by Jolene Perry
“A bit. Yep.” She rocks back on her heels. “Now slip on your flats. I’m pretty sure the night will end with a scavenger hunt for those of us who aren’t sloppy drunk, and neither of us will want heels for that.”
“I don’t drink,” I blurt.
“Then don’t drink.” She snorts and shoves me toward the living room. “Now go get what you need so we can get out of here!”
When I’m in the living room, I flatten my hand over my heart and feel it pressing into my palm. I look so … not pretty but so much better than I thought possible. I always thought that drawing attention to myself would just draw attention to my scars, but … but what if I was wrong?
24
I follow Lachelle out the door as she chatters about modern poets, and the archaeology trip she went on with Rhodes, and I see why they’re friends. They’re both into everything. It further makes me wonder if they were ever a thing. An unease traces over my nerves, which is stupid. Rhodes can be with whomever he likes.
I check my phone again for any word from Elias, but there’s nothing new. He’s probably at work. No, wait. Four hours earlier. He’s at school right now. By the time he’s out of school, we’ll probably be at the party. And then when I’m crashing, he’ll hopefully be off work so we can talk. Well … he might be. How awkward.
The streets here are busier and more frenetic than Seattle. Fuller. So many rhythms and beats and thoughts and ideas clash, but I find the chaos calming. Like I don’t matter as much. My freaky face won’t be noticed as much. There’s too much to take in.
“This is such a fantastic school. Seriously, aside from a few pretentious assholes, you’ll totally love it,” Lachelle gushes as we move up the sidewalk toward the school. “Ya know, if you decide to come.”
Columbia.
For a moment I forget I’m so far from home because we’ve stepped off a busy street and I’m on a gorgeous campus with old brick buildings and sidewalks and grass lawns with big trees. All the while the noise of the cars and the city buzz through me. New York stretches above the campus buildings, making it feel almost like a sanctuary in a city so massive it doesn’t feel real.
When I breathe in, the smell of city and heat and exhaust mixes with grass and trees and the warm smell of the coffee shop we pass.
A small group walks by and the guy on the end glances at us, gives Lachelle a quick wave, and glances at me again before frowning and turning away. My gut rolls, and I pull my hair down, figuring I’m not doing well at shading myself. Maybe I will be noticed in the crowd.
“This is … gorgeous,” I say as the grass spreads out in front of us and the old school buildings become the backdrop rather than the sprawling city.
“Yeah.” She slips her hands into her skirt pockets. “This is the greenest part of campus, so it’s in all the brochures and all the online pictures. What they don’t show you are all the odd buildings on the fringes of campus with classrooms that are impossible to find.”
I’m still twisting my head back and forth, trying to see everything. “Huh.”
“I love the library,” Lachelle whispers as we move through the wooden doors. “This is the undergrad services one.”
I open my mouth to say okay, but the ceiling stretches above me, study carrels stretch in front of me, marble walls and wood paneling and … every kind of perfect stereotype of an amazing campus library.
“Renee!” Lachelle whisper-yells to a gray-haired woman sitting at a desk stacked high with books. “This is Clara. From Alaska. You chat with her for a minute while I look for Trey.”
I feel my jaw hang as I keep staring at my surroundings.
Renee points toward a corner. “He’s that way,” she whispers.
Lachelle taps my arm. “Be right back.”
Renee peers at me over thin glasses, her gray hair cut short and framing a long, thin face. “So, you’re from Alaska?” she asks in a practiced whisper.
Her light blue eyes scan my face, and I feel myself shrink under her gaze.
This sucks. One day. Any day I wish to meet someone without this. “Yep. I want to write.” I want her to see that part of me, not the scars.
There’s no way for me to meet someone and for them to not see my scars. Without them being blind, it won’t happen.
There is. No way. For that to happen.
I stare at where Renee sits, her studying eyes and long face. I’m not sure how to feel okay about people staring. And they always will. At least a lot of them always will.
“And I’m guessing you’re thinking of coming to Columbia? That’s what Lachelle said, I believe?” Renee asks.
“Or University of Alaska,” I say quietly. Where being attacked by a bear would be a big deal, but maybe not as big a deal. Maybe I can’t escape it anywhere—I’d just have the comfort of home or I’d have the comfort in knowing I’m tough enough to be in New York.
“But you were accepted here? Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?” She slides a few library books across her desk, scanning them as she does.
“UAA is more what felt available to me.”
“Why would you be tied to your local school?” she asks.
“I’m …” Not sure.
“You a criminal?” she asks with a smirk.
“No,” I sputter. “I’m not quite eighteen. About to graduate from high school,” I say more quietly.
“Then come. You’re eighteen, my dear. With no major criminal history. Everything’s available to you.” She grins as she leans forward and rests her elbows on the desk between us. “So the question is … what do you want to do with all that freedom?”
