Chapter 60
An hour later, the storm crashed into us.
The first drops were huge, smacking loud against my windows. Already the smoke had lifted, cleared by the leading edge of the pressure center. People streamed outside, embracing the fresh air, the sudden cool, the driving rain. A few stripped off their clothes.
I watched the muddy bacchanal from my window, replaying my encounter with Crystal in my head: my altered face, my short hair.
Me, transformed into not-me. But not different enough.
Would she call the police now? Would they even care? The case was closed. Obsession, a cult, murder, suicide.
Crystal wasn’t looking for justice—the man she blamed was already dead. She just wanted to talk to someone who’d been there. After our encounter, she’d never want to talk to me again.
She might give up at last.
But I knew what my family would demand—leave nothing to chance. Loose ends always unravel. Snip them.
When the first thunder rumbled, the girls on my hall flung open their doors and windows. Frankie went down in bare feet and came back drenched, muddy, ecstatic. Aaliyah declared that she was skipping her afternoon classes, and we all followed suit.
The poker table was unfolded, and I made everyone proper Old Fashioneds: Kentucky bourbon and Veronica’s homemade cardamom bitters. Even Frankie admitted it was better than hard seltzer.
Somehow as the tumult grew—shouting outside, booming thunder, spray through the open windows—I began to still. Whatever happened next, I was someone new, not the person who’d done those things in that small room.
I took a sip of Frankie’s Old Fashioned.
We got bored of poker, and they taught me Lavernick Ratscrew, a cutthroat game of chance, brute reflex, and absurd rules. The folding table trembled as we swatted at piles of cards.
My borrowed sips of alcohol did nothing, so at the next break I went back to my room to make myself a Black Manhattan. A small one. Tiny, really.
Music spilled from open doors, from windows, from the rest of the Quad—a chaos mix of pop, techno, hip-hop, EDM, country, death metal.
The first sip of my drink seethed on my tongue, botanicals and spirit vapors, hard to swallow. Sebastian had been right all along. My tastebuds were mutant, stretched out of their natural shape to embrace preposterous bitterness.
I downed it quickly. Made myself another.
There was a letter on my desk. I’d thought she’d like the stationery from the campus store, with the college coat of arms at the top, a missive from the Queen of Helshire.
Dear Bellamy,
I tried calling, but you were asleep. Or I hung up while they were transferring me. Or I didn’t know what to say. I could just let you talk, I guess.
I can’t put my feelings on paper. There can’t be any records. There can’t be any feelings.
I don’t want you to die. I want you to keep living and learning about octopi (octopuses? octopodes?). I want you to grow up and cure cancer.
I have a cousin about your age. You’re everything she’s not. I’d trade her for you if I could.
There’s so little point to this letter, I won’t even send it. I hope your new immune system kicks ass.
Wear your seat belt,
Love, Jessica
Would my letter make Bellamy laugh? Whenever I’d been honest at the hospital, she’d thought I was joking. I’d always been strangely truthful, probably because she was going to die.
Maybe I’d always known my family’s plans for Hiromi.
I made myself another drink.
In Aaliyah’s room, the girls had switched to strip poker. Nura was swaddled in scarves, sweaters, hats. Frankie was already reduced to leggings, one sneaker, and her sports bra. Aaliyah had somehow balanced wins and losses, and was dressed exactly as she’d been before.
They dealt me in, and I bet wildly the first few hands: an inside straight, a busted flush, and three kings that fell to Frankie’s aces.
As I gave her my shirt, Aaliyah pointed at my drink. “Aren’t you still taking those pills?”
“Yes, but they weren’t the problem.”
Frankie paused halfway through dealing, looking at me.
“One night back home,” I explained, “my cousin did something weird. That’s what made me throw up, not the booze. I mean, this is my third drink and I feel fine.”
My words were too precise, like Garrett’s clipped consonants, the step before slurring. But I did feel fine.
“You haven’t had a drink all semester,” Aaliyah said.
“My cousin Mary made me throw up, not the alcohol.”
“How?” Nura asked.
“Dressing up like my father.” I beckoned for more cards, and Frankie started dealing again. “We don’t talk about him.”
I drew four cards against an ace and wound up with a pair of sevens. But they all folded when I bet my shoes. I still didn’t have a shirt, and Frankie had lost hers (which was mine) again. We all had plenty of scarves.
“This is the problem with strip poker,” I said. “All the inefficiencies of a barter system and none of the advantages.”
“Except for seeing people naked,” Frankie said. “That’s an advantage.”
“We share a bathroom,” Aaliyah said.
“I meant if boys were playing.”
“Boys,” Aaliyah scoffed, and won the next hand.
The wind was picking up, and the temperature had fallen with the rain. I pulled my scarves tighter, and tried to wrest one of Frankie’s hats away.
“We should go outside,” I said.
“Dressed like this?” Frankie asked, spreading her bare arms.
Aaliyah and Nura took umbrellas, and Frankie and I mocked them for it. I took a flask.
The stairs were muddy, a choir of empty bottles crowding the second-floor landing. The grass of the Quad was littered with discarded masks.
The croquet team had set up on the lawn in front of Ridermore, playing in their soaked whites. Frankie chased after Nura, trying to snatch her umbrella away.
I felt Aaliyah staring at me.
“I’m not having a seizure,” I said. “Just a bacchanal.”
She took the flask from my hand, sniffed it.
“Whiskey, neat,” I said.
She took a drink. “You’ve changed this year.”
“So has everyone.”
“I knew a preacher’s daughter once. Bottled up at home, then came here and changed a bit too much.”
“Everyone remembers Stephanie Freedman.” I took the flask back and drank. “Are you saying I’m going to wind up on mushrooms, streaking in the library?”
“You’re halfway streaking already.”
I laughed and tossed the flask back to her, tying my scarves tighter. “My family has no preachers, not since Peter burned the chapel down. You know how you’ve changed, Aaliyah? You wouldn’t have told me this before.”
“You wouldn’t have listened.”
“True. I wouldn’t have given you advice either. But I’m going to: Stay away from the legacies at Helshire. Don’t accept our scholarships or fellowships or investments. Never sign anything!”
I took off at a run.
The rain felt glorious, but mostly it was the air—finally free of burnt plastic and old campfire. I’d barely exercised since the smoke had descended, much less run. The cold rain against my skin sparked a radiance in my muscles, pushing me faster.
I left the girls behind, circling the Quad, past the croquet team and its loyal fans. A few of them cheered me on. I ignored the looks from people headed to class in sensible raincoats and boots.
“Jess,” called a voice.
I skidded to a halt. “Sebastian?”
He stood under an umbrella but was as drenched as me. Panting, like he’d been running too.
“You came,” I said, realizing he was who I needed. We would celebrate the breaking drought, entwined around each other.
“Something’s happened,” he said, his voice tight. “At Faraday’s.”
He stepped closer, the umbrella over both of us now, cutting off the purifying rain.
“Crystal came by,” he said, “asking questions.”
“Fuck.” The elation left me all at once. I was half naked and cold, the alcohol an acid trail from throat to stomach.
Loose ends always unravel.
Sebastian handed me the umbrella, took off his raincoat, and placed it around my bare shoulders.
“She’s dead,” he whispered in my ear. “We have to go.”
I squinted at him through water dripping into my eyes.
“Dead? But we agreed—”
“Not me.” He took my hand, pulling me away from my friends, my dorm, the party. “Faraday.”