In My Dreams I Hold a Knife

by Ashley Winstead

  I pushed away the thought. We’d been happy here.

  Coop ignored the picnic bench and sat right on the table. He twisted the cap off the stolen whiskey, took a long pull, then held it out to me.

  I couldn’t help the ghost of a smile. “In the middle of the quad? Out in the open? You rebel.”

  Coop didn’t smile back. “Who do you know with an addiction?”

  I took the whiskey and sat down next to him. Slugged a mouthful. I had to force it down, trying not to gag. “My dad. OxyContin, at first. Then whatever he could find.”

  Coop nodded, looking across the quad at East House. A slight breeze picked up a tendril of his hair and brushed it over his forehead. “All those years, you never told me.”

  “Yeah, well, it was the last thing I wanted people to know.”

  A few of the windows were still lit in the dorm. Students, up late. I searched for the window on the fourth floor, in the corner. My old room. But it was dark, the curtains drawn.

  Coop ran his hands through his hair and held them there. “I feel like I know you so well, and then I discover something like this. I wish you trusted me.”

  I scooted the whiskey bottle toward him. “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “That sounds lonely. You have to let people in. Let them love you for who you are, the good and the ugly. Then you know it’s real.”

  Coop had grown into a good man, or maybe he’d always been one. Either way, he didn’t understand that there were some truths too ugly to see the light of day. Some that would ruin love, if they were uncovered.

  The memory came back, this time more vivid. Waking up, disoriented, my head pounding. The sunlight too bright, streaming through vaguely familiar windows. Bracing my hands against the floor to push myself up, only to feel my hands stick to the wood. Looking down. Breath catching. My hands, splayed on the floor, rust-red from fingernails to elbows, covered in flaking blood. Crimson splattered across my pink dress like ink on a Rorschach test. The horrible question: What had I done?

  Nothing, I answered fiercely. I’d done nothing. I had to rebury the memory alongside the others. There was nothing to be had from it but ruin and rot.

  I turned away from Coop, not wanting him to see my face.

  “In the spirit of openness,” he said, “there’s something I wanted to show—”

  “Coop.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Why was it so good here?”

  “What?”

  I wiped my eyes and looked around the quad, at the ivy-covered dorm pulled from a fairy tale, the ring of trees, standing sentinel. Here, in the grass, I’d been reborn, committed myself to a new religion, a strong magic. That magic was still buried in the soil of this place.

  It was my home.

  My hair fell like a curtain in front of my face. When I spoke, the words were barely discernible. “Why was it so good here, and so bad? It didn’t matter—whatever I was feeling, it was dialed up so high. Why can’t I make myself feel that way again? Everything these last ten years has paled compared to it. I’m scared college was the last time I was really alive, the way you’re supposed to be, and I’ll never get it back.”

  “Of course college felt extreme,” Coop said. “You had infinite freedom and almost no responsibility. Nothing was fixed—you had your whole life ahead of you, and it could go anywhere. You had best friends you spent every minute with, so you were never alone. And you were in love. Real love.”

  “Yeah, well, Mint turned into Courtney’s Stepford husband, so look where that got me.”

  Coop brushed my hair back from my face. “I wasn’t talking about him.”

  Chapter 22

  May, senior year

  I thought I was ready to let go, until graduation day. I sat in the sweltering heat, lined up with the other Millers, watching students in crimson robes inch across the stage, and panic set in. If I walked up those stairs to shake the chancellor’s hand—if I allowed this day to come and go, packed my things into my mother’s car and drove back to Norfolk—it would all be over.

  After Heather died, after Mint and I recommitted to our relationship, driven by a gutting guilt neither one of us wanted to talk about, after I started avoiding Coop, I couldn’t wait for the semester to be over. I thought I wanted to move on. But now that the day was here, red-and-white-balloon arches and Eliot Lawn crammed with families in folding chairs, I realized: there was no more time to change things. This was how it was going to end. How the story would be written.

  It would go like this: I’d officially failed to beat Chi O and take their first-place rush record. The East House Seven were officially drifting apart. I’d officially fallen out with Coop, both of us going our separate ways, no reason to run into each other again. I’d officially lost the chance to follow in my father’s footsteps—failed him for the last time—and now I had no idea what I’d do with my life once I walked off this lawn.

  I’d officially made it to the end without Heather.

  I hadn’t realized at the time, because going to school after Heather’s death was painful, but being a student at Duquette at least kept things alive, the ink still wet. There had still been time for anything to happen, and now it was over.

  A line from the poem came back—the one Caro had given me, shoving it in my hands with a tear-stained face: What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

  I had no idea.

  I glanced behind me into the rows of families, scanning until I found her. My mother, dressed in black despite the heat, straight-backed, eyes on the stage, waiting. And, because she didn’t realize I was looking, everything she felt was written clear across her face: a current of raw emotion, passing like clouds across the sky. Even as it hurt me to watch, I couldn’t help thinking how alike we were, as much as we’d always tried not to be.

  At the very least, we’d both made it here, to this day. My father hadn’t. I’d started this whole thing for him, but she—she, who’d never wanted it in the first place—was the only one left to finish.

