Trigger Warning: Mentions of sexual abuse

Boston College
March 2005

The dorm room was chilled in the early morning with the scent of instant coffee lingering in the air. Even though it was almost April, winter had once more crept up the northeast coast, frosting the windows of Boston College. With the warm weather they had enjoyed the past couple days, the facility had turned off the heat prematurely in the building. The past week had been sunny as May with students throwing Frisbees on the green lawn spreading out below her room. Catie had unsuccessfully tried to convince Marianne out into the warmth several times. Marianne had waved off her roommate with a pained smile, hands trembling as she packed her things. Once her roommate had left, she turned up her Dave Matthews CD as loud as she could to drown out her thoughts. The carnations Catie had bought to cheer her up were already wilting on the radiator by the window, petals dropping to the hardwood floor.

"Remind me never to buy gas station flowers again," Catie snorted as she sipped her coffee from a solo cup. She poked one of the drooping buds thoughtfully as Marianne watched her from a bundle of blankets. "You sure about all this?"

Marianne reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose. Pouring herself a dose of Dayquil, she threw it back like a shot and sighed. "I'm sure."

"But its only two months till graduation."

"I know."

"Did you talk to your counselor again?"

Marianne shook her stuffed head, her cold still raging after a week. "Don't need to."

Catie flexed her hands around the steaming cup and sank down into her desk chair. "I could really kill that guy."

Marianne rattled a weak chuckle. "How would you do it?"

"Vehicular manslaughter sounds good, doesn't it? Something about that word slaughter..."

Pushing her mussed bangs off her forehead, Marianne gave a genuine laugh and settled into her blankets. "Catherine Kim, your father would have a conniption if you got blood on that brand new Range Rover he bought you."

Catie smirked and blinked up with her monolid, dark eyes, her skin flawless from her Korean mother's relentless beauty treatments she sent her only daughter. "Blood washes off."

Marianne pushed herself off the bed, her side of the room bare except for her pillow and quilts. Everything was ready to be shipped home later that day. Home. Marianne bit her bottom lip at the thought of that empty word. Her father was still in Kabul doing a story and wouldn't be back in the states for weeks.

"You talked to your dad yet?" Catie asked.

"His machine."

"Did you leave a message?"

Marianne shook her head as she duct taped the last box of books. "And say what? I'm dropping out for no apparent reason two months before graduation?"

"There is a reason and a good one." Catie downed the last of her coffee and strode to her friend's side. "Why don't you fight it?"

"Because it was consensual-"

"But you didn't consent to that asshole hiding in a closet and filming the whole thing! That's a violation, abuse even," Catie ranted.

Marianne was too weary from embarrassment and tears to react. She laid a hand on her friend's forearm. "I'm so glad you got that acceptance to Harvard Law. You were born to dominate a courtroom."

"That's beside the point." Catie waved her hand dismissively. "I wish you'd go to the school board about it."

Marianne didn't reply as she started to get dressed. She hadn't dared get near a computer since it had happened, much less the internet. She had been dating Justin for five months, her first real boyfriend and the first boy she had ever slept with. He was polite, charming and had lavishly treated her to expensive restaurants, theater tickets and the like. His family was wealthy and well established in the Boston area and he had been impressed with her father being the renowned international journalist. They were both looking for jobs in newspapers down in New York City. He had even hinted at getting an apartment together, even motioning towards diamond ring ads with a wry grin.

"Justin needs to be held accountable for what he did to you."

Marianne shook her head. "He wasn't the one filming in the closet or the one who put the video online."

"But he knew that creep friend of his was in there, doing just that while you two were having sex. He filmed you having sex without your consent, that's sick!" Catie protested, her nostrils flaring in disgust.

"He said it was only supposed to be for himself when we were apart and he never meant to humiliate me-"

"Humiliate you to the point where you drop out of school to escape the hecklers and rumors?"

Marianne blew her nose again, her heart thudding at the memory of the rumor mill spitting out conjectures. They were saying that she knew they were filming her and that she allowed them to post the video online, that she thought she was some kind of a Paris Hilton with her own sex tape. The Mari Buckner Porno had spread through the campus like a virus before anything could be done. Even the faculty knew about it. Her academic counselor had barely been able to look her in the eye when she had gone to him to talk about dropping out.

"So you are going to let them sling mud at you while Justin struts around like the big man on campus?"

"What he does is none of my concern."

Catie sighed. "Well, I'm glad you broke it off with that boy instead of forgiving him."

Marianne gripped the back of her desk chair. She had truly thought Justin McCrae had been the one. The trauma of what had happened had wiped her clean of her identity. She didn't know who she was anymore in the matter of a few weeks.

"So where are you going? Did you decide?"

Marianne tapped a thin finger on the plane ticket laying on the desk. Catie twirled it around and grinned. "Best choice you could have made. Did you talk to Shannon yet?"

"I called her yesterday."

"Good. I'm glad. You need your family around you now. A change of scenery will do you good then you can come back and finish when you are ready-" A knock at the door interrupted Catie.

She walked over to the door. Marianne kept her back to it as Catie spoke with a stranger. She turned to find Catie standing with a dozen roses and a stuffed teddy bear, her mouth pulled tight in anger.

"Justin?" Marianne asked weakly.

It had been the third attempt that week for him to apologize. All the other tries had gone unanswered. Silently, Catie walked over to the iced window and grunted as she opened it then tossed out the vase of flowers. There was a satisfying crash and Catie nodded, brushing off her hands. She picked up the bear and held it out over the sill for the same fate.

"Wait," Marianne rushed towards the window, the air biting as it slipped into the already cold room. She took the stuffed bear from her and straightened his plaid bowtie.

"You actually want that thing? Stuffed bears are so cheesy. All those Korean guys mom sets me up with on blind dates are obsessed with them, its ridiculous. Do I look twelve years old?"

Marianne grinned and glanced up at her friend. "You have skin like a baby's bottom. You're going to look like an adolescent until you're forty."

Catie crossed her arms over her chest and suppressed a grin. "Well... you are right about that, you have seen my mom after all."

Marianne tucked the bear under her arm, unsure why she had saved him from being tossed out the window. She tucked him into her leather carry on bag for her flight later that night. "Do you want me to send you anything from England? Maybe a couple Atomic Kitten and Sugababe CDs?"

Catie brightened at that prospect. Her enthusiasm for British pop girl bands was insatiable. "Yes please!"

Marianne was pretty certain her cold would be gone by the time she touched down in Heathrow the next day. However, the shame of the past couple weeks would no doubt be harder to leave behind, even after crossing the ocean.