The first day I walked into the dorm, a building of arterial-red brick and blinding, deep-pocketed white trim, I found Joanne awash in frills, perched on her pouf of a comforter, weeping into a stuffed cat. Her eye makeup had melted with her tears, running in great Rorschach circles around her eyes. She was the very picture of an adorable faux-Victorian waif, so dejected on her bed, like a little broken match girl or a flower-maker gone ulcerative from arsenic exposure. I wanted to put my hands around her slender white throat and shake her. Joanne was just that delicate. While I had rushed my
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