All of Viola’s work setting up her schedule, avoiding early classes, had been for nothing. She was up before 8am anyway, up for hours, up with the rising sun and the setting moon and the swelling panic. She’d tried a late night shower, tried to soothe herself, tried to put her brain into the right state for sleep, even allowing herself to go to bed with wet hair, but it had done nothing. Nothing had worked. She’d laid awake all night, all night until the sun rose. 

Lying there was worse than being up, so after the sun finally cracked the bottom edge of the window, she packed up her backpack and started the day. She swung by the bagel place on campus, swiped a bacon egg and cheese sandwich, then headed towards Williams Hall. 

Too much. There was too much going in her brain to sleep.

The pond was almost soundless, broken only by the birds. Viola knew the route well now, and she was into her hideaway before 7am. She made sure the brambles of the bush she’d pushed through hadn’t snagged anywhere on the way, double checking the chinos, and then unpacked. 

She was halfway through ‘Five Little Pigs’, and she figured that, at this time of day, she was more than welcome to go at it with volume. Not screaming, of course, but there would be little risk of someone stumbling through the bushes at this hour. The afternoons were less useful on that front. But before that, makeup.

Lucy had gifted her a little bag to hold a now burgeoning collection of supplies, although it still paled in comparison to Lucy’s own. The bag, soft felt marked by a zipper, was conspicuously pink. Viola had briefly felt the urge to complain about that, about the difficulty she’d have hiding it from Danny, about how feminine it was, before deciding that a complaint of that nature about her makeup bag was more than a little silly. 

The girls had provided castoffs, too, things to supplement her nascent purchasing power. Brushes, clean sponges, bits of makeup either untouched or with plenty of life still in them, and had promised to accompany her to get tonally correct skin products. The foundation Margot had donated was warm, and Viola was cool, and that, apparently, would cause all sorts of undertone problems. 

 It would not, however, prevent practice, and Viola started piling the products onto the little rock she’d taken to using as a table. 

She’d done enough research now. Or, she’d done more research than she had before. And today, the practice was sort of secondary. Even if she massively messed her face up, she was hoping she’d find enough distraction to allow herself to relax. 

She unscrewed the cap on a bottle of primer and started off, holding a little mirror, another Lucy donation, aloft. 

Today. Today, she would see David again. Not just text him, but see him. It twisted her insides to think about. In a perfect world, that was the kind of thing to celebrate. Here was David, a sweet, pretty boy who liked her, and she was about to see him again for the first time since they’d almost kissed. And they’d been texting, and he was funny, and he made her feel like she’d been swept into the most ridiculous of romance novels. 

But she wouldn’t be seeing him again. No, no, Seb would be doing that. Seb would be seeing him, and David Oliver wouldn’t be the flirty, pretty boy who wanted to kiss her, but something else entirely. He’d be the guy who had, if secrets become public, all the reason in the world to pound her into the dirt. That David wasn’t a David from a romance novel. That David appeared in horror. 

So, no sleep. And if no sleep, then makeup. Because if she was going to have to be awake, she might as well do something productive. She needed to get better at this. To this point, she’d only managed to get her eyeliner less squiggly. All the rest of it was suffering. It was, in part, because she felt the weight of her inadequacy every time she started up. She felt how terrible at this she was. There was no preternatural ability to apply lip liner buried beneath the skin, no effortless learning curve towards popping eyes. All she had was Sebastian’s ability. And every time she attempted anything, she felt it.

It needed to be done, though. Even if it meant the slightly torturous process of applying poorly done makeup to her face had to be repeated over and over, even if she couldn’t hide the little hair she’d managed on her lip, even if she looked like shit. It needed to click. By the end of the semester, it needed to click, because if she was supposed to become the girl she was half pretending to be, she couldn’t be a novice. Practice opportunities would be equally scarce in Calabash, so leaving herself in a good spot was imperative. It was possible that she remained here for the summer, if she was able to get a job of some kind, but she wouldn’t count on it. 

Really, she wasn’t sure what the next few months were going to look like at all. Stick it out to the end of the semester as Sebastian, probably, and then what? What was the plan? She wasn’t without faith, but she didn’t really know. She’d sort of outsourced that to Annabelle, and Annabelle hadn’t exactly said, so Viola was running on the same track that she’d been running for the better part of month: go week to week, keep her head down. 

Or, at least, try to.

She was planning on talking to Annabelle after class. The phone number had been nice, but it seemed way too informal to use, and none of Viola’s problems over the week had arisen to anything resembling the need to call her. Everything had been fine. Everything had literally been just fine, and Viola hadn’t even felt all that bad during the week, mostly managing to disassociate from whatever she’d forced herself to become during the day. It hadn’t been that bad. She hadn’t needed to call. 

But she had wanted to talk to Annabelle. For the first time in months, maybe longer, maybe years, there’d been an adult in the room. Not for long; just for an afternoon, but she’d been there. And right now, she was probably trying to help Viola, probably doing some sort of backroom negotiation with some low level administrator to see if she could trade out Viola’s records for a properly named set, and Viola just wanted to talk to her. She didn’t even want to thank her. No, well, obviously she did, but she really just wanted to be around for a little bit. 

She just wanted the steadiness.

But Viola already felt a bit bad about the effort Annabelle might be putting in, so taking up more time felt like an overstep. Not like, an overstep so big that she wouldn’t do it if necessary, but big enough that she was waiting for the excuse of class to really go for it. She didn’t even have a plan of what to say to her. Just, like, ‘hey how’s that thing going? Get my record update underway? How’s that going to work anyway? Also, can you just tell me everything’s going to be normal? That it’s going to be okay?’

Easy stuff. Low level. 

She ran through the motions of her makeup; primer, foundation, the lot of it. At the end, she considered ignoring the important part — checking to see if she’d done anything correctly — before forcing the phone into her face. 

It was as expected. Heavy, unnatural, completely at odds with the femininity she was shooting for and the ease that masculinity provided. The gap between what the girls had been able to do to her and what she was able to do herself was still cavernous. None of it sat exactly right. None of it seemed natural. Before, the painted face had just seemed to blend to her. Now? Now, it really did feel like paint.

Behind her, on the trail, a jogger’s footsteps crunched in the dirt. Viola kept still. They came more often in the mornings she’d been here. The afternoon’s visitors were more likely to be meandering. She stayed quiet, waiting for the footsteps to recede, and then rummaged back in her backpack for her book. And then, after straining her ears one more time to confirm her solitude, she started reading to herself. 

Only his voice today. His voice needed to be perfect.

* * * * *

David Oliver had beat her. He’d staked the spot they always sat, his legs pressed against the seat in front of him, his hair pushed back. In the interim since they’d seen each other, he’d allowed a bit of stubble to grow, darkening his cheeks, heavy on his face. 

Viola’s stomach squirmed.

She forced that down, swallowed it with any remaining fear she had. No time for that bit of her to bubble to the surface. Right now, she had to be Sebastian. Very cool, perfectly masculine Sebastian. 

She’d worn that button down and those chinos, so, God willing, she wouldn’t need to do too much work herself. A little playing things up might go a long way. A deeper voice, a couple of well timed ‘bros’ thrown into a sentence. It ought to do the trick. 

God, it better do the trick. 

By the time she’d reached the end of the row, the fuzziness that had appeared in her brain at the sight of him had subsided. 

The fear, though? The fear stuck. 

She edged down past the first couple of seated students, towards him, towards all of it. He hadn’t looked up yet. Deep breath. She just needed to be a good actress for a little while, and everything would work out okay. Everything would work out just fine. Just fine. She’d be just fine.

Three seats away, David looked up. His eyes immediately crossed the clothes she was wearing, went down the button down to the chinos, down to the shoes.

And Viola’s heart dropped. 

A mistake, and she hadn’t even managed to open her mouth yet.

The shoes. 

She’d forgotten about the shoes.

The exact same shoes, the shoes she’d worn for the party, that she wore every day, and they were on full display now. 

David’s gaze, though, was mostly caught on the button down. It had gone back up, stuck there for a moment, a strange little smile on his face, before returning to Viola’s eyes. 

“Hey,” he said. “New look?” 

Viola swallowed the relief that threatened her face. “Yeah, bro,” she said. She kept her face steady then, too, even as she wanted to die from the words. Yeah, bro. David was her ‘bro’ alright. That was the arrangement. She swung her backpack between her legs and unzipped it. She could feel him watching.

“Any particular reason?” asked David. 

“It felt like it was time for a wardrobe refresh,” she said, shrugging.

“Cool,” said David. “How was your break?” 

The real answer? Revelatory. The answer that was Sebastian-approved?

“Not too bad,” said Viola, fighting to keep depth in her voice. “Got to hang out with friends.” David laughed, and Viola raised an eyebrow at him. That wasn’t even a lie. She had been able to hang out with some friends.

“Right,” said David, smiling. “You remember that I know your friends, don’t you? That I know you were at Lucy’s? We’ve done this before.” Viola’s face went a little warm. Yes, yes, she did remember that. It had always just been her natural response to him.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Um, yeah. Sorry.” She paused. Apologizing for… what? “Yeah, man.” 

David smiled, and it was soft and warm and kind and fuck that was not how he was supposed to be smiling at her. Fuck fuck fuck. That was the little nice smile he gave Viola, and old Seb, for that matter, the boy who’d so clearly had a crush on him, and she was supposed to be new and improved Seb, receiver of head nods, not that. 

“How was Lucy’s house?” offered David. An out. 

She took it. 

“Oh, good!” The word trailed up in the exact wrong kind of way. She was going to need a new book. More practice. So, so, so much more practice in her old voice oh my god. She swallowed. “Bigger than I expected it to be, honestly.” Better. “Her parents must be, like, loaded.” Good!

“Lucky her,” said David. 

Viola, sensing something to grasp onto, rolled her eyes at him. “You’ll be joining her shortly there, won’t you?” 

“God willing,” agreed David. Class really ought to be starting any moment. Criminal that it hadn’t yet. Criminal that she had to keep having this conversation. Criminal that it was going to happen again and again and again today, and then next week, and then the week after… 

“How was your break?” asked Viola, if for no other reason than to fill silence. She had a keen idea of how David’s break had been; She’d received daily updates. Throw a ball. Run around. Go to bed uncommonly early. 

Professor Stefanski tapped on her desk at the front, and the class started to quiet.

“It was good,” murmured David, leaning a little so the words wouldn’t need to carry quite so far. “It was good.” 

“Good,” whispered Viola. “That’s good.” 

He smelled divine.

* * * * *

Viola got a big lunch with the intention of pushing it around her plate. Lunch was good for that! She’d have a few nibbles, then mix the pasta that she’d scooped up for effect. 

She could probably eat. It had been such a mistake last time not to. But the gnawing currently shredding her stomach was hardly hunger. Sitting around with David, waiting, waiting, waiting was wearing her thin. Mistakes. There had to be mistakes in this whole plan, mistakes beyond the shoes and the brief slips of the voice. And she had the horrifying thought that when they came, when he pulled back the veil, she wouldn’t know exactly what had done her in.

It would be a mystery to her. She would stumble without awareness, without realizing, and that was a more terrifying thought. She’d been so worried about the shoes, and he’d hardly noticed. How, exactly, was she supposed to hide things that she didn’t even realize she needed to hide?

“Are you okay?” asked David. David had loaded his plate, too, but he, of course, was eating. Good sign? She was taking it as one, at least. She needed to take it as one. 

“Sorry?” asked Viola.

“You’re all quiet today,” he said. 

“Oh,” said Viola. “Um, sorry. I just have a lot on my mind.” Truthful, but something that could lead to more questions. “Big project in chem.” 

“I never knew freshman chemistry could be so tricky,” said David. 

