Marianna Baer - Frost

“Go?” Back to Frost House?

He held the door open and herded me with a nod of his head. I followed him to the far end of the hallway and up two flights of a dim, concrete staircase until we reached a big metal door with a sign that said EMERGENCY ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND on it. Between WILL and SOUND someone had drawn a line leading to the scrawled word Not . And, sure enough, as David pushed the door open, no siren blared. He led me out onto the flat, expansive roof, the sky opening up above us. Dark and starry.

“Wow,” I said, stating the obvious. “It’s beautiful up here.”

He crossed over to a rectangular raised area, about the size of a small bench, then sat and patted the spot next to him. We barely fit on it together, so I had to sit with my body pressed against his. For a few minutes we were both quiet, staring up at the stars. I felt the crisp night air sneaking around my neck, and the heat off of David’s body seeping into mine, smelled the mulch of fall and his spicy scent.

Eventually, he was the one to break the silence. “I thought going to school with her was going to be great,” he said. “But … in some ways, it was easier to be apart. Because I can’t always make everything okay for her. And even though I know that, I can’t help trying.”

“You’re such a good brother,” I said, melting a little at how vulnerable he sounded. “She’s lucky.”

He gave a brief laugh. “Don’t think she’d agree.”

“She would.”

“You know …” He shifted forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, and turned his face toward me. “I’ve been feeling kind of bad about something.”

“What?”

“The other week, I didn’t mean to say your parents aren’t good parents, or anything like that. I think I was, well, being kind of protective of you .”

“Oh,” I said, remembering that he had sounded judgmental about them. “That’s okay.”

“No it’s not. I’m not your brother.”

“I wish you were,” I said.

“You do?” He didn’t attempt to hide the surprise in his voice.

“Growing up I was always happy it was just me and my parents,” I explained. “But maybe the divorce wouldn’t have felt so much like a total … destruction of the family if I had siblings.”

“Oh,” he said and, then after a pause, added, “but you don’t really want me as a brother, right? Because, no offense, I don’t really want you as a sister.”

His words sent a rush of warmth through my veins. I stared down at my feet and smiled. “No, I guess not.”

“You guess not?” He nudged me.

“Well, it’d be kind of like having a bodyguard,” I said. “Someone to save me from men in whale pants.”

“Oh, God,” David said in an amused voice. “If it makes you feel any better, she’s just as harsh about my choices.”

I reached down and scratched one of my calves, and made myself ask the question I wasn’t sure I wanted answered. “Did you, um, did you have a girlfriend at Pembroke? The one you got busted with?”

“Not really.”

“Not really ?”

“I never had a girlfriend so much as, well … friends who were girls.” He gave an exaggerated cough.

“Oh. Why? Were you making self-destructive decisions?” I said, ignoring the queasy sensation in my stomach. Of course a guy as good-looking as him was a player.

David laughed. “Maybe. I didn’t give it too much thought at the time. Just did what I wanted to do.”

I could imagine Jake or Theo saying the same thing about how they’d treated me, and was considering asking David whether the girls had appreciated his selfishness when he said, “I wouldn’t be that way now, though,” in a new, more serious tone of voice.

“Oh?” I said.

“Definitely not.” He sounded so sure.

“That’s … that’s cool.”

“What about you?” he said.

“What about me?”

“Where do you stand with the whole boyfriend thing?” Was I imagining it, or had he somehow found a way to press even closer to me? Having a conversation when I was near enough to share his breath was kind of difficult. The distraction of the pulsing and fluttering in my body …

I adjusted my glasses, swallowed. “I went out with a couple different guys, freshman and sophomore year. Now, this semester at least, I kind of don’t want to deal. I have so much else to think about. I know that sounds lame, but …”

“So, that’s it? You’re just … not interested?”

Wait, did he mean in general, or in him?

“I …” Breathe normally. Speak normally. “This fall, I’ve put a moratorium on dating. I’m so stressed-out about colleges, and keeping my grades up, and everything. I’m going to reassess after break.”

“A moratorium?” he said.

“Yeah.” I nodded, feeling like an idiot.

“That’s too bad,” he said. Or, at least, that’s what I thought he said, but my blood was rushing so loudly in my ears I wasn’t quite sure. If it is what he said, why was it too bad? Because of him? Because it meant we couldn’t be together?

“So do you really think Celeste and I should go to New York with you guys?” he said, interrupting my spontaneous combustion. “What if she and Abby end up killing each other?”

Given my own fear about the dynamics on the trip, I was surprised by my immediate response. “You should definitely come,” I said. “You can ride down with me. It’d be much more comfortable for Celeste than the bus.”

“I’ve seen your car,” he said. “Can it make it to New York?”

“Didn’t you hear Viv?” I said. “I can tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue and fix my car.”

“Simultaneously?” he asked.

I laughed, then checked the time on my phone and immediately jumped to my feet. “I didn’t realize how late it was. I have to go.”

After stopping back by his room to pick up Celeste’s laundry, David walked me downstairs to the front entrance of the dorm. A group of senior guys were playing Nerf basketball in the common room.

“Hey, Leena,” Matt Halpern said. “Pretty late for parietals, isn’t it?”

“She came earlier, dude, so now she’s going,” one of the other guys said. They snorted and jostled one another. I couldn’t look at David’s face.

“Thanks again for the cake,” he said as he opened the door. He was positioned so I had to pass just inches from him to get out. I didn’t want to go outside, but those stupid guys could see us standing there.

“Leena?” he said.

The planes of his face were sharp and strong in the harsh fluorescent light, but his voice was soft. “Yeah?”

“I understand it’s an awkward situation, but if you can think of anything to say to Celeste, about that guy, I’d really appreciate it. Only if you feel comfortable.”

Gazing at me with those eyes, he could have asked me to do just about anything and I would have agreed.

“I’ll try,” I said.

“And … the moratorium. It’s only one semester, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “One semester.”

Suddenly, that sounded very, very long.

I MADE IT BACK TO FROST HOUSE with forty seconds to spare before sign-in, sweaty and breathing hard after running the whole way from Prescott carrying the bag of laundry. As I scribbled my name on the sheet, I noticed that Whip had signed out only fifteen minutes ago. Not a development I’d be reporting back to David.

I wasn’t quite ready to be inside, and definitely didn’t feel like dealing with Celeste, so I dropped her laundry bag in the common room and sat out on the porch in one of the Adirondack chairs. I stared up at the sky over the trees and tried to bring myself back to the roof. I didn’t want to worry, right now, about anything that had been said. I just wanted to remember the feeling of my side pressed against his. The warmth and solidity of his arm, his torso, his thigh … The unmistakable reaction inside me and on my skin. How could something so passive—just sitting there next to another body—feel so good in so many different ways? A sense of complete safety combined with that giddy flitter-flutter that thrummed all the way to my toe tips.