Chapter 4
DENALI
THE BAD GUY OF THE STORY
When I pictured meeting Raya Giallo again—Zariah Contractor—I didn’t think I’d be losing my mind in the backseat of Elijah’s car to a goosebump-inducing horror score on the stereo.
Dun-dun dun. Dadada dun-dun duuuun.
From the passenger seat, Zariah peeked over her shoulder, her dark eyes were on mine. They were breathtaking. It’d always amazed me how much her eyes reflected, how a million sparkling lights danced in her irises.
Gazing into Zariah’s eyes was like gazing into the stars. It always was. It always would be.
She jerked away to stare out the window again. Neck burning, I forced myself to do the same.
I had no idea what to say and the drive would finish too soon, I could see Roman Villa in the distance.
The athletics dorm was a way nicer and way more sprawling home than I ever had in Michigan.
Marrs was the same, I’d gotten lost a couple of times when I first arrived, but now everything felt so claustrophobic.
Zariah worked for the freshmen dorms, only a five-minute walk from RV. Five minutes? This was fucking insane. My first year as hockey captain, and I’d be five minutes from the girl who shattered my heart.
What the hell happened to my life being at its peak?
Elijah parked outside of RV and opened his door. “Did the typewriter accident happen before or after the flight, Z?”
“Typewriter?” I repeated, slipping out of the car. “Hersch’s typewriter?”
Hersch’s typewriter was vintage, one of a kind. Every time I walked into his apartment, I’d see Zariah hunched over the typewriter, her perfect lips twisted in concentration. It was adorable.
Hersch would glance my way, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “The artist’s hard at work, eh?”
I’d sit on the plastic-covered couch and wait for Zariah to finish, watching her fingers smudge the table with ink, leaving little fingerprints. One time, Hersch grabbed me by the jacket before I could bike home, pointing to the inky-black fingerprints on my neck that I forgot to wash off…
“What?” Elijah had an amused expression that was uncannily like Hersch’s. He popped the trunk to reveal the fucked-up box. “Is his typewriter famous or something?”
I cleared my throat. “Uh…I figured we were talking about him and…”
The flimsy excuse stuck to the roof of my mouth, but Elijah seemed satisfied. Zariah, on the other hand, muttered under her breath, yanking her luggage from the trunk.
Inside Roman Villa, mascots were jumping in the lobby, there were tables with organizations to join, and new posters were being taped up. It was packed. There was only one day left until the fall semester began. Everyone was downstairs to welcome in students.
I kept close while Zariah grabbed something from the desk assistant station.
The guy behind the desk grimaced. “How much did they bribe you?”
“Not nearly enough,” she replied, heading to the elevators, us right behind her.
I tried to stay subtle as I drank her in. She’d changed so much.
Five years ago, Zariah was lean and gawky. Her voice cracked constantly around people, then she’d throw herself into the conversation to overcompensate for the nervousness, leading to this cycle of damage control. She used to apologize so much for it.
Now? Her voice never faltered. People reached out to hug her on our way to the elevator. Others yelled at her, and she yelled back. She shoved herself into people’s spaces without saying sorry for it. She even elbowed away a couple making out in the elevator to press the button for our floor.
It was so different. She was so different.
On the seventh floor, Zariah whirled around. “Stop following us. We’re here, you can go.”
She obviously wanted to stop by Elijah’s room first and didn’t know we were roommates yet. Fuck. How was I supposed to explain this?
“Z, didn’t I tell you?” Elijah asked.
She frowned. “Tell me what?”
“Denali’s my roommate.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
I couldn’t understand the look on her face until I saw the empty corkboard behind her, and the empty room across from ours. Every floor had a resident assistant to look after them for the year, and Elijah motioned towards it.
Oh, shit.
“We’re living across from you,” Elijah said.
A range of emotions hit me. Zariah wasn’t working with the freshmen dorms, she wasn’t a five-minute walk away. Zariah was across the fucking hall. The realization stunned me. I’d see her constantly. We both knew Elijah, she’d undoubtedly be at hockey games, and now she’d be our neighbor?
Understanding fluttered across Zariah’s face before she made inhuman noises. “Captains have their own dorms—”
“I didn’t want Elijah to live alone,” I heard myself say.
“We’re a lot sappier now.” Elijah grinned.
How did he not pick up on the tension? How? Every few seconds, Zariah and I glanced at each other and turned away. We did it so many times my neck was starting to hurt.
Elijah continued, clueless to the undercurrent of the conversation, “I can’t believe how corny—”
“Elijah,” Zariah interrupted. “Get the rest of my bags.”
