Frost

Everyone wanted an explanation. But how could I explain? So I kept most of what happened to myself, only saying enough to assure the hospital psychiatrist I wasn’t suicidal and didn’t need admission into the psych ward. When I took the pills, my thought process had supposedly been compromised by the carbon monoxide, so they believed I’d just been confused about how many pills I’d taken. I agreed to outpatient therapy.

To my parents’ credit, they didn’t push. And they tried to do what they could. At one point, I woke to my mother standing next to my bed, a tentative smile on her face, hands behind her back.

“I found something that might make you feel a bit better,” she said. She laid Cubby on my pillow. “Your old friend.”

“Oh.” I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat as I turned my face away. “Thanks. But you can get rid of it.”

Viv came for a quick visit the day after I was discharged.

“What’s happened since I left?” I said. “I feel like I’ve been gone for years.”

She told me about the chaos of that afternoon. Apparently, a crowd of students gathered outside the dorm and rumors spread across campus the minute the fire department and paramedics arrived, so many trucks that all of Highland Street was blocked off. Dean Shepherd moved them all out of Frost House—Viv and Abby to Dee Hall, Celeste to Revere Hall.

“Celeste is still at school?” I said, shocked. I hadn’t dreamed that I’d told the dean about her, had I?

Viv’s blank look reminded me she didn’t know the whole story. I gave her a condensed version: Celeste’s fear that Frost House was haunted, my meeting with the dean, David’s anger and his plan to save her—

“Wait,” Viv interrupted. “What did David have to do with the carbon monoxide leak?”

“He caused it,” I said. “By doing something to the furnace. That was his plan to get Celeste moved out.”

Viv shook her head. “That’s impossible. The leak had been going on for a long time.”

Now it was my turn to look blank.

“The alarm nearest your room was screwed up,” she said. “It wasn’t calibrated right, or whatever. So it was only when the carbon monoxide reached upstairs that an alarm went off. You guys had been breathing it for . . . well, they don’t know how long. Hard to say with windows being opened, stuff like that. Didn’t anyone tell you this?”

Did they? “I don’t know,” I said. “I just remember when they found out the carbon monoxide was from the furnace. The stuff at the hospital is kind of a big blur.”

“They still don’t really know if it was from the furnace,” she said. “I don’t quite get it, but there was some problem and they couldn’t tell. But we all had to get tested for CO poisoning, and Celeste had to get oxygen therapy. David had nothing to do with it.”

Until that moment, I’d thought David had left me in the dorm, knowing I would get sick from the carbon monoxide leak he’d caused. I hadn’t thought he’d wanted me dead—he wouldn’t have known that I’d shut myself up in the closet with my pills. But still . . . I’d used it as an excuse to believe I was better off without him. Better off without a guy who would ever do something like that.

But now?

Before this all happened, I think I would have forced myself to forget about it, to ignore the fact that I wanted to see him. Anything to avoid the risk of further rejection.

Now, though, I realized that reaching out to David or not reaching out—it was going to hurt either way.

I allowed myself to be a bit of a coward and send a message instead of call, so when he agreed to come visit, I couldn’t sense his tone of voice.

The day he was coming, my body was so twitchy I felt like I was walking around with my finger stuck in a socket. I tried a deep-breathing technique my therapist taught me. A Valium would have worked better. I knew I shouldn’t think that way— didn’t want to think that way—but it was a hard habit to break.

Finally, the doorbell buzzed.

We stared at each other, awkward. His face was paler, drawn—more like his sister than ever. After a moment, I stepped forward and hugged him. My cheek pressed into the satiny puff of his down jacket. We stood like that, quiet, for a long time. I loved being this close to him, no matter what had happened.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Leena.”

“Me too.”

A muffled cough came from inside my dad’s room. We broke apart.

“He’s giving us space,” I whispered. “I’ll introduce you later.”

David nodded. “You look good,” he said, running his fingers down my hair. “Are you . . . okay?”

“Pretty much.”

“So.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Celeste is actually . . . She wanted to see you, too. She’s at the coffee place, on the corner. I’m supposed to call her when she can come, if that’s okay.”

“Of course,” I said. “Viv told me she’s still at school. They let her stay?” I began leading him into the kitchen where I’d set out all our tea choices during my nervous morning.

“Yeah,” he said. “Once everything came out, and they realized she was sick, you know, everyone decided she could stay. Thank God.”