Frost

I spent most of the day with David, a large part of it lying on his bed as he tried to distract me from worrying about Abby and Viv and the disciplinary committee. We listened to almost everything on his iPod—from James Brown to Eminem; he described in detail the gourmet meal he wanted to cook for me one day soon; he tried to explain the math he was doing (all I really understood was that it was called topology and had something to do with a donut and a coffee cup being the same thing); he told me stories about better times with their father. All of this interspersed with sweetly intense bouts of kissing. He was obviously trying to distract himself, too, from worrying about Celeste, because by midafternoon he’d asked me “how I’d thought she seemed” one too many times.

I propped myself up on my elbow. “New rule,” I said.

“Rule?” David said. “Are your rules as strict as your moratorium was?”

I punched his shoulder. “Listen. Seriously. Now that you and I are, you know, together, I really think it’s best if you . . . if we don’t talk about your sister as much. I don’t want to always feel like I’m your source of information. Okay? I want to keep things a little more separate.” For an instant, I had the horrible thought that maybe the only reason he even wanted to be close to me was to find out stuff about his sister, but then he said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He ran a hand through my loose hair, fingers getting caught in a tangle. “Could get messy.”

“So, good rule?” I said, relieved.

“Good rule.”

The six of us met with the disciplinary committee on Tuesday. Later that night, in some sort of masochistic haze, I decided to listen to Viv and Cam’s show on WBAR, but there was a guest host. I supposed they wanted to spend their last night together alone.

Cam had to leave school on Wednesday.

The rest of us, as promised, had gotten probation.

Walking across campus Wednesday afternoon, I saw Cameron’s car—filled with belongings—in the parking area next to his dorm. He and Viv stood outside of it. Even from the other side of the Great Lawn, I could tell by the stoop of her shoulders and Cameron’s hand stroking her back that Viv was crying.

I dropped my gaze to the ground and hurried along, the path becoming a muddy, gray blur.

Once I got home I headed straight for the closet. I wanted to know that it would be okay, that I’d be okay, even without Viv, like I’d told myself in here the other night. I stroked Cubby’s feathers. I just needed to know that I could get past how much it hurt.

In here you can, her voice said.

On Thursday, Dean Shepherd told me she wanted me to step down from peer counseling.

“You understand,” she said. “We can’t have the mixed message of someone in a leadership position like that getting into trouble.” There was a hint of sympathy in her voice, but it didn’t do anything to make me feel better.

I couldn’t hide my desperation as I spoke. “What if I just step down as cohead? But keep counseling? Could I do that?”

“Maybe next semester. I doubt it, though,” she said.

Had I thought she’d sounded sympathetic a moment ago? Because now, I didn’t see how there was any chance she felt anything but derision and disappointment. The horrible feeling it gave me was even worse than knowing I wasn’t a part of my program anymore. I hated myself more than she ever could.

Later that day, David and I took a walk through the arboretum at the edge of campus. A few trees were still lit up with flame-colored foliage; mostly, I saw the brown leaves under our feet. I told David how I’d messed up not only my friendships with Viv, Abby, and Dean Shepherd, but also my one meaningful extracurricular. I told him I had nothing left.

“What about me?” he said, sounding hurt.

I wrapped my arm around his waist and squeezed.

Thank God. I had David. And I had my house.

I was incredibly relieved that my room was tucked in the back, and on a separate floor from Viv’s and Abby’s, so I didn’t have constant reminders that Frost House was now a divided territory. I couldn’t have handled listening to their muffled voices and laughter, or the sounds of their sock feet on the wooden floor going back and forth between each other’s rooms. As for Celeste, in the days since we came back from New York, I’d barely seen her. My space was truly my own and I wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.

The Saturday after we got back, I made a rare call to my dad to ask if I could buy some supplies at Home Depot on his credit card. He said yes—probably partly out of shock at hearing from me, and partly because he always likes to support home improvement.

As I walked across the store’s parking lot, I found myself scanning the cars for his orange Subaru, even though this Home Depot was about an hour from his condo. Going to any sort of hardware store without him never felt quite right.