Chapter Three
Three
THE SUN POSITIVELY SCORCHES, THREATENING to leave behind nothing but my liquefied insides and a melted puddle of plastic that was once this container of decor, which I’m now convinced I no longer need.
I swear, my shoes sizzled when I stepped onto the blacktop.
The parking lot is so packed, I’ve left my car in the fire lane as I unload, unwilling to add even a few more feet to my journey to and from my new apartment.
I’m thanking every god I’ve ever heard of that it’s on the first floor, because stairs might kill me at this point.
I got a head start on my full-body sweat when I stepped into the UGH leasing office earlier to pick up my key.
I was certain the police would be waiting to haul me off in handcuffs after they figured out I’d forged Victor’s signature on the lease they’d emailed me, which required a parental cosigner.
Luckily, I still had Victor’s income information and signature on file from my financial aid applications, which was easier than digging around in Mom’s filing cabinet for something of hers to use.
But all I found in the leasing office was a girl not much older than me, who gave my ID a perfunctory glance before handing over the key that would let me into the dead-silent apartment. (Another stroke of luck: no one is home to see me make my sad, sweaty journey with my worldly possessions.)
It feels like the least the universe could do for me after everything, and especially after the last twenty-four hours, which truly put the rotten cherry on top of the garbage sundae of this whole situation.
Leni, Starr, and I were supposed to caravan to school together today.
We had playlists synced up, and had planned which rest stops we’d use and where we’d eat lunch.
It was supposed to be the opening ceremony to the rest of our lives, yet despite their insistence that we’re still friends, of course we’re still friends, I had to see on social media that they left yesterday.
Without me. Without even talking to me first.
In fact, we haven’t spoken once since the night they kicked me out, and after a week of silence, I’ve become painfully aware how small my world is, especially since I broke up with Kyle last month, cutting my social circle down to two.
Every buzz of my phone has me jumping for it, stupidly thinking that it might be my best friends realizing they’d forgotten to check in on me once.
Mikey, a virtual stranger, has been my most consistent contact, texting me nonstop about how excited she is for me to move in.
She’s also taken to calling me “Bee” exclusively.
I’d barely driven three hundred feet from the house—leaving Mom, the only one home, tearful in the driveway with Goose straining on his leash, unbothered—when the panic hit me that this was really happening.
The thoughts that had plagued me all week came roaring back, and I pulled to the side of the road just shy of the neighborhood exit as it all rushed in: What am I thinking?
I can’t go live with a bunch of strangers!
I don’t even know how to talk to people who aren’t Starr and Leni.
I made it through my call with Felicity and Mikey off sheer adrenaline, but living with them and two guys?
What if I have to use the guys’ bathroom because Felicity or Mikey is in the shower?
What if they want to use mine? What if one of them brings a girl home?
Do I have to hide in my room with the door shut while they’re on their date?
What if we have to, like, sit down and have a totally normal conversation?
On the cusp of making it all a reality, it took me twice as long to breathe through the panic as it had earlier in the week, before my car was packed and my house in my rearview mirror.
When I finally got my hands to stop shaking, I employed what has become my foolproof calming method: I scrolled over to my inbox and read, once more, the welcome email from Stone or the leafless tree with anatomical hearts speared on each branch, blood pooling into a soft cloud to cradle one small heart at the very bottom.
I’m not first-generation American, and I’m not Black or Vietnamese, and I still probably haven’t had half the life experience Deonne had had by the time she made those sculptures.
At fourteen, I’d never even skipped school, been kissed, or had a meaningful fight with my parents. I’m a white girl from the suburbs.
But Deonne’s art made contact. Over the years, I’ve followed her online religiously as she’s revealed new pieces focused on the immigrant experience, familial expectations, grief over her father’s death, and the warmth of her mother’s love and support.
I’ve felt it all so deeply, it was like she’d reached into my chest and touched my beating heart.
The walls were closing in, but there was a sense of hope and peace that I’d never felt before while looking at art. I didn’t know art could feel like this.
To learn from her, I can bear anything—a new apartment, new roommates.
I can even deal with the mess I found when I arrived at UGH this morning: the haphazard pile of shoes by the front door, the dishes stacked in the sink, and the carpet that probably hasn’t seen the underside of a vacuum in at least a month, though you’d never know from the dusty brown color of it.
Maybe if Leni and Starr had talked to me just once, I could’ve quietly dealt with their messes too. They didn’t even give me a chance to try. Was I really that terrible? Do I need to be an entirely different Blair to make sure I don’t get kicked out by a whole new set of roommates?
I almost count myself lucky that it’s too hot to worry about anything but getting my belongings inside as quickly as possible. No time to panic when you’re slowly being scorched from the earth.
It takes me five trips in total. The apartment, already on the warm side, has turned muggy from the constant in and out.
I lift the bottom of my shirt, scrubbing it over my face as I catch my breath.
I’m panting loud enough to wake the dead, which I guess is why I don’t hear the sound that comes from deeper in the apartment: a door creaking open, footsteps on carpet.
I’m still standing there with my face buried in damp, scratchy polyester, my torso and sweat-soaked bra exposed for all the world, when a voice grumbles, “What the hell’s with all the noise? ”
I scream, dropping my shirt as I stagger back.
My foot catches on one of my containers, and my arms pinwheel as I trip backward over it.
My elbow catches the wall as I go down, and I land in a heap, half scrunched against the wall with my legs thrown over the container, one flip-flop lost and the other dangling from my toes like a Christmas ornament.
I close my eyes tightly.
“Holy shit.”
“I’m—I’m okay,” I choke out at the same time that he says, “You just put a hole in the wall.”
My eyes pop open, and I look up. Sure enough, there’s an elbow-shaped impact site knocked straight through the drywall.
I wince. “I’m so sorry. You scared me.” I struggle to right myself, pulling my legs the rest of the way over the container. “I didn’t think anyone was home.”
But when I sit up, I freeze. The boy has moved to the end of the hall, rubbing a hand over his short brown hair, his sleepy hazel eyes going alert when he sees my face.
My own eyes must look the same. It’s the type of sharpness that can only come from recognition.
Because Jamie Atwater has just stepped out of the shadowed hall and into the sunlit living room.
I met Jamie for the first time when I was eleven years old.
Mom and Victor had just announced their engagement, prompting Sawyer to put his fist through his bedroom wall.
It was the last straw before Victor finally convinced Mom to send Sawyer to anger management, something we could never have afforded before Victor came into our lives.
Mom, who was fresh out of a yearslong holistic phase, thought group therapy would be a good way for Sawyer to learn coping mechanisms without feeling alone and adrift in his rage, like some kind of monster.
(Pre-therapy, his only coping mechanism was screaming, breaking stuff, and then hiding in a crawl space he’d found in the back of his closet.
My brother, the only person in the world who finds small spaces comforting.)
Within a few weeks, Sawyer started talking about his new friend from therapy, and even though Mom and Victor didn’t discourage him from meeting people, I could tell the idea of my angry brother linking up with another angry kid made them nervous.
Then one day, Mom and I arrived to pick Sawyer up, and there was a long-haired boy standing with him at the curb.
He was small—smaller than any boys in my class, a year below them, let alone the seventh-grade class, where half the boys had already hit puberty, shooting up like magic beanstalks.
But I noticed, as I very subtly twisted around and stared at him from my spot in the front seat—prompting shouting protests from Sawyer, which I ignored—that he had big hands and feet.
Not unlike our new puppy, Goose, who the veterinarian said had a long way to grow.