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.
Chapter 15
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.
“Someone there?” Ms. Martin called from her front doorway.
“It’s me, Leena,” I called back. “Sorry. I’m here on the porch.”
She padded around the corner, wrapped in a bathrobe. “I wanted to make sure it was one of you girls.”
“Just me,” I said, standing. “But I’m going in now.”
I went inside, and when I tried to open the bedroom door was surprised to find it was still locked. I got out my key and slid it in the lock, pushed the door—
“Leena?” Celeste’s voice called out from somewhere. Not the bedroom.
“Yeah?” I said, turning around.
“Can you … can you come in here?” She was in the bathroom. Probably taking one of her frequent nighttime baths.
Figuring she had forgotten something—she had a hard time getting out of the tub, and was always needing me to bring her a razor or towel or something else—I tossed her laundry bag in our room and went in. She was sitting in the bath, a thin layer of bubbles covering the surface of the water. Her cast was propped up on her special bath stool, in its plastic bag. Her other leg was bent, her arms wrapped around it. There was something not quite right about her face. Her jaw muscles were tense, her skin paler than usual. She looked like she might be trembling.
“Are you okay?” I said.
She shifted positions slightly to show me: a bright red mark seared the back of her left upper arm. I knelt quickly by the tub. It was a burn. The size of a baby’s fist. Not blistered, but still obviously painful.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I … I was sitting here while the water was running,” she said. “And I guess … I guess I bumped against the faucet. I don’t remember. It happened so quickly, and then it hurt so much.”
“That’s from the faucet?” I said. “The water must have been so hot.”
She shook her head. “I was trying to cool the bath down. Only the cold water was turned on.”
“You must have turned the wrong handle.”
“I didn’t.” Then she said it again, louder. “I didn’t. I know which handle I turned. This wasn’t my fault.”
The faucet couldn’t have burned her if it was running cold water, obviously, but there was no point in me fighting with her. What mattered was her burn.
“Let’s drain the bath,” I said. “And then you need to hold your arm under a stream of cool water. I’ll cover the faucet with a facecloth.” As I did, I found that the metal wasn’t hot at all. The bathwater wasn’t especially hot either. How long had she been sitting here? I didn’t ask, just handed her towels to wrap over her legs and her shoulders, so she’d warm up. Her whole body was shaking. “You should take Tylenol for the pain,” I said. For once, she didn’t say no to my suggestion of medication. I left her for a moment and went back into the bedroom.
After getting a couple of pills from my stash, I happened to notice that Celeste’s beetle photo wasn’t hanging in its usual spot. This wasn’t so strange; for some reason, ever since that first day, the frame had been prone to falling off the nail. But this time, I didn’t see it on the bed where it usually landed either.
I wasn’t sure why this made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, but it did.
“Leena?” Celeste called.
“One second,” I called back. “Just finding the Tylenol.”
I quickly scanned the room and spotted the photo lying awkwardly on the floor across from Celeste’s bed. With growing apprehension, I walked over and picked it up. The photo itself was fine. But one corner of the black frame had chipped badly, revealing the lighter wood underneath the paint. Following an instinct, I checked the wall. About two feet up from where the photo had been lying, there was a black mark on the white surface, where the corner must have hit.
The frame hadn’t been placed on the floor.
It had been thrown.
My body stiffened. What had gone on here while I was with David?
“Leena?” Celeste called again.
I set the frame on her bed, then returned to the bathroom and handed Celeste the Tylenol and a glass of water from the sink, an anxious thumping in my chest. “What happened to your photo?” I asked carefully.