Chapter 12
NOW
Paloma
“No fucking way,” I mutter, slowing the car to a crawl.
“It’s great, right?” Alessia calls through my phone speaker.
The street is nice, filled with homes owned by sweet families far out of my price range and a connected set of brick buildings with identical layouts—pretty brownstones that resemble a small Beacon Hill more than a strip of neighborhood closer to downtown Waterfell.
Something I could not afford in my wildest dreams.
“Yeah! If I was about fifteen tax brackets higher.”
“I don’t even think they have that many—”
“Alessia,” I beg. “Be so serious right now.”
“I am. Trust me. I talked to the girl renting it and she’s a doll. Just stop being so stubborn and fighting me at every corner. Go check it out and call me back after. Okay? Okay! Love you!” She sputters out the last of her words and quickly hangs up before I can argue further.
I slam a hand on the steering wheel in frustration, immediately preparing to throw the car in reverse and hightail it out of there. I can apologize to Alessia tomorrow and sleep in my car tonight.
Before I can back out someone calls for me to, “Wait!”
Out of the least decorated of the townhomes comes a girl in tall black boots, nylons, and a skirt, with a thick gray coat and scarf bundling her up nearly to her eyes. Her auburn hair is almost in a clip, but it’s lopsided, half fallen.
I recognize her immediately as the girl I ran into in the advisor building.
“Are you Paloma?” she asks, tripping over the end of the sidewalk and grabbing my rolled-down window with her gloved fingers. Blue eyes bright, she smiles and shoves her scarf down out of her mouth with her chin.
“I am—” I begin, but she cuts me off quickly.
“I’ve been waiting for you to show up all morning. Do you want to come inside? I can help you carry something?”
She looks like she’s pushing five feet, barely able to reach up to the window of my old SUV. I think anything heavier than fifty pounds might knock her over.
“I’m good. This is—” I shake my head as I look around again. “I don’t think I can live here.”
My tone is more defensive than I mean it, but I try to soften it.
“Oh.” She huffs a breath, biting on her lip and looking anywhere but my eyes. “But you haven’t even seen it.”
“It’s—”
“Just . . . I really need a roommate. Can you come in and see? It’s really nice, I promise.”
That’s the problem.
Something about her makes me pause. I want to leave.
There’s a shameful element to this for me.
But instead, I nod and direct her away from the window so I can park against the curb.
I tuck my sock-clad feet back into my clogs and hop down, not bothering to roll up the too-long legs of my jeans even as they graze the bits of clinging snow dusting the pavement.
“It’s freezing.” I say the words offhand, but she doesn’t reply, only watches me over her shoulder as she leads us up the front entryway stairs. The door is cracked open.
I follow her in, nearly slamming into her as she stalls in the barren entryway. I wait for her to continue, to direct me through the house on a tour, but her big blue eyes are staring at me now in curious wonder.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
Her mouth sinks into a frown. “I forgot to say that. It’s Lily.
” She chews on her lip for a moment. She gestures vaguely behind her and says, “The kitchen and living room are down here. And the office—but don’t go in there.
It’s . . . messy.” It doesn’t seem to be the word she was looking for, but she nods almost to herself and then looks back at me apprehensively.
I nod, mouth stuck because I can’t think of what to say to the weird girl scuffling her feet in the entryway as if she’s the guest.
“So—can I see the bedroom?”
“Oh, right. Yes.” She cuts up the stairs, only stopping at the top to wait for me to follow.
I climb up behind her, noting the elegant ornate fixtures and knowing this entire place is far above my price range, but humoring her nonetheless. Though I continue cursing Alessia in my head.
As we pass by the first bedroom, I peek through the open doorway, quickly scanning over the half-unpacked room with things scattered all around, the walls covered in posters of famous paintings I’m sure I’ve seen before.
“That one is my room.” She steps up beside me, glossing her eyes over the tornado-level mess of her bedroom. “Do you like van Gogh?”
“Hmm?”
“Van Gogh? He’s an artist. He—those are mostly his.” She fiddles with the hem of her skirt. “There’s some Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, but it’s mostly van Gogh.”
I nod without really knowing what she’s talking about, but it seems to please her. She walks with me to the other bedroom, which is much larger than any bedroom I’ve ever had before. It’s empty, for the most part, but there is a full-size bed and dresser already there.
“We can move the furniture out. My dad bought it from the people that lived here, and they used to rent it. But I think—”
“It’s fine.” I cross my arms, staring a little longingly at the space. “How much does it—”
“How much can you pay?”
My brow furrows.
“However much you can, I’ll take.” Her words border on desperation, and I step back.
