backed away, watching as she very slowly and carefully removed each layer. When she got to the pillow, she stopped for a minute and gave it a very slight squeeze before removing its case. Odd. But I said nothing.
When she finished, Dana walked silently back to her side of the room, and removed her own sheets, replacing them with Becca’s. I got a chill, and then realized the noise had resumed outside.
Once she’d finished, she lay down in the sheets and closed her eyes. I averted mine quickly, feeling as though I was spying on someone unaware of my presence.
My suitcases hadn’t arrived yet, so I just sat down on the nylon-encased mattress that was begrudgingly left for me. With a furtive glance in my roommate’s direction, I leaned forward and looked at the Polaroid pictures on the wall across from me.
Most of them starred a pretty girl with long, platinum-blond hair. She was pretty in that sort of affected way that you can tell she practiced. Maybe I was wrong, maybe that’s how she always looked, but to me she seemed a little pinched. I noticed in one picture that she was one of those girls who looked good in a hat. I always look stupid in them.
I scanned the snapshots of her with different friends, almost always posed and never candid, and usually including someone who was probably her boyfriend. There was more than one picture of them kissing. He was really good-looking. Not just hot or sexy, but handsome in that kind of old-fashioned way. His hair was dark and his eyes were light. He wasn’t smiling in any of the pictures, and something about him made it hard to look away.
All the girls stood with their stomachs sucked in and their hands on their hips, either squinting “sexily” at the camera or making some other very-on-purpose facial expression. Madison and Julia, the girls I’d just met, were in several of them. I could already tell that they weren’t the kind of people that I was used to being around.
Suddenly my bright pink toenail polish looked tacky, and my clothes ratty.
I was startled a moment later by a knock at the door. I glanced at Dana, who didn’t move.
“Come in?” I said, standing. It was Madison and Julia, who, clearly, never left each other’s sides.
“So, are you down to come to the party later?” Julia asked.
“Is it like a school thing?”
Madison furrowed her brows, still smiling. “No?”
I hesitated, weighing the options between risking getting in trouble but being social and taking the safe route of staying in my room. What was the worst that could happen, I’d have to transfer back home?
“Yeah, sure.”
They both smiled, said, “Cool,” and then they walked off, leaving Dana and me alone again, as if the brief exchange had never happened.
“Are you going?”
Her eyes opened, and she stared at the ceiling. “Maybe. Probably not.”
“Okay.” I sat back down.
She grabbed her book and went back to “reading.”
After a few more minutes, my things finally arrived, and I told the guy to just go ahead and set them on the floor. I stood above the pile, considering it for a long moment.
“Dana?” I said quietly. She looked up, and I withered. “Sorry. Um. Do you think … Should I take down these pictures and the frames and everything?”
She said nothing. This was unnecessarily uncomfortable.
“I mean … I could pack them up ….” I trailed off lamely, not looking forward to the prospect.
She still said nothing. All I wanted to do was text Leah and share with her how completely, totally weird this all was. I wanted to tell her how I couldn’t wait until next year; we’d both been accepted to Florida State University and fully intended to be roommates.
Instead, my phone sat in some lockbox downstairs, and I tried to arrange my things neatly and accessibly in my boxes and suitcases. After that quick task, I lay down in my new bed and tried to ignore the bright blue eyes staring down at me from almost every picture. I picked up the first Harry Potter book in an effort to get excited about boarding school again, and waited quietly in my bed for Madison and Julia to fetch me for the party that would begin it all.
chapter 2 becca
One year ago
“I MEAN, CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY SENT ME HERE?” Becca sat, legs and arms crossed, in the backseat, complaining to the taxi driver she wasn’t even sure spoke English. He nodded every now and again, but that was about it. She didn’t even care, she was venting. “And you know why?”
The driver made eye contact with her in the rearview mirror.
Becca leaned forward. “Because I can’t ‘keep my grades up.’ They think that’ll be easier here? All of these kids probably study nonstop. They’re probably all supersmart.” She sat back again, with a disgruntled noise. “I mean that’s not the only reason they made me come. I just … I hate both of my parents. My mom used to be okay, but now she just does whatever my dad says.”
Nod from the driver.
“Yeah, it sucks. They don’t know how to handle me so therefore they—what—ship me off? That is fantastic parenting.” She was silent for a moment before another thought struck her. “This is their fault anyway. Isn’t it all about the parenting? Isn’t the ‘troubled teenager’ thing just the lashing out of an ignored or neglected child?”
Nod.
“Exactly. See, even you understand it.” She sighed as they pulled up to Manderley. “But I don’t know. Maybe this will be better.”
The taxi stopped by all the others along the very long entryway road, and the driver got out to remove her suitcases and boxes.
“Lot of stuff,” he remarked with a smile when Becca clicked over in her high-heeled boots to join him at the back of the van.
“Yes, because this is my last two freaking years of high school, and they don’t even want me at home. So I just brought all of it with me.”
Nod. “Pay.” He held out a hand.
“Ah.” She dug into her purse. “You do accept cards, right? Cards?” She held one up when he clearly didn’t know what she was saying.
Nod.
She looked down at her things, and then at the sidewalk, which was another six or seven feet. Becca smiled and looked at the driver. “Could you be a sweetheart and move them up there for me? Please?”
He cleared his throat and then did as she asked. When he came back, she handed him her credit card and waited. He brought back a receipt. She signed it, putting twenty dollars on the tip line. The next minute, he was back in the car and driving off.
For the briefest of moments, she felt weird watching him go. She was alone. This was her first year
