by Stacey Kade
“Hey, hey, librarian girl!” The guy in the green Saint Patrick’s Day hat bounces up to me, the spring from the missing shamrock on the brim wiggling with his movements. “Come on, let’s dance!”
He grabs my arm and starts pulling me toward the dance floor, his grip tight above my elbow.
“No, thanks,” I say, trying to yank free.
But he keeps tugging. “Oh, come on, dance with me.” The other guys from the stairway are clustered nearby, watching and shouting encouragement.
I can see it playing out like a movie in my head. Him dragging me onto the dance floor, rubbing against me while I stand there, while we’re surrounded by his friends. I would be so easily lost in the crowd. It makes my mouth go dry with fear. I don’t know them. I don’t want this. But I don’t know how to stop it without causing a scene.
In my head I hear Anna’s voice at dinner: Celebrating the patriarchy and the potential for date rape. No thanks.
I plant my feet and jerk my arm back. “I said no!” My voice is too high, too shrill, too everything, and I feel people noticing, staring.
Green-hat guy swivels around, throwing his hands up in the air. “Okay! Jesus. Loosen up. It’s a fucking party.” He stomps off.
I want to go home. Or at least back to my room. This is not what I thought it would be. But I can’t leave, not without telling Tory. That’s Girl Code 101, right? Plus, the thought of walking home alone in the dark, dressed this way . . . I shudder. I can easily picture the bright red flash of taillights, guys shouting out their car windows at me. Or worse, getting out to “talk.”
I stand up on my tiptoes, with the safety of the wall behind me, and search for Tory’s pigtails on the dance floor with no luck. I’m too far away. To really have a chance at finding her, I’ll have to weave my way through the undulating crowd.
Or wait. I could wait, and I’m sure she’ll eventually . . .
A guy bursts out of the crowd in front of me, lurching straight toward me, his gaze glassy and unfocused. But he veers off at the last second and stops a few feet away from me in the corner, his hand pressed against the painted cinder block. He coughs, and then vomit pours out of his mouth and splatters on the floor. A couple of nearby girls squeal.
I fling myself away from the wall and the guy.
I’m done. Tory will have to survive on her own. Clearly, she’s not worried about being here by herself, or she wouldn’t have freaking abandoned me.
Looking above the crowd, I find the nearest exit sign, glowing red in the dimness, about twenty feet from me. Someone has painted over part of the X and T so it now reads “evil” in a mix of small and capital letters. It’s not the same way we came in, but as long as it gets me out, I don’t care anymore.
I shuffle between and around other partygoers, my heart beating extra hard as I anticipate another heavy hand landing on my shoulder or grabbing my arm. But I make it to the exit sign unmolested.
Shoving open the swinging door, painted a dingy white and decorated with Sharpie signatures and more punched holes, I find myself at the bottom of another darkened staircase, the twin of the one Tory and I descended.
Only this one has half a dozen guys, wearing the same Greek letters on their shirts, manfully wrestling several kegs down the steps.
I start up the steps with the full intention of following the advice my mom gave me when Mrs. Bukawksi’s terrier, Sir Handsome, was terrorizing me in the lobby of our building every day after school in third grade: Keep walking and ignore him.
“Can’t go this way!” one of the boys bellows at me as my foot touches the second step. “Brothers only!”
I freeze. “But I just want to leave—”
“Private staircase,” the brother closest to me says, rolling one of the kegs down another step. “Off-limits. Go out through the front.”
“Move, freshman!” one of them at the top shouts, and the rest of them crack up.
They might as well have shouted, “You don’t belong here!” instead.
Stupid jerks. I didn’t even want to be on their super-secret stairway. My eyes watering from the combination of humiliation and false eyelashes, I scurry down the few steps I’ve taken and plunge back through the swinging door and into the party, paying no attention to anyone or anything other than getting out of here.
Which works until I collide headfirst with someone in my path.