“Why do you need a roommate so bad?” I ask. “I mean, this place is amazing, I’m sure you have tons of—”
“My dad said I have to find someone to live with me by the end of the week or I can’t stay here.
And . . . I really don’t want to move back in with him.
” Lily’s words are a little too loud, but she doesn’t seem to realize it.
“And you’re the first, like . . . nice person to show up .
. . and the first girl.” I nearly huff a laugh at her calling me nice but manage to smother it.
Her expression sours, but she puffs her chest up.
“I don’t want to live with a boy, but I will if I have to. ”
Yeah, not gonna happen.
“Okay. Tentatively, I say yes.”
“Really?” Her navy eyes brighten as her smile goes deliriously wide. She reaches out and takes my hand in hers. “When can you move in?”
I let out a laugh and shake my head, reluctantly already starting to like my new weird little roommate. Maybe this is exactly the kind of change I need.
· · ·
“I told you, you didn’t have to come with me,” I mutter, slumping in the chair and feeling more like an angsty teenager than the twenty-one-year-old college senior I am.
“What was that?” Alessia asks, tapping her fingers against her chin. “Didn’t hear you.”
Alessia Baudelaire is otherworldly beautiful.
Dressed like she’s on a Parisian weekend getaway, smoky eye and blood red lips, I can’t help but think she reminds me a little bit of Sadie Brown.
She’s got the build of a high fashion model, tall and leggy, with golden shimmery skin and dark brown eyes that are nearly black, even more intense with her near permanent scowl.
I might find her visually overdramatic now. But at eighteen, I’d found her intensity to be comforting, protective. She’d been my shield and sword that I trusted enough to hide behind.
And then I’d punished myself by shutting her out.
“I can do this myself. You don’t have to follow me around like you’re worried I’m going to off myself.”
“Hmm,” she mutters, still refusing to look at me. “I’ve blocked out the ability to hear bullshit actually, so—”
The door creaks open, the blond woman with kind eyes in the doorway watching as I stick my tongue out at Alessia. She smirks at me, murmuring “Very mature” under her breath as we both stand—her elegantly, me unfurling out of the chair like a clumsy house cat.
“Miss Blake?” The woman asks, eyes darting between the two of us. Alessia is in her late thirties, so no one would ever mistake her for my mother—which I’m grateful for. I don’t think I could stomach that faux pas. “I’m Dr. Sutton. Or Sam, whatever you prefer.”
“Yeah, hi. Nice to meet you,” I say as I’m awkwardly half-shoved toward her by Alessia.
“I’ll see you when you get out,” Alessia says, smirking before spinning on her elegant heels and darting off.
I follow Dr. Sutton into her office, trying desperately to remind my racing heart that this is therapy I’m walking into, not a federal prison.
It doesn’t work much.
· · ·
The inside of Dr. Sutton’s office is warm wooden walls, clean and well-enclosed except for one dark window in the corner, where winter browns and blues mix.
“Take a look around, if you want, and make yourself comfortable while I grab my intake form.”
I nod, stepping slowly along the wall where multiple degrees are framed and proudly displayed. There are a few pictures of her with a beautiful redheaded woman, including a wedding photo of them both in dresses, sitting against a brick wall and laughing, eyes on each other instead of the camera.
My gaze snags on another photo as well—a team photo for Yale Swimming I follow. For now.” She winks. “Tell me about your family.”
My shoulders stiffen before I can help it, eyes darting back to the photos behind her head as if just the image of the water will stabilize me.
Before I’ve thought of how to say anything without screaming I don’t want to talk about my mom, she’s moved on. “Tell me a little about Waterfell—where you live, what you’re studying.”
“I’m a sports management major,” I say, blowing a breath to flutter the hairs fallen from my high ponytail out of my face. “And I . . . I’m moving to a new apartment today.”
“Oh?”
A noncommittal noise rolls through my closed lips as I cross my arms.
I briefly recap my last three years in a quick summary of the woes of random roommates, before skipping eloquently over my complete spiral and into Alessia finding me an apartment. Which easily leads into a conversation about Alessia.
I’m leaving more gaps in my stories than I am offering vulnerability, but at least I’m talking at all.
The session finishes quicker than I’m expecting, and I start to follow Dr. Sutton out. As we pass her desk in the corner by the door, she stops to put away her pen and papers.
“Why haven’t you gone swimming recently?” she asks, though she doesn’t look at me.
“Just haven’t had the time,” I lie, shrugging, then crossing my arms over my chest again.
She tucks my paper into her file and nods, straightening back up. “I think you should try to go this week, if you can make the time for it.”