New Girl

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE



ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END. I HATE when that stupid expression is right.

The first time I realized this was when I went to my room the next afternoon and saw the word WHORE written across the small mirror I had on my side of the room. I found that it was written in my permanent markers, and had to throw the whole thing away.

Over the next few days, the looks and whispers about me got louder and more frequent. Even Madison and Julia seemed a little chilly toward me, and just as they had started being so kind to me, too.

Madison asked, “Why didn’t you tell us you guys had sex?”

My insistence that we didn’t fell on deaf ears each time someone new brought it up. Blake swore she hadn’t said anything, and I had to believe her. I had to feel like someone here had my back.

Max did as I asked, and denied it to everyone. It hadn’t taken long for him to fall out of the hearts of everyone. Everyone seemed disappointed in him. He didn’t care. He just kept asking me if I was okay. He said he’d do anything he could to make them stop.

Over the coming month, the weather remained cold and biting. The snow was deep and thick, sometimes sharp and icy. There was one time of day when the sun shone enough through my window that when I lay in bed, I could almost pretend that it was warm outside.

One night, halfway through March, I’d been lying in bed reading The Crucible, when the witch in my own room shrieked very suddenly, “Will you turn off that light, I can’t sleep!”

She’d been in a bad mood for weeks. It seemed that she thought Becca owed her more than just one quick visit.

I was unable to summon a civilized response, so I put on my flip-flops and a sweatshirt and went out of the room with my book. I left the light on just to be a jerk.

I headed to the dining hall for some hot chocolate. It was empty, except for one person.

“Johnny,” I said, walking over to him.

The enormous hall felt even bigger and more echoing without all the usual voices and bodies filling it.

“What are you doing up?” He looked at me, and then at my pajamas and shoes.

“I’ve been kicked out of my room because I had the light on.”

“Really?”

“She’s been really upset lately.”

He nodded, and looked concerned. “Like, how upset?”

“I dunno. Just moody as far as I can tell.” I sat down next to him. “What are you doing down here?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I’ve been having trouble lately. I don’t know why.”

I could see it all over his face. His eyes were dark and sunken, and his hair was tousled in a very Axe commercial type way.

“I’ve been having trouble this semester, too. Though in part that could be due to Dana screaming at me for reading and singing to herself in the middle of the night like someone out of a Hitchcock movie.”

“Singing?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. It was weird.”

“What was she singing?”

“What’s that song…oh, ‘You Are My Sunshine.’”

He stared at me for a second, his smile fading. “That’s weird. That’s really weird.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“No, I mean…that was a joke she and Becca had. Dana used to say something about how…” He screwed up his face, trying to remember. “How Becca was like sunshine because of her hair. I don’t really remember.”

At that bit of creepiness, I couldn’t think of anything to say, except, “I’m going to get some hot chocolate.”

I was grateful that he changed the subject when I came back.

“So where are you going to college?”

“Oh,” I said, “FSU. Florida State University.”

He nodded. “That’s cool, why there?”

“All of my friends are going there.” I thought, with a pang, of Leah. “Sort of been a plan forever.”

He nodded again. “Did you apply anywhere else?”

“Yeah, I got accepted to Boston University.”

“Really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah.” I laughed. “It’s stupid. I did it on a whim.”

“That’s not stupid, that’s an awesome school.”

“Yeah, I applied in junior year for an early bird kind of thing.”

“I don’t understand then, why are you going somewhere right by your house or with all of your friends? Don’t you want to branch out?”

“I did branch out. I came here. Look how fantastically this went.” I laughed.

“I think you’ve held up extraordinarily well. Don’t you sorta feel like if you can handle all this, you can handle anything?”

I hesitated. “That’s true but…I can’t go to Boston…that’s crazy, I don’t even know why I applied. I could never go somewhere completely alone.”

“Why’s it crazy? Money?”

“No,” I admitted, my voice small. “I got a scholarship.”

He furrowed his eyebrows at me. “You should do it. I mean it. Go somewhere new. Don’t stay so close to home. You’ll go back, and find that they’ve changed—or maybe they haven’t and they should have—or it’ll feel like home isn’t how you remember it. They’ll be different, and you’ll wish you’d met new people.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe I’ll think about it.”

He just leaned back and rested his head on his clasped hands.

Well, since we were getting honest…

“Johnny, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

I hesitated, and then went for it. “Were you…in love with her?”

“Who, Dana? I liked her a lot. Once upon a time. I don’t know. I had a thing for her the whole time I knew her, but Becca got here and then told me Dana didn’t like me at all. Not even like a friend. So, I guess I gave up.”

