Chapter 3
Three
HANNAH
Stanford gives me palm trees, sunshine, and a dorm full of athletes.
Two out of three isn’t terrible.
I stand in the center of Cypress House with my housing assignment pulled up on my phone, hoping the room number changes if I stare at it long enough.
It doesn’t.
Cypress House, Room 214.
One of four dorms surrounding the athlete quad.
I know this because the girl behind the housing desk says it like I won a prize.
“You got so lucky,” she tells me. “People beg to live here.”
“I’m begging not to.”
Her smile falters. “Why?”
Outside the open doors, two boys in Stanford football shirts carry a television across the courtyard while six girls pretend they aren’t watching.
A basketball bounces somewhere nearby.
The sound finds a nerve.
“I requested academic housing.”
“This is academic housing.”
“With athletes.”
“They’re students too.”
“That remains under investigation.”
She glances at the line behind me.
“Transfer requests open after the first two weeks. You can submit one then, but there’s a waitlist.”
“How long?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“Openings.”
Very helpful.
I drag my suitcase toward the stairs. One wheel sticks every three feet, my backpack is digging into my shoulder, and the airline lost the smaller bag containing my contacts, toiletries, and every pair of underwear I didn’t pack in my carry-on.
My mother told me to split everything between the bags.
I told her I had a system.
My system is currently circling an airport conveyor belt in another state.
I’m wearing the emergency glasses I keep buried at the bottom of my backpack. Thick tortoiseshell frames, strong enough to magnify my eyes and possibly start fires in direct sunlight. My hair gave up somewhere over Nebraska and now sits in a lopsided knot on top of my head.
I look like a librarian fleeing a scandal.
Still, the California sun is warm on my arms.
No freezing wind.
No gray sludge along the sidewalks.
No air cold enough to close my lungs.
“Malibu Barbie,” I mutter as I fight the suitcase up the first step. “Focus on Malibu Barbie.”
A hand reaches around me and lifts the suitcase.
I turn, prepared to refuse help.
A tall boy in a Stanford basketball shirt carries it up the remaining stairs without asking.
“Second floor?”
“I had it.”
“It looked like it was winning.”
His smile is quick and practiced. Straight teeth. Easy confidence. He knows exactly what he looks like and expects the world to cooperate.
Familiar species.
“I enjoy a fair fight.”
He stops at the landing and sets the suitcase down.
“You live in Cypress?”
“Against my will.”
His gaze drops to my glasses, travels to the knot on my head, then returns to my face.
“You’re funny.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“What’s your name?”
“Hannah.”
“Hannah what?”
“Just Hannah.”
He grins. “Keeping it mysterious?”
“Protecting my credit.”
Someone calls his name from below.
He walks backward toward the stairs. “I’ll see you around, Just Hannah.”
“I’ll alert security.”
He laughs and disappears.
I grab the suitcase handle.
Three seconds later, one of the wheels falls off.
Excellent.
* * *
My roommate has claimed the bed near the window.
I know it belongs to her because every surface surrounding it is pink, white, gold, or monogrammed.
She stands in front of a full-length mirror wearing a matching workout set that has never experienced exercise. Her blond hair falls down her back in perfect waves, and her makeup survived move-in day without a visible casualty.
She turns when I enter.
Her eyes widen behind long lashes.
“Oh. Hi.”
There’s a pause after hi that contains several questions.
Most of them concern my face.
“I’m Hannah.”
“Piper.”
She looks from me to the broken suitcase.
“Did the airline do that?”
“The stairs finished it.”
Piper rushes over and hugs me before I can prepare.
She smells like vanilla, expensive shampoo, and a store where nothing comes in my size.
“I’m so excited. I was terrified I’d get someone weird.”
I glance at myself in the mirror.
The glasses.
The bun.
My father’s old Chicago basketball hoodie hanging past my shorts.
“Great news.”
She laughs, though I’m not sure she understood.
Two girls appear in the doorway without knocking. One is wearing a tennis skirt and a tiny Stanford tank. The other is already holding an iced coffee with her name printed correctly on the cup, which feels like a personal attack after my luggage disaster.
“Are you Piper’s roommate?” Tennis Skirt asks.
“That’s what the paperwork claims.”
“I’m Jules. This is Kenzie. We’re across the hall.”
Piper claps her hands.
“We’re all in athlete housing.”
“I noticed.”
“Jules pretends to play tennis, Kenzie’s doing sports medicine, and I requested this quad because my cousin lived here last year.”
