Sound Carries

15.

The parties after Conolly productions were of a different breed. These were the nights where inhibitions were left behind, where first years got blind-drunk, the more illicit substances were passed around, memories made and promptly forgotten. These parties took over the whole of the Conolly grounds, starting, like the galas, in the basement, but eventually spilling everywhere and ending up in the entrance hall, where at midnight, the cast list for the next show would be posted.

I found myself alone, jostled back and forth by unidentifiable bodies, unable to tell who was dancing and who was just staggering along on their way to some unknown destination. I couldn't see anybody I knew. I couldn't even see anybody I recognized in the murky darkness of the room. There was a speaker set up beside me, and the bass blared so loudly as a new song began that I jerked away, startled.

It was a quarter to ten.

I wasn't drunk, but I felt that way. I hadn't been drinking, but I wished I had. Memories from the gala were still seared into my brain, fresh, grating, stinging.

I wanted to wear myself down to nothing. I'd begun the process that night all those weeks ago, and it had been ongoing since, a deliberate erosion of who I'd been. Dark restlessness whispered at the base of my neck, reminding me that this was the second last party like this one that I would ever attend, knowing somehow that after this show, nothing would ever be the same again. I shook with the adrenaline crash of post-performance, and with the unexpected hollowness I felt somewhere in the vicinity of my ribcage.

My parents hadn't come. I'd known they wouldn't because I hadn't given them any notice of when the performance was, thinking they wouldn't have wanted to come, privately out of a selfish desire to protect my own feelings, but I'd hurt myself anyway. My own selfishness had flared up again, and I'd felt the loss in a way that I hadn't anticipated, when we had all walked out into the auditorium after the show and there had been no one to greet me.

Hannah's parents had come, and Audra's, of course. Gabriel's older sisters had made an appearance, and both Cecily and Oliver's entire families – parents and siblings alike – had made the trip out to see them.

Even Colin's mother was there, despite his stilted relationship with his father, was a cop and had estranged himself from Colin when he had decided to pursue opera. I wondered now, in light of Colin's secret, whether it had been for other reasons.

Regardless, everyone had someone. I was alone.

Now, some indefinite time later, I was still alone, in the midst of a party that had just begun, surrounded by over-enthusiastic undergraduates on their way to drunkenness.

The place was uproariously loud. I found myself filled with a restless energy, burning, angry in my veins. Someone's elbow knocked against someone else's cup near me, the contents sloshing over the edge and splattering onto the floor. I felt primed to make poor choices, at war with myself, the heavy fury at nothing chaining me to this room. I already knew I wouldn't repeat the mistake I'd made at the gala – that night had held me captive for long enough.

When I looked around, it felt like I was no longer looking at people, but rather at bodies that moved as though propelled by some unseen puppeteer, dolls on strings.

I thought I saw Oliver in the corner, and something tugged in my chest, but then he turned, and it was a second-year boy from the dance program. I hated that I was disappointed.

I think that was the moment I knew. Hindsight has enabled me to acknowledge that I had been discovering the truth about my own feelings from the moment he had stayed behind to talk to me during our first audition in September, but right then was the exact second I became cognitively aware of exactly how ruined I was. The realization tasted sour in my mouth. Months, wasted. Months ruined by my own inability to think before I acted, to resist when I knew I wanted to.