Her schedule, once she had assembled it, was about what one might expect. Abnormal Psychology. Sociology. Social Psychology. Composition. All bare bones courses and exceedingly dull-sounding.
A third tab started to glow, this one with a book icon. Her mood darkened further as she ordered her textbooks. Six hundred and fifty dollars down the drain for something she felt lukewarm about at best.
She headed back for her dorm. A tall Asian boy stopped her as she encountered the stairs. She eyed him warily, the way she did with every man she encountered now. “You live in Otoño?” he asked. Her wariness increased. Slowly, she nodded.
“Oh, cool. Well, I'm one of your RAs.”
One of my what? Then she remembered. Resident Adviser. “That's nice.” She moved to go around him and again, he blocked her path.
“Just letting you know that there's a mandatory resident meeting tonight.”
“Mandatory? We have to go?”
“Yup, 'fraid so. It's at eight o' clock tonight in the Bay Lounge. Don't even think about dodging the draft,” he warned her cheerfully. “We'll be knocking on the doors starting at seven tonight, just to make sure nobody forgets.”
He mimed air quotes around forgets.
Val was unamused. Even though he seemed friendly enough she couldn't bring herself to like him.
What was he so cheerful about?
“Thanks for letting me know.”
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Val, determined to forget about the meeting, air quotes or no, crawled into bed for a nap after a dinner of ramen cooked in the microwave she and Mary shared for when they couldn't make it to the DC. So far, Val had been the only one to use it.
The RA proved as good as his threat. A sharp rapping on the door yanked her out of another nightmare, and when she answered the door she found herself looking at the same boy from before.
He grinned at her. “Hey—you again.”
Val stared at him blearily.
“You coming to the resident meeting tonight?” “Fine,” she said coldly.
“It's at eight o'clock. There will be food and drinks and games. It'll be fun.”
Fun. She could hear him knocking on her neighbors' doors now. Yeah, right.
Since her clothes from earlier were rumpled from the nap she pulled on a new pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. The makeup on her face had come off and she wondered if the RA had noticed that her eyebrows and eyelashes didn't quite match her hair.
He's a boy. He wouldn't notice.
Gavin would.
Val grabbed her stick of eyeliner and penciled over the faint reddish-brown lines. Then, biting her lip, she rolled black mascara over her eyelashes.
Angel was right , she thought, stepping back to regard her reflection in the mirror. I do look pale.
At least she fit in here. People didn't exactly flock to Washington to sunbathe on the beaches. Her lips quirked up a little; they would be very disappointed, if they did.
All the freshmen staying at Otoño—or, at least, the ones unfortunate enough to be in their rooms when the RAs came by—crowded into the Bay Lounge. They looked around at their heretofore unseen neighbors with open curiosity and sexual speculation.
Val stood at the back, nearest to the door. A line formed between her eyebrows as the boy from earlier walked in the door from the opposite side and smiled at them all. “Hi everyone—I'm Adam Lang.”
“And I'm Tiffany Landsteiner,” a blonde girl said, pulling away from the group she had been chatting with to bound up beside him. Val recognized her as the chipper girl from resident check-in.
“We're your Resident Advisers!”
They spoke almost, but not quite, in unison.
Looking around, Val could not shake the feeling that she was in the middle of a cheesy Old Navy commercial.
Adam and Tiffany—God, even their names sounded forcefully prep—went over the rules. Don't drink. Don't blast loud music after 10 P.M. No pets. No smoking within twenty-five yards of any doors or windows. Rules that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
She felt a migraine forming behind her eyeballs.
Mary was standing in the corner with a group of boys and girls Val didn't recognize. Maybe that was why Mary hadn't been in the dorm all day. She had been doing what normal college students did, hanging out with her friends. Telling them horror stories about her crazy roommate who screamed in her sleep, and lived like a ghost.
Val stared at her, trying to make eye-contact. If Mary saw, she was making a schooled attempt not to notice. She didn't look up once.
