I never went into a jail cell. By the time I got through the hours-long admitting process, fingerprints, photos, and waiting in line to make a phone call, not that I knew who to try, one of the university lawyers had already arrived. He was tall in his tan suit, his hair silvering on the sides. He talked to the woman who was processing my paperwork, and she gestured to me.

He smiled grimly. “Corabelle, I’m Sam. I work for the university. We’re going to talk in a quiet room for a minute. Is that okay?”

I nodded and stood up to follow him down a hall.

We entered a small room with a plain table and two folding chairs.

Sam sat in one and laid his briefcase flat between us. “Corabelle, you are very well liked in the main office. This is an unfortunate incident.”

I sat opposite him, not sure what to say to that.

“Dr. Tate doesn’t want this to end your academic career. We’ve decided it’s best to keep this at the university level. She will drop the charges if you are willing to accept our agreement.”

I still didn’t say anything. She was the one smoking a joint. She had more to hide than I did.

“Assault of a pregnant woman, a former professor of yours, doesn’t look good on any record. I’m not sure what happened, but if you’re willing to agree to our terms, we can put all this behind us.”

Apologize? She was the one endangering her baby! Rage blossomed inside me, but I had to stuff it down. I couldn’t do anything now. They had all the power.

He opened his briefcase. “I have an agreement drawn up. It says that in exchange for Dr. Tate dropping the charges, you will agree to not speak of the incident, to apologize to her, and to arrange for a transfer to another college. Naturally we’ll assist you with transferring your credits.”

I had to leave? “But my scholarships.”

He frowned. “I’m not familiar with those. Some may travel with you.”

I shook my head. “They were all from NMSU.”

“Would you rather take your chances with a judge then? I can release you back to the custody of the jail.”

I shook my head. I knew how that would go. Telling my parents. Hiring a lawyer. And no guarantees. This was a lose-lose.

He reviewed the segments of the agreement. I signed the bottom.

“Let’s get you discharged,” he said, standing.

I followed him numbly down the corridors, back through processing, and collected my backpack and the personal items they had confiscated when I arrived.

“Do you need a ride somewhere?” he asked.

“I’ll take the bus,” I said.

“Good luck, Corabelle. I’m sorry this happened.”

I turned away from him to trudge down the sidewalk. The day had moved to evening. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Once again, I had to start all over.

When I got to my dorm room, I sat on the bed, feeling numb. What would I say to my parents about my move? And my coworkers. Would they clear out my desk? I wasn’t sure how big a secret it would be. I had no instructions.

I could go home to my parents’ house, but it was so full of memories — the sun room, my bedroom window, the gate in the back fence that led to Gavin’s. No, I couldn’t go there.

Finn’s framed picture sat on a small table and I picked it up. “Where do I go now?” I asked him.

He couldn’t look at me, his eyes covered with a protective mask, the tube and the blue tape preventing him from talking, or crying, or making any sound.

I slid to the floor, the picture in my lap. Why hadn’t I walked some other way? Why had she been so close to that wall? I’d never struck anyone in my life, not with anything other than a playful punch. She had no idea why I had done it. That I knew what it was like to forever second-guess yourself, to wonder if what you had done had harmed your child.

No one ever told you what to do when your world caved in. I had no one close enough to call about this, just coworkers and a few study partners. I wasn’t sure if I could even tell them anything, based on that agreement.

I had never been so utterly alone. When Finn died and Gavin left, I still had my parents and the sympathy of an entire town. Now I had nothing, no one. Not even a home or a school or a future that I could see. I lay flat on the rough carpeted floor, Finn’s picture on my chest, letting the heaviness of my grief and fear settle over me like a blanket.

What would I do?

Beneath my bed, light glinted off a plastic bag that held a few of my summer clothes. I reached for it, dumping the shorts and tank tops into a pile and crunching the crinkled bag in my fist.

Did I dare?

I propped the picture on my belly, admiring Finn’s cheeks, pink and fat beneath the gray mask. I could remember their pillowy softness. I had held him only once, watching his chest rise and fall with urgency until the movements slowed down, with long spaces in between, then stopped.