  ***

  The graduation concert was a Duquette tradition. The Alumni Office sponsored it, hired some big act every year, and as if to mark our transition from students to real adults, the Duquette administration let its hair down and served wine and beer to everyone. This year, the party was bigger and better than ever, because Mint had graduated, and the Minters—despite the real estate crash—did things bigger and better than anyone else, including showy donations.

  They’d built a memorial for Heather. A wall, covered in pictures of her, notes, teddy bears, and bouquets of cheap flowers she would have hated. I couldn’t look at it—couldn’t stand to see her face, over and over. Heather at Homecoming senior year, red and white ribbons in her hair; Heather in a Chi Omega shirt, gold crown, and pink boa on Bid Day; Heather’s baby face, wearing her confident grin, outside East House freshman year. And my face, staring back from so many of the pictures; my eyes seemed to follow when I passed, like a haunted painting, trying to communicate something was wrong though my mouth was locked in a permanent grin, frozen forever on film.

  Heather’s family came—Mr. and Dr. Shelby, and Eric—but they’d left shortly after Eric walked stiffly across the stage, accepting Heather’s honorary diploma.

  I breathed easier once they left.

  Now my mom sat at a table with the impossibly glamorous Mrs. Minter and her paramour, the board member, a tall, gruff man with a handlebar mustache. Mint’s dad was mysteriously out of the picture. It was excruciatingly uncomfortable. Lately, every time I tried to ask Mint about his dad, or about how his parents’ company was surviving the crash, he shook his head, refusing to say a word. Sometimes, if I pushed, he left me for the night, and I wouldn’t see him until the next day, when he was apologetic but no more forthcoming.

  The Minters, as I’d realized long ago, were a fucked-up family.

  Bu
t at least they were in good company with my mom, who sat still and quiet as a statue, radiating sadness.

  “Mint,” I whispered, turning to him. He wore a splendid navy suit with glossy buttons, every inch the graduating prince. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He gave me a grateful look. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  We got champagne and strode to the edge of the crowd gathered around the stage, where some rock band was trying its hardest to turn the party into a night at Madison Square Garden. If our story had unfolded the way it was supposed to, without Heather dying, Jack would have been right there in the front row, our resident music geek, with Frankie beside him, ready to throw his body around with wild abandon. Caro would have been squished between them, dodging elbows but happy to stick close, and Heather would have spun through the crowd, talking to everyone.

  I blinked away the what-if. In the real world, Heather and Jack were missing entirely, and Frankie and Caro were sitting on the outskirts of the lawn with their families, quiet and somber.

  Maybe Mint saw it, too, the ghost of the should-have-been, because he waved me away from the stage.

  “Too loud,” he yelled.

  “I don’t mind,” I answered, once we were far enough away to hear each other. “The ride home with my mom is going to be four and a half hours of silence. I’ve got to soak up sound while I can so I don’t forget what it’s like.”

  He eyed me, and I could tell he was wrestling with something, at war with himself. Finally, he forced it out. “What if you didn’t go home? What if you came with me to New York?”

  I looked at him in surprise. I’d been so focused on getting through each day that I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about what would happen next between Mint and me. “And do what?”

  “Anything you want. We can get an apartment together on the Upper East Side. I’ll go to law school, and you can find a job. There has to be something. Maybe consulting. That’s prestigious, and they’re probably one of the few places still hiring. You could make lots of money.” Mint’s brow was furrowed, his gaze focused on my shoulder. The way he spoke—pushing the words out—was like he was forcing himself to do it.

  “It’s no Harvard,” I said, unable to help myself.

  His face flashed with anger—then, just as quickly, smoothed into a calm mask. “Yeah, well, you didn’t get that fellowship, did you?” His voice was cold. “Even though you went above and beyond.”

  I blinked at him.

  “I’m sorry.” Mint shook his head. “I’m just really stressed with my mom here. And him.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll think about New York,” I promised.

  Mint nodded, looking off into the distance. I could still see the anger, alive in his eyes, see him struggling to kill it. “I’m going to take a walk,” he announced.

  I looked around. It was the last moment of twilight, right before night fell. The sky was purple; the lights of the stage turning on, one by one.

  “Okay,” I said, and he walked away.

  I stood there by myself and tried to picture Mint, New York, consulting. A prestigious job—a good life. But instead, the shadow thoughts bubbled up, as they always did: My dad. Heather. The pull of memories, trying to tug me under.

  “Jess.”

  It was spoken too loudly. A little slurred.

  I turned to find Coop walking toward me, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to his elbows, hem untucked. His hair was sticking up wild, as if he’d run his fingers through it a million times. But nothing was as wild as his eyes, rimmed with red.

  I backed away. “I have to go. Back to my mom.”

  “Stop running,” he said. “Why won’t you talk to me? Ever since you showed up at my door that night, you’ve refused—”

  “Coop, I’m with Mint. I need to do it right this time. I have to be a good person.” I started to walk away.

  “If you leave like this, we’ll never see each other again.”

  I froze. The thought had plagued me all day. I turned slowly, afraid of what I’d find when I stopped—real, magnetic, flesh-and-blood Coop, and the short distance between us. But I was unable to resist.

