Chapter 14
TAKING IT FRONT AND BACK ON MOVING DAY
Andie
It’s finally the end of the semester, and my dorm room looks like a disaster zone: cardboard boxes in erratic towers, a duffel bag zippered and slumping, one lone plastic hanger spinning on the closet rod.
The walls are suddenly naked, pockmarked with thumbtack craters and faint outlines where string lights used to hang.
My mattress is stripped, the institutional blue ticking exposed, already dusted with a thin haze of popcorn ceiling fallout.
Each time I move a box, I discover another stray bobby pin or dust bunny, as if my life is trying to reassemble itself in fragments.
I’m in a good mood, though. I hum the chorus from a song I barely remember, peeling another length of packing tape off the roll and tearing it with my teeth.
My body still throbs with a low, sweet ache—my thighs remembering the weight of Thomas pinning me to his mattress, my neck tender where his mouth found the softest places and bit.
Sometimes I have to stop what I’m doing just to feel it.
A little aftershock, a muscle memory, a spike of heat that moves through me and then out, leaving me grinning at nothing.
I smile, thinking back to my irrational fear from the Juicery.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t that irrational. Stella herself told me her dad was a man whore, and I was petrified that I was one woman among a veritable sea of ladies dying to date billionaire Thomas Morehouse.
But he came back from his business trip within a week, and immediately called me.
He said he missed me, and within half an hour, I was ensconced in his arms, heady with pleasure as he claimed me again and again.
We’ve been dating in secret for a while now too.
I don’t know why I haven’t told anyone, other than Simone.
I guess it’s because our relationship feels precious, and private.
I don’t want a ton of people to know, or at least I don’t want them to know just yet.
As a result, the virginity bet is still “on” although I’ve long since had my cherry popped.
Now, I’m packing to move into an off-campus apartment with Stella, Mary Kate, and Kayleigh.
My phone sits face-down on the desk. Every five minutes, I flip it over to check the blank screen, then set it back down and pretend I wasn’t hoping for something because I have nothing to worry about, not anymore.
Now, when I think about my boyfriend, it’s not the billionaire, or the CEO, or the famous board member—it’s just him, Thomas the man, greedy for my company.
Maybe greedy for my body, too, but not in a way that feels cheap. In a way that makes me feel chosen.
I wrap my favorite mug in a soft, shredded T-shirt, tucking it into the space between two books. I pause for a second, hand on the ceramic, and run my thumb over the tiny spiderweb crack in the handle. It’s precious to me, despite its defects
I’m taping the top of the box when Stella bursts in. She doesn’t knock—she never knocks—but this time, her arrival is less an intrusion and more a shockwave. The air in the room shifts, quick and hot.
She’s got her blonde hair up in a victory bun, sunglasses perched on top like a tiara. Her cheeks are bright, and she’s carrying a box so big it hides half her torso. “Oh my god, Andie, you will not believe what just happened,” she says, pitching the box onto my stripped bed with a heavy whump.
I freeze, tape halfway across the cardboard. “What happened?”
She slides the sunglasses down her nose and beams. “My dad’s coming to move me out. Like, actually himself. Not his assistants, not the moving crew—the man himself. He texted and said he’s bringing pizza and maybe beer, if the RA’s don’t freak out. I mean, can you believe it?”
My hand spasms around the tape. “That’s awesome,” I say, the words coming out too loud.
Stella plops onto the exposed mattress, kicking off her shoes.
“It’s, like, completely unprecedented. He usually just wires me money and tells me to call a moving service.
But now he’s all, ‘I’ll be there by five, get your boxes ready.
’” She leans back, crossing her legs. “He must be in a good mood. Maybe he just made a billion dollars. I don’t know. ”
She starts scrolling her phone, tapping at the screen with quick, impatient flicks.
“God, I hope he brings the Lambo. He posted a pic of it last week, parked on some bridge like it was no big deal.” She doesn’t look at me, just keeps talking.
“He never does this. Ever. I don’t think he’s set foot in a college dorm since the Bush administration. ”
I nod, folding the flaps of the box with deliberate care. My pulse is galloping, but I keep my hands steady, tucking the mug deeper into the paper cocoon. “That’s really sweet of him to help you move,” I say, and even I can hear the strain in my voice.
