I step outside and the February wind cuts straight through my flannel jacket like it isn't there.
I stand on the sidewalk and breathe.
My hands shake now. Here, where nobody can see them, they shake so hard my keys rattle in my fist.
I drive to Mom's because I said I would and because going home to an empty apartment and a drawer full of my father's handwriting sounds like the worst possible place to be right now.
She opens the door before I knock. She always knows.
One look at my face and she steps aside without a word. I walk past her into the kitchen, drop into a chair, press my palms flat on the table the way I press them on my counter when the shaking gets bad.
"I quit my job." It comes out flat. Like reporting the weather to someone who's already standing in the rain.
She sits across from me, doesn't speak and waits.
I tell her everything.
About the customer's grip on my wrist. Gary and his Doritos and his indifference. The apron folded on his desk. Walking out past Keith and his grin.
When I finish, she's silent for a long time. Then she reaches across the table and wraps both hands around mine.
"Good." One word. No hesitation. "You don't go back there."
"I don't have a job, Mom."
"You have me." Her grip tightens. "And you'll find another job. What you won't find is a reason to let a man put his handson you and a boss who tells you to swallow it. Not in this family. Not after what we've been through."
The last sentence lands heavy. She doesn't say his name. She doesn't have to.
We both know what she means. We both know what happens when a woman is told a man's entitlement is something she should tolerate.
I stay the night. She makes the guest bed and sets a glass of water on the nightstand.
I lie in the dark listening to her move around the house, checking the locks, testing the knobs, running the same routine I run in my own apartment every night.
The inheritance of fear. Mother to daughter. Locked doors all the way down.
* * *
I almost don't go to statistics.
My alarm goes off just before six, and my hand is on it, and for one long second, I consider staying in bed, pulling the covers over my head, and letting Dr. Petrov's regression analysis exist in a universe I'm not part of.
But skipping class is a crack in the routine, and right now the routine is the only wall between me and the mess behind it.
Coffee. No mirror. Bag, keys, door, knob check.
Armstrong Hall. Back row, end seat.
He's already there.
One seat over, notebook open. He nods when I sit down.
Then I look at the pen in his hand and every terrible thing about the last forty-eight hours stops moving for a few seconds.
It's a bachelorette penis pen. Flesh-colored, anatomically correct, with googly eyes glued near the tip.
"You told me to bring a better pen." He clicks it once, face completely straight.