Free Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn Page B

tides, Sadie knew, no one was immune to longing like that, not even the shy, self-doubting kids, the ones who would never make a move or do anything but cry themselves to sleep over their failings and inadequacies. They probably wanted it more than anybody. Maybe it was because they knew how distant their dreams were from reality.
    Maybe that’s what made them so easy to hurt.
    Sadie remembered the first time she’d stepped foot into Roman Bender’s dorm room at their boarding school. How she’d looked around, taking in the whole space, the whole of who Roman was. What she’d seen there reminded her of her father during their trip to China. A certain bleakness. A distinct sort of misery.
    The inside of his room had been ascetic and grim. Roman read Camus. He played acoustic guitar. He was both dutiful and predictable in his depression. Even his bed sheets were drab—musty and stained with unwashed desire. Worse, Sadie could tell by the uncomfortable way he sat squirming at his desk that he was probably hard right then and there, simply by being in her presence. Nature was cruel like that, swelling his body with hope and possibility, when surely even his own mind knew better.
    How could she want a boy like him when he needed so much ?
    â€œI’m not good enough for you,” she’d told him briskly, both because it was true and because she thought it was a kind thing to say. Sadie wasn’t used to being kind and, well, clearly she’d blown it, because Roman hadn’t answered her at all. He’d just cleared his throat, once, twice, a third time, then stared at his shoes and the bare wood floor with his hangdog eyes.
    Standing there, in the wake of his self-loathing, Sadie grew bored. Her attention drifted toward the window, to the world beyond. Outside on the campus lawn, every object shone and shimmered in the New York sun, vivid and alive. A dog barked. The trees were in color. Boys in varsity jackets tossed a football around, and girls with perfect bodies did cartwheels in the grass. But the dreadful silence inside that dorm room stretched and stretched, until Sadie couldn’t stand it any longer. Roman wasn’t vivid, but he was alive, and she decided right then and there that if her efforts at kindness weren’t enough to keep him from falling further in love with her, she’d have to do it another way.
    Her way.
    A strange noise snapped Sadie back to the present. She frowned. Was that the sound of someone crying ? Whatever it was, it had come from behind a closed door farther down the hallway. Sadie crept forward, pressed her ear to the keyhole, and listened.
    It was a bathroom. It had to be. She heard water running.
    Then whimpering.
    And coughing.
    Sadie wrinkled her nose. Ew. It sounded like that willowy girl was yakking up her night’s worth of drinking. And then some.
    There was more whimpering. Then a soft male voice.
    â€œYou okay?” That had to be Emerson. He sounded both brusque and weary.
    There was no answer.
    â€œYou want me to take you home?”
    Still no answer.
    â€œMay?”
    Silence.
    Sadie crouched by the door for what felt like an eternity, waiting to hear something, anything: more puking, someone taking a cold shower, Emerson snarling at the drunk girl to get her shit together. But there was nothing, and Sadie crouched there for so long she began to wonder if they’d left the bathroom through another door and moved into a different room. A yellow sliver of light sliced the space between the door and the floorboards, and she sprawled on her stomach, straining to get a glimpse inside.
    She saw nothing.
    She waited longer. More minutes ticked by until Sadie’s patience came to its inevitable end. She had to know what was going on in there. Her body hummed with anticipation.
    She reached up and grabbed the doorknob.
    The heavy wood door creaked open, very slowly.
    At first Sadie wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It took