“Mom let me. She drove me to the train station.”
“Your mother is in no position to be making those kinds of decisions.” Whatever that was supposed to mean.
“Well,” I said, “I’m here. And everything’s fine.”
Dad let his disappointment linger in the silence before he spoke. “I’m going to set up an 800 number for you to call home for free.”
“Great,” I said, extra emphasis on the T.
“And I’ll set up an account there in case you need money.”
“Perfect.”
“And don’t you ever do something like that again.”
“Yes, sir.” Then I hung up and felt the hate flashing again. Light off. Light on.
Now they could get on with their lives. Move on. Problem solved. I narrowed my eyes at the phone and watched my distorted reflection scowl back. Then I felt a presence behind me and my muscles tensed. I stayed perfectly still. A streak of blue passed behind my reflection. I jumped up, back to the phone, as the chair scraped against the floor with a high-pitched shriek.
There was a guy in the hall, blue shirt and khaki shorts, watching me.
I cleared my throat. “I’m done with the phone.”
“I’m not waiting for the phone,” he said. He was built tall and thick, with a cocky stance and a lazy grin.
“I thought nobody was here yet.”
“I live here. I’m Jason. Mallory, right?”
I searched my memory for his face, for his name. But I couldn’t remember seeing him at any of Dad’s alumni events. I didn’t remember any Jason. It’d been two years since I stopped going, though. He could’ve been anyone. “Sorry, I don’t remember you.”
I looked around the empty hallway, wondering if this Jason character was supposed to be wandering the girls’ dorm at night. He saw my expression and his grin stretched wider. It was the type of smile on the type of face that said he usually got exactly what he wanted. And in that moment, it looked like what he wanted was me.
I tugged down the ends of my shorts, which were now decidedly too short.
He laughed. “No, I mean I know who you are.” He stayed against the wall, but he smiled in a way that made him seem closer. “My dad is the dean of students.”
Which was his way of telling me he knew everything. Everything.
All the air drained from the hallway, my fresh start rapidly disappearing.
I walked toward my room, and he backed down the hall in front of me. “There’s nothing to do around here tonight. We should hang out.”
“Jason,” I said as I strode by him into my room. He knew who I was. He knew everything about me. I gathered my voice and said, “You should know better.”
He grinned again as I shut my door in his face. He tapped his fingers against it twice and said, “See ya, Mallory.”
I turned the lock. Ridiculous, really. I wasn’t naive enough to think a lock would prevent someone from getting in if he wanted to. But I ran across the room to the window and checked that lock too. The outside was blackness now. No moon. No lights. I couldn’t even see the trees. Just darkness, stretching forever.
I pulled the off-white shade down to the sill, rummaged in the smaller suitcase for my vial of sleeping pills, and swallowed one dry. The lock kept Jason out. But not that other thing. I heard it coming as I lay on the starchy sheets.
Boom, boom, boom.
Inescapable. I felt it like a jolt of cold air as it seeped through the crack at the base of the window and spread out along the floor.
The room throbbed with the boom, boom, boom just like at home. Same as always. But this time my eyelids fluttered open and I saw it hovering in the corner, starting to take shape. Like a shadow in the darkness, darker than all the rest.
I squeezed my eyelids closed again and I thought, Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . . because it was the only thing I could think.
But it didn’t matter because I already knew those words meant nothing.
And as I drifted away, I felt the shadow coming closer . . . closer . . .
I woke to whispers in the hall. Fast-moving words, sharp laughter, an indecipherable string of syllables. Gossip. Girls moving in.
The clock told me what I already knew by the amount of noise in the hall—I’d missed breakfast. And I hadn’t eaten dinner. My stomach clenched. I slipped my key bracelet onto my wrist and padded down the narrow set of stairs near my room. I got a bag of pretzels and a soda from the vending machine in the basement and tore into the bag as soon as I pulled it from the dispenser. Then I heard doors slamming around in the laundry room.
I walked over to the entranceway and saw Curls slamming the dryer shut, leaning into it with her hip.
Blond Girl was sitting on top of a washer across the room, filing her nails. They were both in pajamas still. Blond Girl spoke, still looking at her nails. “I don’t know why you don’t just do it at your uncle’s place.”
Curls put her hands on her hips and said, “I’m not lugging this across campus.”
“Well then, at the very least you could send it out like I do.”
Curls opened the door again and slammed it shut, and this time it latched. “There,” she said. Then she turned to Blond Girl and said, “Stuff always goes missing when I do that.” Then she motioned for Blond Girl to follow her. “Time to get ready,” she said.
I backed away before they could notice me standing there.
Someone had slid a schedule for the day under my door, along with the Monroe Student Handbook. I spent the morning reading the handbook while everyone else moved in. Learning about the consequences as dictated by Monroe for various offenses. I wondered what would happen if I refused to wear those ridiculous red shirts, but I couldn’t find the answer.
There were two long folding tables set up at the end of the path in front of a large academic building, and two identical girls stood behind them. As I got closer, I noticed the girls were not at all identical, despite the red shirts and khaki pants and hair pulled up into taut ponytails. And, in fact, I knew them. They were the girls from the laundry room, from last night. Except now they were all smiles and perkiness, and they greeted me like they’d never seen me before.
“Welcome to Monroe!” said the girl with the reddish curls. She was looking at me, but I got the feeling she was looking right through me. It was unsettling. Her name tag said krista. “Last name, please.”
“Murphy,” I said as she rifled through the stack of red folders. Her eyes briefly flitted up to mine. The blond girl, who had been smiling at someone in the distance, stopped smiling. Her hand froze midwave.
“Taryn,” Krista said, looking directly at me. “I think you have this one.”
Taryn cleared her throat and rifled through the folders. I walked to her side of the table, but she passed the folder to Krista instead. And then we all stood in this awkward triangle: me with my folder, Taryn looking purposefully away, Krista looking purposefully toward me.
And then a voice from somewhere behind the table said, “Computer room next.”
Krista looked at a guy sprawled out under the nearest tree and said, “I was getting to it, Reid.” Then she turned back to me and said, “Computer room. Laptops.” Fake smile.
She gestured over her shoulder to the building behind her.
But I was looking at the boy under the tree. Reid. I knew him—I used to know him. I hadn’t seen him since freshman year, when I was an awkward fourteen and he was a cute fifteen, as long as you didn’t look too closely at his uncontrollable hair.
Reid wore sneakers and khaki shorts and that ridiculous red polo, and I started to worry I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone apart. When I passed close by him, he raised himself up on his elbows and smiled, and not only did he have that ridiculous shirt, he also now had this ridiculous brown hair that curled at the bottom. Not even close to the uncontrollable mess I remembered.
“You got taller,” he said.