I don't care, anyway.
She did, though. That was the problem.
“—but if you follow all the rules, there's no problem. I know we're going to have a great year!” Are we? Can I get that in writing?
“And now, just to make sure that we all really do get to know one another—” Tiffany wielded a sheaf of marigold-colored papers like a weapon “—we're going to do ice-breakers! Yay! Isn't that fun?”
Did that girl seriously say “yay”? Val looked at the door, longingly, but it was blocked by a group of rambunctious boys and she couldn't bring herself to approach them and ask them to move.
The RAs made circles around the room passing out the sheets of paper. They were printed with bingo squares that had things written in their centers like “someone who has two different colored eyes” or “someone fluent in more than language” or “someone who lived in another state.”
She'd always hated exercises like these. They made people resentful, because they essentially yanked the carpet out from under you while simultaneously making you feel as if it were your fault for failing to remain upright.
Val looked around for Mary again, but she had already been reabsorbed into the group. The door was unblocked, though, and she crept towards it. Neither Tiffany nor Adam were looking at her right now, so if she could just make it to—
“Hey.”
Val yelped and dropped her paper, causing two boys near enough to hear her over the din to laugh. She picked up her paper, flushing, and then whirled around to face her interloper.
He smiled gently. “Did I scare you? Sorry.” Damn it, I was so close. “What do you want?”
“Uh…well, you could tell me if any of these apply to you, for a start.”
He shoved his paper at her, and she belatedly recognized him as the red-haired boy who had spoken up in her defense at the resident check-in. He was even more attractive up close and she faltered.
“I—”
Most of the little squares were already signed off. How had he gotten so many so quickly? His sheet was a veritable autograph book.
With reluctance she asked to borrow his pen. He gave it to her and she signed her name off in one of the squares.
“There.”
“Valerie, huh?”
She nodded, keeping her lips pressed together, afraid her breath was rank. She hadn't eaten anything since the ramen before her nap, and she was pretty sure that had garlic in it. Garbage breath.
“I'm Jade.” He shook her hand as he took her own sheet from her, pretending not to notice when it tore a little as the edges stuck to her sweaty palms. Val did notice, however, and thought, Oh God.
“Let's see—hmm.” He scrawled his name under the square for two languages and studied his own paper. “Which state are you from?”
“California.” He must think I'm a total loser. “Really?” He eyed her with mock skepticism. “Not Alaska? Huh. Got any movie star neighbors?” “Ha ha.”
“Tough audience.” He handed her paper back. She stared at the lone signature and wondered whether he was talking her because he was being nice or being sadistic. “Don't you want to know what language I speak?”
Val flicked the paper sticking to her palm to the floor. “Spanish?”
“Nope.”
“French?”
“Latin.”
Latin? “Really?” she asked suspiciously. “Ave atque vale.” He flashed her a gr
in.
That smile cut right to the core of her. It had been such a long while since anyone had smiled at her like that, with such sincerity and open kindness— Unless he really was having her on.
I should have told him I speak hieroglyphics.
Words were the bane of her existence. She drowned in them when all she wanted was silence, only to have them recede when one desperatelysought phrase would be the key to her salvation. Most things were like that: excess in times of abundance, and shortages in times of dearth. Life, she realized, was an unbalanced scale, and would never weigh in one's favor, struggle as one might.
Certainly not hers.
The moment his back was turned, Val sneaked out of the lounge. Relief was as instantaneous as the cold creeping on her skin.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Mary was gone again when Val woke up. Her bed was made and a fluffy pink unicorn was sitting on the folded coverlet, nestled comfortably against the matching pillow. A stack of romance novels were piled up at her bedside. All of them had vintage covers, women in the arms of men who were all but exploding out of their clothing.
Must be a gift from her sisters.
Val groped for her stuffed cat and when she couldn't find it, leaned over to search beneath her bed. A wave of dizziness overtook her from leaning over so suddenly and she thought, Serves me right if I fall.
