CHAPTER 6 #2
She was sitting on her bed, fully dressed in the same grey hoodie she’d worn during our first winter together.
The room was immaculate—cleaner than it had ever been—and the small wooden table between our desks was stacked with things she had gathered for me: my spare winter coat, my textbooks, my favorite mug from the Harlem street fair.
The minute I rolled my large suitcase through the door, she stood up. She looked like she hadn't slept since the door had slammed. Her eyes were sunken, dark purple bruises of exhaustion carved into the skin beneath her lower lids.
"Miley," she said, her voice barely louder than the hum of the mini-fridge. "You don't have to do this. I talked to the housing director. I told them I'd move. I'll take the transfer. Don't leave this room. It's closer to your classes. Please."
I didn't answer her. I didn't give her the luxury of my voice. I walked straight to my closet, pulling my hangers off the metal rod with a succession of sharp, rhythmic clacks. I folded my jeans, my hoodies, my t-shirts, shoving them into the open suitcase with an aggressive, unblinking focus.
"Miley, please talk to me," she begged, stepping into my peripheral vision, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her chest as if she were praying to a god that had already left the building.
"Say something. Scream at me. Call me a bitch.
Tell me you hate me. Just don't do this silent shit.
It's killing me, Miley. I can't breathe in here without you. "
I kept my back turned, zip-lining my duffle bag shut with a harsh, definitive zzzzt.
I felt the weight of her gaze on the back of my neck like an open flame, but I couldn't look.
If I looked at her, if I saw the real, raw misery in her face, I knew the ice in my chest might crack, and I couldn't afford to thaw.
Not here. Not for someone who had given my space away to a girl like Maxine.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking as she dropped to her knees by the edge of my desk, her forehead resting against the grain of the wood.
"I am so fucking sorry, Miley. I'll do anything.
I'll go to counseling. I'll never speak to Max again.
I'll let you check my phone every single hour.
Just don't leave me in this room by myself. "
I hoisted the heavy duffle bag onto my shoulder, grabbed the telescoping handle of my suitcase, and turned toward the door. I looked down at her once—just once—and the coldness in my eyes must have been terrifying, because she didn't try to touch me this time.
"Have a good semester, Alicia," I said, my voice completely flat, dead, and empty.
I rolled my life out into the hallway, the rubber wheels of the suitcase clicking against the expansion joints in the floor.
My new roommate was a girl named Kira. She was a white girl from Rochester, a biochemistry major with thick, black-rimmed glasses and a collection of vintage comic books that took up three shelves of her bookcase.
She was incredibly nerdy, quiet, and profoundly nice.
The first night I moved in, she looked at the dark circles under my eyes, didn't ask a single question, and simply handed me half of a homemade turkey sandwich and a pair of foam earplugs.
"I study until midnight with the desk lamp on," Kira had said, her voice soft and unbothered. "If it bugs you, just tell me to kick rocks."
"It won't bug me," I told her, sitting on my new bed, looking at the bare white wall across from me.
I was done. I was completely finished with the high-stakes drama, the midnight tears, and that entire volatile chapter of my life with Alicia Gray.
I buried myself in my coursework. When I saw Alicia on the quad over the next two months, walking with her head down, her shoulders hunched against the snow, I looked right through her like she was made of glass.
She tried to approach me twice in the library—once holding a letter, once just reaching out with her hand—but I turned my back before she could even clear her throat.
I could see she was hurting bad; she was losing weight, her skin looked dull, and her friends said she had stopped going to her workshops.
But I didn't give her the time of day. She had made her choice in Room 314, and I was busy surviving the aftermath.
Until that Tuesday evening in late April.
Kira and I had spent four days in Albany for a regional undergraduate leadership conference.
It was a stupid, mandatory trip for my scholarship, but it had been a nice distraction.
Kira had spent the entire three-hour bus ride back to campus explaining the molecular structure of synthetic enzymes, and for the first time in months, I felt like my brain was working normally again.
The air had finally turned warm; the snow was melting into thick, muddy puddles along the edges of the concrete paths.