Hands reach out to steady me as I stumble back. “Whoa, whoa. You okay?”
I push away the hands before my brain registers the voice. I know that voice. I’ve listened to that voice answer questions about the quadratic equation and give speeches about the economics of ending world hunger.
Oh no. Please, no. Not like this. Maybe it’s only someone who sounds like him.
But when I dare to lift my head, it is definitely Liam Fanshaw looking down at me with concern. He’s wearing the same burgundy Merriman shirt I saw him in earlier, but now his blond hair is covered by one of those ridiculous fedoras. Wait. Does that mean he’s here with those douchey guys?
“I’m fine. Thanks,” I say, avoiding his gaze. This is not the meeting I’ve imagined. I’ve barely started Phase I of my plan, and Phase II is going to be completely ruined because of this one stupid party.
It’s okay. He won’t recognize me, and then I can—
“Wait. Do I know you?” he asks, his forehead wrinkling beneath the brim of his hat.
Seriously? Can I not catch a break tonight? “Oh, I, um—”
He snaps his fingers. “I do! Caroline, right? We went to high school together. Speech class.”
And geometry, world history—both ancient and modern—and Brit lit, but who’s keeping track?
In spite of myself, a burst of warmth spreads through me. He remembers me. He recognizes me even out of context. “Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?” he asks in wonder.
I open my mouth to explain—I go here; I’m a student; I chose Ashmore because of the friendly campus and the small student-to-teacher ratio and that’s all, nothing to do with you—but he keeps talking.
“And what are you wearing?” He gapes at me, stepping back to take in my outfit, his mouth curling up in amusement.
I want to die. Someone, please, kill me now.
I fumble to cover myself—the gap where my borrowed bra is showing, the expanse of skin across my middle. Oh. My. God. “It’s a . . . my, uh, friend Tory, she . . .” I swallow hard. “I’m a librarian.” The words barely come out.
“No! I didn’t mean it like that. It’s . . . you’re . . .” He huffs out an exaggerated sigh. “Sorry, that was terrible.”
It startles a laugh out of me, and he smiles again. And this time it doesn’t feel like it’s at my expense.
“This is crazy, huh?” he says, gesturing at the party around us with the cup in his hand.
“Definitely,” I manage.
“I don’t know about you, but this is not exactly what I was expecting,” he says.
That makes the warmth return. This is my Ben. He’s not one of the douchey fedora crew. He is the one who changed everything, the one who made me want more. And he’s here. Talking to me. Maybe the plan didn’t work quite the way I thought, but it is working. “Me either!”
Silence falls between us. “How is Stella?” I ask, in another bid to keep our “conversation” going.
He takes a swallow of his beer, staring at the wall over my head. “Good, I guess. We . . . uh, we broke up. Kind of. Seeing other people or whatever.”
My mouth falls open in surprise. Even in my most detailed fantasies, I figured it would take weeks, if not months, for them to end things. A breakup was inevitable because . . . well, Liam is Liam and Stella is a bitch. But still.
“Oh,” I manage. My brain is short-circuiting, trying to process this sudden gift. Liam is available. Liam is single. Liam is not anyone’s boyfriend for the first time in all the years I’ve known him.
When the revelation finally sinks in, the elation th
at runs through me feels like a pure shot of adrenaline. My path is clear—there’s nothing in the way now.
“Yeah, that sucked,” he says flatly. “But it didn’t make sense with me coming here. Four years is a long time. That’s as long as we’ve been together. Better for both of us to give college a chance.”
“That . . . does make sense,” I say, working to keep any hint of inappropriate glee out of my voice.
“So, did you—” he begins.
“Fanshaw!” A guy shouts from across the room. “Time to wash the balls!” He holds up a Ping Pong ball. But that doesn’t stop the snickers from spreading through the room.
