The journey home was cold and empty of people. Wherever people had wanted to end up for the holidays, they had made it there already and they were not leaving. But at one bus station, there was a group of carolers. Their voices didn’t blend, but they were strong and pierced the silence of the bus. I watched them from the window but my breath fogged up the glass. I created more fog on the window and drew hats and beards for the carolers, to keep them warm. The fog disappeared and so did the carolers.

I rested my head against the window and wondered what would happen when they found my note, if they hadn’t already. My guess was that my brother would hide in his room, afraid of being sent there against his will. My father would rage, pulling apart my bedroom and punching things that he knew were harder than he was. And my mother, she would placate and trim my father’s anger, pruning, helping him grow. I hoped that this time they would stay away from school, that they wouldn’t run into my RA or anyone else who could give them access to me. Ruby had been the only one who figured out anything was wrong. And she wasn’t one to peek her head out of her world of comforters to see what was going on in outer space.

When I arrived at school, I felt like I could finally relax. The stress of being home for so long had fried everything that made me run like a functioning human being. I needed to reboot before anyone saw me in my collapsed state. I couldn’t get into the dorm building because I wasn’t supposed to be there yet. But I waited for someone to return and then followed her in, smiling, thanking her for holding the door for me. My room key still worked, and I made it there without being seen by anyone I knew. My suitcase took up a place of honor at the foot of my bed and I jumped a foot onto the air conditioner and into my bed.

I emailed my RA. Hey, do you think it’s okay if I come back early, take some of the classes with the kids who have been here the whole time? She emailed back a few hours later, sure, that was fine, when would I be there. Tomorrow, I wrote. I’ll be there tomorrow.

In the bathroom the next morning, Ruby was surprised to see me washing my face at the sink. “How’d you get here?”

“Red-eye travel, a modern innovation,” I said.

She asked me if something was going on. I ignored her and pretended that my face washing was drowning out her voice. She waited and when I was done, asked again.

“I wanted to be here,” I said.

“It didn’t have something to do with your home life?”

I hated the pc way she said that. Code for your life is messed up. I put my hand down on the rim of the sink to keep myself upright and steady.

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“Of course not,” I said.

“I don’t believe you,” she said as she shook her head at me, like I was in trouble. “I’m going to tell the University and let them know what’s going on. There are people who will be able to help you.” She reached out to give me a hug.

I stood back like she was trying to hit me. I had been betrayed, no less from people I thought that I could trust, my friend, who had witnessed one of my vulnerable moments. If this was what she felt like she had to do, I was not going to make it easy. She didn’t have to. There was always a choice. She could have chosen not to and let me figure it out. What she and the University didn’t understand was that everything they could do would make it worse. If they contacted my parents…

“The University, what will they do?” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders. “They will probably get you some counseling. Maybe try and do something about your parents?”

Do something about my parents. As if I hadn’t tried fighting back, running away, explaining myself, staying silent or hiding. I had pulled every trick in the book and nothing had changed. I had tried to use that to convince myself that the pain and the seclusion imposed on me was not my fault, but it was so closely tied to my actions that I had never succeeded. Ruby thought that counseling was going to fix all this, and that was fine, but I didn’t have to go, because at least at college I controlled where I went and with whom.

And during the days before school, it was like college summer camp, with a dusting of snow. I went to sushi making classes and learned archery, learned kickboxing and played board games. I wished that all of college could be like those days. Everyone was happy and no one was competing. I didn’t feel inferior because of my grades and I played great games of Monopoly. In fact, by the time the new semester started, I almost felt ready to face everything. I had figured out a plan, a list of priorities and I was going to make it work. I would stop hanging out in the office for no reason, and only be there when I was on duty. I would try to patch my relationship with Flint. I would study every free second I had, and my only socialization would be study dates or sessions. I would pass two more calls and go through scenarios to get to the next rank. And then I would stop. I would never rank up again because the process was so awful.

Of course, when I got back, I received an email from Sandy telling me that I was in a known relationship and that I would not be allowed to advance if the relationship continued. I wondered why no one saw what she was doing. I wondered if she was allowed to do it.

But at the time, I genuinely thought I could do it, despite all of Sandy’s threats and accusations. I had no idea what the new semester had in store for me. We had reached the dead of winter, the coldest time for trees and humans alike. Everyone receded into themselves and their warm coats, social interaction forgotten in the need to survive from the door of a dorm to the door of a classroom. It was painful to get where you wanted to go. You had to keep your sense of direction covered, or even that would freeze and shatter. The pain would seek out any uncovered part of a body, penetrate and radiate through the rest of the body, making anyone wish they had chosen the other side of the world, anywhere but here. One day, I was in a hurry and I biked to class without my gloves. Five minutes later, I was convinced that I had gotten frostbite. And I did…just not the kind that makes your fingers fall off. Everything was worse when it was cold. Even taking a walk became a fight for survival and I had enough of those going on.