Viola smiled. “Do you know a lot of freshman chemistry students?” she asked. 

“No,” he admitted. “But I knew a lot of freshman chemistry students.” 

“Did they die or something?” 

“They became junior chemistry students.” 

“They’re inspirational to me,” said Viola. “One day, I will be one of your older, wiser, junior chemistry student friends.” 

“I don’t know,” said David. “They all seem pretty unhappy.” 

“What, do they wish they were marketing students instead?”

“No,” said David. “No, I think they all just wish they didn’t have to play school to play football.” 

Viola giggled. Then, caught herself and turned it to a more masculine laugh. God, everything. 

“Are all your friends football players?” she asked. 

“Some of them are chemistry students,” said David.

“Okay, and what about the ones that aren’t me, bro?” she asked, mostly to counteract the burning in her cheeks.

“Well,” said David, “if we’re not counting my sister-”

“I don’t think you can,” said Viola, pointing a fork at him.

“Then, sort of, yeah,” said David. 

“See, that’s why I stuck to chemistry,” said Viola. She really did take a bite of her pasta then. “Plenty of time to make other friends.” 

“Like ‘the girls’,” said David, nonchalantly. 

Viola was ready for that, though. David had teased the old version of Sebastian about that, too. She dug a trough at the bottom of her throat. “Yes,” she said. Her voice sank even deeper than she’d expected. “That’s right.” 

“They’re more fun than the football players anyway,” said David. 

“Whaddaya mean?” asked Viola. She leaned forward a little. It couldn’t be helped. They’d finally gotten where she wanted him to go.

She was so, so, so desperate for him to say a word about her. It served a dual purpose. For one, him mentioning her, him saying something about her, would reinforce the otherness. Viola wasn’t here. Viola was somewhere else. If he spoke about Viola as if she was not there, as if she was another girl entirely, then it would be made so in his mind, surely. If he spoke to ‘Seb’ about Viola, it would entrench more. They would be divided. 

And for another, she just wanted to know. For months, she’d sat in the room while the girls had discussed what a boy was saying about them, while Anna had relayed what some boy had said about Lucy while she was in the bathroom at a party. They had dissected, and she had played along, never really feeling the draw. Now? Now she got it. She wanted to plumb the depths of David’s brain and scoop his thoughts onto the table. What, oh God, did David think of her?

She knew he liked her. She just wanted more. She wanted more and more and more and she wanted it to be mainlined into her veins and she wanted it urgently. Who got this chance? Who got it first hand? Who ever got to hear exactly what someone thought of them in such an unadulterated manner, someone whose opinion had so suddenly been elevated from classmate to crush? 

No one. 

Just her. 

“They’re a lot of fun,” offered David.

“Yeah?” she asked. Dog with a bone. “How was that party? What did you guys get up to?” She really could bring up Viola, really could mention how she’d given him her number. But she didn’t want to prompt. She wanted him to want to gush about her. 

“It,” said David, chewing thoughtfully, “was a fun party. I mean, as fun as parties can be, anyway. The frats are such a nightmare sometimes.” 

Viola was inclined to agree, but he might skip the main point!

“Oh yeah?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” said David.

“I’ve never been to one,” said Viola. “What do they all do in there?” David raised an eyebrow and smiled. Viola faltered. “What?” 

“You’re asking me what your friends do at a party?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I mean, outside perspective?” She wanted him to gush. Her friends were fun? What was fun about them, David? And which friends did he have in mind? 

“Outside perspective?” asked David. 

“Yeah,” said Viola. 

For a second, it hung in the air, as if David was considering it, trying to remember exactly what they had done at that party. As if it had been so long, he might have forgotten. And then, David reached forward, scooped a bit of pasta from her plate onto his fork, and took a bite.

Viola stared. “Um, excuse me,” she said.

“What? You’re not eating it.” 

“I… I am eating it,” she said. “I’m just slower.” She tried to reorient her brain around what had just happened. Was that… well, he hadn’t done that before. She could sort of, kind of imagine a pair of guys doing that. She could imagine it in Top Gun.

How fucking weird, though.

“Fine,” said David, leaning back and waving his fork. 

“So?” 

“So?” 

“What do they do at parties?” asked Viola, again. 

“They party,” supplied David. 

“They… you’re an asshole.”

“If you want to know so bad, then come to a party some time,” he said. 

“We’re forgetting the rules of parties,” said Viola. “Which are-”

“Which are, ‘David can bring anyone he wants’,” said David.

“Have you ever considered not being a cocky asshole?” asked Viola. 

“That’s just the truth,” said David. “It’s not cocky if it’s the truth.” 

“Fine,” she said. When she rolled her eyes, she made sure they went all the way around. “Fine, then have you ever considered not being an asshole?” 

“It’s crossed my mind,” he said, scooping another bit of her pasta onto his fork. “It’s crossed my mind.” 

* * * * *

What was the bigger clue, her brain or her body? There was still the leg, although the bruising had well subsided by now. And, of course, the lack of hair across her. She’d grown that bit of stubble herself, although it was barely covering the top of her lip, and she was wearing that button down. Funny, though. It’d never felt more like her body was an excess of femininity than it did right now. Now that she was trying to hide it again, trying to exemplify masculinity, everything felt so obviously not masculine.

But it had to be her brain. She couldn’t get out of her own way. Texting with David had been lovely, yes, but it had imbued her with all this knowledge that she wasn’t supposed to have. David would say something, and Viola would want to respond as Viola. She had to suddenly tailor her jokes. No rallys about podcasts or ‘throwing a ball’ or any of it, and certainly no discussion of the night they’d met at the party. And now, it felt damn near impossible to remember what she was supposed to say to him outside of those texts. What, exactly, had ‘Seb’ and David talked about?

The answer wasn’t girls, but Viola was giving that a go. In part, because that’s what guys talked about, wasn’t it? Cam certainly seemed to think so. 

But he gave her nothing. Nothing at all. She tried to loop around again, tried to find another break to ask about Viola, but David demurred. And a third time, she’d decided, was too much. That was too suspicious. Laying low and all that did require a bit of maintenance, even when she fell into old patterns. 

She could feel it bubbling. Interacting with him now was so much trickier. She wanted to be cool, calm, collected, to be Sebastian, who had never flirted with David. But he was such a delight to prod. And even now, even while she was dressed like him, David bounced off her in a way that made her squirm. 

At the very least, though, she hadn’t immediately sparked any sort of connection in his mind. Not as far as she could tell, anyway. David had always been a little… well, he’d never stolen her food before, but it wasn’t a stretch. It could, she figured, just be the kind of bantering that men did, couldn’t it? It so could. 

Unless it wasn’t? 

Whatever it was, it was running circles around her head. That, and the stubble. She was already imagining it pressed against her cheek, against all of her skin, slipping into places that it did not belong. Never more than now did she relish the idea of smooth legs than now. It was not a stretch to think of David’s stubble on her thighs, scraping further and further up…

She needed him to shave before their next class, or this would never work. She’d be in the kind of mind loop that lent itself to very bad things. Stupid, horny, very bad things. 

They were walking now from lunch. And David, as he always did, seemed to attract a flock of people. They’d finally managed to wriggle free of a senior guy who was insistent that David call his dad to work on his throwing motion; apparently, the man’s father had discovered the one thing that would ‘unlock David’s game’. 

David had taken the number, a number Viola was sure he had no use for.

“Dude,” said Viola, a word she’d said more in the last four hours than she’d ever said before, “you have to call him.” 

“Dude,” said David, and he did not work to hide the teasing inflection; perhaps a bridge too far even for Extra Masculine Sebastian, “if I wanted to talk to random fifty-year-olds about football, I could walk into any bar in town.” 

“What if he fixes your game?” asked Viola. “You could be a whole new football player. The best to do it.” 

David rolled his eyes and nodded forward on the path. “Yes,” he mused, “I’m sure some guy who’s seen me on TV has everything all figured out. I mean, who needs coaches when you have guys on TV.” 

“TV cameras are pretty good these days,” said Viola. “They’ve come a very long way.” She scratched at the cuff of her shirt. It was hot. God, it was hot. One of the polos would’ve been nicer. 

“Don’t tell me you have a plan to fix my throwing, too,” said David. 

“I’ve never watched a game,” said Viola. 

“You’re still probably more qualified than that guy,” said David. “Throwing a ball’s not all that easy, unless you’re a middle aged man who hasn’t thrown a ball in years.” 

“I’ve heard that,” agreed Viola. 

“It’s why I earn the big bucks,” said David. 

Viola opened her mouth, opened it to say ‘I thought you didn’t get paid’, and then shut it. Sebastian hadn’t been privy to that conversation. That’d been a Viola conversation. “Right,” she said instead. “Well, lucky you for getting his number.” 

David grinned at her. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, lucky me.”

“I’m sensing that you’re not going to call him.” 

“You must be psychic.” David rubbed one of his eyes. “Enough football. What do you think she’s going to have us do now?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Professor Bridges,” said David. “Since, you know, we’re done with Much Ado.” 

Viola frowned. She hadn’t considered it. Really, she hadn’t considered much of anything regarding the actual classes she was taking. Bigger fish and all that. She had a pretty good guess on which play Annabelle wouldn’t make her suffer the indignity of, but really nothing else. 

“You’re the Shakespeare expert,” said Viola. “You make the guess.” Immediately, she wished she hadn’t given him the task of running down the list of plays he knew. God forbid she prompt him to think of Twelfth Night while in her company. 

David didn’t miss a beat. “Probably not another comedy,” he said. “If we’re supposed to get a bit of everything in. There’s only a couple of weeks left now.” 

“What, so Romeo and Juliet, then?” asked Viola. She really laid on the asshole for that one, or at least tried to. What, that play? The one about love and shit? Gross. 

“If she’s going for a tragedy,” said David, “it wouldn’t be my pick.”

“Tragedy?”

 David rolled his eyes and smiled at her. “It’s not a love story,” he said. “They die at the end.” 

“Well, that’s a certain kind of romantic,” said Viola. 

“I think that to qualify as a romance, you need a happy ending,” said David. 

“Well, that’s a-”

“No,” said David. “No, death is not a good ending for a love story. It can’t end in death.” 

“Okay,” said Viola. “Fine, well, that’s pretty much the extent of my Shakespeare knowledge.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” said David. They’d reached the steps of the building, and David took them two at a time. Viola did not. “No one makes it through high school without at least two plays.” David swung open the door and held it for Viola to take. 

“I didn’t,” said Viola. “Just Romeo and Juliet. And I didn’t really read that.” 

“Dire,” said David, shaking his head. “Absolutely dire. The State of South Carolina ought to be ashamed of themselves.” 

“That’s true on a lot of fronts,” said Viola. They entered the classroom. Annabelle was already settled at the front of the class, flicking through a set of papers idly. She matched Viola’s gaze the second she entered, and immediately grimaced. “I, uh, yeah.” Viola’s voice voice squeaked for a second. Annabelle returned to the papers in front of her. 

“Oh,” said David. “I’ve heard that the state has some truly remarkable qualities. Lots going for it.” 

“Who the hell told you that?” asked Viola. She was still eying Annabelle. Nothing to read into on that grimace, right? Just a facial expression. It was probably fine. Everything was almost definitely fine, right? Had to be. 

“I get South Carolina propaganda from a lot of places,” said David. 

“Propaganda,” murmured Viola absently. 

“Uh, yeah,” said David. Viola blinked, then bent and started unpacking her backpack. Gosh, back next to him, squeezed into the tiny seats, and trying to keep track of everything else was a challenge. It had been a challenge before, before the party, but it was worse now. Now, she could remember what it was like to feel the very nearby hand on her waist. If she waited long enough, she forgot. They’d just be chatting, and she’d be thinking about being Masculine Sebastian, and she’d forget that David was David. And then, she’d bend down, and she’d be right next to his thighs, and her head felt a little light. 