I stared at him. “I—I meant Becca.”

He raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat. “Oh. Oh. No. I wasn’t in love with her.”

I was still reeling at the idea of anyone having feelings for Dana. It was so impossible to imagine her as anything other than mostly crazy.

“Max told me you and Becca were hooking up. And it just didn’t seem like you to do that to your best friend.”

He looked at me, and seemed to make a decision before answering. “I don’t know what we were. She was hard to read. I couldn’t tell if she actually liked me or just loved the illicitness of what we were doing. I hated myself the whole time, but I just couldn’t pull myself away from her.”

“What was it about her?”

“I honestly don’t know. I know why she was fun and why she was exciting. But I can’t figure out why I felt so strongly about her. I think I just believed there was more to her than that. And I think she felt something for me. I really do. She must have. And if there was more to her…I don’t know, she went missing before I really got to find out.”

I looked at him, and saw in his eyes that he had really cared about her.

“Well, I should go up to bed,” Johnny said suddenly, rising.

“Oh, okay, yeah. It was nice running into you.”

“You, too.”

He gave me a weary smile, and left. He’d had feelings for Dana.

Huh.

I got up to my room, which was blessedly empty. I opened the window and breathed in the air. It was a little chilly, but I wanted to feel the breeze and hear the sounds of outside.

I sat on my bed for a few minutes, thinking of what Johnny had said and listening to the wind. I kicked off my shoes and looked at the floor. There was a thumbtack there, left over from one of Dana’s and my fights. I reached down to get it and spotted the Louis Vuitton suitcase under the bed that I’d grown to ignore.

An idea struck me.

Dana wasn’t here. I could look inside it. For what, I wasn’t sure. But I was curious.

I locked the door. Dana had a key, but at least I’d hear her coming and could push it back under the bed. I did not want her knowing that I had touched precious Becca’s precious stuff.

I crouched down on the floor and slid the case out. It was strange to touch something of hers. I unzipped it and pulled up the top.

Right on top was a jewelry box. It was silver and heavy. I sifted through the tangle of delicate chains and charms that lay in it. I spotted a silver necklace with half of a heart. It looked like the best friend necklaces that Leah and I had worn as kids, but it was heavier and shinier and had a diamond. Clearly, it had not been bought for twenty-five cents from the toy machine at the grocery store. Leah and I had spent all of our money, a whole dollar each, when we were six as we tried to get the set of necklaces. We ended up with a bunch of plastic spider rings and Mickey Mouse tattoos before finally getting them. When we had, they felt hard-won.

I remembered now that I’d thought of this last September. I had seen what must be this necklace’s other half hanging from Dana’s neck. I shut the jewelry box. As I did, the door behind me rattled—Dana and her key. I threw the suitcase shut, and shoved it back under the bed. I was sitting back on my bed, my heart pounding, when Dana stepped into the room.

She looked at me, with my approximation of relaxation, and her already narrow eyes turned to mere slits.

Feeling panicky, I said hello. Like I never do.

Dana shut the door and stepped in. She looked at me for another few seconds before her gaze dropped down to the suitcase, and my stomach plummeted with guilt. And then Dana did something I did not expect. She smiled.

“You’re curious about her.”

I shook my head. “What?”

“It’s okay. We can look together.”

I couldn’t move. It was like my dream about Becca all over again. I was paralyzed as a strange scene unfolded before me. I watched as Dana pulled the suitcase back out, much more slowly and ceremoniously than I had done.

“Come here,” she said in a whisper. When I didn’t move, she looked at me and spoke a little louder. “Come here.”

I was shaking. I suddenly did not want to know the secrets that lay within Becca’s things. I didn’t want to see things that she’d seen, any more than I already had. I didn’t want to touch this person’s stuff or look at any more pictures.

“I don’t know why you never asked me before,” said Dana. She sounded kinder than she ever had. It was like she could not remember all the things she’d said to me in the past. “But today, of all days, is a good one to introduce you to her.”

She pulled out the jewelry box and smiled down at it. “I suppose you know what can be found in here. These are mostly gifts from all the boys she dated. Also the other half of this.” She laid a hand over the half of her broken heart. “What you won’t find in here was my other gift to her. I got her a charm bracelet. She was wearing it on the night…but of course she was wearing the locket from Max, too…she always wore that after he gave it to her. ‘To Eternal Love…’ She often wore both necklaces, but that night…just the one you found in the closet at the boathouse…”

Her voice trailed off as her fingers ran gently over all the silver and gold within the box. After a moment, she shut it and set it aside. She sifted through more of her clothes, trinkets and pictures, seemingly gaining her own comfort from looking at them but not saying anything out loud. I wanted to get up and run away. I didn’t want to watch her do this.