  “You’re drunk,” I said as soon as I got a close look at him.

  “Yeah, well, my heart is broken.”

  Goddammit, Coop. He always asked so much. But he didn’t know the truth, and what would he say if he did? Desire and fear warred inside me.

  My voice dropped. “You were right about me, what you said that day in Blackwell Tower. I’m a bad person. But I don’t want to be. I want to be good.”

  Coop closed the distance between us. “Fuck it. I don’t care if you’re good or bad. I love you, and you love me. Say it.”

  “Coop, listen to me.”

  He dropped to his knees in the grass and clutched my hands. My heart beat wildly; I searched around, looking for prying eyes. But we were at the edge of the concert, and no one was paying attention.

  “Get up,” I insisted.

  “Tell me. Just once.”

  I wanted to throw my arms around him. Kiss him, tell him, dissolve. But I couldn’t. I’d messed up too much already. I needed to make the right choice. Everything pointed to Mint, the boy from the right family who had the whole world at his feet, the one who could make me into someone valuable, someone important.

  I shook my head and spoke words that would slide softly between his ribs, like a sharp knife. “I love Mint.”

  Coop’s head jerked like he’d been slapped. He focused on the grass, biting his lip. I watched him struggle.

  Then he turned back to me, letting me see the rawness of his face, his glittering eyes, wet lashes. “No, you don’t.” Coop gripped my hands, his voice fierce. “Jess, come with me to law school. Marry me. You can paint, be an artist, do everything you love. I’ll make you happy, I swear.”

  Give up everything I’d worked for? Even though nothing was turning out the way it was supposed to, I couldn’t do that. I had to find a way to fix it, not blow it all up.

  “Jess, do something radical. Choose happiness.”

  Happiness? That was a luxury I’d never been able to afford. Besides, Coop didn’t know that I didn’t deserve to be happy, even if I’d wanted it.

  I saw Mint far off in the distance, walking back to Eliot Lawn from wherever he’d gone. It flashed before my eyes, a whole life: Mint. New York. Consulting. Becoming someone valuable, someone my father would’ve been proud of, even if the details looked different.

  I looked down at Coop, on his knees. Just like the first time we’d kissed, at the top of Blackwell Tower, when he’d warned me he needed more, that I had to choose all or nothing. He was always asking me to make radical choices.

  But I never could. And so, one year later—and far, far too late—I finally took the out.

  Chapter 23

  Now

  The knock on the door sounded like a gavel striking wood: once, twice, three times. It wrenched me awake. I came to in the dark hotel room, lying on my side, breathing hard.

  The pounding came faster, and I stumbled across the room, barely conscious but desperate to make it stop. I flung open the door and shrunk against the blaze of light from the hallway.

  Caro, dressed in wrinkled pajamas. For a second, she blinked at me with red-rimmed eyes. Then they filled with tears and she pushed past me into the room.

  I froze, gripping the doorway. Caro had figured it out: Me and Coop, ten years ago. One year ago. Tonight. And now she was here to tell me I’d stabbed her in the back. To burn me alive. Why else would she burst into my hotel room in the middle of the night?

  I shut the door softly, slowly, feeling as though I was locking myself in a prison of my own making.

  Behind me, the mattress springs squeaked. When I turned around, Caro looked at me from my bed: a small, sad face and halo of dark hair against a
sea of white linen.

  “Jess,” she choked.

  My heart seized. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. With my back against the wall, I slid to the floor, unable to take my eyes from her, waiting for the strike.

  “I have to tell you something.” Her voice was urgent. “I can’t keep it a secret any longer.”

  It took me a second. “What?”

  She hid her face in her hands and shook her head, as if the action could ward something off. “It’s really bad.”

  I could do nothing but watch her, tensed, a lump in my throat.

  The room was dark, save for silvery light from the cracks in the blinds that told me we were nearing morning. Coop must have slipped back into his hotel room only hours ago, and now Caro had slipped out of it, like two ships in the night. The sight of her sitting on my unmade bed, the sheets still warm with the heat of my body—her lashes wet, her hair catching silver, her face wide open—was surreal. After everything I’d done to keep her at arm’s length, here she was, so close.

  Just the two of us, watching each other.

  I spoke carefully. “Caro, I don’t think you’re capable of anything bad.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. A tear dropped down her cheek. “I was so tired of being left out. Afraid of losing everyone. Especially you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s the real reason I think it’s him.”

  I thought about walking across the room and brushing her hair from her forehead, then felt a stabbing guilt.

  “Him who?” I asked instead.

  Caro opened her eyes, and even in the dark I could see the shame. “Frankie. It’s why I think he killed Heather. She was going to ruin his football career.”

  “Caro, we already know about Parents’ Weekend and Heather’s plan.”

  “No, not that. Something else. Something I’m not supposed to know about.”

  I sat up straighter. “Tell me.”

  It was a long moment before she spoke. When she did, she watched me warily, like she was waiting for me to grab her, shake her, push her away in disgust. “Frankie started using steroids in college. He said it was a temporary thing, just to take him over the finish line. Get him into the NFL.”