“Get a grip,” she whispered to herself. Then, she pulled her laptop, settled it on her lap, and opened a doc. 

She was rescued from having to get a grip by Annabelle, who started class two minutes early. They would not, as Viola expected, be doing Twelfth Night. And, yeah, that had been just about the easiest call on the planet, but she was still a bit relieved. As an added bonus, though, they would no longer be working in pairs. Larger scenes. Group work. Viola swore Annabelle kept shooting glances towards the pair of them while she said that.

She avoided them the rest of the way, though. 

“Okay,” said Annabelle after an hour and a half. “I think we’ll end early for the day. Get yourselves organized for next week please! And make sure you actually read the plays, alright? I don’t want to have to explain how your own character fits into the world.” The rest of the class started scraping together their things. David, as he normally did, lingered. The pair of them normally stayed and talked for a bit. Sometimes longer than a bit. But Vi really ought not stay longer than necessary. 

She’d managed this. She’d managed a day with him as Sebastian, and, as far as she could tell, she’d managed it without David really figuring anything out. And that was something not to dwell on. It was something to finalize as soon as possible. Today had been the most delicate day. Every day after this had the potential to be easier. Every day after had the potential to ruin her life less.

So, extrication. 

“What are you up to tonight?” asked David. “I was thinking of going to a party.” 

“Oh,” said Viola. “I think I’m just- just doing something with the girls, is all.” 

David packed his notebook into his bag, nodding. “Just the four of you?” he asked. Nonchalant, like it was supposed to just be nothing, but Vi knew what he was asking. It tickled her.

“Just the four of us,” she confirmed. Then, briefly, she considered adding an alibi to that. Maybe Viola was sick? Maybe she was off somewhere else, or she had a lot of homework to catch up on, and that’s why she wasn’t hanging out with the rest of them. She decided better of it. Viola could supply that later if it was necessary.

She could not go to a party with David. She just couldn’t. And, frankly, while she’d enjoyed bits of the last one, and she was certain to enjoy bits of this one, she also was supposed to be staying low. And she was breaking with that a lot, but still. A party. It had been stupid the first time, and it’d be just as stupid the second time. Frankly, maybe even stupider. 

She’d teased him about going, sure, but teasing and action were different. 

“Oh, cool,” said David. 

“Have fun though,” said Viola. 

“That,” said David, grinning at her, “seems unlikely.” 

“Collins!” They both turned to the front. Annabelle was watching the pair. “A word, please.” Not a question. David raised an eyebrow at Vi, as if to say ‘oooh, someone’s in trouble’, which was adorable, and Viola gave him a little smile. 

“I’ll talk you you later,” she murmured. She slung her bag over her shoulder. 

David nodded, swung his own bag up, and stood. “Good luck,” he whispered. 

“Thanks,” said Viola, trying to imagine a world in which Annabelle might be considered scary to her. David slipped down the opposite side of the row, then out towards the back of the classroom. After he’d gone, the room was empty besides the pair of them, and Viola allowed her shoulders to settle down for a second. Then, she took the empty row in a few paces and met Annabelle at her desk. 

Annabelle, leaning against the desk, did look a little scary. 

“What are you doing?” she asked.

 Viola, looking around at the room, trying to figure out what accusation had just been laid upon her, frowned. “You said my name,” she offered. 

Annabelle rolled her eyes, then put her laptop back on her desk and circled it. “That’s not what I mean,” she said. She opened one of the drawers. “I mean, what are you doing in that outfit.”
“Well, I couldn’t come in a dress,” said Viola. “This-”

“So you decided to come as Caesario?” asked Annabelle. 

“What?” 

Annabelle pulled a stack of papers onto the desk and shook her head. “Have you even read Twelfth Night?”

Viola frowned. She’d neglected that bit, much to the chagrin of Lucy, but she knew who Caesario was. She had to be Caesario! There wasn’t another option right now. She couldn’t be Viola. 

“I had to come as a boy,” said Viola, defensively. “Surely you know that…”

“Of course I know that,” said Annabelle. “Of course I know that, but I thought you’d come to class in your old clothing.” 

“I thought this would be a good cover,” said Viola. “Like, sort of play up being a man a bit?” 

Annabelle scoffed. Then, she started riffling through the set of papers on the desk. “Your plan,” she said, shaking her head, fingers flipping through pages, “to avoid someone questioning whether you were playing with gender presentation was to play with gender presentation?” She paused, briefly, to look at Viola. 

Viola swallowed. When she put it like that…

“Well,” she offered, meekly. “It’s the other direction, so?” 

Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Lord,” she said. “Good God.” 

“It worked, though!” David had treated her the same at the end of the day as he had at the beginning. 

“Great,” said Annabelle. She stopped searching, taking hold of a stack of papers. Then, she added, more gently. “Good.” Finally, with actual relief. “Look, you need to actually think about things before you do them, okay? Like think about them. For God sakes, darling, you’re in trouble with David for veering too closely to all this Shakespearian crap.” She shook her head, almost as if to deny her own characterization of Shakespeare. “Just… read the play, okay?” She held out the stapled stack of papers she’d recovered from her desk drawer. “If David knows all about Twelfth Night, at least try to stop replicating bits of it? Until then, no ships and no planted letters and for the love of God, no sword fights.” Viola giggled at her, and Annabelle shook her head. “Jesus.” 

“I won’t do any sword fighting,” promised Viola, accepting the play. Where would one even find sword fighting? God, and she hadn’t written a letter since the fourth grade. They’d all been required to write one to their future selves. 

Ships?
Oh, well, one for three was pretty good.

“Good,” said Annabelle. “Good. There’s more I want to talk to you about.” 

“Me too,” said Viola. She had a whole host of questions.

“You first, then.”

They talked through the name change, through the scholarship. Annabelle had worked on it, or at least started to, and she promised that it would, eventually, happen. ‘Eventually’ looked like over the summer. It gave them the best chance to slip Viola back into the student population without much fanfare, and it gave ‘Sebastian’ a good excuse to leave. Students transferred in and out all the time, and it would be entirely believable that a student never returned after Freshman year.

The scholarship was trickier than the name. Money. It was money, and money was tied to his social security number and his birth certificate, and until, or, perhaps the better question was if, she could change those, they’d have to get creative. Annabelle was working that too, but she didn’t have a solid plan yet. 

And then, housing. If Viola was to reenter the student population, she’d be placed in some sort of dormitory. Freshmen and sophomores were required to live on campus, and while her scholarship definitely included housing, it definitely did not include a single room. And sharing a room? Viola seemed unlikely to be anywhere near ready to pretend she was just any old girl by the fall. 

“Which,” said Annabelle, “brings me to the last two things. The first is this.” Annabelle fished around in her bag and pulled out a little vial. She set it on the desk. 

“Estrogen,” supplied Viola, immediately. 

Annabelle nodded. “If your plan is to go stealth, you’ll need it as soon as possible. Like, today. Tomorrow. Before the end of the semester. At some point, that body of yours is going to rebel. You’re lucky to pass already,” Annabelle took a breath, “but it won’t last forever unless you switch things up.” 

Viola stared at the vial. It looked so innocuous. Was that the thing that was supposed to fix everything? She’d looked online. She’d known, of course, bits of it. Hard to avoid on those forums years ago. But she’d really looked this week, after Annabelle had suggested it sooner rather than later. And there was a certain reverence to all of it. Viola, of course, felt a little pang of that, towards the thing that all the other girls naturally produced that she had no access to, the thing that was supposed to save her, too. But it looked so small now. So truly, wonderfully innocuous. 

“I don’t like needles,” she murmured. 

“You get used to them,” offered Annabelle. She reached back into her bag, apparently taking Viola’s hesitance as as a chance to show her needles. 

Viola bit her lip. “Yeah,” she said. 

“There’s pills too, but I don’t take pills,” said Annabelle. “We can probably get some, but I… well, I don’t know anyone who takes them.” 

Viola frowned.  “Do you know a lot of people doing injections?” she asked. As far as Viola could tell, it might just be the pair of them. 

“What a perfect segue to my last thing,” said Annabelle, grinning. “I have some people I want you to meet. Are you busy tonight?” 

“There’s more trans people here?” asked Viola. 

“Sure,” said Annabelle. “You just need to know the right place to look.”

“And where would that be?” asked Viola.

“In this case,” said Annabelle. “It would be at my apartment.” 

“Sounds thrilling,” said Viola. Truthfully, she couldn’t decide if the company of Annabelle’s friends sounded like anything. Her mind tried to work out what Annabelle’s life looked like, what it looked like outside of her job, and it came up empty. Her apartment? And when she said trans people, was she talking students?

And would she be introduced at a trans girl?

She wasn’t sure she was ready for that. If nothing else, she’d enjoyed the anonymity of being just Any Other Girl at Sigma Pi. A party where that wasn’t the case?

“It’s nothing big,” said Annabelle. Mind reader of a woman. 

“I don’t know,” said Viola.

“It’s just a couple of people who are cool,” said Annabelle. “It’s nice to be around people like you, Vi.”

“It’s tonight?” she asked. She had sort of already committed to a night in with the girls. She’d also sort of, halfway thought about David’s offering of a party, but she’d been thoroughly scolded about her impulsivity, so maybe that was off the table. But the girls were still waiting. 

“Every Friday,” said Annabelle. 

“I can do next week?” offered Viola. 

“Next week,” said Annabelle, “is fine.” 

* * * * *

David: So where do we stand on that part

Viola: i cant tonight

David: Booooooooo

David: But then I’ll have to hangout with Cam or something

Viola: surely those arent your only options

Viola: surely there are other more palatable people to hang out with

David: Yes

David: However all of those people seem to be busy

David: All of the palatable friends I have are otherwise engaged

Viola: otherwise engaged

Viola: this sounds like theyve been tied up in your basement

David: Where would I get a basement around here

David: Besides I’d never do that to the palatable friends

Viola: palatable friends implies the existence of non palatable friends

David: Unpalatable actually

Viola: dont be a dick

David: I just don’t want you to make that mistake in front of someone important

Viola: how often do you think im saying the word non palatable

David: Well its not a word

Viola: fine

Viola: the existence of palatable friends inplies the existence of UNpalatable friends

Viola: happy?

David: Thrilled!

David: No I think all my friends are palatable

Viola: literally shut up

David: No I really do like them

Viola: just hang out with your sister

David: First of all that’s a little pathetic

David: Second of all she’s busy

Viola: why would it be pathetic to hang out with your sister

Viola: you literally go to parties with her?

David: Yes but its like I asked out a girl and then had to settle for taking my sister instead

David: Sort of like bringing your mom to prom

Viola: i think itd be really sweet to bring your mom to prom

David: Well I just don’t think she’d be my first choice

Viola: your first choice is otherwise engaged

Viola: youll have to take someone else to prom

David: Heartbreaking

David: I’ll call my mom

Viola: shes going to love sigma pi

* * * * *

Viola shaved. She shaved her face. Mercy, it felt good to shave the little stubble away. She’d grow it again next week, probably, but now? All gone. She also shoved the kinds of things she’d need for a Friday night at Anna and Lucy’s into her bag: a toothbrush, a fresh change of underwear, and some kind of water bottle. The girls weren’t always great about keeping drinks in their tiny fridge, and Viola was hardly interested in stumbling into the lounge drunk in the middle of the night. That, plus a swing by a much busier Royal Liquor meant she had a very full backpack by the time she arrived in the dorm. 

