Marianna Baer - Frost

I propped myself up on my elbow. “New rule,” I said.

“Rule?” David said. “Are your rules as strict as your moratorium was?”

I punched his shoulder. “Listen. Seriously. Now that you and I are, you know, together , I really think it’s best if you … if we don’t talk about your sister as much. I don’t want to always feel like I’m your source of information. Okay? I want to keep things a little more separate.” For an instant, I had the horrible thought that maybe the only reason he even wanted to be close to me was to find out stuff about his sister, but then he said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He ran a hand through my loose hair, fingers getting caught in a tangle. “Could get messy.”

“So, good rule?” I said, relieved.

“Good rule.”

The six of us met with the disciplinary committee on Tuesday. Later that night, in some sort of masochistic haze, I decided to listen to Viv and Cam’s show on WBAR, but there was a guest host. I supposed they wanted to spend their last night together alone.

Cam had to leave school on Wednesday.

The rest of us, as promised, had gotten probation.

Walking across campus Wednesday afternoon, I saw Cameron’s car—filled with belongings—in the parking area next to his dorm. He and Viv stood outside of it. Even from the other side of the Great Lawn, I could tell by the stoop of her shoulders and Cameron’s hand stroking her back that Viv was crying.

I dropped my gaze to the ground and hurried along, the path becoming a muddy, gray blur.

Once I got home I headed straight for the closet. I wanted to know that it would be okay, that I’d be okay, even without Viv, like I’d told myself in here the other night. I stroked Cubby’s feathers. I just needed to know that I could get past how much it hurt.

In here you can , her voice said.

On Thursday, Dean Shepherd told me she wanted me to step down from peer counseling.

“You understand,” she said. “We can’t have the mixed message of someone in a leadership position like that getting into trouble.” There was a hint of sympathy in her voice, but it didn’t do anything to make me feel better.

I couldn’t hide my desperation as I spoke. “What if I just step down as cohead? But keep counseling? Could I do that?”

“Maybe next semester. I doubt it, though,” she said.

Had I thought she’d sounded sympathetic a moment ago? Because now, I didn’t see how there was any chance she felt anything but derision and disappointment. The horrible feeling it gave me was even worse than knowing I wasn’t a part of my program anymore. I hated myself more than she ever could.

Later that day, David and I took a walk through the arboretum at the edge of campus. A few trees were still lit up with flame-colored foliage; mostly, I saw the brown leaves under our feet. I told David how I’d messed up not only my friendships with Viv, Abby, and Dean Shepherd, but also my one meaningful extracurricular. I told him I had nothing left.

“What about me?” he said, sounding hurt.

I wrapped my arm around his waist and squeezed.

Thank God. I had David. And I had my house.

I was incredibly relieved that my room was tucked in the back, and on a separate floor from Viv’s and Abby’s, so I didn’t have constant reminders that Frost House was now a divided territory. I couldn’t have handled listening to their muffled voices and laughter, or the sounds of their sock feet on the wooden floor going back and forth between each other’s rooms. As for Celeste, in the days since we came back from New York, I’d barely seen her. My space was truly my own and I wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.

The Saturday after we got back, I made a rare call to my dad to ask if I could buy some supplies at Home Depot on his credit card. He said yes—probably partly out of shock at hearing from me, and partly because he always likes to support home improvement.

As I walked across the store’s parking lot, I found myself scanning the cars for his orange Subaru, even though this Home Depot was about an hour from his condo. Going to any sort of hardware store without him never felt quite right.

I began in the paint department. After a long period of deliberation, I chose a very light sky color, called “Blue Heaven.” I got brushes, rollers, trays, Spackle, and drop cloths. I considered buying a ladder, but they were too expensive, so I decided I’d just borrow one from maintenance.

Next, I found all the supplies I’d need for wall-mounted shelves.

In the garden department, I chose tulip and daffodil bulbs to plant in the backyard that would bloom next spring, and a couple of houseplants to hang in my room, along with the necessary wall brackets.

Then I got an egg-crate–foam-mattress pad and a brass, sliding bolt lock.

The closet needed an upgrade, too.

“ALL I’M SAYING IS THAT I don’t want you in my room anytime soon.”

“Nice,” David said from the other end of the phone. “This is how you treat me?”

I scooped some more Spackle onto my knife. “I just want it to be a surprise. Give me a couple of weeks. Then you can be over here whenever you want. I promise.”

“All right,” he said in a tone of resignation. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Studying, I guess.”

“Want to come over and do it here?”

“If you let me get some work done,” I said, scraping the whitish paste over another small hole in the wall. “I’ve got to seriously start working if I want to have any chance at Columbia. I’ve never been this behind before.”

“Speaking of Columbia,” he said, “Paul, the guy who owns the restaurant I might work in, wants to meet with me over Thanksgiving. So I was thinking you could come down and we could spend a couple of days in the city together.”

When I’d mentioned to David that Columbia was on my list of long shots, he’d started talking as if it was a given that we’d want to be in the same city. Every time he talked that way, I wanted to die of happiness. We’d only been a couple for a week, but I already felt like he was a central fixture in my life. I couldn’t believe I’d even hesitated. Our togetherness seemed so obvious, and inevitable. Sort of like the way I’d felt when I’d moved into Frost House.

I spotted some holes midway up the wall that needed to be filled. “That’d be great,” I said, stepping up on the chair. “But I always go to Abby’s parents’ place for Thanksgiving.”

“Do you think you’ll do that this year?” he asked carefully.

I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I wouldn’t. “Probably,” I said. I’d gone the last three years. Her parents owned a bed-and-breakfast farm in Maine. I loved visiting them. Abby had to have forgiven me by then. Right? I wasn’t sure how many more weeks I could take with her and Viv not talking to me. Or even how many more days….

“Well, if you come to New York,” he said, “you can check out where I might end up living. This guy Paul knows is going to be subletting his place and it would actually be affordable if I get a roommate.”

“A roommate?” I scooped a bit more Spackle from the bucket.

“Yeah. With New York prices, I’ll be lucky to have only one roommate.”

“Huh. I wonder if …” My heart thudded harder and faster as I strained to reach the next hole.

“If what?”

“If I’d have to live in a dorm at Columbia. I mean, maybe I’m being crazy, but what if we shared a place?”

“Lived together?”

Crap. Why had I said that? Same city is one thing, but this would probably completely freak him out. “Yeah, forget it. I was just thinking that financially, it might … but I’m being—”