“It’s weird, Celeste. Being covered in bruises. I don’t want to
lie to David if he asks how you’re doing.”
“Don’t tell him anything,” she said. “I mean it.” Her sharp jaw
clamped together and appeared even more angular than usual.
The thumping was now thunderous, hundreds of students
slamming their feet down in unison. The energy made my face
hot. I had to raise my voice.
“I only would because we worry about you. If you’re being
hurt in some way . . .”
“Shh! I’m not.” Her eyes bored into mine. “If I tell you, will
you shut up about it already? You’re as bad as my smothering
brother.”
“Okay,” I said.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Celeste stared up at the organ pipes behind the dais. “I’m
getting my blood tested to make sure there’s nothing wrong, like
some sort of condition that’s making me bruise easily.”
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“What do we eat? What do we eat?” The cry came from a
group of senior football players at the back of the chapel.
“Condition? Like what?” I said.
“Red meat! Red meat!” the rest of the student body
answered, shouting.
She shrugged.
Bruises. Blood test. “Like . . . like leukemia?” I said. My
stomach rolled.
“What do we eat? What do we eat?” Louder this time.
“That’s just the worst possibility,” Celeste said. “It’s probably
not that.”
“Red meat!! Red meat!!”
Probably? “Celeste, aren’t you worried? Don’t you want to
tell David? I’m sure he’d go with you to the doctor.”
“No!” she snapped. “Don’t tell David anything.”
“What do we eat? What do we eat?” Full-throated hollers
now.
“But—”
“Don’t tell David anything,” Celeste said, “and I won’t have
to tell him about your little pill problem.”
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The rows of heads filling the pews swam in and out of focus.
A wave of nausea passed through me.
“Red meat!!! Red meat!!!” everyone screamed.
“My pill problem?” Toby’s laughter behind me reminded me
he was there. Could he have heard any of this over the
commotion in the chapel? I lowered my voice again. “You must be
kidding. I don’t have a problem.”
“How do we like it?” the seniors bellowed.
“I could convince David you do,” Celeste said. “You know
he’d believe me. I’ve seen what’s in your owl, Leena.”
“RAW!!!!!!”
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Chapter 33
DESPITE THE COLD PANIC in my chest and the flashes of
heat on my skin, somehow I made it through the assembly. The
walk home blurred by as I stared at my feet and told myself that
everything was under control, that Celeste wouldn’t tell David. I
wasn’t doing anything wrong by having medications, of course,
but I didn’t trust that he’d understand my explanation—especially
not if he asked where I got them all from.
Back at the dorm, I snagged Cubby off the windowsill and a
plastic bag out of the trash can—appropriately one from Barcroft
Drugs. I opened Cubby and let the small baggies of pills tumble
into the bigger bag, tied the handles in a knot with shaking hands,
then stashed it in the closet, snug between the foam mattress
and the wall. If Celeste did tell, I could at least make sure she
didn’t have any evidence. Sweat trickled down my spine; chills ran
through me. A sharp pain stabbed at my temples and sent my
brain spinning.
I shut the closet door and locked it from the inside, curled up
in the corner, and wrapped my arms around myself, not sure if I
was trembling from nerves or from cold. Should I take a pill? I
wondered. No. This wasn’t that big a deal. Everything was fine.
Being inside here, quiet and safe, was enough. My headache and
chills didn’t lessen, but, slowly, I did feel calmer. As if warm milk
had been infused into my veins.
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If I could stay in here all the time, I wouldn’t need any pills.
Being out of panic mode, though, didn’t mean my worry was
erased. Certainly not about Celeste’s bruises. I found it hard to
believe that she wouldn’t tell David if she thought she had a blood
disorder. As much as she fought against it, I still knew she loved to
have as much of his attention as possible. Why wouldn’t she want
him to know she might be sick?