Something soft tickled her fingers and her fingers closed around the striped tail. She pulled the cat back into bed with her and hugged it to her breast, squeezing it, letting the polyester fur absorb her tears.
Not that she was miserable. The light shearing through the blinds was just making her eyes water. At least, that was what she told herself as she pulled the sheet back over her and the stuffed cat's heads.
Her therapist had said she was depressed, anxious. Who wasn't? Val never revealed her thoughts aloud. Therapists—and psychiatrists, too—had a way of using your words against you, turning a simple statement into something clinically profound.
It wasn't that she was sad—sadness had very little to do with it, really, considering that most of the time she felt close to nothing at all. Feeling required nerves, connections, sensory input. The only thing she felt was numb. And tired.
Yes, she very frequently felt tired.
Mornings turned her limbs to lead. When she went through the daily routine in her head—shower,
get dressed, eat breakfast, explore campus, buy lunch) her body became a deadweight.
It was all so exhausting.
Easier to lie in bed.
Easier to think nothing at all.
And so Val slept, and dreamed, and woke only when she heard the door slam and the heavy footsteps tramping across the squeaky floors.
There was a thud. Val leaned up, squinting as the light flicked on, and Mary looked at her in mild surprise. “Oh! I'm sorry. Were you sleeping?”
“Um, yeah, I was.” She raked a hand through her hair. It felt slightly damp. “What time is it?”
“Almost five o' clock.”
She had spent the entire day in bed.
Mary tilted her head. “Hey, what happened to you yesterday? At the resident meeting. I thought I saw you, but then you disappeared.”
“I went to sleep. I was tired.”
“I can see that.” Mary's tone was dry. “Listen, I won't be here long—I was about to head out to the DC with some friends. You know, for dinner. I just wanted to change shirts. You can join us, if you want.” “I'm not dressed,” Val began, plaintively.
“I can wait. They're all slowpokes, anyway, and the DC doesn't close 'til eight.”
“I don't want to impose.”
“Again with the imposing thing.” Mary rolled her eyes. “Don't give me that talk. Back home, my friends would just waltz right into my house, sit down at our table, and ask, 'What's for dinner?' You're fine—okay? Good,” she said, without waiting for an answer. “Now come on, get dressed, slugabed. I'm starved.”
Which left her with little choice but to pull on a fresh change of clothes and follow her roommate meekly out of the room. Her stomach churned, and the thought of putting food into it boded ill.
But if she went back to bed now she wouldn't be able to sleep later, and the idea of spending the night with her chronic insomnia was slightly more unappetizing than the prospect of cheap dorm food.
And Mary already thinks I'm a freak, anyway.
Mary would think she was an even bigger freak if she opened her mouth. All she had to do was remember to act like a normal human being, and since her conversational skills totaled zero she would just have to do her damndest to keep her mouth shut.
“Goody,” she muttered.
“Did you say something?” Mary asked without breaking stride.
“I said 'pretty,'” Val said, nodding at the building.
The DC was built rather like a solarium, with a high glass ceiling to let in the light. The setting sun gave the buttery walls a warm glow, and the darkening sky provided an interesting contrast against the yellow wall lamps and the smell of hot, cooking food.
“Yeah, I guess it is, huh. I never noticed.”
Val could see why. She looked around, intimidated. Food was, quite literally, everywhere. It was completely overwhelming.
There was a salad bar in the back with all the fixings; a sandwich station with everything from provolone and salami, to tuna fish and American cheese; fresh-cooked pizza in three different varieties, including Philly cheese-steak and a dessert pizza made with sliced nectarines, berries, and cream cheese; barbecue; hot-plots covered with ceramic pots of soup; frozen yogurt machines; drinks—
“You can eat as much as you want,” Mary was saying, handing the lady at the register her student ID card so she could be swiped in. “You just can't leave and come back, or leave and take food with you— though that doesn't stop some people from trying.”