Stella glances up, smiling mischievously. “I know, right?”
I clear my throat, force a smile. “Yes, absolutely. He must really want to see you.”
She considers this, then shrugs. “Or maybe he got a bad news alert and needs to check if I’m still alive. My dad can be weird that way.” She slaps the mattress with both hands. “Anyway! We have to be ready. If he shows up and we’re not packed, he’ll probably just leave again. He’s that busy.”
I nod, too fast, and turn away, pretending to fuss with the box labels.
Out in the hallway, I can hear the scrape and rumble of plastic bins rolling over the scuffed linoleum.
A girl’s voice shouts, “Hold the door!” and another one curses as something topples and clatters.
The heavy fire door at the end of the corridor is propped with a wedge of cardboard, and every so often, a gust of late-spring air shoves it wider, bringing in a faint whiff of cigarettes from the patio below.
The light in the hall is brutal: fluorescent, hard-edged, unforgiving. It turns everyone into ghosts, even the girls hauling bags and boxes past my open door. Their voices are bright and echo-y, rising and falling in random waves.
I wrap another mug, careful and slow. My hands are steady now, each motion exaggerated, like I’m starring in a how-to video on packing fragile things.
Stella keeps talking, half to herself, half to me.
She wonders if her dad will bring food, or if he’ll make them eat in the cafeteria like normal people.
She wonders if he’ll be alone, or if he’ll show up with “some random girl he met on a plane.” She wonders if he’ll remember to bring the little moving dolly he promised last year.
I keep nodding, but my ears are ringing with something else.
I’m not worried he’ll bring a girlfriend, or that he’ll forget the pizza.
I’m worried he’ll walk in, see me, and for one fatal second, let something slip.
A too-intimate look, a word, a joke that means nothing to Stella but everything to me.
I can handle Thomas one-on-one, in the dark, in the private corners of the world.
But out here? In the blinding daylight, with his daughter right there? I don’t know if I can keep my cool.
“Hey,” Stella says, suddenly close. She’s right in front of me, her eyes searching my face. “Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”
I force a smile. “Yeah, just tired. Haven’t slept much.”
She laughs, and it’s a nice sound. “Me neither. End-of-year stress dreams. You know, the one where you show up to the final naked, or you can’t find your room, or the walls collapse and you’re just floating in space.”
I nod, and the motion feels like a lie.
Stella sits on the bare bed again, bouncing a little. She’s still so excited to see her dad that it’s endearing. I almost want to tell her about us, but instead, I finish wrapping the mug, set it in the box, and tape the top shut with a sharp, final rip.
Out in the hallway, a group of girls lugs a mini-fridge past my door, their laughter echoing up and down the corridor.
I hear the slap of flip-flops, the squeak of a rolling suitcase, the faint call of a RA reminding everyone to sign their checkout forms. The world is still spinning.
It doesn’t know anything, and it won’t, not unless I decide otherwise.
“That’s really sweet of your dad,” I say again, softer this time, and Stella smiles like it’s the first time anyone’s ever told her that.
I put the tape down, dust my hands, and look out at the bright, busy hallway. I could be anyone, right now. I could be Stella’s friend, or her rival, or just some girl with a box full of mugs and nothing to hide.
My phone is still face-down on the desk. I flip it over, just for something to do.
No messages, but I feel a little better.
A little more ready for whatever comes next.
The first sign that Thomas has arrived is the way the hallway suddenly narrows, as if the building itself is reacting to a change in pressure.
He’s taller than most of the girls’ dads who’ve been wandering in and out all day—tall enough that the exit signs look like they’re aimed at him specifically, tall enough that he has to duck just slightly coming through the fire door at the end of the hall.
No suit, no tie. Just dark jeans and a grey T-shirt that fits him like the factory made it to order, every line of his chest and shoulders sharp as an engineering diagram.
I’m mid-stride, box balanced on my hip, when I spot him at the far end.
There’s a brief, weightless moment where my body forgets how to move.
Heart stops, then starts again, thudding into my throat.
I shift the box to my other arm and keep walking, eyes fixed on the rectangle of sunlit floor just past his feet.