And even if she did have some condition that made her
bruise easily, would the bruises be so prominent that they
freaked out Nicole? Was any of this related to Celeste’s broken
leg? Or her burn? Maybe she was hurting herself on purpose, like
she used to cut, and that’s why she didn’t want David to know. I
felt around the mattress until I found Cubby, then held her in
both hands and wished for her wisdom. If Celeste was hurting
herself, I’d have to do something.
Or is someone else doing it to her?
A possibility, of course. One almost more disturbing than the
alternatives. But Whip wasn’t there when she broke her leg, and
who else—
Don’t you know?
An idea was scrabbling to get in my brain. I didn’t want it.
Someone who needs her to feel vulnerable. So he can take
care of her.
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Nausea gripped my body. I threw Cubby away from me and
pressed into the corner, away from my thoughts and her voice.
How could I have even let myself think that? Where had that
come from? Still, as I pressed back and tried to shut out more
words, they came again.
You won’t let yourself think it; it feels too true.
My gut surged upward. I was actually going to be sick. One
hand covered my mouth, the other fumbled for the slide lock.
I made it to the toilet just in time. The tile floor pressed
rocklike and cold under my knees. A convulsive wave ripped
through me. I grasped at the edges of the seat and heaved. Acid
burned a path through my throat. This happened over and over,
until the chilly floor held my empty, outer shell as I shook and
cried.
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Chapter 34
I ALTERNATED BETWEEN HUNCHING over the toilet,
sleeping on the inhospitable but convenient tiles, and curling up
in the closet, shivering, sweating, drifting off into half sleeps,
feeling so weak I couldn’t even reach up to lock the door. My
limbs were glued to the ground until a subtle movement in my
gut gave me the adrenaline to somehow make it to the bathroom
for the next round. My head pounded and I imagined a
construction worker slamming his hammer into it, over and over.
I think David cal ed. I think I told him not to come by. Celeste
offered to help when she heard me puking, but I told her to leave
me alone. What could they have done, anyway?
After a spell in the bathroom sometime on Saturday, I
dragged myself on hands and sore knees into the hall and back
into my room. I couldn’t even walk.
“Leen? Are you okay?”
My neck ached as I moved my heavy head to look at the
shadowy figure sitting on my bed. Viv.
“Mm.” A bleat was all I could manage. My throat screamed.
My mouth was dry as salt. Even my lips hurt.
She materialized next to me, kneeling, touching my hair. “I
heard you when I was coming in. How long have you been sick?”
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“Mm.”
The cool, soft skin of the back of her hand rested on my
forehead.
“You’re burning. We’ve got to go to the infirmary. Can you
make it?”
“Mm.”
“Can you stand up?”
An arm wrapped around me. I pressed into the floor.
Light slipped away.
In the dark, my mother came. Ice slid down my neck. I
shivered. “Here,” my mother said. The blanket was too heavy, too
hot. Where was Cubby? A rumble beneath me jostled my bones.
Like driving on a cobblestone street. White light split open my
head. My mother stood in the beam, holding Cubby.
“Don’t take her,” I said.
“I’m here,” my mother said. “You don’t need it.” She moved
Cubby behind her back.
“You’re always taking things from me.”
She brought her hands in front again. Cubby was gone.
Disappeared. “Don’t you see?” she said.
I tried to reach. To find, to touch her. The light flickered off.
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I spent days in the infirmary, recovering from the virus and
severe dehydration. It took a while before I was able to eat even a
cracker without bringing it back up. My head ached all the time.
I’d imagined my mother’s presence, of course. But even though
the dream hadn’t been a good one, I wanted her so badly that I
called her several times. I couldn’t ever talk long, and later I
couldn’t even remember the conversations, but in my weakened
state even hearing her say my name helped. I knew I was acting
like a baby. That’s what I felt like.
Complicated, confusing thoughts unraveled as I grew
stronger, became more coherent. It comforted me to know that I
had been sick physically, when I’d come up with the suspicion
that David was hurting Celeste. When my mind felt clearer—
cleaner—I knew that wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. Usually, the
thoughts I had in Frost House, in the closet, felt like moments of
insight. But this time . . . it must have been my sickness talking.