Val handed the sour-faced woman at the register her own ID. “So it's like an all-you-can-eat buffet?”
Val had never liked buffets; she could never stand to eat large helpings of food all at once, especially not with people around watching. Then again, she had never liked eating in public, period.
Or being in public, period.
“Exactly,” Mary said.
“This doesn't look too bad.”
“Well, they're trying now. It's the first week, so they're showing off for the parents. Yup. You'd better eat up,” she said. “The food will never be as good as it is now.”
Val took one of the plastic trays and made herself a Cobb salad, with cubes of ham instead of chicken. Then she grabbed a slice each of the Philly cheese steak pizza and dessert pizza, and an orange, before setting her food down at the table Mary had indicated.
The tap water smelled like the wet dogs she had washed at the animal shelter, so Val dumped it out and poured herself one of the watered-down sodas instead. It didn't taste any better but at least it didn't smell funky.
Her legs wobbled a bit as she headed back to the table. The dining hall was so crowded. She felt as if she were out on display, and that everyone could see through her, past the carefully constructed veneer of normality to her dark and secret twisted inner-self.
Freak.
She had been called that, among other things. Psycho and whore had been other fall-backs, because when there was no one to blame, people often turned to the victims themselves for scapegoating.
Men called her up, asking her if she liked to fuck the killers and then threatened to rape her. Women asked her why she didn't do the right thing—the christian thing—and kill herself. “Jesus may have died for our sins,” one woman had said, “but you deserve to die for yours.”
Anxiety dug its twisted talons into her heart and made her palms sweat. Nobody is thinking that. Nobody here knows who you are. She took a long swig of soda and almost choked on its cloying sweetness.
God, where was Mary? She didn't want to be left alone with her thoughts.
Val looked around
but the black girl was nowhere to be seen. She sat at the table staring at her mostly untouched food and wondered if Mary had changed her mind at the last minute. Maybe she secretly resented being stuck with such a weird roommate, and was having second thoughts about an invitation only offered in sympathy.
Or maybe she was annoyed at Val for ducking out of the residential meeting. Maybe she was like those stupid RAs and thought that everyone in Otoño ought to be having group hugs while saying their nightly kumbayas. She did have a unicorn on her bed, after all. She could have been one of the Old Navy Pod People.
Maybe she had already filed for a room transfer.
Val poked at the salad with the prongs of her fork. Her stomach cramped, and she sucked in her gut to loosen the pressure of her jeans against her belly. The antidepressants had made her gain weight, and none of her clothes fit quite right anymore.
Just another thing to be bitter about. One of many. “There you are.”
Mary had her lunch tray balanced on one arm. The other was wrapped around the bulky forearm of a tall, blonde boy who looked like a walking headline for bad news. There was a shorter girl, too, with spiky hair, and—Val blanched—the strange red-haired boy from the residential meeting who had spoken to her, bewilderingly, in Latin.
Jude. No, not Jude—Jade.
“This is Alex,” Mary said, stroking the blonde boy's bicep. “We went to high school together.”
“H-hello.”
Alex gave her a measured look before offering his hand. Reluctantly, she took it, noting as she did that he had both a class ring and a tribal tattoo.
Marks of the douchebag, she thought, uncharitably.
“This is Meredith,” Mary went on, pointing to the short Asian girl with the lip piercing. “She was in my orientation group.”
Meredith was on the phone but she nodded and managed to give a semblance of a friendly smile. Her tongue, as it turned out, was pierced, too.
Hipster, with punk influence. Probably a goth in high school. One of those social trend-setter types. Mary and Meredith.
Val opened her mouth to point out this silly coincidence with a short burst of childish delight, but the moment had passed and she sank back against her chair again as Mary continued, “And this is Jaden.” Pointing at him, casually, as his blue eyes flared in recognition. “Everyone—Valerie. Val. My roommate. She's really shy and stuff, so don't scare her, okay?”
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