“What’dya get?” asked Anna, when Viola shrugged the strap away from her shoulder and set it on the end of her bed. At the moment, it was just the pair of them. Lucy had decided on a shower, apparently as deterrent to the idea that she would entertain going out, and Margot was, presumably, somewhere with Cam’s tongue in her mouth. Viola revealed the wine she’d bought—two bottles, just in case they wanted to really have a night— and a smaller bottle of rum. “Perfect.” 

“The guy at that liquor store is starting to get familiar with me,” said Viola, flopping down on the bed. “He’s started commenting on my choice of wine.” 

Anna twisted the cap of a bottle of red. “Maybe he likes you.”

“What, this version of me?” asked Viola. She waved her hands over the button down, over the chinos, and grinned. 

“Well, there are gay people here, you know,” said Anna. 

“I’ll pass,” said Viola. “He’s about fifty.” 

“They can’t all be 6’5 quarterbacks,” said Anna. “Which, speaking of…”

“You’re so nosy,” said Viola, giggling.

 Anna gave her a very innocent look. “What? I don’t want to know how today went,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t thought about it at all.” 

“Liar,” said Viola. 

Anna shrugged, pouring a bit of the wine into two cups. “I don’t need a lot of details. Just like, what did he say, what did he do, did it seem weird, how good are you at being a boy, did you flirt with him at all?” She took a breath. “Oh, how’d he react to new and improved ‘Seb’?” She held up air quotes around Vi’s old name. Viola rolled her eyes, and Anna put a finger to her chin. “I guess I do have a couple of questions.” 

“You’re so subtle,” said Viola.

“Spill.” Anna pressed one of the cups into Viola’s hands.

“It was fine,” said Viola. “I mean, I think it was fine. It doesn’t seem like he was all that thrown off. Like, maybe a little thrown off by the new wardrobe, I guess? But he didn’t really seem like he was trying to figure me out or whatever. He was just… he was just kind of David?” 

“Likely thing for him to be,” agreed Anna. 

Viola took a sip of her wine. Sort of bitter today. “Not if he was thinking about if I’m secretly a girl,” she said. “Then, he’d be, like, weird David.” 

“I’m a big fan of normal David,” said Anna.  “How are you doing with it?” 

“With being Sebastian?” asked Viola. Anna nodded. “It’s not my favorite, but it’s a little easier than it used to be. Like, I don’t know. I don’t know. Playing it up does suck, but it’s also a little like an act? Like, I know it’s not me.” 

“Don’t let Lucy hear you talk about acting,” murmured Anna. 

“She’d have me try out for ‘Assassins’,” agreed Vi. 

“‘Assassins’?”

“It’s one of the plays they’re doing this year. Um, musical, actually.” 

Anna grinned at her. “Since when did you know anything about what the theatre department was doing?” she asked. 

“I’ve made a new friend,” said Viola. If she was going to stay, they’d have to be clued in about Annabelle eventually. And, okay, Viola wasn’t sure she had total permission to relay that Annabelle was trans too, but she definitely ought to have clearance to tell Anna there was an adult in the room now.
“Ominous,” said Anna. 

“A friend,” said Viola. 

Anna squirmed. “That’s not less ominous,” she said. 

“My theatre professor,” supplied Viola. “She’s, well, she kind of caught me in the middle of a breakdown.” Viola bit a lip. “And I told her that I’m trans. And she wasn’t a complete weirdo about it, so now she’s kind of trying to help out.” 

“Oh,” said Anna. She broke to a smile. “See, you can’t say friend like that. That’s all freaky. This is, like, good.” 

“I didn’t say friend like anything,” said Viola. “I said friend in the normal way.” 

“No, no you said it like friend,” argued Anna. “Which implies, like, either evil or sex.” 

Viola giggled. “Okay, well it’s not evil or sex,” she said. 

“Good! That would be weird.”

“She’s looking into if I can try and get my documents all updated here and stuff,” said Viola. “Like, my scholarship.” 

“That is a friend,” agreed Anna. “Yeah, God, that would be huge. You could just, like, be Viola… all the time, wow.” Anna blinked. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” said Viola. “Well, maybe. There’s still, like, David and my parents and insurance and, you know, just the fact that I can’t really actually be a girl all the time. Like, I’m gluing on the important body parts.” 

Anna snorted. “The important body parts?” she asked. 

“Well,” said Viola, shrugging. “Yeah.” 

“I think you gotta take the win right now,” said Anna.
“No arguments,” said Viola. 

Anna took another big sip of her drink, stood, and grinned. “Wanna look through my closet?” she asked. 

“Wouldn’t that be a little weird? ” She shuddered theatrically. ”I mean, that might be kind of gay.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Anna, yanking her, giggling, off the bed.

* * * * *

It was a dress kind of night. Viola had avoided them, on account of the fact that most of the dresses the girls had cut too low for her fake breasts, but she decided she’d risk it tonight. Tonight, they were just staying in the room, and the air conditioning was working to the effect that would allow her to don a sweater for the bathroom if necessary. Really, she just needed something extra tonight. The level of masculinity from the week was too high, and she needed to counteract it. 

Had it only been two weeks since she’d figured this all out? It felt so formative now. It felt so firmly entrenched within her. The idea that she might not be constantly trying to find excuses to get more feminine, to enhance the nascent femininity she had, was hilarious. Two weeks since the beach. A month since the first night. It had all happened so fast. 

Anna had loaned her a red polka-dotted dress that flared just above the knees. It did a nice thing at her waist, pulling a bit tight, making her body seem like it had been born curved. And the wig; she’d pulled it back into a pony, if for no other reason than she was struggling to get used to the length still. At times, it came too close to her mouth and frayed in her lipstick. Pulling the wig back did leave the possibility of a botched hairline higher, but, as with the breasts, she would risk it in the room.

It was her own insurance against going out. Drinking led to foolish notions of seeing David, and this would, at least, prevent that from becoming a reality. She’d turned him down sober. Ensuring that the drunk version of her would remain with the bounds of her safety was another thing entirely, but this ought to help. Besides, she really had no idea where he was going, and she had even less interest in whatever place it was. She wanted to be here. She wanted to be with them, to be her without fear. 

Lucy hadn’t even bothered with more than a touch of makeup. Her face was apparently breaking out. There was little evidence to support it, but it meant she wasn’t going anywhere. Anna had indulged Viola by staying in what she’d worn on the day; a Garland State crop top, something Viola had no idea they sold, although it was possible Anna had turned a more respectable item less respectable, and a mini. 

And when Margot knocked on the door, back from her date with Cam, she was predictably dolled herself. 

“How’s Cameron?” asked Anna as Margot settled her own bag on the floor. 

“Since when did we start calling him Cameron?” asked Margot. 

“Since right now,” said Anna. “Cam-Ehr-Ohn. It has a nice ring to it. Cameron. Cameron Cameron C-”

“Cam is good,” said Margot. “He says hi.” 

“Hi, Cameron,” sang Lucy.

“He says we should all come out with him sometime.” Margot unpacked a water bottle and flopped down onto Anna’s bed. She waved off an offer of wine. “Later. Apparently, he’s invited ‘Sebastian’ as well.” She grinned at Vi. “Seems very keen on being your friend.” 

“Sebastian isn’t home right now,” said Viola, sweetly. “Would he like to leave a message?” 

“Oh, well he also told me that you should… what was it?” She screwed up her face. “‘Stop playing around and get with that Viola girl’.” She frowned. “Something like that.” 

“I’ll take it under advisement,” said Viola. “Although, I think the logistics of that relationship might be a little tricky.” 

“I’ll let him know.” Margot nodded. “I like the dress, by the way.” 

Viola plucked at the hem and smiled. “Anna’s,” she said. “I can’t wear it out of the room, though, so remind me when I’m drunk.” 

“Noted,” said Margot. “How’s David?” 

Viola laughed. She’d done the run through a second time with Lucy already. Sort of her fault for not waiting until everyone arrived to fill everyone in, but she didn’t mind so much. On some level, telling everyone that things were fine made her feel fine, even as the walls crept forwards. Digging graves and all that. 

Things just felt more manageable, and they felt even more manageable after she’d made it through the day and seen Annabelle. And, sure, it might’ve just been Annabelle poking at their plan, but that was okay! She was just being careful. And, besides, it was nice to have someone looking after her a tiny bit. 

Surrogacy of some kind.

Her mother had been calling. It was getting suspicious now, surely, that Viola kept dodging her calls. Her dad would never bother picking up the phone, but her mom tried at least once a week. And, most weeks, Viola had been fine to talk to her. But it had been two weeks, two weeks of dodging, and the voice mails were getting shorter. Shorter meant less ‘hi, hope stuff’s good’ blah blah blah and more ‘call me back!’. 

She ought to. She really, really ought to call her at some point. She was being Seb anyway, so she ought to. Give her a son for a little while longer, a son who wasn’t a complete asshole, anyway. That was the nice thing to do. But her mind kept running with the idea that, if she called, when she called, there would be a final call, and she wasn’t ready to face up to that yet. The last call they’d had wasn’t anything. It hadn’t meant anything. It was just a call. 

This one? This one might be final. 

Viola gave a run through of the day to Margot. She mentioned all the things she needed to, all the little pokes and prods to see if he would speak about her, all the moments she’d almost slipped in little bits of information about the party that she ought not know, the things David had said about new and improved Sebastian. And, by the time she’d finished, both Margot and Lucy had picked up glasses of wine too, and Anna was on a third, and they were all giggling about the idea of Viola trying to pry into his interest. 

It was funny. She knew that. Maybe even funnier after a couple of glasses of wine herself. The idea that she could be asking David questions about herself, hoping to get an answer while shrouded by the cloak of Sebastian, was so ridiculous. But she couldn’t help herself! What, was she supposed to ignore it? Like, she wasn’t itching to interact with him as Sebastian, but if she had to, why not? Why not make something of it?
“So he said nothing?” asked Margot. It was the third time the question had been asked. 

“Yup,” said Viola. “Nothing except confirming that it would just be the four of us here tonight. And, uh, by the four of us, I mean ‘Seb’,” she raised her fingers to quote as was custom, “and you guys.” 

“Ooh,” said Lucy, leaning back on the bed. 

“He didn’t even ask for her number again?” asked Anna. “I mean, what’s his game here?” 

“Maybe Cam said something to him,” said Lucy. She glanced to Margot, who shrugged. Lucy frowned at her. 

“What? Am I supposed to know every conversation he has?” asked Margot. 

“Just the one’s he has with David,” said Lucy. “God, do you think he thinks you’re dating yourself? That’s so funny.”

“I don’t know,” said Viola. She was pretty sure David wasn’t under that impression. If David was under that impression, it’d make his flirting a lot more duplicitous. Sort of an asshole thing of him to be doing. Except, of course, that Cam didn’t seem to be under the impression that ‘Seb’ and Viola were dating either, just, like, courting. Although, that still seemed a little duplicitous. All that texting and he thought ‘Seb’ was into her too? That didn’t sound like David. “He hasn’t acted like that.” 

“No?” asked Anna. 

Viola shrugged. “Not really. Like, he hasn’t acted like I was dating someone other times,” she said. 

Almost immediately, she realized she’d slipped. Anna’s eyebrows skyrocketed, and Lucy lurched forward.

“What other times?” they said in unison. 

Viola shifted, trying to think quickly. Other times. Other times she’d talked to David in-between now and the party. Other times that weren’t monumentally stupid and other times that didn’t involve that secret phone and other times that didn’t force her to reveal that she’d been planning on running. Other times. Other times, other times, other times…

There weren’t any. And she couldn’t think of a plausible reason to have not told them. And now she’d been sitting silent for several seconds, and Anna’s forehead was creasing, and she couldn’t think of anything. 

