Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men - By Regan Wolfrom Page 0,73

That’s not what marriage is about.”

“Says the guy who’s only been married twice. Take it from me, Lanny… that’s all marriage is about.”

Kara turned and left the apartment, and I’m sure someone who didn’t know her would’ve never realized she was on something; hell, I hadn’t known she was high back on the night we first met.

I waited long enough to know she’d have already caught the Sixteen before I followed her downtown. By the time I found a place to park and walked the fifteen minutes to Granny’s I saw her near the front of the line. I stayed at the back so she wouldn’t notice me, and within ten minutes she was in.

I waited for almost an hour before my turn, not bad for synthpunk night. I checked the dance floor first but she wasn’t there.

I wandered through the rest of Granny’s but couldn’t find Kara anywhere. I did a second loop, hoping that maybe I’d missed her the first time, or maybe I’d see Ashley or maybe even Callum rehearsing his latest pickup line, but I didn’t find anyone I knew. Granny’s was just a sea of people cooler than me, grinding and bumping and ignoring my existence.

I checked the men’s bathroom, and then stood awkwardly outside the ladies’, asking a few of the less threatening women if they’d seen a spindly girl with thick black glasses and dark brown hair with a purple streak. That got me nowhere so I took a chance and shoved my way through the ladies room door.

And there she was, leaning up against the sink with her forehead touching the mirror. She was rolling her head against the glass. I couldn’t tell if she was having trouble pulling her head up or if she just liked the feeling of a scratched and lipstick-smeared bathroom mirror against her skin.

“Kara,” I said. “What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer. Some of the other women in the bathroom were staring, watching us like we were putting on a one-act play.

“Goddamn it!” I screamed. “Did anyone call an ambulance?”

They all looked away. I put both hands on her shoulders and tried to pull her up. She fell back against me and for a moment I thought I’d drop her.

I felt her body start to jerk, and I lowered her down to the floor. Her eyes were open but I wasn’t sure she was still with me.

“Kara,” I said. “What happened?”

She didn’t respond.

“Kara... I love you. Please...”

I fumbled with my cell phone, eventually fingering the numbers to 911, and as I waited for an operator Kara closed her eyes.

I knew she wasn’t going to make it.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I looked around the women’s washroom, hoping that someone would know what to do, but by that point we were alone. I don’t think anyone bothered to tell the bouncers. And I guess no one wanted to be there when she died.

I told the operator who finally answered what I thought had happened, that we needed an ambulance, that I was pretty sure I was losing her.

I can’t describe how it felt, seeing her like that, knowing that she’d finally gone too far, that she’d put in too much junk for her body to take.

I stared into her eyes, hoping she’d come out of it.

But she wasn’t there. Kara was gone.

I felt a tickle of heat on her skin and I thought it was just some part of me trying to keep the warmth from leaving her. But then the skin started to smoke and then to burn, and I had to pull myself back from the heat.

I laid down a few feet away, watching as the fire grew, orange and white flames swallowing Kara and nothing else in that bathroom, the heat nearly searing my skin. The fire roared and then it stopped.

The smoke began to clear.

And Kara was still there, unburnt and completely bare, her clothes burned to nothing, but her beautiful eyes and her beautiful freckles were there, and her dark brown hair, looking soft and shiny, missing its purple streak.

And then she opened her eyes and looked at me.

“I’m okay, Lanny,” she said, reaching out to me with her hand. “But you look like shit.”

Nothing had happened to me but I could barely move.

She pulled off my shirt and dressed herself in it, trying to pull it down far enough to reach to her thighs.

Kara helped me back to the parking garage, my arm draped over her shoulder; my knees felt like they’d been