I’d combined the items from our two boards before I left, took an old concert-ticket stub and the picture of her field hockey team off Maddy’s and added it to mine. There was a picture of Molly and me that was taken the day before she left for UNC, the crumpled-up drawing of the tree that had given me away to Josh, and our prom picture—not the formal one but a candid his mom snapped as we were getting into his car. In the center of it all were Maddy’s car keys, the ones to the blue Honda that nearly claimed both our lives, and the appointment card for the counselor Mom had found me here. I didn’t want to tape these things to random spots on the wall. I wanted them like this—smushed together in one contained, controllable spot. It was a combination of the two of us and I now used it to remind me how strangely similar and oddly different Maddy and I truly were.
“Okay,” Josh said as he dropped the tape onto my desk. “If it is that important to you, then I will find a way to make it stick, even if it means holding it up there myself all year.”
I laughed. The idea of Josh stuck in my room—in my life—for the next four years was not something I minded. Not in the least.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing. You.”
“Great,” he said as he launched himself onto my bed and held out his arms. His eyes darted to the bare frame and empty mattress across the room, and I knew exactly what he was thinking before he spoke. “What are the chances of your roommate showing up anytime soon?”
“Not good,” I said as I snuggled into him. “She texted me this morning. Her flight got canceled, so she won’t be here until sometime tomorrow.”
“Perfect,” Josh said as he pulled me tighter in to his chest. “My roommate’s parents are still here, so my room is off-limits for a while.”
I’d met his roommate when I was walking Mom and Dad out to their car. They wanted to stop by Josh’s room before they left and say goodbye to him. They made Josh promise for the gazillionth time to take care of me and to call them if I seemed distant or depressed. I hadn’t been off since the day I finally admitted to the world who I was, since the day I reclaimed my life and let myself mourn my sister. But that didn’t stop Mom and Dad from worrying, from being overprotective.
“What’s he like?” I asked.
“Who, Todd?” Josh asked as he scooched up on the bed and rolled his eyes. “Let’s see. Didn’t matter that I was here first and had my stuff put away, I had to pack everything up and move it to the other side of the room because, apparently, he absolutely has to have the right side. Everything … his binders, his closets, even his sheets are color coordinated. He made my mother take the TV and DVD player I brought home because he said it was a distraction, and if I needed that kind of noise in my life, then there was no reason I couldn’t get it in the common area.”
I couldn’t help it—I cracked up because seeing Josh frustrated was funny.
“Oh, it gets better,” he said, dead serious, and I did my best to control my amusement, to stop smiling and look completely enthralled by his rant.
I couldn’t imagine what he was going to come out with next, but I waved him on, happy that he—that we—were finally here, talking about normal stuff like roommates and bulletin boards as opposed to dead sisters and lies. “How much better?”
“Todd has what I would call an unhealthy fascination with the Impressionist period. My room is now covered with pastel prints.”
My giggling erupted into a full-blown howl at that. Josh tried for angry, went so far as to poke me in an attempt to get me to stop, but even he couldn’t stop himself from seeing the humor in it.
“What about your comic-book and manga drawings? I take it he doesn’t appreciate your talent.”
“Appreciate it? According to him, comic books are for prepubescent boys with bad parental role models and a superhero complex. Yeah … we are going to get along fantastically.”
“Umm, I bet you are,” I said. I gave them two months tops before one of them snapped and demanded a new roommate. My guess was it’d be Josh. Until then, I figured Josh could spend his time here, lounging on my bed studying and drawing.
I picked up the can of soda that was sitting on the windowsill and raised it in a toast. “Here’s to hoping my roommate likes you, because from the sounds of it you are practically going to be living here.”
Josh took the soda from my hand and deposited it back on the windowsill behind us. I knew what he was doing. I’d seen that look a hundred times before—the sparkle of humor hidden behind intent. His lips were inches from mine, his hands at my hips as he breathed, “That’s the plan, Ella. Being here, with you, that was always the plan.”