“We’ve texted,” Viola offered finally. 

Lucy sat forward further, her hands tucked into her lap. “When you say we, do you mean you and him, or ‘Seb’ and him? Because I thought you hadn’t spoken to him since he texted you asking for her number.” 

“You said that,” agreed Anna. 

Vi bit her lip.

“Oh, Viola, that’s so dumb,” said Margot. 

“It just kind of… happened,” offered Viola. 

Anna’s forehead creased further, the lines now buried into her skin. “On what?” she asked. 

“Sorry?” 

“On what did you text him? Because, last time I checked, you could exactly text as ‘Viola’ from your regular phone.” 

It was hard not to squirm at that question. The answer revealed too much. “I sort of bought another phone,” said Viola, quietly. She glanced at Margot. The gears were already working in her brain. Viola could see them. And then, Margot closed her eyes.

“Oh, Viola,” she murmured. 

“What?” asked Lucy. 

“You bought another phone to text David?” asked Anna. “What the hell were-”

“She didn’t buy another phone to text David,” said Margot, flopping back onto her bed. “She bought another phone for New York.”

“A phone for New York?” asked Lucy. Viola could see the gears spinning around her head, now, too. Margot swept a hand through the air, as if to indicate everything spilling out onto the table. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. 

“I was going to run away,” said Viola, quietly. 

Lucy looked entirely lost. “When?” she asked. Viola closed her eyes. She didn’t want to answer that. She had been hoping that it would just stay hidden, that no one else would know. 

“Oh, what the fuck,” said Anna. “Were you even going to tell us?”
“I would’ve,” said Viola, and that received a reproachful look from Margot. “I just… I just knew you’d try and stop me, is all.” 

“So, no then,” said Anna. It came out bitter. It felt bitter against Viola’s ears, too. 

“I couldn’t stay,” said Viola. “Okay, there wasn’t any way for this to all work, and I was really freaked out, and I’m sorry, but, okay? Okay, fuck, I was panicking, okay?” 

“Oh, Vi,” whispered Lucy. 

“What the fuck, Viola.” Anna drew herself up off the floor. For a second, she glared at Viola. Then, she paced to the door. She stopped. “Sorry, but, what the fuck?” 

“She was having a hard time,” murmured Margot. “Just… cut her some slack.” 

Anna wheeled. “I know that,” she said, defensively. “I know that.” 

“I’m not saying you don’t,” said Margot, holding up a hand. 

“I feel awful about it,” said Viola, quietly. 

“I’m sorry,” said Anna, bypassing Viola’s statement entirely and now rounding onto Margot. “Did you know she was going to leave?” 

“What?” asked Margot, perplexed. “What? No.” She shared a look with Viola. “I just figured it out last weekend.” 

The lines on Anna’s forehead were likely to be permanent. “You didn’t say anything?” Her voice had escalated. “God, you didn’t think that was important?” Lucy scooted back on the floor, away from Anna’s path, which had grown with each heavy step. “Dude, one of our-”

“Hold on,” said Margot, her own voice rising. “No, hold on, I didn’t know anything. And by the time Viola told me, she was already staying.” 

“But,” started Anna, “you knew she had this phone.” 

“No,” said Margot. “No, no. Why are you putting this on me?” 

“Because,” and Anna was shouting now, “she’s not able to fucking handle it right now! And you want to be some kind of therapist, and you didn’t think to tell anyone to that she was fucking running? What the fuck Margot?” Anna stopped pacing and twisted her toe into the floor, as if it might give her more leverage. “You think you’re the only one that knew she was fucking suicidal? You think you were the only one who should fucking know that? You didn’t think that was fucking important?” She put both her hands to her face. “Fuck. Fuck.” 

“It wasn’t like that,” said Margot, her voice forced level. “It wasn’t like that, Anna.” 

“You can’t hold onto that,” said Anna. “You just can’t.” 

“Why are you mad at me?” asked Margot. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Because,” said Anna. “Fucking, because I… I can’t.” 

“Anna,” murmured Lucy. Her eyes were on Viola. 

“No, no,” said Anna. “No, this is so dumb. I’m sorry, but if you knew she was-”

And then, a knock interrupted her. Anna froze mid sentence, gaze still on Margot. Everyone stayed quiet. Then, the knock came again. Anna raised a half questioning eyebrow at Margot, who immediately shook her head. 

“I swear it’s not him,” she whispered. 

Lucy jumped to her feet, and Anna jumped towards her closet. In a second, the sweater was being pulled over Viola’s head. She almost wanted to wrestle away from it. Fuck. Fuck, Anna. She knew she was concerning. She knew that. But fuck she did not want Anna taking care of her right now. 

But there was someone at the door, and this dress didn’t cover the falsity of her breasts enough.

Just beyond sight, Lucy swung open the door. “Hi Candace,” she said. 

The sweater was on now, pulled haphazardly over Vi’s head, doing absolutely zero favors the wig, and it gave her the chance to stare daggers into Anna. Anna grimaced. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” she murmured. “Here, you need a hat. The glue’s all fucked up.” She passed Viola a baseball cap. Viola held it for a long second, then jammed in haphazardly on her head. Anna squeezed next to her on the bed. “Fuck.” 

And then, Lucy was back, followed by a dark haired woman. She looked older, maybe closer to graduation than Freshman year. Viola, now past frustration at being treated like a child, double checked to make sure the hat was low enough on her head. 

“Hi everyone,” said the woman. 

“Hi Candace,” said Anna, her voice still humming with a trace of anger. “Everything okay?”

Candace, now glancing between the three of them, Viola crushed between Margot and Anna on the bed, raised an eyebrow. “I heard shouting,” she said. “Angry shouting. And, well, it is sort of my job to make sure everything’s okay.” Oh. The RA. 

Oh, fuck, the RA. They hadn’t put away the wine. Or the liquor. They’d been too focused on Viola’s tits. 

“Everything’s fine,” said Margot smoothly. Behind Candace, Lucy sidled towards the desk, clearly aiming to sit in front of it. 

“Yes,” agreed Anna. “Fine.” Candace glanced between the pair of them, as if she could tell it was them who’d been yelling, and then looked to Viola. 

“Fine,” added Viola, nodding.

Candace looked between the three of them, down the row, as if she was expecting someone to say something further, but all three remained mum. Anna’s hand slipped onto Viola’s, and Viola tucked a finger into hers. Be cool. Be cool. Candace sucked on her teeth, nodded, and then pulled out a pad of paper. 

“Well, that’s good,” she said. “I’ll only need to write you up for alcohol, then.” 

“Fuck,” muttered Lucy. “No, come on. We’ve been fine all year.” 

“Have you been drinking in here all year?” asked Candace. She put a hand to her hip, as if to say, ‘say that again slowly’.

Lucy straightened. “No, of course not. I meant we’ve been good all year. Like, we haven’t drank in here all year.” 

“Uh huh,” said Candace.
“We’re so close to the end of the year,” said Anna. “Can’t you go write up someone else?” 

“The boys next door are so noisy,” agreed Lucy. 

Candace shook her head. “A compelling case,” she said. “But I’ll need your student IDs.”

“No,” said Lucy. “C’mon.”

 “Look, it’s not a big thing. They’ll make you take, like, a little online course about the dangers of drinking, and you’ll be fine. Unless, of course, you make it a habit of getting into fights while drunk in your dorm. In which case, you might want to actually take the course seriously.” 

Viola caught her breath. IDs. Student IDs. Oh, she had a student ID alright, but it sure didn’t match the girl sitting on the bed. 

“Wait,” said Anna, quickly. Candace looked at her, face completely unchanged. Anna squirmed. “Um, please?” 

“I really promise it’s not a big thing,” said Candace, now holding out a hand. “I had to take it as a Freshman, too.” 

“So you know how annoying it might be,” offered Lucy. 

“Girls,” said Candace, wiggling her fingers. “Look, I’m six weeks from graduation. I have been cool with you guys drinking in here every weekend, but if the head RA walks by while you’re fighting, it’s my ass. I promise it’s not a big deal.” 

Lucy swallowed and exchanged a glance with Viola. 

Dead end. 

Fuck.

"Candace,” pleaded Anna. 

The patience on Candace’s face started to dissipate. “Seriously,” she said. “IDs” 

“Okay,” murmured Viola. End of the line. End of the line, and all she could hope for was a good reaction. Maybe something akin to friendliness. She’d even take light derision. She just wanted it to stay contained. She dug for her wallet, then realized she’d left it in her other pants. “Just give me a second.” Candace stood back to let her pass. 

Lucy reluctantly pulled out her own ID, previously pressed into the back of her phone case. “This is so not cool, Candace,” she spat. Candace, clearly over whatever frustrations they had, ignored her and held out a palm. Lucy handed her the plastic. “So not cool.” 

“Everyone else,” said Candace, and she wasn’t even bothering with friendliness anymore. Viola bent into the corner, pulled the ancient wallet from the pocket of the chinos previously discarded there, and paused. 

Her phone was in here, too. 

If she needed anything, right? 

She didn’t even have a proper idea what she was supposed to say to Annabelle, but she knew some of it. She knew the important parts. She knew the thing that would get Annabelle over immediately. 

SOS. 

Leonard Hall 707

And that was it. All she had. What Annabelle was supposed to do, she didn’t know, but Annabelle was supposed to fix things, wasn’t she? She was supposed to help. She had given her the number because she wanted help, and Viola had a crushing feeling that this was the exact kind of scenario Annabelle had in mind when she’d offered that. 

She held onto the phone and the ID and stood. Anna had circled about her desk to find her own ID, still wearing frustration on her face. Margot dug around in her purse, her eyes flicking to Viola, and then handed her own ID over. 

And then, Candace circled to Viola. “Come on,” she said. 

Viola swallowed. It would be a little while before Annabelle arrived. She needed to keep her here until Annabelle arrived. The situation couldn’t fall apart before then. 

“Okay,” said Viola, slowly. “But, when I… just, you have to stay in the room when I give this to you.” 

For a second, Candace didn’t seem to register the words. And then, “What?”

“You have to stay in the room,” said Viola. There wasn’t a good excuse for it. She just needed her here. 

“I’m going to give it back to you,” said Candace, shaking her head, confusion etched all over her. “You’ll be able to leave and everything. I just need the ID number.” 

“Right,” said Viola, “but you have to stay here. For, um, for a little bit.” Margot was looking at her wide eyed, and Anna’s fingers were pressed into her cheeks. 

Candace still seemed completely lost. 

“I… what?” Her mouth was hanging a little open. “How much have you had to drink?” She twisted to see the bottles, and caught a glimpse of the girls instead. “What the hell is going on?” 

Lucy leapt to her feet. “Candace, you’re really cool, and we really like you, and right now, we need you to be really, really cool, okay?” 

Candace only stared at her, stared at her as if she’d just said the most hilarious thing in the world. “I’m going to write you up no matter what,” she said, slowly. 

“Great!” said Lucy, waving her hands in front of her and smiling. “Seriously, I will do the course ten times, I just need you to be cool.” She flexed her hands. “And, um, when I say cool, I mean really, really good at keeping stuff secret.” 

“And you are really cool,” chimed Anna. 

“The best,” agreed Lucy. “Really, such a good RA The best we could’ve asked for. Like-”

“What are you guys doing in here?” Candace was ogling Lucy. And Viola, realizing that they had done the exact thing they needed to, that they’d offered Candace the kind of over the top visions of what they’d been doing under her nose that Viola’s identity would seem tiny in comparison, let out a breath. Now. Now, she handed the ID over. 

“Candace,” she murmured. Candace turned, and Viola held out the ID for her to take. And Candace, after a final, half worried, half confused look at Viola, took it. 