Those words are terrifying. Everything? That’s so many choices. So many unknowns. So many people and places I’ve never seen or even thought of. My hand comes to my face, and I find the scar just off my mouth, touching the familiar welt and tracing the same section over and over. But maybe … maybe if I allow a bit of hope at how much could be open to me, I might find more hope and then more until I’m not afraid to move forward. That would be amazing.
“I don’t know what I want to do. Not exactly.” Honesty seems like the only safe thing right now. “I have to tell the school if I’m coming this fall so soon, and …” In four days they need to know, and it’ll come so fast.
Renee chuckles. “At your age, you also have to remember that as you move forward you may open doors, but you also shut others. As you’re making decisions on where you want to go to school and what you want to do with your degree, keep that in mind. And then make sure that the doors that are most important stay open.”
She gives me the same raised-eyebrow look my dad does when he wants me to seriously consider something he’s just said.
“I’m … I’m thinking about it.”
“If you’re even thinking of coming here, you might want to read some books by the staff.” She reaches to a shelf behind her and pauses for a moment. There’s a sign just above her that reads, “Staff Publications,” and then she turns and places five books in front of me. “Our modern staff, I should say.”
I’ve read books by graduates of Columbia, but how had I never thought to read the books the professors here were writing?
She taps the top of the books with pale fingers. “It would be smart for you to read a little outside of the standard reading lists—especially before classes start.”
I run my hands over books written by people who I might get to learn from. These aren’t books from small Alaskan presses. These books have stamps on them from awards and more awards listed on the back.
“Take pictures of them or whatever you kids are doing to keep track of your reading piles.” Renee slides the books she scanned onto a cart. “It was nice meeting you, Clara. I need to find a lackey to put these away. Just leave the books on my desk, and I’ll slip them back onto the shelf after you leave.”
I flip over another book. “Thanks.”
I want to write Rhodes and tell him I’m in “his” library. I want to FaceTime Elias
so I can show him the inside of this incredible building. Instead I breathe in again. I close my eyes and listen to the sounds of people moving past me. Books being removed from shelves, slid across desks …
The whole feel of this place is exactly what I pictured. I picture Mom standing where I’m standing. I picture what it would be like to be able to call her and tell her how excited I am.
“There you are!” Lachelle tosses her arm over my shoulder, making me jump. “Let’s blow this joint and find some grub,” she teases.
“Okay.”
I follow her, running my feet across the worn floors and breathing in the book smell. A new kind of wanting ache takes over. This time it has nothing to do with Elias or Rhodes or scars or doctors and everything to do with me.
25
As I move up the sidewalk with Lachelle, I realize it doesn’t get dark here for a totally different reason than in Alaska. Too many cars, streetlights, stoplights, store lights …
Lachelle’s hair is up in one of those messy updos that makes her look like she tossed her hair together, when in reality it took her like twenty minutes. Mine hangs straight around my face, and I tug my bangs forward again. Smooth my lips together. They’re used to ChapStick, and the gloss feels thick and sticky.
“They’re up here.” We push through a door into another narrow hallway.
Nerves dance through me. Will I stand out as the high-school kid? The scarred girl? Will I manage to fit in? Please let me blend enough so I don’t feel like an imposter.
After what feels like seconds while my feet just keep moving forward, Lachelle’s dragging me through a door and into a room that’s filled, but not packed with people. Cigarette smoke burns my nose, but it’s not so thick it’s hard to breathe.
“I’m Edgar and your host.” A guy yells over the pounding music. His shoulder-length brown hair falls forward as he does a mock bow. He holds out his hand and I take it, grateful for the dim light in his apartment.
“Clara.”
“Dude. She flew down from Alaska.” Lachelle grins like it’s something interesting.
“Oh wow. Nice.” His brows go up. “Holy scars, girl. I’d love to hear that story.”
Someone’s hand is on his arm, and he’s being dragged backward with a smile on his round face. A group in the corner of the small living room erupts in laughter, and a guy jumps on another guy’s shoulders and then snaps a picture of me and Lachelle in the doorway.
“Seriously!” She smacks his leg. “Knock it off!”
Some girl jumps between Lachelle and me, swinging an arm over each of us. “Can I get you two a drink?”
“Um …” I start but my phone vibrates in my pocket. And then again. I slide it out and slip out from under the girl’s arm.
Elias.
“Hey!” I say, but the music drums into my ears too loudly to hear his response.
“I can barely hear you!” I call into the phone.
Lachelle steps next to me and points to an open window.
“Just a sec!” I yell again, wondering how these people live in an apartment building that lets them play music so loud.
“Step onto the fire escape,” Lachelle says.
Right. I ease down until I’m sitting on the windowsill and then slip my legs through the open window. All I can see from here are the building next door and several other fire-escape platforms with people sitting outside. The buildings are only a few car widths apart, and window after window shows life after life of people living in the city I’ve wanted to see and feel and breathe for as long as I wanted to be a writer.
The night breeze sends goose bumps across my skin.
“Clara!” Elias yells. “Can’t you go somewhere quieter?”
I jump at the sound of his voice.
