In a few hours the girls' bathroom would be throbbing with noise. Running showers, blow dryers and 20 college girls reliving last nights' party would make it impossible to concentrate. However, it was 4 AM and the bathroom was deserted. The only noise breaking the church-like-silence was a ragged breath from inside the walls of a steel stall.

The girl inside had her knees locked and her hands braced on the toilet bowl; floating inside were the remains of what had been a delicious meal hours before. She drank too much, again. Sweat beaded on her face and rolled down her neck. She took another shaky breath before she stood and steadied herself on the cool walls. After a moment, she reached down for a nearly empty bottle of vodka. She'd been nursing it since eleven o’clock that night, she took a long swig and staggered out of the stall.

She wavered slightly as she balanced herself against a porcelain sink mounted to the wall. A blurry reflection stared back at her; smudged mascara, lipstick long since wiped away, and long black hair sticking to the sweat on her forehead and neck. The girl turned the cold water on in the sink. She leaned over and splashed her face and slicked back her hair. This only made things worse. Her mascara was now streaming down her cheeks. "Looks like you’ve been crying."

She shook her head, took a towel from the dispenser and wiped the mascara away.

"You want to cry though, don’t you?"

A small explosion seemed to rock her rib cage at the words but she doused it with another long swig of vodka.

"I would be crying if I were you. You’re pathetic, look at yourself."

Her eyes automatically drifted back to the blurry face in the mirror. Her lips were full and usually soft, though at the moment they were cracked and dry. Her eyes, dark desperate pools of blue, had always given her the look of person who's dog had just died. She had a sort of tragic beauty about her; the tragedy being that she didn’t know it existed.

"What did you do tonight?"

She peered around the empty bathroom, the door seemed so far away, she wasn't sure if she could make it back to her room like this. Maybe she would just sleep here, it was a Saturday, she would be sobered up long before any of the girls came for their morning showers.

"Study group I'm sure."

The girl sighed, exasperation pouring from her lips. She was beginning to unravel.

"Did you even know that man’s name?"

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, she felt the bile rising in her throat. She heaved into the sink.

"Did he know your name?"

Her mind flashed-back to earlier that evening. She was drunk; the world seemed to be turning topsy-turvy around her. There was a man, too handsome in her own opinion to be talking to her, he smiled and touched her knee and brought her another drink. Then another. Before she knew it she was on a hall floor under his writhing body though she wasn’t able to recall how she had gotten there. Too soon it was over and he was gone. The girl put her clothes on and got herself another drink.

"Are you sure that this is your dormitory?"

She snapped back to reality and looked at her surroundings. Everything was blurred and growing darker. All the dorms seemed to be exactly the same, mirror images of one and other. She wasn't sure, she’d simply stumbled in after a group of giggling girls and staggered to the bathroom.

She shook her head and raised the mouth of the bottle to her lips.

"Better be careful or you’ll end up just like mommy."

The girl half cried, half screamed and swung around, almost expecting to see somebody behind her. She was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling deeply. Her head spun from the mere act of moving so quickly and she closed her eyes. For a moment there was silence. Then . . .

"Or maybe you already have."

She clamped her hands over her ears but it made no difference.

"Your mother's a poor rich housewife drowning in chardonnay, throwing herself on the mailman, milkman, garbage man and any other man that comes along…well, that is, any man that isn’t your father. And you, well, actions speak louder than words . . ."

Her mind raced. The room seemed to be getting darker and smaller. Her palms began to itch as the world closed in.

Suddenly, with a resounding scream she hurled the bottle into the mirror in front of her and broken glass scattered across the tile floor like ice cubes. Frantically she grasped for a shard of broken bottle and began slashing her wrists. They screamed, bright red flowing over her hands and staining the sterile white of the tile floor. She walked heavily, dragging her feet, to the first mirror in the row. Blood flowed from her fingertips like paint from a brush and she pressed them against the mirror

In a few hours the girl bathroom would be throbbing with noise. However it was 5 AM and a group of girls stood in the doorway, silent as nuns. The only noise breaking the church-like silence was a siren ripping through the distance. A girl laid on the cold floor in a puddle of blood and broken glass. Her breathing was shallow, one of the nursing students claimed to hear the "death rattle". The paramedics pushed through the girls and flew into the bathroom. A split second pause as they took in the scene around them. Above this girl's life-less body, smeared across the mirrors in dripping letters, was a message. "This is not my life."

As they rushed her through the hallways atop a gurney bleary-eyed faces peeked from inside their doors and the girls assembled by the bathroom watched. They had all seen her around campus before. She was quiet throughout the day, had the mannerisms of a kicked puppy, recoiling from anybody who got to close, constantly apologizing for herself. When night fell it was a different story, some of the girls had seen her at parties dancing on tables, singing at the top of her lungs, sloshing drinks around, and then disappearing with different frat boys who would deny ever knowing her in the morning. Some of them thought she was just another beer slut, but right now everyone of the girls crammed into the doorway of the bathroom, trying to catch a glimpse, felt sorry for her. She didn't even make it to the right dorm.