It took less than a moment. 

“Oh,” she breathed. And Viola felt the weight in her shoulders drop, because it wasn’t bad. Candace’s face held. “Oh, God, I thought you were dealing drugs or something.” 

“We’re definitely not doing that,” said Lucy. Then, after a look to Viola, she added. “Candace?” 

“I’m cool, I’m cool,” said Candace, still staring at the ID. 

Then, she looked up to Viola. 

And Viola hated the look.

It wasn’t even bad. It wasn’t even malicious. It was although she was peering into a cabinet of curiosities, as if she was trying to dissect the layers of womanhood that Viola had covered herself in, as if she was trying to see beneath. She looked for the boy in the picture. She looked for Sebastian, stared at her and looked for Sebastian. 

Viola allowed herself to take a small step backwards, leaning herself against the closet door behind her. It seemed to snap Candace back.

“Shit, sorry,” she muttered. “Just hard to believe, is all.” Viola allowed her weight further onto the door. 

“You’re cool?” asked Anna, quietly. 

Candace blinked, then started tapping into her phone. “Yeah, um, just let me put, uh, h- the ID number in.” She looked pointedly at her phone, working hard to get her fingers across the screen. “I’m cool.” Then, she left an arm outstretched, handing the ID off to Viola. She didn’t look, though. Her eyes remained on her phone, and then on the closet just to the left of Viola, and then she turned back to the girls. 

Viola wasn’t sure which was worse; the looking, or the not looking. 

“You won’t say anything,” said Lucy. It was more of a command, as if she could sense that Candace wasn’t really feeling particularly authoritative right now. 

“No,” said Candace. “Look, I said I had six weeks to graduate, right? I don’t have time to, well, to talk about whatever.” She was done with her phone now, but she seemed lost on where to look. The floor. The other girls. The door to the hallway that Viola could feel her wanting to burst through. 

“Great,” said Lucy. 

“I have to take the alcohol,” said Candace. Anna swept with such pace to pick up the alcohol that Viola thought she might spill it all on the floor. She gathered the bottles and passed them over to Candace, who managed to balance them in the crook of her arm. 

“Sorry about this,” said Anna, the voice of a girl who felt sorry for just about nothing. 

“Yeah,” said Candace, recovering a bit of authority. “Yeah, just take that class, okay?” 

“Can’t wait,” said Lucy. 

“So thrilled,” said Anna. And then, Anna put a guiding hand out towards the door, as if she had been hosting an invited guest, hovered another behind Candace’s shoulder, and shepherded the woman out of the room. 

And Viola, her head pounding already, started slowly thumping it against the closet door behind her. 

Beneath it all. Candace had looked beneath it all. She’d looked beyond what had been oh so expertly placed on her skin, the dress that fell in the right places, the curves, manufactured as they were, and looked for him. Him. And then…

She’d grown so accustomed to the way the girls treated her, the way that discovering she had been buried beneath Sebastian the whole time had delighted them, that she’d never considered that a woman would feel so distant. Men, sure. Men had always felt distant. And when she’d been a man, she’d always felt a distance from women. But this? This was worse than that. It was distance multiplied, distance and distrust and distaste, and Candace had never said a word. 

She just hadn’t been willing to look at her. 

Viola sighed and let herself slide to a seat on the floor.

“Oh, Viola,” murmured Margot. She knelt down onto the floor. “Oh, Vi, it’s okay. She’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” 

Viola stared forward. And then, from somewhere, she felt a laugh. Okay? That was okay? That’s what okay would be from now on? 

“She wouldn’t even look at me,” said Viola, boggling at Margot. Delirium. It was delirium to call that okay.

“That’s…” Margot bit her lip. “I know.” 

“She wouldn’t even look at me,” repeated Viola. 

“I know,” said Margot. 

“Holy shit,” said Viola, and she really did laugh. Holy shit. That woman wouldn’t even look at her. And, God, that was awful, but there was a delirium to that, too. She wanted to scream. Her body. Buried beneath it. She hadn’t even been able to accept what her eyes were telling her, because she was looking at the ID, and that was enough to deny it. Fucking fuck. 

“Vi?” Margot’s voice was unsteady. 

“Holy shit,” whispered Viola. Anna was back now, and she was twisting a knuckle into her mouth, and Viola had the distinct memory of her yelling about Viola being suicidal just ten minutes before, and now she wanted to put something on the record. She needed to put it on the record right now, before the feelings swelling inside her exploded. She needed to say it. “I’m not going to kill myself.” 

Margot blinked, and Anna stopped moving. 

“What?” asked Margot. 

“I want to tell you that I’m not fucking killing myself,” said Viola, very firmly. “I don’t… I fucking will not kill myself.” Margot and Anna exchanged a long glance. “It won’t happen.” 

Anna dropped down onto the floor with her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that. I, I’m just scared is all.” She glanced to Margot, but then pushed. “I’m just scared.” 

“Well,” said Viola, still forceful, “that’s fine, because I’m not going to kill myself. I’m not going to kill myself. I fucking hate it here and that’s fine and that’s whatever and she can look at me or not look at me or whatever, but fuck her.” 

Margot raised a concerned eyebrow. “Viola,” she murmured. She reached out a hand, grasping Viola’s wrists, pulling them away from each other. Viola was shocked to realize they’d been together in the first place. “Easy.”

“I…” Viola swallowed. It caught in her throat, and she coughed. “Sorry.”

“Lucy,” directed Margot, “grab my water.” 

Viola closed her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said. She couldn’t not be a disaster for a day. 

“It’s okay,” said Margot.

“I’m okay,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m really okay.” Viola accepted the bottle of water Lucy passed her. She unscrewed the cap and forced herself to drink. 

“You don’t need to be sorry,” said Anna, quietly. “If anything, you’re the last-”

“I don’t want you guys to be worrying about me all the time,” said Viola. 

“But that’s so stupid,” said Lucy. She’d found her way back to the bed, giving the three of them space. “Everyone worries about people.” 

Viola shook her head. It wasn’t the same. “I don’t want you to be worrying about me all the time. I just want… I just want to be friends.” It sounded so lame. It felt so lame.

“I’m not worrying about you all the time,” said Margot, smiling. “And Anna’s not either.” Anna shook her head in confirmation. “But, like, I do think that when worrying is warranted, we’ll worry. And, to be honest, things are a little nuts right now, and I’m sorry if I’ve been overbearing about it, it’s just… It’s hard not to.” 

“I just want things to be like they were,” murmured Viola. 

Anna raised an eyebrow. “Do you?” she asked. 

Viola closed her eyes. No, not really. She just wished it wasn’t like this. She wished it were easier. 

How was she supposed to even say that? What was she supposed to say? 

That, of course. She could say that. But there was that aching, dull feeling settling into her stomach. The whole world could be like Candace. Even the people who weren’t about to turn her to strips of flesh could look at her like she ought to be placed in a unit. And it had almost been relieving to get confirmation that the bubbling anxiety wasn’t entirely misplaced, and it had made her almost laugh, and that made her sick, too. That she might be pleased by it, in some sort of twisted way. That the confirmation that the world could be as bad as she thought it was, that all the anxiety about her mother and David and the crumbling facade of the college she called home might not be misplaced, that the reality of her fear might be relieving. Relief at not being paranoid. Fear at being right. 

How did she say that? How was she supposed to?

She swallowed instead. She swallowed, and she closed her eyes, and she waited for an answer that was simple enough to say out loud.

And then, the silence was interrupted by a battering on the door. 

Anna, Lucy, and Viola all glared at Margot, who immediately held up her hands in defense.
“I swear to fucking God, it’s not him,” said Margot. “He had other plans.” 

“Maybe the local kegstand was interrupted,” hissed Lucy. There was another round of quick, loud knocks. For another second, they all sat frozen. Then, Lucy dismounted from the bed. “I’ll send whoever it is away.” 

The girls on the floor remained there, waiting. Candace, right? Back to deliver some sort of killing blow. Maybe she’d found some hidden clause that barred men from spending the night in women’s rooms, and she was here to wield it with impunity. God, okay? Yeah, Candace was cool, alright. 

“Oh,” said Lucy, and Viola could hear the confusion. “Hi, um, hi Professor.” 

“Hi, Lucy. Where is she?” 

The breath came back to Viola’s lungs.

“I… what?” asked Lucy.

“Where is she?”

“Where’s who, Professor?” asked Lucy. There was genuine confusion in her voice. 

“Viola, darling. Where is Viola?” 

“You… what?” 

* * * * *

It was weird. Okay, professors could live in the dorms, and Annabelle was one of those professors, but it was weird to be sitting in the dorm room with Annabelle. Those two parts of college had never mixed. There was the class part, the part that was supposed to matter, the one that she was supposed to be here for, and there was the social part, the bit that had quickly swallowed her life. And they had mixed a little already—Viola had been in Annabelle’s apartment, and Annabelle had just invited Viola to a party—but this was different. 

It was flat out weird. 

Annabelle was in a chair, and she was drinking water out of a glass, little beads of sweat collecting at her hairline. She had come in, taken in the realization that any danger was not imminent in nature, and immediately requested water and flopped into the seat. 

Viola felt a little bad about that. 

Okay, she felt really bad about that, because Annabelle also seemed like she was a bit drunk, and Viola could not imagine running across campus drunk in the heat. It sounded awful. It sounded insane. And, in the end, she hadn’t even given Annabelle any information. Which she should have, frankly, because there was nothing Annabelle could do about Candace knowing now. As it seemed to constantly be, the Rubicon was about a mile behind her, and she’d only just noticed that her feet were wet. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, after Annabelle had finished the glass. It had been so stupid to bring her here. 

“Tell me what happened,” said Annabelle. Her breath had steadied. 

“It’s nothing you can do anything with,” said Viola. “And it’s honestly going to be fine.” She wasn’t sure she believed that, but if there was nothing for Annabelle to do, then that was that. 

Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “You texted me,” she said, “‘SOS’. Now, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t feel like nothing. And it at least warrants an explanation.” 

Anna shifted. All three girls were perched on Lucy’s bed, watching Annabelle with the kind of attention given to a particularly interesting bird. Lucy was still half gawking.

“Texted you?” asked Anna. Viola bit her lip. 

“I’m sorry,” said Margot. “I’m sorry, I really need to back up.” 

Annabelle raised an eyebrow at Viola, who shrugged. Of all the things she hadn’t told the girls, this was easily the least shameful one. She just hadn’t gotten around to it with everyone yet.

“I kind of didn’t mention anything,” said Viola. 

Annabelle sighed, then smiled at the girls. “I’m Viola’s theatre professor,” she explained. 

Margot leaned forward, obviously unsatisfied. “And, sorry, just to be clear, you’re Viola’s theatre teacher?,” she asked. She glanced at Viola. “Um, I… I… I guess…”

“Yes,” said Annabelle, smoothly. “I’ve been filled in.” 

“Why?” blurted out Lucy. She clamped a hand over her mouth, then opened the fingers. “Sorry. Sorry, I just… why?” 

“She stopped me running away,” said Viola. “And it sort of just happened.” 

“These things often do,” agreed Annabelle. 

“Sorry, how many times have you stopped random people from running away?” asked Margot.

“Once,” said Annabelle. She took a sip of water, then waved off the girls. “Look, I’m sure you will talk about it when I’m gone, but,” she turned her attention back to Viola, “I want to know what’s wrong.” 

Viola bit her cheek. She was feeling more than a little embarrassed now. “I swear, it’s really-”

“Viola,” said Annabelle.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

There wasn’t all that much to say, and by the time Viola’d reached the crux of it, Annabelle’s face had twisted. Viola felt a little stupid. If they’d delayed a little longer, maybe Annabelle could have taken over the administering of the punishment? Did professors do that? Really, she had no idea. She’d texted because she needed someone, and now she was laying out a very simple, very unsolvable problem, and God she was such a bitch.

