Frost

“Not particularly.” He leaned against the wall and rested one foot on top of the other, his arms tightly crossed. I was in sock feet, and he seemed to loom over me in a way he didn’t usually. “That’s a whole other thing, the bedroom,” he said. “You’re different in there. Here. In the dorm. You’re always so preoccupied and nervous. The other day you couldn’t get me out of here fast enough. When’s that going to change, Leena? Maybe you just don’t want to be with me, is that it?”

I grasped his arm, but he shook me off again. Roughly. My elbow jolted back into the edge of the door. Pain fired through my nerves. “Of course I want to be with you,” I said, trying to ignore the sharp pulsings. “Maybe I’ve been weird, but don’t you know what a hard semester this has been for me? With Viv and Abby and Dean Shephard all disowning me? Thank God I have you! But maybe that’s why I’ve been acting weird, if I have been.” My heart pounded. I couldn’t lose David, too.

But you will, Cubby said. The words, her voice, came to me out of nowhere.

“What about when we fool around?” David said. Had he heard Cubby? Had I said that out loud? “We’re talking about moving in together. I can’t imagine you’ve been like this with other guys.”

“No,” I said. Why had I imagined Cubby’s voice? “No, I haven’t.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something? That this has all been a big waste of time?”

“No, that’s not it. I promise. I haven’t been like this with other guys because I haven’t been with any other guys.”

David shook his head as if he was clearing water from his ears. “What do you mean? I thought you dated a couple other people?”

“Yeah, but we . . . I . . . I only got together with them a few times,” I said. “They wouldn’t . . . they wouldn’t really count in the scheme of things. They weren’t relationships.”

David hesitated. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“What? Why I’m so incompetent?” I said.

“No, no. Come here.” He held his arms open. I hesitated a moment, then let him wrap them around me. “It helps me understand why it makes you nervous. I thought it was me.”

“David.” I tipped back my head to look up at him. “I’m scared to death to leave school at the end of the year. And the only thing that makes it seem bearable is that I’ll be with you.”

“Really? Because it seemed so strange about the interview . . .”

“I know. I don’t know what that was about, honestly. It was weird and not like me, and I didn’t even want you to find out. I think maybe I was so nervous about it that I freaked.”

I remembered my feelings before the interview. Looking back, they seemed as foreign as if they belonged to a stranger. All I wanted was to live there with David. It was the only way I could imagine feeling safe when leaving Barcroft. No matter what Cubby said.

We stood there, his arms around me.

“Columbia was my first choice,” I said. “But it was a huge long shot to begin with. There are other schools in New York. NYU, The New School . . . or if I want to do architecture, somewhere like Pratt or Parsons. I’ve been looking into them. It’ll all work out. I’ll end up where I’m meant to be.”

“Just as long as it’s in New York, I don’t care about anything else,” David said, pulling back a bit. “Hey, now that I know you don’t want to get rid of me, I need to ask you something. Sunday the seventeenth is my mom’s fiftieth birthday. She’s having a big party at the house—kind of like a family reunion. Would you come with me and Celeste?”

Celeste. Bruises. The sincerity in David’s eyes. Why did there always have to be something about Celeste hanging over me?

I tried to smile. “I’d love to.”

Chapter 32

STUDENTS ENTERING THE CHAPEL later that afternoon filled the cavernous space with shouts and laughter, waved at each other, and rushed to get seats near friends. More than one person had blue face-paint on; Barcroft apparel was ubiquitous. Stupidly, I’d worn a red sweater. After my talk with David, the last thing on my mind was Barcroft-Edgerton weekend. Now I looked like a Red Sox fan in a room full of Yankees.

Instead of letting my eyes stray in the direction of the left-side balcony, where I used to sit with Viv and Abby, I watched the hundreds of bodies milling around the oak pews on the main level. Too short, too pale, too heavy—no one matched my David blueprint. He’d had an appointment with his advisor right before this. Maybe she’d kept him late.

I randomly followed a group down the center aisle, now searching the pews for anyone to sit with. I was about to give up and sit alone when I saw a familiar green beret.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you saving that seat?”

Celeste followed my eyes to the spot next to her. “Nope.”

I stepped over her crutches and sat on the hard, wooden bench. Almost none of Celeste’s skin was showing. She had on a velvet blazer, a high-necked, Victorian-style blouse, and men’s khakis, slit up the leg to accommodate her cast—an interesting change from her usual style.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder.