Frost

Abby shook her head. “I can’t be—”

She stumbled sideways with a jolt. Ponytail Guy, her crush from the beginning of the semester, had snuck up and hip checked her.

“Hey,” she said, regaining her footing. “Watch out.” I could tell by her smile she didn’t mean it. Something was going on with them, obviously, and I didn’t know anything about it.

“Did you get what Brighton was saying about that whole thing with peripeteia or whatever,” Ponytail Guy said. “The Aristotle stuff?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Why? You want me to explain it to you, dum-dum?”

“If you’ve got a minute in your busy schedule.”

“I might.” Abby cast a distracted glance in my direction.

“So, see you later?” I said.

“Yeah, later.” She nudged Ponytail Guy as they walked away. “You really don’t understand Aristotle?”

After dinner that night I spent a couple of hours cleaning and re-reorganizing so everything was just how I wanted it. (How could I have thought those Ball jars filled with pebbles and shells looked good on that shelf? Way too Martha Stewart.) Then I went upstairs for the first time since I’d told them about my meeting with the dean.

I knocked on Abby’s door.

“Go away, Viv!” she called.

Were the two of them in a fight now? “It’s me,” I said. No response. “I wanted to know if—”

The door cracked open and Abby slipped out, shutting it behind her. Her hair was all mussed up, her cheeks flushed pink.

“What do you want?” she said in a rough, low voice.

“Is someone in there?” I said. “Ponytail Guy?”

“Shhh!” she whispered. “Yes. Now what do you want?”

“Just for you to come see my room. But you can come down after he leaves, obviously. Or tomorrow. Sorry to interrupt!” I gave her a smile and started to head down the stairs. I’d taken a few steps when she spoke again.

“Don’t you get it?” she said. I stopped and looked back up at her. “You made your choice, Leena. All semester. You chose Celeste over us. And you screwed everything up. You can’t just come back now . . . like . . . I don’t know . . . like nothing happened.”

“You’re blowing this all out of proportion,” I said. “And it had nothing, nothing to do with choosing Celeste over you. Never.”

“That’s not what the facts say.” She rested her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you think about it from our perspective for once?”

“Abby, I know I screwed up. I feel terrible. But can’t we just have it out and be done with it? Get in a fight and make up?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned. And Viv is the one whose boyfriend is gone, so I wouldn’t count on her either.”

I didn’t know what more I could say. “Okay, well . . . let me know when you’re ready to talk.” My back was to her when I heard her voice again.

“You should know that we’re thinking about moving out next semester.”

“What?” I swung around to face her.

“You heard me. We’d both rather be somewhere else. I don’t know if they’ll let us. But we’re looking into it.”

“But . . . but Celeste won’t even be living here next semester! Kate will. The four of us. Like we planned!”

Abby reached to open her door. “It’s too late, Leena,” she said. “Maybe Kate will stay here with you. Viv and I don’t want to.” And with that, she disappeared.

I pressed my hands against the walls of the narrow staircase. It felt like they were closing in, shutting out air. I tried to breathe into my tight lungs and stepped down. The floor at the bottom looked so far away, then veered up toward me, then fell back down. Just one step at a time, I told myself, keeping my gaze on my feet now. Step down and breathe. Step down and breathe.  When I made it to the bottom, I took my hands off the walls and forbade myself from turning around. I knew what I’d see: the walls of the staircase collapsing toward each other, closing me out for good.

The pain was physical. My whole body hurt as I crawled into the closet. I lifted off Cubby’s head, took one, then two of the strong oval pills that would help me relax, and waited for some of the pain to go away because I wasn’t sure I could stand it. I hadn’t felt this desperate since not knowing what to do about my parents, since feeling like my life was crashing apart. It was the type of hurt that felt like it wouldn’t ever let me go, that I’d carry it with me for the rest of my life.

I breathed in the soothing air and pressed my cheek against the cool wall, wishing I could just become a part of it. I let the pills seep into my cells, telling myself I’d feel better soon, that help was coming. And it did. I’m not sure how long it took, but the pills and the quiet and the walls of the closet worked together to build me back up. And eventually, what had happened drifted away into a haze of unimportance.

“Everything’s easy in here,” I said, lying down now, staring up into the dark. “If I don’t feel it, is the pain still there? Like the tree falling in a forest? Because I should care about Abby and Viv. But in here, I don’t.”