Frost

I scanned the room, even though I knew he was right. “Oh. Sorry,” I said, taking my hand off. “I forgot this was the only one in here.”

What had possessed me to be so rude? “Of course she should have it,” I added.

As I said it, though, a word echoed in my head. Mine.

Chapter 2

I HURRIED TO THE CAR and slid into the driver’s seat, rainwater beading around me on the crackled pleather upholstery. Abby had turned the rearview mirror to face her. She stared up at it and flicked a mascara brush across her lashes. Her warped copy of the play Buried Child lay spread-eagled on the dash.

“What took you so long?” she asked, glancing over at me. “I ran through all of my lines while you were in there.”

“Can you grab an ibuprofen from the glove compartment?” I massaged the bridge of my nose.

“What? More shabby than chic?”

“No.” I waited until she handed me the orange tablet, washed it down with a swig of flat soda followed by a cherry Life Saver, and told her about the addition to our Frost House family.

“Hold on,” she said. “Celeste is Green Beret Girl, right?”

I nodded.

“Isn’t she completely nuts? She’s the one who burned all

José’s clothes last year!”

“Not all his clothes,” I said, remembering the story that had been the talk of campus for a few days. “Just his boxers.”

“Whatever.” Abby waved her hand dismissively. “And, you know, it doesn’t even matter if she’s crazy. They can’t just give you a random roommate senior year. It’s not right.”

I turned on the engine. As the windshield wipers brought Frost House back into focus, an elongated shape moved past a downstairs window. David, I assumed. I rubbed the almost invisible mark on my palm. He probably thought I was a selfish jerk after that closet incident. But I couldn’t help having been unnerved by his news. The administration shouldn’t just go around changing rooming assignments.

Like Abby said, it wasn’t right.

Before backing into the road, I readjusted the rearview mirror. I met my own gaze, and my eyes stared back with a controlled confidence the rest of my body didn’t feel.

“I’ll talk to Dean Shepherd,” I said. Then, in a stronger voice, “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

The registration room in Grove Hall swarmed with people. I hugged, kissed, and how-was-your-summered my way to the R–Z line at the check-in table. “Our last first-day-of-Barcroft ever,” Whip Windham said as we waited for our information packets, echoing the predictable, clichéd thought I’d been having ever since I woke up that morning.

“I know,” I said. “I’m trying not to be maudlin. We still have a whole year.”

“Dude.” Whip raised one eyebrow—his signature look. “I meant it as a good thing. A friggin’ awesome thing.”

Oh. Of course.

Sometimes I forgot that most people were actually anxious to graduate. I understood the feeling in general, but didn’t quite get their “good riddance” fervor. While there were things about Barcroft I was sure none of us would miss—curfew, off-campus restrictions, tofu schnitzel at the dining hall—most of us would go to college, so it’s not like we’d be free of classes or teachers or Sisyphean mountains of homework.

Maybe, I thought as I stared at the sunburned back of Whip’s neck, maybe the difference between me and him was how ingrained I felt here. My parents had just gotten a divorce when I arrived in ninth grade. And although they liked to say it was amicable—neither of them had cheated and they’d used a mediator instead of lawyers—it had hit our lives like a wrecking ball. I’d had to build a new life; Barcroft was the foundation. Of course I was worried about leaving.

“Leena Thomas,” I said when I reached the guy handing out manila envelopes. I took mine and slid out the multicolored sheets of paper. My housing assignment form had a note in familiar, flowing handwriting: Hello, L! Please call or stop by and see me ASAP. Looking forward, NS.

NS—Nancy Shepherd: Dean of Students, faculty advisor to the peer-counseling program I’d started, my mentor. I’d been looking forward to seeing her, too. I wanted to hear about her summer camping trip, which had involved an encounter with a “feroshus beer,” according to my postcard from her seven-year-old daughter, who I babysat during the school year.

Now, though, instead of asking about that (Budweiser? Corona?), I had to start the semester by bothering her about Celeste.

Shaking off the thought, I slipped my registration papers back in the envelope, stood up straighter, and searched the crowd for Abby’s walnut-brown curls. A shriek rattled my eardrums.

“Leena-bo-beena!” Vivian Parker-White loped toward me, all long limbs and flowery skirt and skin tanned from weeks in Greece.

“I’ve missed you!” I said, my smile buried in a rain-wet mass of coconut shampoo smell as we hugged.