“Okay.” I didn’t know who Ray was. And showing off my boxes? That was the last thing I wanted to do. Willa must have read my mind. “Everybody shares,” she said, her voice firm.
Nurse Jill handed them to me. “Take these to the nurses’ station to get checked. Everybody who receives a package needs to get it cleared.” I nodded and tried to cram them both under my cardigan, hoping no one would notice. Unfortunately, my attempt to hide two boxes in my cardigan just made me look like I was trying to hide two boxes in my cardigan. I picked my way around the girls and walked to the nurses’ station.
A man stood at the counter. It had to be Ray. He was tall and looked like Idris Elba. Total crush material. “Well, what do we have here?” he asked. I dumped my packages on the counter and shrugged.
He smiled at me with perfect teeth. “I’m Ray. And you are?”
“Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth! Right! Well, hello, Elizabeth! So, you got two packages?” he said. “People must really like you!” He picked them up. “You want to know what’s in them?”
I shook my head. What I wanted was to open them myself. Opening them was the best part.
Ray seemed like a nice guy. I took a chance. “Ray, would it be okay if I didn’t look while you opened them? I sort of like the surprise.”
He nodded. “No problem. Turn around.”
I turned. I heard him slitting the tape on the boxes and easing at least one thing in and out of them.
“You can spin back around now. You’re going to love ’em,” he said, and then he directed his attention to Allie, who was behind me in line.
As I walked away I heard her squeal with excitement. I glanced back to see her holding what appeared to be a stuffed animal. A seal. “From my boyfriend, Hugh,” she gushed. “He knows I collect them.”
While she giggled, I snuck off to my room. The waterproof plastic cover under my sheets crackled like it always did when I sat on the bed. I picked up the second package first because I recognized the handwriting—Katrina.
I could have cried. A week earlier, Katrina had confronted me in the school cafeteria. It felt like a year ago. I’d planned to skip lunch and hide in the library, but Katrina found me and hustled me to our table, where Priya and Shay were already sitting, munching away. I didn’t have a lunch, so instead I put my backpack on the table to fill the empty space.
“Why aren’t you eating?” Katrina had never asked me that point-blank before. Every once in a while she’d ask if I wanted something when she went up to the lunch line, but I’d say I was full or make some joke. She always let it go. But she’d been acting funny the last couple of days.
“I’m full,” I’d said.
“From what?”
“What are you, the cafeteria food police?” I froze my face into a smile.
Katrina didn’t respond. “Guys, don’t you just want to make her eat a cookie?” She looked across the table to Priya and Shay. They shrugged and didn’t look at me.
Why should they have cared if I opted out of lunch? The three of them had inhaled their pizza. Only the standard-issue school Jell-O, red with Cool Whip on top, quivered on their blue plastic trays.
“Seriously. You’re going to make us self-conscious!” Priya spoke with her mouth full, the words muffled by pieces of a still-warm chocolate chip cookie she’d bought from the à la carte line. Priya ate everything in sight and always complained she couldn’t gain weight.
“Um … I bought a blueberry muffin during the study hall before assembly,” I said.
Katrina studied me. “Okay, if you say so. Except that today is Wednesday, and the Wednesday muffin is corn, so I guess you were lucky they made a blueberry one just for you.”
Crap. Wednesday. It had been so long since I’d bought anything from the cafeteria. Wednesday was corn. Of course. Monday was blueberry, Tuesday was apple, and Thursday was … what was it again? I couldn’t remember. Friday was chocolate chip. Damn. I sucked at lying.
“Just remember, Elizabeth.” Katrina balled up her lunch bag. “Starving yourself is so emo.” She turned on her heel and headed toward the trash can.
Emo. Melodramatic. Drama queen. Is that what Katrina really thought? I looked around at the stream of kids leaving the dining room. They laughed, chatted, and flirted. Only my skirt, purchased two weeks earlier and already loose on my hips, made me feel better. Katrina’s just jealous, I’d thought at the time. She’s never been a size 0.
We’d made up, but it was still weird after that.
But now here was proof that she didn’t hate me. I’d just stuck my hand in the box when Lexi entered, a big, soft package in her hand. Before I could ask about it, she tossed it on her bed like it hurt to hold and said, “Who’s yours from?”
“My best friend, Katrina.” Inside was a mangled Beanie Baby stuffed cat, most likely destroyed by her puppy, Lance. It came with a card covered with lots of BFFs and hearts, but they were all dripping red colored-pencil blood and looked drawn by some deranged creature. Inside, Katrina had written, Put this on your wall. The crazies will love it. Seriously, though, we miss you. Eat and get out of there! Love, Katrina, Shay, and Priya.
It was perfect. I laughed out loud.
“That’s sort of a disturbing present,” Lexi said, confused.
“No, it’s an inside joke,” I said.
The afternoon before I’d checked in, Katrina had come over. I couldn’t tell if she felt obligated or really wanted to say goodbye. “What can I send you?” she’d asked.
“I don’t know,” I’d replied. “Just promise me you won’t send me anything cheesy, like flowers with one of those tinfoil balloons, or anything that comes with a stuffed animal or has the word ‘BFF’ on it, okay?”
“Okay,” she’d promised.
Now, telling Lexi, I worried I might piss her off. I sort of doubted it, but what if she harbored a secret love for flowers, balloons, or teddy bears?
She wasn’t and didn’t. “I think Katrina is my new hero.”
I could have kissed that girl.
Her eyes lit up. “Are you going to put the card on our door? Please say yes. I love it so much.”
“Maybe.” But I knew that I wouldn’t. I wanted to keep it just for me.
“You got a package, too! What is it?” I asked, stashing mine under the bed and trying to ignore the thick knot of homesickness in my stomach.
Sighing, she looked at the box like she wished it would disappear, and then picked it up halfheartedly, pulling out a purple NYU T-shirt. “From my friend Molly.”
“Cool,” I said.
She shrugged. “I guess.” She frowned at the T-shirt, fiddling with the XS label inside. The muscles in her jaw flexed, and she sucked on a chunk of her hair.