“Um … I’m already outside on the deck.” Which is really a fire escape, but whatever.
“Where are you?”
“It’s just a little …” Party. “A few literature students.”
“I … still … why … Clara … love …”
“Elias. I can’t hear you,” I yell again, my heart sinking a bit. “I wish I could share this with you.” But how could I? Even if he were here, would quiet, calm Elias understand what I love? I’d be surprised if he did.
“Never mind!” he hollers into the phone, obviously annoyed, which pinches at my chest. “Call me when it’s quiet!”
“Okay!” Crap. I send him a quick text.
Sorry so loud. Love you. Miss you. Wish you could have come. Even though I can’t imagine Elias in this place.
I get a response almost immediately.
Love you. At work. Talk soon.
At work? Oh, right. Four-hour time difference. Four hours and a different universe.
I look back into the party. Think back on my afternoon. Scan the building next to this one and the masses of people in every direction. My cheeks hurt from smiling. Elias said we’d work it out, but how … How could we live in two worlds that are so incredibly different, both love those respective worlds, and still be two people who should be together?
I can’t answer that question now, so I tuck the phone in my pocket. Lachelle reaches through the window, grabs my hand, and announces that we’ve decided to run through the city on a scavenger hunt. “Groups of four, and I’ve picked our other two, so we’re good.”
I pause for a half second before remembering it was Dad’s idea to send me and I’ve already talked to Elias, so there’s no reason to even pause and wonder if it’s okay that I do this or not. “You sure they want me along?” I ask.
Lachelle gives me a sideways squeeze. “Why not?”
“I’m so in.”
“She’s in!” Lachelle yells as she drags me back inside.
“Grab your phones, ladies,” a guy I sort of met at the party says. “The list this time is pretty craaazy.”
And three minutes later, we’re running up the streets of New York looking for a diner in hopes of snatching a picture of someone eating fries for Item 8.
I’m just here. Walking up the streets and listening to everyone vent about professors and how glad they are to have survived another semester and what they want to do with their summers … It’s all so much more normal. Being here should feel like a different world with how much has felt off lately, but it doesn’t—at least not in a bad way. My chest is tightened in excitement, and I’m smiling like an idiot as I listen to everyone talk, but yeah … belonging here doesn’t seem like the impossible task it used to.
“You should totally be a zombie for Halloween,” one of the guys says, pointing at my face. “Pale you up a little bit and darken up those scars. Killer.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I try to suck my smile back in because I know it doesn’t look quite right, but maybe we’re past that now.
“You’re a friend of Rhodes?” the other guy asks. His eyes skim over my face before he looks away, which is much more what I’m used to from new people.
The memory of the kiss flashes in my mind before anything else. “I guess. Yeah.”
He snorts. “I guess, as in yes, or I guess, as in more than friends but I won’t tell you?”
“I guess as in he’s my teacher right now, only my dad insists on him coming to dinner at my house, and I have a boyfriend who is not him.” All true and much safer.
The two guys laugh and high-five.
I didn’t realize I could be so far away and still be me, and be enough for this experience. The longer looks are going to happen no matter where I am. And maybe no matter how much surgical work I put into getting my scars removed, I’ll get looks. I hate it, but I at least feel like I know what I’m fighting now. I’m fighting how I react to the way people see me.
Lachelle loops her arm through mine and drags me faster across the street. Laughter bubbles up as excitement pushes me forward. Middle of the night. Students who are smart enough for the Ivy League but still know how to have fun, and a city that I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of.<
br />
I’m going to be making another hard decision sometime very soon.
I write and write as I sit at the airport to go home. If I’d hated New York, so many things would be so much simpler. The poem tears at me a little as I get it down, but it feels good.
Before giving myself too much time to think about what I’m doing, I send it to Rhodes. I’m Clara. A writer. I can send my poems to people who go to Columbia.
It’s an odd thing to be broken
Inside. A place where most can’t see.
But the cracked bits inside of me seem to be my token.
And trapped in my body, a silent plea
For wakeful hours less filled with messes,
And thoughts unhindered and laid bare.
The touch of the familiar somehow lessens
The thrill of finding my heart there.
Minutes, days, hours planned.
Wishing for guidance to overtake,
To know the place my soul should land
Before my heart finds need to break.
The mess in me and mess in him,
My soul, transparent, unfilled, and dim.
I can’t be torn. I can’t live half in one place and half in another. I blink and a few tears slide down my cheeks. How is it possible for me to feel even more undecided and torn apart now than before I came?
Rhodes sends back a message right away: You knew I’d love this one. I hope you found what you were looking for in New York.
I did, I tell him.
And I’m now in the biggest mess of my life.
26
Jet lag and New York lag have me stumbling over my feet by the time Dad and I make it home. My throat is sore from dry airplane air, staying up all night with Lachelle, and trying to recount every detail for Dad on the way home.
The house feels the same. But different. I look at our wooden walls and rustic dining table and … Why does it look different? I know this place. I know the chairs. The dents. The scratches …