Annabelle drummed her fingers on her leg thoughtfully. “It could’ve gone a lot worse,” she said. She looked to Lucy. “You don’t think she’ll say anything?”

“I doubt it,” said Lucy, quickly. Then, after considering for another moment, she shook her head. “We’ve sort of had free range of the floor for most of the year. I don’t even know if she’d care enough.”

“Then it’s best to just leave it be,” said Annabelle. 

There was a lump in Viola’s throat. “And what about the way she looked at me?” she asked. As if that was solvable. As if Annabelle could do anything to fix that. To take it away. 

“That,” said Annabelle, “is a personal failing that I will not try to remedy. And one that you shouldn’t try to remedy either.” 

“So I, what, just pretend it didn’t happen?” asked Viola. That felt more insane than anything. 

Annabelle held her look. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe.” She glanced once at Viola, and then looked to the girls. 

And Viola, at once, realized that Annabelle couldn’t give advice to her in front of them. They didn’t know, and she didn’t want them to know, and Viola felt violently upset that she had put her on this spot. 

“Okay,” said Viola, quickly. “Okay, okay, right.” 

“I’m sure this is tough,” said Annabelle, softly. 

Viola looked at her and almost smiled. She was speaking as if it was news to her, as if Viola was in possession of some kind of sage wisdom that Annabelle could not yet grasp. 

“I’m fine,” she murmured. She ought not to have said anything. There had to be a way to extricate Annabelle from this trap. Margot was looking at Annabelle curiously already. 

For her part, Annabelle didn’t seem all too bothered. “I have a friend in the Student Affairs Office,” she said, drumming her fingers on her leg. “I’ll talk to them to see if we need to do anything about the drinking case.” 

“Like what?” asked Margot. 

“Like potentially changing any notes filed by your RA,” said Annabelle. “I doubt it’s necessary, but we’ll double check.” Margot nodded and fell back onto the bed. Annabelle smiled. “You all need to relax. You’re probably not even the first students caught drinking in this hall tonight.” 

“My mom’s going to kill me,” said Margot, mostly to the ceiling. 

“Mine too,” said Lucy, miserably. 

“I don’t think they tell parents,” said Annabelle. She glanced at Viola. “I’ll check on that too, though.” 

Viola nodded, assuming her own brief flash of panic had not escaped notice. Unlikely that her parents would take a file describing ‘Sebastian Collins’ as a cross-dressing drunk very well. 

“Thanks,” she murmured. 

“Of course,” said Annabelle. Then, she stood. “Listen, I’d love to stay, but I do need to get back to my apartment. I left a few people in there who ought not be left alone anywhere.” Annabelle smiled her own joke, even as the rest of the girls gave her nothing, and then turned to Viola. “Do you want to come?” Then, to the room at large. “Anyone is welcome, if they want.” 

It could not possibly be a less tempting offer for the room at large. Come spend your Friday night with a professor at a completely unclear event! Doesn’t that sound cool and fun? You probably won’t even be allowed to drink!

Lucy looked down at her clothes, touched her makeup free face, and then shook her head.

“I want to go to bed,” she said. 

“Me too,” agreed Anna, although she was better dressed to attend… whatever the hell Annabelle had just offered. 

Margot looked briefly between Annabelle and Viola, then back to the girls, and then smiled at Vi. 

“You can go, if you want,” she said. “I can stay up to let you in.” 

But Viola wanted to sleep, too. The idea of introducing herself to a whole host of people, a group that was yet unclear to her, was so thoroughly unappealing. Maybe, on another night, after a day that didn’t involve a constant feeling of crippling anxiety, she’d be able to do that. It was just too much of an ask tonight. Too much to want out of her. All she wanted was to roll over and sleep. 

“No,” she said. “No, I… I need to go to bed, too.” She gave an apologetic look to Annabelle, who just smiled.

“Walk down with me, then.” 

Viola nodded. 

Lucy fished into her pocket, jangling the keys, and then handed them off to Viola. “I’m not staying awake,” she murmured. Viola smiled at her, and Lucy gave her a little one in return. “You’re okay?” 

“I’m okay,” said Viola. Then, she turned to Annabelle and they started out the door. 

Down to the first floor, and Viola again cursed the lack of elevators. Climbing back up the stairs right now would be absolutely cursed. She was so tired. All the adrenaline had drained from her body. A full day of sitting on pins and needles capped by the appearance of the RA, the confession of her plan to run, of all of it. And she was supposed to climb six flights of stairs.

Maybe she could convince the girls to transfer with her to another school where they had elevators. Maybe they’d even be less conservative there. 

“It’s going to be fine,” said Annabelle. The stairs spit them out into the lobby, which was empty. The girl at the front desk had abandoned her post, probably for the bathroom. 

God, Viola needed to pee too. 

Swallowed in the adrenaline right along with the exhaustion, apparently. 

“You don’t think I need to worry about the ID stuff?” asked Viola. Her heart was not in the question. Tomorrow, she was sure, she’d manage to find the time to worry. Tonight, she couldn’t. Not the time, not the energy. 

“No,” said Annabelle. “No, she doesn’t sound like the type you need to worry about.” 

Viola nodded. That was enough for now. “Okay,” she said. There was another thing, though. “I’m sorry about… I forgot they didn’t know.” 

“It’s fine,” said Annabelle, smiling. “I just keep that pretty close to the vest.” She considered. “They’re good, though. They are. Good friends.” 

“Yes,” agreed Viola. 

“I think one of them may have already guessed,” said Annabelle. 

Viola smiled. Margot. “They’re pretty good at that,” she said.

“Yes,” said Annabelle. “Yes, well, some people have a sense for it. Listen, Viola, I’m glad you texted.”

“Yes,” said Viola. She didn’t have the heart to say she was pretty sure she’d overreacted. Annabelle hadn’t even done anything. She’d come, and she’d talked to them, and that had been it. All of this could have been relayed to her tomorrow. It could have been said in the morning. “Tell your friends I say sorry.” 

“They will understand,” said Annabelle. 

“Right,” said Viola. “Right.” 

“Do let me know if you need anything else,” said Annabelle. 

“Oh, uh.” Viola did have another thing. Annabelle hadn’t been able to answer upstairs. She hadn’t been able to tell her if this was just what it was like. If she was supposed to expect people to try and dig through her skin to the heart of her, to look at her without seeing the girl on top. 

“Right,” said Annabelle, her lips going thin. She glanced at the empty front desk. “It won’t always be like that, darling. I promise it won’t always be like that, but… but it can be. Sometimes.” 

“Okay,” she said. Her jaw clenched a little. 

“It’s not good to convince yourself that everyone will hate you,” said Annabelle, quietly. 

“But,” said Viola, “you don’t tell anyone?” An oxymoron, surely. 

“It’s worth it to avoid the few that will,” said Annabelle. “And I’m a professor. It’s not quite as bad as being a teacher, but, trust that some parents could raise hell about it.” She took a breath. “But, I don’t believe that if most people found out, they’d hate me. Just enough to make life harder.” 

“Okay,” said Viola. She was too tired for this. She wanted to go to bed. This sounded like something to work on in the morning. 

“You’ll be okay,” said Annabelle. “There’s people who want to help you.” She nodded towards the stairs over Viola’s shoulder. “Like them.” 

Viola swallowed. Them. Them. The girls who got to be. The girls who had been in the room with her, who were supposed to be peers, but had spent the entire night, entire weeks, really, worrying about her. They got to be helpers. She had to be… whatever the hell she was. Something to be helped. And when Candace had entered the room, it hadn’t been a panic about the drinking. No, no, they’d had to worry about her. 

They couldn’t just be normal college students. 

“I wish I was like them,” murmured Viola. It would make her life easier. Their lives easier. Everything. Everything easier.
“You are,” said Annabelle, taking Viola’s hand. “Not in every way, but in a lot of ways. You’re all just trying to figure things out right now.” 

Viola shook her head. No, because they weren’t worrying about themselves. They weren’t trying to figure themselves out. 

“They’re so them, though,” said Viola. Annabelle snorted. Viola frowned. “What?” 

“When Lucy Oresco took my class in the fall,” said Annabelle, grinning, “she’d never read anything beyond Romeo and Juliet. And now, now she harasses me every week at my office hours. She wasn’t even a theatre major! She was ‘undeclared’.” She shook her head. “For God’s sake, she wasn’t even a blonde. She just… she just showed up one day and was one.” Annabelle held up a hand. “I know it’s not the same, and I would never say it was, but just… cut yourself some slack on not having yourself figured out. Everyone else is figuring it out, too.” 

Viola closed her eyes and nodded. Another thing to think about in the morning.

“Okay,” she said. 

“I really do need to go,” said Annabelle. “But don’t be afraid to text me. And, if you text me, don’t be afraid to use more specificity than ‘SOS’.”

Viola bit her lip. “Sorry,” she said. 

“I’ll see you next week, yes?” asked Annabelle. 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Viola. 

Annabelle smiled, turned on her heel, and was gone.
Viola allowed herself ten seconds of standing in the emptiness of the lobby, marinating in the quiet, luxuriating in the lack of stairs, before turning and starting back up. She only made it as far as the second floor before she started breathing hard, and only the third before she decided that, if she was going to have to pee, she might as well take a break and do it on this floor.

They were all laid out the same anyways. She turned down the hall, passing a boy half a head shorter than her, and then found her way into the bathroom. She settled into a stall.

It would be nice if the girls had mostly gone to bed. There was a discussion point on the table, she was sure, and she didn’t want to touch it. What a joy it would be to force the girls to understand that she could be okay, that she was okay, that they didn’t need to watch her like a hawk. She’d never seen Anna so mad before. Anna had always been quick to emotion, but never anger. Never like that. 

Margot, at least, had already known. She’d already gotten her scolding there. Maybe she’d have something to say about texting David, but that was fine. Viola could live with that. Frankly, Viola deserved that. 

She finished up, exited the stall, and head for the sink. David. David David David. It was embarrassing how much her mind circled around David lately. And, okay, some of that was fear, but some of it was decidedly not fear. Some of it was, well, some it was significantly less acceptable than fear. 

The bathroom was empty, so Viola permitted herself a second to check her face in the mirror after washing her hands. The hat did sit sort of weird with the wig, but it wasn’t a huge deal. It just looked like she’d tightened the straps a little too much. And her face… her face was so much better here than it was at the pond. Anna had done her makeup tonight, and Viola had tried to keep track as best she could, and Anna had narrated, but it all went so fast. Before, when they’d done her makeup, it had seemed tortuously slow, like she’d had to sit perfectly still for hours. Now, she couldn’t keep up.

The shade of lipstick looked natural here. It looked good. And her nose seemed a bit smaller, and her eyes popped. It was too much for the outfit, but still. The face looked good. The face looked good. 

Maybe they were just figuring things out, too. Maybe Annabelle was right. Maybe she wasn’t the only girl starting fresh on things, but it felt like it. It felt like it in all the ways that mattered. She ran a finger over her cheek. They were just that much better. The face blended. It blended. She pulled a stray brunette hair back from her cheek.

She wasn’t even a blonde. 

Viola had only met Lucy before she dyed her hair, but it was funny to think of any of them as brunettes now. They were, of course, underneath it all. They had all once been brunettes. And now, she screwed up her mind trying to imagine it, trying to imagine them as anything other than the blondes she’d known them as. Tricky. Tricky to do. 

She ran a hand through her ponytail.

“Hi!” 

Viola jumped. A girl had appeared in the doorway to the bathroom, tall and lythe. She was beamed at Viola. 