Swiveling, Liam shouts, “Yeah, coming.” Then he turns back to me. “I’m up,” he says, but he doesn’t leave right away. “It was good seeing you, Caroline.” And he sounds a little surprised, but like he means it. “You’ll be at the orientation stuff tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Cool. I’ll catch up with you then.” He shocks me by leaning down and wrapping an arm around me in a hug that presses the side of my face against his shoulder. He smells of beer and pine-scented deodorant.
I respond by reflex, letting go of my death grip on my cleavage and exposed middle to hug him back.
“I like librarians, by the way,” he says with a wink, before he releases me to cross the room to his game.
I watch him go, stunned. Was he . . . was that flirting? What is even happening right now?
Tory, appearing out of nowhere, shimmies up to me, cheeks flushed with a sweaty glow. “Who was that?” she demands, her eyes sparkling with interest. She glances over her shoulder in Liam’s direction. “I saw you when I was dancing . . . with Jordan, I might add.” She smooths her hair with a dramatic gesture.
She’s watching me, awaiting my answer with actual enthusiasm, and for the first time, I feel a flash of belonging. The relief is so intense it’s almost a high.
“Oh! That’s—” I start, but cut myself off. It takes me a second to figure out why: I don’t want to share that information. I don’t want to share Liam. Not with her.
“Just someone from back home,” I finish.
“Really?” Tory asks. She turns to squint at him, where he’s taken his place at a beer pong table. “Good eye. He’s cute. Hang on. Is he wearing a T-shirt from high school?” she asks.
“Uh, yeah, I think so. What’s . . . why is that bad?”
She scrunches up her nose. “It’s like wearing your high school letterman’s jacket on campus. Come on, we’re in college now.” She rolls her eyes, and I make a mental note to cull anything remotely high-schoolish from my wardrobe.
Before tomorrow. When I’ll see Liam again. Because he said so. He wouldn’t have mentioned it if he didn’t mean it.
And he’s not with Stella anymore.
Excitement zings through me.
Best. Night. Ever.
Chapter Eight
When I wake up the next morning, my grin is so wide that it makes my face hurt. I talked to Liam last night. And I’m going to see him again today.
Okay, so maybe I kind of completely skipped over Phase I. But that’s okay, because Phase II—Liam—is the entire point of the plan. I’m going to be his friend, included in that shiny circle of warmth and happiness that seems to surround him. Plus, he’s single now, after more than four years! It takes Ben and Felicity a few years to figure it out, but they are destined to be together. Maybe Liam and I have destiny working to our advantage too.
I giggle to myself before I realize how crazy that must sound.
I glance toward Lexi’s bed. But there’s only the bare, striped mattress, pushed in beneath the bolster. Exactly as it was when I came in last night at two a.m.
When I was ready to go home last night, Tory had insisted on hanging out on the porch first, so she could smoke.
But what became pretty clear as the night wore on was that Tory was less interested in having an actual friend at the party than in having someone to hold her drink or her hair as she puked—three times on the way home—or to come with her when she needed another beer or wanted to smoke.
Which sucked. But it’s not like I was in the position to be choosy. Plus, without Tory, I never would have gone to the party, and I never would have spoken to Liam.
After we talked, I only saw him once more before we left the party—at a distance, talking to a couple of girls in short leather skirts, high heels, and garters. I’m not going to lie—I was jealous. But after he finished whatever he was saying, they laughed, loud enough that I could hear it over the music. They shook their heads in unison and walked past him, one of them patting him affectionately on the head as they went. They were rejecting him—Liam! Which made that the second strangest sight of the evening (the girl in the bunny outfit was really kind of disturbing).
In any case, Tory is fun. Sort of. She waved good night to me, once I helped her into her room and onto her bed. “So awesome, Claroline!” she said, garbling my name. “We hafta do it again.”
Besides, when my mom comes to visit, it’s not like I can invite Liam to hang out and have dinner with us. Not yet. Which means I still need friends outside of Liam, and a social life here that I can share with my mom. Tory, with some heavy editing, might be the start of both those things.
