Clay had seeped so far into her clothes that it pulled at her skin when she got ready for her shower. On her way past the mirrors, she saw some smeared on her chin, brushing up from her jaw to her mouth. When she washed her hair, colorful mud fell in clumps to the drain. The different reds and tans showed her how dried it was, how some of it must have been from last night. How did she sleep with clay in her hair without knowing? How did it even get where it did?

But the clay watered down and drifted down the drain in the same way that the rules of the ceramics studio warned against. Clay wasn’t supposed to go down the drain in excess, because it could ruin the pipes. Then again, Cat doubted clay was the worst thing to go down these bathroom ducts.

Robe tied tight, Cat held her clothes under her arm on her way back to her dorm. She knew Kelsey and Hannah would be there, sitting guiltily, waiting to apologize. Part of her debated, on her way back, on whether or not she was ready to hear it...but her muscles relaxed from the warm water, and her hands ached from working on her ceramics projects; the only bit of her that had any energy left was her mind, fully refreshed from her newest creative outlet.

She’d already forgiven them by the time she keyed open the door and saw them sitting on Hannah’s bed, waiting for her. Cat sighed when she shut the door behind her, watching her friends wait patiently for their turn. She decided to wait to address them until she pulled on a simple yellow dress and tights. They were restless by the time Cat sat down in her desk chair with her hairbrush. She had grown accustomed to silence over the past couple months; they had not.

She finally looked to them, frowning, before she said, “You know, I love you guys. You’re just very stupid sometimes.” Hannah let out a breath, though Kelsey dropped her gaze to the ground, her fingers fidgeting restlessly.

Hannah was the first to speak. “If you won’t talk to us, how are we supposed to know how to help you?” Well, that wasn’t what she expected. Cat blinked at her.

Kelsey grumbled something under her breath, but Hannah nudged her.

“No, say it louder so she can hear,” she said, her eyes still on her roommate. Cat raised a brow.

“I said,” Kelsey repeated, finally looking up, “how are we supposed to support you if you keep shoving us away?” She didn’t have an answer to that.

Hannah continued, “You know, the most honest you’ve even been this whole semester was when you just yelled at us.” It was Cat’s turn to avoid their gazes, now. “And--Peter’s way of ignoring it all might be nice and easy for you, but it’s not how the world works.”

“I’m not ignoring it,” Cat corrected with a grimace. She shut her eyes, but couldn’t bring herself to say much more.

“Then tell us what to do!” Kelsey exploded. Her frustration gave way to desperation. “Maybe you don’t want to talk about it, but that’s--it’s supposed to help! And you’ve just been pushing and ignoring us and lying--how are we supposed to react, if not to try and force it all out of you?”

Cat’s hands started to tremble, from fatigue, from the soft counting in her head. From the memory of porcelain under her fingertips, her fingernails scratching as she retched over and over again.

“If I talk about it,” she started with a weak voice, “I’m just--I’m back there again. I don’t want to go back there.” It took a full second for her eyes to see her dorm room floor when she opened them, instead of the swirling sight of Nate’s kitchen when he pressed her against the wall.

“Do you want me to kill him?” Hannah’s question burst her thought bubble. Cat looked up at her, shocked.

“What?” For the first time in a long while, their eyes finally met.

“Is that what would get you back?” Hannah asked, her gaze intense. “If I go cut off his dick, will you feel better?” Kelsey leaned a little bit away from her with a disgusted expression.

“Hannah--” she started.

“Well, what is it?” she nearly shouted, twisting to her redheaded friend. “I’m not there to save her when it happens, she won’t let me in now, what’s it gunna be?”

“I don’t know, stop yelling at me!” Kelsey spat back. “She said doesn’t want anything!”

Cat’s vision blurred when she blinked; her face was suddenly hot when she looked at Kelsey and Hannah, both seconds away from rage and despair. She tried not to let it, but her lips parted for the tiniest of sobs; the girls turned to look at her even though she could hardly hear it, herself.

“Actually,” Cat squeaked, “a hug sounds nice.” And by the time Cat closed her eyes to let any tears out, arms wrapped around her on either side to squeeze the life out of her, to keep the rawest pieces of herself together.

“Don’t worry,” Hannah murmured in her ear. She rubbed one shoulder while Kelsey took the other, spreading their warmth. “I’ll rip his dick off anyway.” Cat managed a small laugh as she buried her head into Kelsey’s shoulder.