The bus pulled up to the main campus loop at six in the evening. The sun was setting, casting a long, bloody orange glow across the brick facades of the residential complexes.
The moment the bus doors hissed open, the atmosphere hit me. It wasn't the normal Tuesday evening hum of students heading toward the dining hall. It was quiet. A terrible, heavy, vibrating kind of quiet.
As Kira and I hauled our bags off the lower luggage rack, we saw the flashing lights.
Two red-and-blue strobe bars reflected off the glass of the freshman tower.
Three police cruisers were parked haphazardly on the grass, their tires tearing into the soft mud.
An ambulance stood near the side entrance of Governor’s, its rear doors wide open, though the paramedics weren't rushing.
They were just standing there, their hands tucked into their tactical vests, talking in low, hushed tones with the campus security chief.
"What's going on?" Kira muttered, her hand tightening on the strap of her backpack as we walked closer.
The quad was lined with students—dozens of them, standing behind a thick, yellow strip of plastic tape that read CRIME SCENE-DO NOT CROSS.
The tape was stretched between two metal light poles, fluttering softly in the spring breeze.
Two plainclothes investigators with gold badges clipped to their belts were walking through the crowd with small black notebooks, asking questions to a group of girls who were crying into their sleeves.
My stomach dropped before my brain even understood why. It was a physical reaction—a sudden, violent surge of adrenaline that made my palms go slick. I started walking faster, my suitcase bouncing wildly against the pavement behind me.
"Miley, wait," Kira called out, her voice rising with concern as she tried to keep up. "Don't go over there. Let's just go through the back entrance."
I didn't listen. I dropped the handle of my suitcase, leaving it abandoned in the middle of the path, and broke into a jog. I pushed through the crowd of onlookers, my elbows forcing a path through the tight clusters of students until I reached the yellow tape.
Just as I reached the line, the heavy glass side doors of the building pushed open. Two paramedics came out, their boots heavy on the concrete steps. Between them, they were wheeling a metal gurney. On top of the gurney was a long, black vinyl bag, zipped completely to the top.
"Hey! Hey, stop!" I screamed, my voice tearing out of my throat like dry leaves. I reached under the yellow tape, my torso leaning into the forbidden space as a large, burly officer in a blue uniform instantly stepped into my path, his large palms coming up to press against my shoulders.
"Back up, miss," the officer said, his voice firm but devoid of malice. "You need to step back behind the line right now."
"Who is that? Who is on that gurney?" I demanded, my hands clawing at the fabric of his sleeve, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "What happened? Tell me what happened!"
"Miley! Miley, calm down!" Kira was there now, her thin arms wrapping around my waist from behind, trying to drag my weight back onto the safe side of the pavement. "Please, Miley, let the police do their job. Come back."
"No! Kira, look at them! Who is that?" I was hysterical now, my vision swimming as I watched the paramedics slide the black bag into the back of the ambulance with a metallic clack-clack.
From the side of the steps, a female investigator detached herself from the group of administrators.
She looked about forty, wearing a sharp grey trench coat, her hair pulled back into a severe pony tail, holding a notepad.
She saw my face, saw the absolute panic radiating from my eyes, and walked over to the edge of the tape, signaling the uniformed officer to step aside.
"Are you Miley Palmer?" she asked, her voice quiet, carrying the heavy, professional weight of someone who spent her life delivering bad news to parents.
"Yes," I choked out, the air leaving my lungs. "Yes, I'm Miley. What's going on? Who is that?"
The investigator took a deep breath, her eyes softening just enough to let me know that my life was about to split into a before and an after.
"My name is Detective Williams," she said softly, stepping closer so the crowd behind me couldn't hear the details. "I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, Miley. But your friend... Alicia Gray. She was found in her dorm room about an hour ago. She was hanging from the ceiling fan."
The words didn't make sense. They sounded like a foreign language. Hanging. Ceiling fan. Alicia. The girl who recited poetry. The girl who licked me until I cried. The girl with the gap-toothed smile.
"No," I whispered, shaking my head, a small, pathetic laugh escaping my lips. "No, you have the wrong room. She lives in Clinton Hall. Room 314. She's not in this building."