She lifted from the suitcase a soft silky slip trimmed with lace. She handled it carefully, as though it might shatter. Before I could stop her, she had raised it to my face, and had run the fabric across my cheek. “Isn’t that the softest thing you’ve ever felt? She bought it to wear for Max. She showed it to me. She wanted to sneak into his room that night, since his roommate had already gone home. But…she never got the chance… She had it laying out on the bed when she…”

Dana pulled it away from my cheek and folded it neatly. She picked up a Polaroid picture I had not seen, and looked lovingly at it. “Look how beautiful.”

Only my eyes moved down to the photograph. It was the same one I’d seen in his room. Max was behind her hugging her with both arms, and looking happier than I had ever seen him in life. He was holding her tighter than he had held me, and they looked closer than I felt I had even imagined being with him. She was laughing and looking away. It was the prettiest I had ever seen her look. She was not posing or trying. She looked like a real person. And that might have been the worst part.

It was one thing when I thought of her as a marble statue, always posed and so very intentionally everything she was. It was another to think of her as most people must, and to imagine that she was probably out there somewhere living and breathing like a real person, Or worse, that she wasn’t. Everyone loved her. Everyone talked about her. Everyone showed it by wearing T-shirts in her name. She must have had something special. It was only me who hated her. Resented her. Envied her.

Dana set down the picture, and took out an envelope. It was filled with folded notes. She opened a few of them.

Meet me at the beach at midnight.

I can’t wait until later.

Same thing this time—you know I’m looking forward to it.

“No more.” I said it without even meaning to. Dana smiled and closed the envelope.

I looked down at my own bracelet. Suddenly it didn’t seem as sweet. He’d done almost the exact same thing for Becca.

“Maybe you can see now what I’ve been trying to tell you?” Dana looked from my wrist up to me and folded the notes in my hand. Only then did I become aware that my face was hot and that there were cool streaks from tears on my cheeks.

The second she looked back to the suitcase, I stood and ran from the room. I ran all the way down to the boys’ dorms, without even glancing to see if I was going to be caught.

This was it: my breaking point.

I knocked on his door, and Max opened it looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything!”

My voice was not low.

He glanced around. “Why don’t we go outside or something?”

“No. I want to talk now.”

“People are going to listen if we’re in here.” He said it very matter-of-factly, and as if he knew what I was going to say.

“I don’t care, they’re all just going to make up stuff about me anyway, it may as well be true.”

He didn’t listen. He pulled me from the hall and all the way outside.

“What isn’t good enough about me?” I asked, my chest hot with the fire of everything.

I felt like it was all crashing down on me. Guilt and embarrassment for being so childish, but frustration and anger at Max for still never telling me what all the secrets were that had to do with Becca.

“Where is this coming from?” he asked.

I took a second to breathe and not spew childlike complaints. He waited quietly for me to compose myself.

“It’s because…” I started. “Dana just showed me a bunch of Becca’s things from her suitcase. A picture…her jewelry…her present to you…your present to her…”

I cringed as I thought of the silken nightie that Dana had touched my face with. Max looked down at his watch.

Impatience rose in me. “What, do you have plans to get somewhere? Why are you looking at your—”

“No.”

Then it occurred to me. “Was that from her?” It was a wild guess.

He said nothing, but unlatched it and started to put it in his pocket.

I held out a hand and asked quietly, “May I see it?”

He hesitated but then handed it to me. It was as if I knew what I was looking for. There it was, engraved on the back of the face.

Max and Becca, for the rest of time.

I nodded and handed it back.

“When you say my present to her…do you mean the locket Dana found in the supply closet?”

I suppressed the memory of that night, and how it had been to be so close to Max in the dark. “Yes, that one.”

“I didn’t buy that for her. She just said I did.”

“Really.”

“Yes. It was a ploy to make everyone think we were the happiest couple or whatever.”

“Well, I guess it worked.” I knew it was immature. I knew that I wasn’t helping my case if I wanted to be appealing. But I just couldn’t help it.

“I’m sorry. Please just don’t think about her. It doesn’t have anything to do with…”

He trailed off, because there was no “us.” There was no “this.”

I stood. “I’m sorry, too. I should have known better.”

I turned and went back inside. He didn’t follow me. The farther I got without being chased, the bigger the lump in my throat got and the hotter my cheeks turned.