“What the….” Kelsey reached for something in Cat’s hair, then yanked.

“Ow! The fuck?” The trio pulled apart, and Kelsey showed what she found.

“You had a rock growing in your hair.” Clay. She pulled a chunk of clay out of her hair. And for whatever reason, this was the absolute most hilarious thing Cat had ever heard in her life, and she burst into laughter. Her heaves were almost indiscernible from sobs, but the girls were able to keep up, and offered quiet chuckles until Cat was ready to suck in enough air to speak.

“I-I’m just not ready yet.” She wiped under her eyes, thankful she hadn’t put on any makeup, and tried to sniffle quietly. “I’m not ready to do anything yet.” Maybe soon. But not when she couldn’t keep herself from transporting back there, back to his house, whenever she thought of it.

“We can give you space and still be close to you,” said Kelsey. She backed away a bit and sat on the floor; Hannah crawled over so that she could face Cat, too.

“We’re here when you’re ready,” her roommate agreed. Their words sent a surge of warmth spiraling up her stomach; she almost smiled. Kelsey adjusted herself a bit, crossing her legs as she leaned forward.

“Are you going to stop pushing everyone away?” She sounded almost like a mother ensuring her child washed their hands after going to the bathroom. Cat looked at her, sighing, but couldn’t find any words, and shrugged.

“Omigod,” Hannah started, gasping, “was Nate the guy on Talkative? Is that why--”

“No--I don’t--I’m fairly sure he’s not,” Cat corrected before the thought could fully cross her mind again. The memory she had of the day of the party wasn’t great, but she knew PumpkinKing spent the whole day making her laugh, helping her “reset.” Her heart sank a little. “I just--I just freaked out and deleted the app.” Out of the corner of her eye, the little notification light on Cat’s phone blinked, signifying she had a notification. It had been months and she still sometimes thought that she might see PumpkinKing has started a thread! when she looked at it.

“You ghosted the dude you were flirting with all semester?” Kelsey asked, cringing. “Poor guy.”

“I told him I was just taking a break from the app,” she said. Cat fully looked to her phone now. Upon touching it, she saw the text she was notified about. Hannah, from when Cat went to the bathroom: r u peeing, pooping, or showering? What the hell, Hannah? Gross. There was no way looking at the notification would be that PumpkinKing started a thread or messaged her, but this was message was worse than seeing those emails about mythical princes needing her money.

“Why didn’t you ever just get his number?” Cat shrugged to Kelsey’s question.

“Do you want us to find out who he is?” Hannah asked, eyes wide.

“God, no--no.” Cat shook her head and let out a laugh. “No. I...bet that ship has sailed.” It didn’t matter anyway. Even if she had the opportunity to find out who PumpkinKing was, even if it was to just confirm that he never was Nate, or that he was never someone Nate ever even spoke to, Cat wasn’t sure she’d opt to find out. The anonymity never really factored into their exchanges. It never mattered.

“Well, you’re going to stop pushing everyone away, right? Real and digital?” Kelsey rubber-banded back to her point, and Cat sighed.

“I’m going to try. And you’re going to make sure, aren’t you?” Although her voice sounded tight and regretful, Cat counted on her friends’ pushiness. She’d lost one friend to this whole ordeal just from deleting an app, and he was never involved in the first place. And if Kelsey, Hannah, and Cam actually ambushed her like they were planning, it wasn’t a far stretch to think that it might not have been a pretty ending. She could have been totally alone....

Kelsey brightened up. “Consider me your accountabili-buddy! You are now no longer to allow awful shitheads to scare you away from us or anyone. Deal?”

Cat smiled, sniffling to her friends. “Deal.”

It would have been nice to hang out with everyone with everything out in the open. Well, theoretically. But Sunday, Cat had to cover Jeffrey’s shift at Jittery Joe’s, and she was gone the entire time that anyone was available to hang out; she didn’t get off of work until closing time at eleven, and Hannah was already asleep by the time she’d gotten back.

Hashing things out with Hannah and Kelsey gave her something she didn’t realize she missed. Cat’s protective shell, her whole set of friends, acted like a small battery pack for her. She saw them, they recharged her. It was disappointing to finally have the promise of things returning to some bit of normal only for work to get in the way.

Sleep was elusive when she lay in her bed at midnight after work, waiting to feel tired. Maybe she should’ve avoided drinking that extra coffee with her dinner break--but it was difficult to keep on her Customer Service smile after a full day of working, plus Jeffrey’s half-shift.