“Hi,” said Viola. 

The girl walked over to the sink, a caddy of products in one hand. She was still grinning at Viola, as though she’d developed an uncommon interest in her. There was another unmistakable urge to check her hat and wig. Viola resisted. That was more conspicuous, surely.

“I know you,” said the girl. 

“I don’t think that’s right,” said Viola. No one knew Viola. Viola had barely been out of the dorm room. Although, she supposed, the girl could have been up on the sixth floor some time. She looked vaguely familiar. 

That wouldn’t have elicited the wide smile pasted on the girl’s face, though. “We met,” said the girl, “at a party.” Then, she frowned. “Okay, well, no, we didn’t. But trust me, I remember you.” The smile returned. “It’s not every day I get to bother my brother about a girl.” 

And then it clicked. 

Sarah.

“Oh,” said Viola. 

“I’m Sarah,” she said, her face now in the mirror and products spilling out of the caddy. “David’s sister.” Viola’s mind raced through the images of the party. Sarah. This girl. She’d been there, and Viola had known that, but she hadn’t known what Sarah looked like until right now. But she looked familiar. She looked familiar, and Viola was trying to place that. 

“Viola,” she offered. 

“I know,” hummed Sarah. “David won’t shut up about you.” She turned on the sink and started washing her face.

“He won’t?” asked Viola. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. David, talking about Viola to everyone? Bad. Very bad. Then again, David talking about Viola to everyone…

“Sorry, David would kill me if I told you that,” said Sarah.  

“Oh, well,” said Viola. “Yeah.” Viola could feel the heat rising in her face.
“You like him, too, don’t you?” It was tinged with a little concern. “I mean, when I saw you two at the party, and he was, like, carrying you, I assumed, but, you know…” She frowned, rubbing at her chin. “It would kind of suck if he got this worked up about you and you weren’t into him at all.”

Viola was struggling to wrap her head around all the sentences. She’d seen him walking with her? Half of her brain power was trying to place where, exactly, she had seen this girl. Where had Sarah been? And, he was all worked up about her? The other half of her brain was stuck on that. All worked up about her. What did that mean? What was David like all worked up? 

It left no brain power for the actual question, and so she answered it without thinking.

“Of course I like him,” she blurted out. Her face went pink. Sarah smirked at her in the mirror. “Sorry, I, uh, yes. Yeah. I… I… Yeah.” 

“Good,” said Sarah, matter of factly. “Good.”

“Sorry,” said Viola, deciding that she couldn’t just sit on the question. “Sorry, when you say worked up…” Sarah’s smirk deepened. Viola closed her eyes. “Sorry. Weird question.”

“It’s fine,” said Sarah, giggling. “Do you live in the hall?” 

Viola was relieved to be asked a question that didn’t completely and entirely designed to mortify her. “No,” she said. “No, I’m just visiting friends.” 

“Oh,” said Sarah, nodding. “Sure.” She started squeezing a bit of toothpaste onto a plastic toothbrush. “Well, I think you two should go out. God knows he needs a life outside of freaking football.” 

“He’s always playing football,” agreed Viola. 

“It’s always practicing for football, or it’s lifting for football, or it’s going for runs for football.” Sarah shook her head. “And, look, I get that you need to stay in shape or whatever. Like, I get that.” She gestured to herself. This close, the muscles were apparent. David had mentioned volleyball. “But if you think it’s acceptable to try and put game film on for fun? You need to go outside.” She started brushing her teeth and leaned against the sink. 

“He doesn’t seem to like it that much,” said Viola. 

Sarah rolled her eyes and pulled the tooth brush out to speak. “He doesn’t,” she said. “He likes it fine, but it’s just the thing he has to be doing. It’s a job.” Tooth brush back in. 

“Couldn’t he, just like, not?” asked Viola.

“Scholarship,” said Sarah. Each syllable was half swallowed by toothpaste. 

“Oh,” said Viola. Well, she understood that. “Well, I… I don’t know if I’m the right distraction from football.” Sarah raised an eyebrow. Viola bit her lip. “I don’t know if I should be dating him, is all.” 

“Why?” asked Sarah. 

Good question. Easy to answer, if the truth was allowed. Which it wasn’t.

“I don’t know,” said Viola. Boilerplate excuse. “I… sort of just ended something, and I’m not really ready.”

 Sarah frowned, twisted to the sink, and spit. “You should tell him that, then,” she said, running the tap. “Spare him.” 

Viola swallowed. That was the right thing to do. She knew that. Tell him. Let him off the hook. But she didn’t want this to stop here. Stopping here meant stopping for good. And as much as hurtling down further and further into the abyss sucked, hurtling down further and further into the abyss was actually more appealing than stopping. 

“I… I just need to figure some stuff out first,” offered Viola. “I do like him. Really, I do. I just… I’m just working through some things.” 

Sarah cupped her hands and spooned water into her mouth. She didn’t look at Viola until after she’d spit it back into the sink. “I thought you two looked cute at the party,” she said, an air of forced nonchalance. 

It was impossible for Viola not to smile at that, and even less possible to avoid having Sarah catch it. 

“See?” asked Sarah, her own smug smile arriving.

“I know,” said Viola. 

“You’d be cute and it’d be so good for him,” said Sarah, leaning against the sink. “Like, game changer.”

“Well, as long as it’s good for him,” said Viola, smiling.

“No offense, but that’s my brother. The rest of it’s sort of, like, secondary to me.” 

“I know,” said Viola. 

“But he’s a good guy,” said Sarah. “Like, I’m sure it’d be good for you, too.” She started packing away her caddy. “You’d just have to be okay dating,” she clutched a pair of hands to her chest, “Star Quarterback.” 

That was impossible not to giggle at. “Yes,” said Viola. It would be good for her.

“Good, then,” said Sarah, beaming. She picked up the caddy. “It’s all settled.” Viola gave her half a look, but Sarah just turned on a heel and head for the door. “Just don’t wait too long to sort all your shit out!”

* * * * *

She stole some of Anna’s makeup. Not, like, a lot of it. But after returning to the room last night, she’d decided that if she was going to do this right, she needed to do it right. And, from the jump, Lucy and Anna had mixed foundations for her. Viola would give it back. She’d give it back today at brunch. But, right now?

Right now, near as early as the morning before, she was down by the pond, and she was going to do this right. 

She wasn’t even a blonde.

They had not always been these girls. They had once been half the girls they were now. Before, when she’d first started practicing, she’d imagined she was recreating a version of what they naturally were, brute forcing her way into being like them. She’d bemoaned the lack of knowledge that she had. And still, and still she would. But the distance between them and her, between the versions of themselves that they had once been and the ones that they were now, ones that they might not always be, was not as large as she’d imagined it.

She’d known Lucy as brunette. It had just never clicked. It had never clicked that she’d still been changing. That none of them, none of them, were finalized. They could be, eventually. They would be, one day. But they were works in progress. Maybe they had makeup skills that she didn’t have yet, but that was okay. 

Lucy wasn’t blonde in September. 

Everything out onto the rock. The gap would narrow and narrow and narrow and narrow until she was something that she wanted to be. She’d peel the edges. She’d brute force it, yes. She wouldn’t just do it for safety, not to just become good enough at makeup to be convincingly passable to strangers on the street, but because that’s what the version of herself she wanted to be looked like. She’d learn.

Everything onto her face. It took a long time this morning. She did it with care. She took her time, layered things the way they were supposed to be layered. She used the products that seemed superfluous, primer specifically for her eye makeup and everything. She mixed the foundation. She cleaned her brows the way a girl on Youtube had done. She took her time. She took her time. 

And then, she knelt in front of the pond, leaned out over it, and checked it in the water. Better here first. Better in the settling ripples. Better to let her face fall into slight obscurity. 

Better. It was better. Anna’s work still kicked her ass, but it was much, much better than even the day before. The makeup sat on her face, blended more, seemed to actually belong in the places she had put it. It looked intentional. Which was good, because it was! It was the face of a girl. Not a girl who was good at makeup, but a girl, at least. Not a boy plastering the makeup on, but a girl.

Viola picked at a strand of her hair, twisting it between her fingers. Her hair. Not the wig. Not glued on. 

She twirled it.

They had once been brunettes, too. 

Giggling to herself at the absurdity of the thing she’d just imagined, she leaned back from the water. Now to check again in the phone. She walked back to the rock, turned over the phone, and double checked that her pond reflection assessments were accurate. Girl in the phone?

Yes!

Maybe less clean that it had looked in the pond, but it was definitely more girl. Turning the phone to different angles didn’t help, but at the right angle? In the right light?

She giggled to herself again. 

And then, she set the phone back on the rock and pulled out her reading material. She’d come here for this. They’d been sleeping, and she’d wanted to practice, so it was here or nothing. And, after seeing Annabelle again last night, she felt more of an obligation than ever to actually read the play. There was no way she was showing up to class next Friday with no awareness at all. 

Twelfth Night had a benefit over Agatha Christie novels. Since they were meant to be spoken, even in the weird, old version of English, she could practice a few different voices. She could read out a boy, really work on her boy voice, and then read out a girl and flip it. Plus, accents! She turned Orsino very Boston, and Olivia adopted a Valley Girl shtick. And, because she wasn’t immune to self flattery, she gave Viola her old Keira Knightley impression. 

The other benefit was that it was shorter. She rolled through most of the play, humming the lines into the quiet morning air. 

She enjoyed it, too! And, okay, she felt a little bit dumb for trying her own version of the whole Caesario thing now, but it wasn’t, like, exactly the same. David wouldn’t make the connection between them. She gathered a bit more appreciation for Lucy’s insistence at using the name Viola, in part because she found Viola to be quite charming! Although, perhaps she was just grafting herself onto the character. Impossible to say.

By the time she’d reached the final act, she was really enjoying it. And the reveal, when Sebastian arrived in front of the court?

One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!
A natural perspective, that is and is not! 

Funny. Very funny. Especially funny performed in a Boston accent. And then, she got to the back and forth between Sebastian and Viola, and, boy, she was so tickled to read out from her two names, old and new. They hadn’t met all play, and here they were, and now? What a delightful bit. 

And then, she came to Viola’s reveal. Here she was, in the court, standing next to her brother, the visage the same, and she had to admit to herself. 

Viola read it slowly, with purpose, because it deserved it. Even in comedy. Even when it was made to be played upon the stage. 

If nothing lets to make us happy both
But this my masculine usurped attire,
Do not embrace me till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump
That I am Viola; which to confirm,
I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,
Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
I was preserved to serve this noble count.
All the occurrence of my fortune since
Hath been between this lady and this lord. 

Viola stopped there, tracing the lines. Do not embrace me till each circumstance of place, time, fortune do cohere and jump that I am Viola. Not until then. She swallowed, letting herself comb the words, feel them. Yes. Yes, she could see how Lucy would pick this name, how Annabelle would raise eyebrows at her. 

Then, from behind her, someone spoke.

“Give me thy hand, And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.”

Viola jumped to her feet, the play falling into the sand, and spun. 

At the edge of the beach, right where it met the bushes, was David.

David. 

David, his hair sweaty, his face red and a little apologetic, his breath heavy, was looking at her. At this version of her. Halfway. Halfway between Sebastian and Viola, wearing his clothes and her makeup, makeup which now felt terrifyingly inadequate, reading with the voices of both. Reading as her. 

No. No.

“Hi,” he said, sheepish, and Viola took a step back.

No. No, no, no, no, no…

She took another step back, away from him. This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. She took another. Her foot caught, and she started to stumble. Step and step and step, and the sand started to wet, and then it was mud, and then she went down, her ankle caught, tumbling backwards into the water.