Writing Prompt: What I Know For Sure

From MamaKat, by way of Texan Mama (to the right there-->). What I Know For Sure.

This isn't what I know for sure right now. I've had moments of complete clarity, of really knowing something, you know, for sure. Right now I do know some things. But that phrase reminded me of something from long ago.

I was a freshman in college, living in one of the dorms at the college just north of us with the same name as my city, run by an order of priests with lots of money. And that was a year I learned many things, many things for sure and forever.

I lived on the fourth floor, and that's where I met Mike. He lived next door. I also knew a whole slew (that's a pun) of other folks whom I will give random pseudonyms and later forget which is which. But when I spent time with other freshmen, it was with Tom and the Other Tom; Karen and Dora and Belinda and Caitlyn; my future roommate Misti and her current roommate Rina. We played rummy and rook and watched Guiding Light and 90210, went to dinner at 4:30 as if we lived in an old folks' home, and had a good routine. Most of the time it was Misti, Tom, Tom, me, and Belinda, but the other few were there often enough to count.

Things were good. The salad days were here again. Or something. Life was fine. We took classes and hung out and it was like being in high school, with similar cares and worries and plans. And no parents to tell us what to do, of course. Or anyone, really.

After first semester, Karen's roommate dropped out and went home--she'd never really been a part of our group, actually, with her own friends. So Karen had a single. I did too--my first roommate and I had almost come to blows--wait, who am kidding, we hardly talked--she moved out because I was tired of living with her AND Chuck the Boyfriend. Which is what she should have done (chuck the boyfriend). In January Eudora moved in as my roommate (an aspiring vampire: she was fun) but we led separate lives (obviously).

Playing cards and watching soap operas EVERY DAY means you get to know people pretty well. Nobody came to my room (Eudora territory) or Karen's (she had nothing in there after her roommate left--just her bed and clothes and books). We spent most of our time in Misti and Rina's room with the TV and carpet and microwave popcorn. Sometimes we'd go down to Belinda and Caitlyn's--they had a couch and a bigger TV--but usually we hung out at Misti's.

Some time in January Tom and I knocked on Karen's door to ask her for help with a calculator. She came out into the hall, shaky, smoking a cigarette. We sat down in the hallway together and then realized she was bleeding. She had jeans on, but no socks or shoes, and the blood was trickling down the back of her calf and starting to pool on the ground. We made our exit pretty quickly, pretending she'd answered our question, but really not, escaping to Misti's room to commiserate. Yes, it was blood. What the hell?

Misti knew. Karen was a cutter. Self-injurer. But cutting's what she did--she would take a razor to her leg, and not to shave, but to make herself bleed all over the floor. That was the moment I knew for sure that there was much I didn't know. I might have encountered the Klan in Georgia, I might have been a witness in an assault case in Texas, I might have uncles who sell drugs and a grandfather in a motorcycle gang but there was much I didn't know.

About a month later, Misti and the dorm director are rushing past to the elevator. As I turn the corner, Karen and Rina are there, too, with Rina banging on the call button. I ask what's up and the dorm director tells me it's none of my business. Well then. I head down the other wing to find Caitlyn and Belinda. Karen had saved up a bunch of pills--sleeping pills, anti-depressants, stuff she took for an ulcer, some painkillers, and had taken them all. They looked nervous. I could dig it. Tom and the two of them took his car to the university hospital, leaving the other Tom and I there--I knocked on Mike's door and he drove us to the ER.

When we got there, the dorm director asked Mike, Tom and I what the hell we were doing there. She had a way about her. Karen was our friend, I tried to explain. She took us to the little break room where Rina and the others were sitting. And we all sat numbly while the television droned on with Latoya Jackson Psychic Friends until this self-assured blond woman walked through the door to talk to us.

We thought for some reason she'd come for information about Karen. We started sharing what we knew and she cut us off. Other people would handle Karen. She wanted to talk about us. Tom and I talked about the cutting and Misti mentioned how lonely Karen had felt since her roommate left. The other Tom had kind of started dating Karen, kind of, but that wasn't going well. People tried to come up with things to tell this woman and at one point she turned right to me.

"Bridgett, are you feeling any self-blame?"

"No," I answered.

"Are you sure?"

I glanced up at Latoya. "That's the one thing I know for sure."

She didn't believe me. But I was telling the truth.

Mike drove Caitlyn, Tom, Rina, and Belinda home. It was dawn when I took Misti and led her out to her car. She had me drive. We drove to her parents' house in North County and then back to the dorm for breakfast. We didn't say much. The one thing she did ask: "Do you think it hurts?" I answered with the same flat honesty:

"Hell yes it hurts." I knew that for sure, too.

She was silent. What I didn't know, and wouldn't know for several more weeks, was that the smug blond woman should have been asking Misti about self-blame. When Misti drank enough that one night, alone, enough to get alcohol poisoning, then once again I knew that for sure.

I moved out that May, driving with my father down to Texas, contemplating my future. Would I stick it out the next year with a new major and a depressed alcoholic roommate who blamed herself, or would I cut my losses and stay home and marry the high school boyfriend and go to some Texas school and do something. Whatever.

I didn't decide all the way until July. Mike called. He'd broken things off with Vanessa for good.

And then I knew something else for sure.