Cat stared at the word game on her phone and guessed the wrong answer for maybe the thirtieth time in a row. This wasn’t helping her sleep; she needed something mindless to bore her. Searching the app store only made her heart jump to her throat. Top App for the Week: Talkative! Chat with local strangers on common topics.

Kelsey was right to be a little miffed with Cat, how she suddenly stopped connecting with everyone when everything went down. Would anyone on Talkative notice she wasn’t around for the winter break? There were plenty of people she’d interacted with on a daily basis before...but only one she ever thought of with some regularity.

She’d downloaded the app without another thought. Her eyes kept flicking over to Hannah’s sleeping form, as if she was doing something secretive or embarrassing, before the app finished loading and popped up on her screen.

Her phone remembered her login (which was good, because she wasn’t sure what password she used in the first place), and she immediately opened her notifications.

Life for PumpkinKing went on fine without her, it turned out. (Not that she was super disappointed by that or anything….) He posted dozens of threads, some asking for Netflix documentary recommendations to put him to sleep at night, others asking about petty (yet still legal) revenge ideas to inconvenience someone’s life. He even added onto other peoples’ threads, as normal, including one about job interview tips. He returned to dominating the Roast My Subject thread, this time with only PandaSex69 ever challenging him directly.

The only time she was even mentioned by him was in one response, nearly a week ago, to someone’s prompt of the newest superhero movie that just came out. He said, “My interest in that movie disappeared faster than InsultCatapult at the promise of winter break.” For some reason, it made her chest hurt a little.

Cat pursed her lips. What was she expecting? This was an anonymous forum. People came and went all the time. They probably even changed screen names just as often. This wasn’t an app conducive to meaningful friendships at all. Why should people comment on whether or not she was around?

Finally, Cat got to the messages section of her notifications. Five new chats. Well, that was a little weird--until she saw that four of them were spam. Study drugs, new strip joint down the street, where to get pot, and a penis enhancement pill that worked “too well for the FDA to approve.”

The final one turned out to be what she was looking for all along, her chat with PumpkinKing that got pushed down to the bottom of her notifications over the months. Good luck on finals, was her final sentence to him. But he had more to say.

Is it just the app? We can stay in touch, if you want…

...I mean, even if you still want it to be anonymous, that’s totally cool. I get it. I can make a fake email.

Guess you already deleted...and I’m just here…

Talking to myself…

Two days passed before his next set of messages.

So you probably already deleted the app, but on the off-chance you ever reinstall and want to talk to me ever again, I figured I should actually respond to what you said. So here goes:

I really hope you’re doing okay. I hope your finals went okay. I had a lot of fun getting to know you and

His message cut off until a time stamp showed up, indicating more than five minutes had passed between his thoughts.

idk I just hope that wasn’t goodbye forever. I really like you too.

His final set of messages were dated to about two weeks after she’d deleted; one was a set of gifs of penguins pushing each other into the ocean. Cat had to cover her mouth to stop herself from making any noise and waking up Hannah.

Then, finally, he said, Thought of you immediately. If you do reinstall or ever see these messages, I wanted to leave you with something funny.

Well...talk to you later, maybe. :)

She couldn’t contain herself any longer. Fingers at the ready, Cat finally crafted her first message to him since last year. She settled with a simple, Miss me? :)

Maybe that was too bold. Maybe she should have just stuck with “hi” or sent him something funny, too. What if he was just being nice, with everything he said? But before she could panic too much, she watched his status go from offline to online immediately, and the three dots to indicate his response. Even after she deleted, he never took her off his notifications.

Cat swore to herself when she flopped onto her back to stare at her ceiling. Stranger or not, PumpkinKing actually cared about her, or whatever he perceived her to be on this anonymous site. Kelsey and Hannah and Cam cared about her so much, they got angry at Peter for telling them to leave her alone. Hannah even joked (maybe?) about murder.

And Peter….

Before Cat could even begin to unpack everything he’d done, PumpkinKing settled on his response to her return: New phone who dis? Cat failed at containing her giggle. Hannah muttered something, but Cat ignored her.

Bitter? she messaged back, smiling to herself.

Na, just Salty. She hesitated, squinting. He finally punctuated his joke with a winkie face.

Was that a chemistry joke? she asked.

PumpkinKing sent her a gif of a baby in a lab coat and goggles. What, no reaction?

At least nothing changed with him. And for now, it was the only concrete proof she needed to know that things would get better.