correy interjects, laughing. “Elizabeth is my lab partner.”

“Oh, right, yeah,” Jamie nods his head, his curly hair flopping around wildly. “I think Elizabeth told me that.” Elizabeth beams at being mentioned. “Anyway,” Jamie continues, “Anna’s in her room.”

Correy thanks Jamie and heads towards Anna’s room, through the kitchen. She sees faint red splotches on the carpet that look like circles of dried, stiff fruit punch if you didn’t know any better. Her heart is beginning to pound. Did Anna mean what she said on the phone? Did she really want to see Correy? Correy takes a deep breath to steady herself, and knocks on Anna’s door.

“Come in!” The sound of Anna’s voice makes Correy want to cry. Unsurprisingly, Anna’s at her vanity, meticulously plucking her eyebrows.

Correy opens the door slowly, carefully. “Hi,” Correy ventures, too afraid to say anything more.

“Correy?” Anna gasps. She stands up to get a better look. “Hi,” Anna says softly. Correy feels tears prick her eyes like the thorns that cut her up the night before.

“Don’t say anything yet,” whispers Anna. “Just come here.” And Anna hugs Correy tightly, puts one of her hand in between Correy’s shoulder blades. It feels warm and familiar. She doesn’t want Anna to ever let go.

“Do you hate me?” Correy sniffles.

“Hate you?” Anna giggles. “Of course not! Correy, I think you’re my favorite person on the planet. Come on, let’s go for a walk. You can tell me everything. And I have to tell you about Jamie and Elizabeth, they’re so cute together -”

Correy feels so overcome with love that despite the fact that all she’s eaten in the past 24 hour is chocolate almonds, her stomach feels full, even if just for a moment. Anna just called her a person. She thinks of her as a person. Don’t we all?

~☽O☾~

There is a rabbit. It’s across the quad; Anna doesn’t see it, but Correy sees it and hears it and feels its presence like her own heartbeat, full and steady. Across the quad, a few yards from the glaring sun and a triumphant skateboarder, there is a rabbit in front of Anna and Correy.

“Do you like my dress?” Anna is asking. “I know I said it was too expensive, but just look at the color!” Anna spins around for emphasis.

“Yeah,” agrees Correy.” I think it’s pretty.” But Correy has her eyes on the rabbit, who is sniffing the scraggly college campus grass. She knows the rabbit will startle the second Correy moves, but Correy has an inexplicable urge to pet it.

“Hey, Anna?” Correy crouches, beginning to inch towards the rabbit. “Will you help me catch him?” She points in the rabbit’s general direction.

Rabbits become atypically bold when they start to become accustomed to human presence. Anna wants to know if this one is bold enough to eat out of the palm of her hand. She pulls a handful of grass from the ground. “Here, rabbit, cutie pie! I have a treat for you!” The rabbit’s nose twitches, and against all odds, starts moving towards the sway of Anna’s cola-cherry red dress in the wind. He gingerly grabs a few blades of grass with comically oversized front teeth. Correy gasps. “Can we keep him?” she asks.

Anna nods eagerly. “Only if we can call him Deb!” she exclaims. “That was the name of this crazy character in the story I’m reading…”

Correy hasn’t told Anna everything yet. But she will. She will because Anna deserves to know, and the yawning, toothy pit that made Correy’s stomach ache was beginning to fill up with rabbits and lemon trees and cherry-cola red, and finally, finally, she could cup Anna’s grin’s hot ember.