My bedroom is quiet and dark. I turn on the lights and then go into my bathroom and close the door. I turn the shower on, twisting the hot water knob as far as it will go. The room begins to fill with steam as I get undressed, my clothes a pile on the floor. I sit naked on the sink, and take out a small piece of folded-up notebook paper—Clarisse’s phone number on faint blue lines in green pen, her name above the ten digits. She dotted the i in Clarisse with a double star—two stars stacked on top of each other.
Toward the end of group, when Greg started talking about grounding techniques, when I couldn’t bear to hear another word about coping skills, deep breathing, or emotional regulation, couldn’t pretend to pay attention any longer, I went to the restroom. I didn’t really have to go. I just stood at the sink washing my hands while singing “Happy Birthday” in my head the way they taught us in kindergarten, a measure to ensure you’ve washed away all of the invisible germs.
I was rubbing white foam into my palms and watching the iridescent soap bubbles circle the drain when Clarisse walked in. She smiled at me and then went into one of the stalls, starting to talk to me as she closed the door. “So what’s your deal?” Clarisse asked.
I could hear the rustling of her clothing and the clink of her belt buckle as she moved inside the stall. I continued washing my hands. Looking at myself in the mirror, I watched my cheeks turn pink, blushing from the intimacy of this encounter, this girl I barely knew peeing while we talked.
“Are you one of those crazy hand washers?” Clarisse asked, her voice amplified by the hard tile inside the stall.
“Who, me?” I asked her in return, as if there were someone else in the room she could have been talking to. I turned off the water and waved one hand in front of the automatic towel dispenser. The red eye of the sensor acknowledged my presence, and a length of brown paper appeared. I tore it off and started drying my hands.
“Yes, you.” Her voice was light, on the verge of laughter. “Are you a germophobe or something?” She flushed the toilet and then appeared at the sink next to me. “You know, like the OCD people on that show. They wash their hands until their skin is, like, rubbed raw and bleeding.”
“Oh no. It’s not that,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “I was just bored, you know? I felt like I was about to fall asleep if I didn’t get up and walk around.” I reached for the door handle to leave, but Clarisse put her hand on top of mine, stopping me.
“You know I actually like you,” she said. And she took off the tiny drawstring backpack she wore, grabbing a pen and a little spiral notebook. “You seem like one of the only interesting people here.” As she wrote her phone number on a piece of paper, she resembled a waitress taking my order, as if somehow she knew exactly what I wanted.
Now I hold the paper up to my face and breathe in the scent of the ink. I grab my phone and tap Clarisse’s name and number into my contacts list. I catch my reflection in the mirror. These days, my body is an expanding territory—there is always something new to explore. I rub my breasts, pinching my nipples until they harden. I tilt my head to the side, wondering how Andy would like this pose. I open the camera on my phone and snap a picture, just to see what he would see if I could beam my body through the satellites to him, if I could reach him in the death house. If I could be his first taste of a girl in years.
I open The Catalog of Everything I’ve Done Wrong and add an entry: fallen in love with someone who doesn’t love me back.