I quit thinking of anything at all and tugged the bag over my head. An ugly image, I was sure, the girl with the dead baby on her belly and the grocery sack on her face. I twisted it under my chin to seal it off. I wouldn’t die. I would pass out and let go, and air could get in.

Or not.

It didn’t matter.

The plastic settled over my skin, then gradually began to mold itself to my nose and cheeks, sucking in against my mouth. A tear trickled from my eye to my ear. I felt my lungs aching, the panic building in my chest. I began to writhe, my arms insisting on coming up to pull the bag away. I fought the urge, stuffed it down, raged against the survival instinct that tried to change my mind.

Then my body went quiet and still, and I could relax into the dark. The light began to fade and I sensed my hand hitting the floor.

But I didn’t go out. I heard crayons scraping across paper. In front of me was an image as wide as the wall, as tall as my imagination. I was coloring the blue sea, spreading color with broad swaths. Next to me, Gavin, boyish and short, his socks sagging, knelt and filled in the sand with a pale brown crayon, decorating the surface with starfish and clamshells.

I laughed and stepped back. The ocean was vast and beautiful. Gavin turned to look at me, and we smiled. This was our future, our goal, our home.

My belly heaved and suddenly I threw up into the bag. I yanked it away, panicked, disgusted, but in awe at my body, resisting me, making me do its will.

Finn’s picture clattered to the floor, but didn’t break. I snatched a shirt from the bed and wiped my face, sucking in air. I would survive this. I would make it home.

To the sea.

5: Gavin

I felt ridiculous sitting in class listening to Professor Blowhard yammer on about comets. Corabelle’s seat was too empty, like there was a hole in the room. Her friend Jenny watched me sympathetically from the end of the row, between flirty waves to the TA. They were so going to get busted for dating, or whatever it was they were doing.

The only salvageable thing about being there was taking notes to help Corabelle. I concentrated on the page, scribbling them the old-fashioned way because typing while I tried to listen made me crazy. I would still swear he was taking the entire class lecture out of a children’s book about space.

After an eternity, he shut down the projector and we were free. Jenny picked her way around knees and backpacks to stand by my seat. “How’s Cora?”

“Much better. Talking, awake. I think she’s through the worst of it.”

“I’m taking her shifts, so I haven’t had a minute free to go over there again. You going now?”

“Probably not until late. Her parents are there.”

She moved aside to let another student by. “I bet that’s going just grand.”

“They haven’t had me arrested. I’d say that’s a win.” I stood up, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. “You’ve talked to her boss, right?”

“Yeah, they’re supposedly sending her a care package. Probably leftover coffee and stale strudel.” Jenny fell into step beside me. “Why do you think she walked into the water? I mean, I knew she’d been upset, and this was big shit going down, but that’s huge. She’s no drama queen, and trust me, I know drama.”

I’m sure she did. But I had no answer for her. Corabelle was different now, parts of her as unreachable as the shadows on the moon. We headed for the stairs. “I’m betting the hospital is going to try and drag it out of her,” I said.

“You think they’ll say she’s crazy or something?”

“She’s putting on a pretty good act of being normal.”

Jenny rushed to keep up with me, her pink ponytail swinging. “Are we talking about the same person? Because the Corabelle I know couldn’t fool a kindergartner.”

Our footsteps echoed in the stairwell, and I had to resist the urge to pause on the spot where Corabelle and I talked for the first time after discovering we were on the same campus. “She’ll rise to the occasion.”

“Well, fooling the shrinks is all well and good, but both you and I know the real deal. She went into the ocean and wasn’t planning on coming back out.”

I stopped on the bottom step and turned to face Jenny. “Look, we don’t know what Corabelle was thinking, and we don’t know she has a problem. She’s working it out now, and she’ll either fool the social worker or she won’t. I don’t think she’s in any danger, and I would rather us be supportive than speculate.”

Jenny held her hands in the air. “Whoa, dish boy’s got a burr up his ass.”

I whirled back around at that. This conversation was pointless.

“Hey, Gavin, sorry.” She grabbed my arm. “You know I want what’s best for her. That was a tough scene out there.”