Gravitas

The bathroom of the college bar is barren and silent. Not that there’s nothing in it, or no noise at all: there’s the three of us, in a line at the bathroom mirrors as if freshening up, and the tinny pulse of pop music from the party outside that has continued despite our tragedy.

But the place has become barren and silent. I can feel the uncomfortable weight of my own presence; I carry it like a physical burden, like I’m the only thing in the world and thus responsible for all its heaviness. And the music doesn’t even begin to cut through the silence, because this silence is waiting for me. It’s a silence only I can break. I can see it, in the shadows behind my reflection, my shitty makeup, my shitty party clothes.

Kathleen is dead.

I clear my throat and bring this idea into reality. “Kathleen is… dead.” I sound hollow, incredulous. Good.

Rosie is curled up on the floor to my right, head stuffed into her folded arms, moaning as she rocks back and forth like a broken metronome. Miriam leans against the countertop to my right, glaring at nothing. Or so I assume—all I can see from here are the tiled reflections of the top of Rosie’s head, my own dark eyes, and Miriam’s hunched back. I’m the only one looking at myself.

“Would you shut up?” Miriam hisses suddenly, and I remember that Rosie is moaning actual words: oh my god, Kathleen, I’m so sorry, oh my god, I’m so sorry, interspersed with thick sobs. Glancing down, I realise with a start that she’s actually crying. Her cheeks are a splotchy patchwork pink and sport at least three real tears.

Incredible, I think to myself, somewhat bitter, before returning to my own stubbornly dry face. Is there no way to make it leak? “Don’t be an asshole, Miriam,” I say distractedly.

“Shut up, Bella,” Miriam hisses again. “Why is anyone even—we barely knew her, we barely know each other, can we not—fuck!” The smack of her palms against the countertop is resounding.

“Look, somebody died.” I’m careful about emphasising this word; I want to sound concerned, tactful. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

This shouldn’t be any cause for Miriam to explode, but she does. We should be slower, more horrified. Instead, Miriam’s words blur together and ring shallow: yes I know I’m not a fucking monster but we met what six weeks ago at a fucking icebreaker? People have shit going on that’s how things are so she offed herself so she had circumstances it’s a tragedy but not my tragedy. I want to have a good fucking time at college it’s what I’m fucking paying for nobody here needs to be reduced to that.

She’s gesturing at Rosie. “Reduced?” I echo.

We look at each other. I wonder if Miriam can perceive my disappointment. Such an awful thing has happened—we need to act accordingly. Suddenly I feel uneasy. Our friend is dead. Shouldn’t we be… sadder? Will anybody notice?

The sound of creaking hinges freezes us in place, like flies swatted by the door into bloodstains on the wall. Rosie, in her wretchedness, can continue weeping unremarked, the typical furniture of a bathroom during a college party. A girl stumbles past us and disappears into sound effects: trickling piss, rustling toilet paper, a deafening flush. Incongruously loud.

But nobody is speaking, and this buys me time: the time to form my next words in my head and feel them on my tongue, against my teeth, before I give the silence what it’s waiting for. Reduced, said Miriam? No. The girl stumbles back the way she came. The door opens, closes.

On cue: “Nobody is less of a person for grieving.” My voice emerges from my imagination confident and a little self-important. When nobody responds, I tone it down, retreating into something easier to carry. “Shouldn’t we be grieving, Miriam? Kathleen’s gone. Really, actually gone.” Now I sound uncertain.

“But why?”

Maybe I should have expected it, but the raspy, guttural pain in Rosie’s voice catches me off guard. I’ve been shown up again. She’s finally moving, too, her limbs unfurling and her head jerking up like an abruptly lifted marionette. Her tear-stricken face is just incredible. “Why did she do it? Why didn’t she say anything?”

“We don’t know, okay!” Miriam snaps. “Fuck’s sake, we went to a couple of parties together, we weren’t actually friends!”

The puppet-master’s hand relaxes; I watch Rosie collapse back into her knees, released. I wish I could be like that. Like a woman possessed. To move and talk and cry like I’m the feeling, not the person trying to feel it, my own hands thrusting the feeling stupidly through my cold body. Authenticity. That’s what it is, what she has that I don’t. Now, controlling her like a ghost, it’s returned her to the shaking and moaning from before: oh my god, it’s true, none of it was real, Kathleen, oh Kathleen.

I swallow loudly: to clear my throat, express discomfort, and inform the silence that it is about to be broken. “I mean, that’s what it said, isn’t it, on her, her… her note.” I pause. I give the silence time to regenerate, time to want me again, to hang onto my words and add its weight to my lonely heavy presence. I feel crazy; I feel eyes piercing me everywhere. “‘I’m sick of pretending.’”

The sounds feel good passing out of my lips, but I can’t suppress a shiver. Was that the right way to say it? Did it have the gravitas I needed? Have I done my part?

Beside me, Rosie chokes over her words like she can barely speak over the waves of her emotion: “Bella. Miriam. Please. We need to know why.”

The lights go out.

I deflate, relieved. As practiced, I fold up the mirror—my reflection is a shadow, melting into the audience before vanishing with a quiet clatter—and place it face down on my allotted desk-slash-countertop, then move to carry them off stage. The auditorium is dark, not quite black. In the front row, I discern the face of a friend visiting from another college. Our eyes meet, but I don’t have time to react. We haven’t talked in ages. I’m not sure what I should say.

Intermission starts in a few minutes. I consider my options. Hi, thanks for coming! Hi, how are you? Hi, I’m kind of tired, can we catch up tomorrow? Hi, do you think that went alright? Be honest. Hi, where’s my bouquet?