“You can request it?”
“Not officially.”
Piper’s smile turns secretive.
“My father knows someone.”
Naturally.
Kenzie walks to the window and looks down into the courtyard.
“We hit the lottery. Football, basketball, baseball, swimming. All right outside.”
Jules joins her.
“I heard some of the basketball team is on the third floor.”
Piper makes a noise so high my glasses nearly crack.
“Are you serious?”
“Starting point guard too. He had a place off campus but the coach won’t let him live there in season.”
They crowd the window like someone announced free money.
I begin unpacking the books from my carry-on.
Piper looks over her shoulder.
“You’re not coming?”
“To the window?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen shirtless men before.”
“Not these men.”
“They usually have the same basic parts.”
Jules laughs.
Kenzie turns around slowly. “Are you gay?”
The room goes quiet.
Piper winces. “Kenzie.”
“What? I’m asking. She doesn’t care about athletes, she has the whole librarian thing going, and she brought twelve books in her carry-on.”
“Fourteen,” I correct.
Kenzie gestures toward me. “See?”
I take another book from my bag.
“No, I’m not gay.”
“Then what’s your type?”
“Quiet.”
Piper drops onto her bed. “Quiet isn’t a type.”
“It should be.”
“What do you identify as?” Kenzie asks. “A book-nerd wannabe lover?”
I look at the paperback in my hand.
“I’m attracted to books and trees.”
Jules blinks. “Trees?”
“They make paper.”
Piper laughs so hard she falls sideways against her pillows.
Kenzie stares at me for two seconds, then starts laughing too.
“You’re weird.”
“I was told that possibility had been avoided.”
Piper sits up and studies me.
“You’re actually pretty under those glasses.”
“Comforting.”
“No, seriously. We could give you a makeover.”
“I’ve been here eleven minutes.”
“Exactly. Fresh start.”
“My contacts were lost with my luggage. I wanted to sleep on the plane so I didn’t wear them. I have severe astigmatism even my contacts can’t correct.”
Piper’s face changes with immediate sympathy.
“That explains the glasses.”
“They’re prescription, not a cry for help.”
“You need your hair down.”
“I need underwear.”
Jules holds up one finger. “The campus store sells Stanford underwear.”
“I’m not putting the university logo on my ass.”
Piper gasps. “That would be adorable.”
“That would be branding.”
They start discussing shopping, parties, and which athletes are worth noticing. Apparently, the point of college is not education but identifying a man before his professional contract increases his market value.
Piper stretches across her bed and scrolls through her phone.
“The smartest move is getting one before he goes pro. Then everyone knows you were there before the money.”
“A ground-floor investment,” I say.
“Exactly.”
“I was mocking you.”
She waves that away.
“You need to think bigger. These guys could be in the NFL or NBA. That’s security.”
I place my laptop on the desk.
“Financial aid is security.”
Kenzie snorts. “Not the fun kind.”
“No one takes pictures of you sitting courtside with a scholarship.”
“Tragic.”
Piper swings her legs over the edge of the bed.
“You seriously don’t want to date an athlete?”
The question pulls me back to buses that smelled like sweat and fast food. Gym lounges after dark. Boys handing me unfinished essays with smiles they thought should count as payment or worse—the one who pretended to be into me only to kiss up to my dad.
I open a desk drawer.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Experience.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
That is the cleanest answer.
Nothing happened every time a player flirted until he needed a paper written.
Nothing happened when boys teased me for traveling with the team.
Nothing happened when my father spent hours repairing their shots while mine was never worth building.
I came three thousand miles to leave all of that behind.
Piper gets up and walks toward my side of the room.
She studies the stack of books, my old backpack, and the folder containing every scholarship document I may need for the next four years.
“You’re going to change your mind.”
“About athletes?”
“About everything.”
She gestures toward the open window.
Palm trees move against a cloudless blue sky. Music drifts across the courtyard. Students carry boxes between dorms while someone tosses a football over their heads.
It does look like the video.
Malibu Barbie with better test scores.
Piper smiles. “Welcome to Stanford.”
A basketball hits the pavement outside.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
My shoulders tense before I can stop them.
I cross the room and shut the window.
Piper watches me.
“Too loud?”
“Something like that.”
I sit at my desk and open my laptop.
Behind me, the girls return to ranking the athletes moving through the quad.
I stare at my blank screen.
I crossed the country to escape basketball.
Stanford put me right back in the gym.