With a sigh, I shove back the covers and get up, once more confronted with the sight of Lexi’s empty bed.
Maybe I should tell someone? That Lexi’s not here, I mean. But she’s already plenty pissed at me. I don’t want to make her hate me even more.
I decide instead to take advantage of her absence to check in with Dr. Wegman. I’m supposed to make contact as soon as I “get settled” so we can set up a schedule for weekly appointments. I guess I’m as settled as I’m going to be, for now.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I pull open my laptop. Dr. Wegman answers my Skype call on the third ring.
His bearded face fills my screen from the nose down. “Caroline! Is everything okay?” He adjusts the camera on his end, and now I can see his whole face, including his ruffled hair. He’s in his office. The pale morning light behind him reminds me it’s barely eight in the morning in Arizona. Oops.
“Oh no, everything’s fine. Great, actually!” I add, wincing slightly at the chirpiness of my voice. “I just have the room to myself. I’m sorry for calling so early.”
“It’s not a problem. Just give me a second.” He speaks quietly to someone offscreen, and I hear brief, high-pitched sounds of protest. His daughters. And then a door shuts with a loud bang.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I didn’t mean to interrupt—”
“You’re not. Go ahead. I want to hear how it’s going.”
“It’s wonderful,” I say, thinking of Liam. I can feel the goofy smile pulling at my mouth. “Made a couple new friends.” I don’t care, I’m counting Tory and Liam in that calculation.
“That’s good to hear! I’m so pleased for you.” Dr. Wegman genuinely sounds like he is, which makes me feel even guiltier for not telling him the truth about why I wanted to go to Ashmore. “Sometimes it can be rough starting over in a new place.”
“Nope, not this time!” Except that’s not exactly true. Yesterday was not awesome, especially at the beginning. Especially with Lexi. I hate to admit that not everything is perfect here, but if Wegman can help, it might be worth it. “My roommate . . . ,” I begin.
Wegman’s face gets slightly larger on the screen as he leans forward to listen. “What about her?”
“I think I did something to make her mad.”
Wegman makes a thoughtful noise.
“But I don’t know what,” I say.
“Did you try talking to her about it?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me. She said we’re not going to be friends.”
“I’m sure that must have been painful for you,” he says. “But you need to remember that not everything is about you and what you have or have not done. The first few days at colle
ge are stressful for everyone. Your roommate may be trying to deal with her own troubles, just as you are with yours.”
I seriously doubt Lexi and I have that in common, given that she seems more angry than stressed, but whatever. “Uh-huh.”
“Everyone has their issues, Caroline,” Wegman says. “Even if it doesn’t seem like they do.”
By the time Wegman and I wrap up, setting a time for me to call next week, I have to hurry to get ready for a full day of welcome-to-campus activities. And Lexi still isn’t back yet.
My brain whispers that this is exactly how every “missing college girl” story starts. Everyone thinks the girl is somewhere else—the library, a friend’s house, her boyfriend’s—when really she’s, like, trapped in the back of some long-haul trucker’s cargo area or whatever.
Before I can decide what I should do—if anything—the door opens, and Lexi walks in, unharmed and trucker-free. She’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday, with a loaded backpack over her shoulder, three clear plastic containers of food balanced in one hand, and a silver travel mug in the other. “Hey,” she says.
“Uh, hey,” I say. I point at my shower bucket. “I’m going to the . . .” I stop myself. She doesn’t need to know. Doesn’t want to know. I move toward the door.
“What time do we have to be at Knutsen this morning?” Lexi asks with a sigh.
I stop and turn to face her. “For the orientation thing?” I ask. It’s a mandatory session with the president of Ashmore, a presentation of some kind from the Admissions Department, and then something ominously labeled on the schedule as FUN! But I didn’t think Lexi cared about anything mandatory. She didn’t yesterday.
She stares at me, like I’m the one who’s behaving out of character. “Yeah,” she says with a hint of impatience.