Celeste’s eyes rolled up and she stared at the ceiling, as if trying not to cry again.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” I said.
“A therapist? They’d just stick me on some medication. Don’t … don’t tell anyone I have these feelings, okay? Not the dorm, or David. Okay? Please. It’s really important.”
She gripped one of my hands in both of hers. They felt cold, bony.
“I just think it would be good if you talked to someone,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “With a father like mine, people—everyone—they’re just waiting for me to crack up. And I can’t do anything without everyone thinking I tried to kill myself or whatever. And I’ve done stupid stuff in the past, and now it’s like, if they … you know … I don’t get the benefit of the doubt. Please, Leena. Please. It’s not like I’m making up these feelings from nowhere. This stuff happened.”
I remembered the horrible feeling after I’d tried to hurt myself in eighth grade, when my parents would stare at me with these expressions like they were worried I was going to crack into a thousand pieces at any moment.
“Please, Leena,” she said. “I’m not crazy. I’m not.” Her voice was stronger. “Promise you won’t tell.”
“Okay,” I said. “I promise. But you have to promise to let me know if it doesn’t get better. Okay?”
We agreed.
Later, as I was about to turn off my bedside lamp, Celeste came into the room wearing the Moroccan caftan she slept in. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to bed while I was still awake. As if reading my mind, she said, “Maybe I’ll be able to sleep. Now that the heat is on.” I didn’t point out that she hadn’t been able to sleep when the weather was warm either.
She lingered at her mirror, smoothing cream on her face, brushing her hair. Finally, she turned off her light and headed toward her bed. On the way, she paused in front of the slightly open closet door. After a second, she kept walking. She sat down on the comforter, laid her crutches on the floor, glanced at the closet again, stood up, closed the door.
This didn’t bode well.
“Do you want something mild to help? Just tonight?” I said.
“No, thanks.”
When the lights had been off for a minute, she said, “You … you know I was speaking … metaphorically, before. Right, Leena? I don’t really think someone’s in the closet. I was just trying to describe what it’s like, to feel like someone wants to hurt you. You know that, right? I don’t really think someone’s in here or whatever.”
I hesitated. “Sure,” I said. “I know what you meant.”
Sleep came easily for me, as it always did in that room, even though I was picturing those scattered nests, telling myself they’d been in a random pattern. It was deep, as well, so I had no idea how long Celeste had been shouting when I woke up.
“Get off! Get off of me!”
Without my glasses and in the darkish room, I panicked— someone was on Celeste’s bed! “Hey,” I cried. “Stop!” But as I leapt up and hurried across the floor, I realized it was her arms thrashing underneath the covers, not another body. I turned on the light.
“Celeste.” I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Wake up.”
She sat straight up. “I’m awake,” she said. Her face shone white and glistened with sweat.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You were having a nightmare.”
“No, I wasn’t,” she said. “I wasn’t. Someone was here.” She turned her head back and forth, searching. “I was awake.”
“You’re okay, Celeste.” I sat down and moved my hand to her back. “No one was here except me. It was a bad dream.”
She shook her head. Her pupils were huge, swallowing up her irises. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t. Someone was here. Someone’s always here.”
“Shh,” I said. “No one was here. It’s okay. You’re just upset, from before.”
“Before?”
“The conversation we had, earlier.”
We sat in silence for a moment, my hand absorbing the tremors from her body.
“Are you okay to go back to sleep?” I finally said. “I swear, no one was in here except me.”
She gathered her quilt around her shoulders. “Can you hand me my crutches?” she said.
I did. She stood up and made her way out of the room. With her stooped posture, the blanket around her shoulders, and the sunken, haunted look in her face … well, I wondered if, when I’d promised not to tell anyone about her fears, I’d made a promise I shouldn’t keep.
The next day, I couldn’t get that image of her out of my mind. As my teachers talked on, I kept hearing her voice—so much fear in it. I didn’t know what to do. Before last night, I’d settled into thinking that Celeste was doing the things herself because I couldn’t imagine who else would have. But yesterday her surprise—her horror—had seemed so genuine. Nothing made sense.
The first time I saw her was in the afternoon. She was sitting on the main quad underneath the statue of Samuel Barcroft, listening to music and writing or drawing in her sketchpad. Part of me wanted to head in the opposite direction, pretend I didn’t see her. But I had to deal with this sometime.
I walked up and waited for her to take out her earbuds.
“So,” I said, sitting next to her on the base of the statue. The granite pressed cold and hard underneath me. “How do you feel?”
She shrugged. Rhinestone-studded sunglasses hid her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “Sorry for all the commotion last night. God, David couldn’t believe it when I told him the cat did that to my nests.”
Wait, what? “The cat?” I said.
“Oh, right. I didn’t tell you yet.” Her voice was breezy and crisp as the autumn air, as if this was all perfectly normal. “I realized this morning it must have been Leo. I’m sure he smelled the materials and jumped up there. Batted them around the room.”
“But … he doesn’t ever leave Ms. Martin’s apartment, does he?” I said, totally confused. “And the bedroom door is always locked.”
“He must get out sometimes,” she said. “I think I’ve seen him. And the door’s open when we’re in the bathroom, or the common room.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. So, you don’t think it said—”
“Leena.” She moved the sunglasses onto the top of her head and stared at me, her eyes slightly bloodshot and somehow bluer than ever. “It was the cat.”
In that moment as we sat there looking at each other, I knew she was asking me not to fight her on this. To agree to say it was the cat. I didn’t know, though, whether she had done it herself, and this was her way of saying that she’d screwed up and let’s just move on. Or whether she really did want to believe what she was telling me. Either way, I knew she was saying that she didn’t want me to worry about her.
Looking back, maybe I should have fought her on it. But I know why I didn’t: She was giving me exactly what I wanted. I wanted to put all of the anxiety behind us. To know that there was nothing wrong with Celeste except her usual melodramatic tendencies. To know that I didn’t have to worry about what was going to happen the next time I opened the door to our room. I wanted it to be a sanctuary again.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “The cat.”
Chapter 19
A WEEKEND AWAY FROM FROST HOUSE would be good. For all of us. Right?
At least, that’s what I told myself as I packed and unpacked every item of clothing I owned, trying to figure out what would be appropriate for New York, and as I tried not to admit that what I really meant by appropriate was something that would appeal to David, and as I struggled not to keep dwelling on all of the fights that might or might not happen and all of the possible ways this could turn into an enormous disaster, and as I debated whether I should fill the gas tank tonight so we wouldn’t have to waste time in the morning, and as I remembered Abby’s reaction when I told her and Viv I couldn’t come early….