As for Celeste’s bruises, though, I didn’t feel any clearer
about whether or not to believe it was a medical condition. And I
worried all the time that she had decided to make good on her
threat to tell David about me. But whenever David visited or
wrote or called, everything seemed fine. In fact, he made a point
of visiting twice a day, and bringing me little things he thought
would cheer me up—the apartments-for-rent section of the New
York Times, Life Savers, the miniature metal wrench from an
abandoned Clue game. “It made me think of you,” he said. “Miss
Fix-it.”
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And, best of all, one of his spoons. He said it was a special,
chicken-soup spoon. I slept with it under my pillow.
The day they finally deemed me strong enough to go home, I
walked back to Frost House slowly and carefully, still getting my
sea legs. It was the middle of a class period; campus was eerily
still. And even though I’d only been in the infirmary for a few
days, the season seemed to have jumped forward. So many more
trees were bare than I remembered. Silver trunks stretched up to
skinny, naked branches.
Then I saw Frost House. Waiting for me. The evergreen
bushes surrounding her made sure she wasn’t too exposed. She
looked just as cozy as she had the day I’d moved in. Just as
welcoming as the first day I’d seen her, when I knew I had to live
there. And, like that day, I could almost hear her calling out to
me.
The door to my room was unlocked, not surprisingly. I’d
hardly been in a state to lock it when I left. I opened it and for a
moment felt as if I was coming upon the room as a stranger. Look
at how beautiful it was! Full of light and color and warmth. Not
very neat, but still . . . God, I’d missed it.
My plants didn’t seem to be thirsty. Pressing a finger into the
soil confirmed they’d been watered recently. And—wait. They’d
gotten sun, too. The window shades were all rolled up. My pulse
quickened. I’d kept the shades down when I was sick, to block the
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painful light. Someone had been in here. Someone had been in
my room.
What else? What else had been touched?
Cubby. She wasn’t on the windowsill. Where was she? I went
into the closet. Shelf—no. Floor—no. Wait. Yes. In the corner. I
grabbed her and brought her to me, noticing her lightness, and
how nothing inside her shifted with the movement.
Then I remembered.
My hand searched in the crack between mattress and wall.
Only when I felt the plastic bag did I release my breath. I brought
the pills out into the light of the bedroom to make sure they were
all there. As far as I could tell they were. But the paper . . . my
sheet of paper was gone.
I knelt down again, feeling all the way around the mattress.
Nothing.
I’d look insane if anyone saw that page of notes. Celeste
knew about it—she’d seen it that time she’d discovered I kept my
meds there. Maybe she took it to show David? He’d seemed fine
when he visited. Maybe she was holding on to it. For now. Biding
her time.
I sat on the bed and tried to remember the afternoon when
I’d gotten sick, but it was all scrambled. My mind had been so
messed up. I glanced around the room for clues. A pile of clothes
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sat on my dresser. Red sweater. Right—the clothes I’d thrown up
on that first day. But they were all folded and clean, now.
I was still staring at them when my phone rang. David,
wanting to know if I was up to dinner in Commons. His voice
sounded normal, happy I was home.
“Not really,” I said. “Could you bring something by when
you’re done?”
“I wish I could,” he said. “But I have to rush to a movie
screening for English. Do you want me to come visit later? Like
nine or so?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll be too tired, though.”
“Do you think you’ll be well enough to come on Sunday?”
“Sunday?”
“My mom’s party. Did you forget?”
“Oh, right,” I said, and then after a pause, “Will Celeste be
there?”
“Of course. She and I are going home on Saturday. My mom
really wants to meet you.”
“I want to meet her, too,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll be able to go.”
A knock on the door startled me awake. How long had I been
asleep? I put on my glasses and saw it was a couple of hours later.
My stomach grumbled. The knock came again.
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“Come in.”
The open door revealed Viv, standing with a red-and-white-
checked cardboard take-out box from Commons in her hands.