“Pssh, you have to ask nice—”
“I need to deep clean the room, do you want to do that instead?” she snapped. “Do you want to scrub the toilet? Dig the hair out of the drain?”
“Oof. Never mind, I’ll get the bags.” Elijah turned for the elevator. “Denali?”
“Denali’s staying with me,” Zariah said. Her tone was so icy, a chill ran up my spine, and the way she said it left me unsteady.
Elijah shoved his hands in his pockets. “I have two handlers now, huh?” His smile faltered. “Yeah…I deserve it.”
The elevator doors closed, and Elijah was gone. With Zariah, his mood had picked up. I could easily see how happy he was to finally have his sister home.
His sister. Jesus Christ.
What would Elijah say when I told him? Did he know about me?
A yank on my hoodie dragged me backwards, and I stumbled along with Zariah when she pulled me into her new room, letting the door shut behind me. “Denali, what the hell? Are you stalking me again?”
“Again?” I repeated, dumbfounded. When did I ever stalk Zariah? I wasn’t some weirdo creeping through the bushes, keeping tabs on her. “I had no idea you were Elijah’s sister—”
She jabbed a finger to my chest, backing me up to the door like she wasn’t five-foot-two. “Bull-fucking-shit.”
“It’s the truth! Raya Giallo, Zariah Contractor, how was I supposed to know you’re the same person?”
“Oh, really? You just happened to stumble onto my university, make friends with my brother, play for his hockey team, and live on the same floor as us?! That’s a lot of fucking coincidences!”
“You’re right,” I said, irritation creeping into my tone because she was the one who hurt me. “It is a lot of weird coincidences—"
“Am I supposed to believe you never saw photos of me?”
“I had a USAC championship to win in the spring, and our first Gladiators coach went to prison for money laundering—we’re not chicks giggling over social media crap! We didn’t have the time! I had no idea—” I narrowed my eyes. “Like you didn’t know who I was?”
“Olesky was on the website—”
“No. At the airport. Were you acting like that to piss me off?”
“Oh, fucking please.”
I stepped closer. “I took your virginity. Don’t pretend like you don’t know who I am.”
“Try again.” She glared. “I took yours first.”
Embarrassment rushed through me at the memory, a dark and sweaty three minutes in a storage closet at hockey camp.
No, three minutes was generous. I was so fucking mortified.
My parents refused to let me own a phone, so I wrote Zariah a dozen apology letters to shove in her locker and bought her a choclava extreme at Hersch’s favorite bakery to make up for it.
“Elijah and I don’t talk about hockey,” she said through gritted teeth. “I knew he was spending time with his new captain, but I didn’t know the new captain was you.”
I paused, taken aback. Zariah and I met at a summer hockey camp. That was the whole reason we knew each other. “You don’t play hockey anymore?”
She ignored the question. “Shit, Elijah. If he finds out that you’re the psycho-obsessive boy, he'll lose it.” She bit her lip. “I get Elijah out of trouble, I don’t put him in it—”
“Pyscho-obsessive? Psycho-obsessive?”
“You said you’d kill yourself if anything happened to me,” she said flatly.
A beat passed. I swallowed. “I don’t remember that.”
“Lie to me again.”
“I was drunk,” I tried instead.
“No, you weren’t.”
“Riah—” I stopped myself, a shortened version of her name slipping out.
It wasn’t Raya but it was way too familiar for this conversation.
I couldn’t make a brand-new nickname for her.
I quickly corrected myself. “Zariah, I was fifteen and stupid and you were the only girl I’ve ever—I had these feelings I didn’t know what to do with—”
“I was fifteen and stupid too,” she repeated. “And my grandpa was dying. I couldn’t deal with that and you.”
“I didn’t want you to deal with me—”
“I needed a friend, I needed support, and you weren’t that guy. You liked the easy sex, mistook that dopamine rush for something else, and panicked when you thought you were going to lose it.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I said incredulously. “I wasn’t only looking to get my rocks off—”
“I have the proof. I have the letters!”
“You kept my letters?”
Zariah and I fell silent. The silence was so thick, I had to take deep breaths to breathe through it. We watched each other, too close and not close enough.
My brain was numb, only one thought registered.
Zariah kept my letters.
The letters began when my parents dragged me on weekend camping trips and I sent her postcards, but then we were sending letters just to send letters.
Two constant corresponding conversations between us until the mailman groaned every time he saw me sprinting to his truck when he crossed into our neighborhood.
The same letters that were hidden at my family’s home in Michigan.