Chapter 1
Having spent the past year of my life as that girl every time I stepped out in public—that girl who survived the car crash, that girl who lost her best friend, that girl who dropped out of school—my only aspiration in life as I arrive at Swiftmore University for freshman orientation is to not be that girl.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take my mother into account. Now I fear that for the next four years of my life, I’ll be known as that girl whose mom is an absolute lunatic.
“Mom,” I groan, internally cringing as she sobs into her palms. “Could you not?”
“I’m sorry,” she blubbers, eyes so full of tears I doubt she can see me standing two feet away from her.
“I’ll only be, like, two hours away from home.”
“I know. I just—” She pauses to sniffle and wipes at her eyes. For a moment, we connect through the glistening sheen, and I know exactly what she can’t find the words to say. I love you. You’re my baby—the one I tried for years to conceive, the one I almost lost.
It’s my fault her blue eyes are bright with worry. So I take her hand and squeeze her fingers, a tangible reminder that despite everything, I’m still here. I’m still her little girl.
“I’ll be careful,” I murmur. “I promise.”
“Oh, Clara.”
She covers my cheek with her palm and rubs her thumb across my skin. I hold her gaze until my eyes start to burn, then look away.
This year is going to be different.
I will not cry.
I will not break down.
This is the new beginning I desperately need, and I won’t go into it sad or afraid. I’ll face it with my head held high.
“Maybe we should say goodbye here?” my dad’s deep voice interrupts.
“What?” my mom snaps, turning toward him. But his focus is on me. He sees everything. He always has. He knows exactly how close I am to completely falling apart.
“We’ll see her for dinner tonight,” he urges, arching his brows, trying to convey his message to my mom without words.
But I can read him just as easily as he reads me.
Our golden eyes are so similar, there’s no way to hide the emotion swirling within them—concern and love, but it’s the sympathy that hits me the hardest, contracting my lungs so tight I can hardly breathe.
“Let’s give her some space,” he continues. “Some time to settle in.”
“But—but—”
My dad is already flagging down an upperclassman in a Welcome to Swiftmore T-shirt. He rolls a huge bin toward the trunk and together they start emptying the car. I shrug at my mom, who glances back and forth between us with her mouth agape.
“Does this mean I can go kayaking now?” my little brother asks from the back seat, not bothering to glance up from his video game.
Their hotel is twenty minutes down the road from the university, also along the banks of Lake Evermere, and at the ripe age of twelve, he couldn’t give two shits about dropping me off at college.
I mean, sure, he’ll probably miss me. I think.
Mostly because he’ll no longer have a buffer against Mom.
“Oliver,” she chides, sending a stern look through the open window. I reach through and tousle his brown hair—a medium shade with an auburn tint and slight wave, just like mine. He shoves me away with a glare.
We love each other. We do. But six years is a big age gap, and he’s right at that annoying stage where all he does is grunt and hide in his room doing I don’t want to know what. I’m perfectly okay letting him figure out the whole puberty thing without me.
“Okay, honey.” My dad steps back in, dimples on full blast, grinning like a buffoon with a suspicious twinkle in his eye as he looks between me and the sorry upperclassman he roped into helping me—a tall guy with blond hair and an easy smile.
“This is Noah, one of the student volunteers. He’s going to take you to your dorm. ”
“Hey,” I mutter self-consciously. “I’m Clara.”
“Nice to meet you,” he offers, extending his hand.
I take it.
“Welcome to Swiftmore.” He grins, and I feel my own lips twitch in response. It’s nice to be greeted with simple, open friendliness—no silent questions or pity lurking beneath his words. “What dorm are you?”
I pull out my phone and find the email. “Um… building one. Willow?”
“Yeah, I know where that is. Follow me.”
He starts pushing the cart full of my stuff down a path.
I look over at my parents, not sure what to do.
Dad’s got his arm around Mom’s shoulders, holding her in an iron grip to keep her from chasing after me.
For a split second, I want to close the gap.
I want to fling myself into her arms, and feel her nails scratch soothingly across my scalp as she whispers into my hair, It’s going to be okay.
I want to feel safe and secure for just a little bit longer.
She leans forward, as if she knows. It prompts me into action.
I have to do this without them just to prove to myself I’m strong enough.
“I’ll see you guys tonight!” I say with a wave, pretending my voice doesn’t quiver, pretending they don’t notice it, too. Then I hurry after my new guide.
As he cuts through the crowd—a mix of newbies like me, upperclassmen, families, and staff all clogging the cramped parking lot nestled between the trees—he gives me the lay of the land, though it sounds a bit like a script the welcoming committee provided all the volunteers.
“When Thomas Swiftmore donated the land to New York State in his will, he had stipulations about using materials local to the Adirondacks and preserving various percentages of the natural surroundings. That’s why everything is made of this gray granite and we don’t have many quads.
There’s just the academic quad, which is up behind the founder’s mansion, and the lower quad, which is on the other side of the mansion, stretching to the beach.
Everything else is situated between the trees.
It can be a little tricky to get around at first, but you’ll get used to it.
All the dorms are built adjacent to the trails along the shore—lowerclassmen to the south and upperclassmen to the north.
Buildings four through six are for sophomores, and they’re back that way.
This is building three, closest to the parking lot.
Building one is a bit of a hike, but it’s right next to the lower quad, so you might snag a lake view if you’re lucky. ”
I’m not lucky.
I’m also out of breath by the time we make it to my room, and I’m not even pushing the cart.
The building is shaped like a U around a small central courtyard.
It’s divided into ten houses, all named after local trees.
House Willow is one of the endcaps, which means that when I finally dump my handbag on the open bed and look out the window, I’m staring directly into… drumroll please…someone else’s room.
Score!
I don’t even care. The second I’m alone, I fall back against the wall, close my eyes, and breathe into the stillness, the silence.
My doctors cleared me from concussion protocols six months ago, but sometimes I still get overwhelmed by so much motion, so much noise.
It’s why I never went back to school, why I finished out my senior year online, why I was too chicken to walk at graduation.
I couldn’t deal with so many eyes, so many whispers.
After spending months in relative isolation, giving my brain time to recover, I grew used to the quiet.
It’s where I’ve always been most comfortable.
If not for Mabel, I probably never would’ve gone to a high school party, never had my first kiss in a coat closet in tenth grade, never bought my first thong.
Once upon a time, her boldness was my favorite thing about her.
I admired her confidence and her courage, the way she drew every eye in the room.
I was proud to be her best friend, happy to bask in her light—until it burned too bright.
Because that’s the hard truth. Before the accident, we were growing apart.
We had been for all of junior year. Her antics had started making me uncomfortable.
My vanilla-ness, as she called it, had left her bored.
All summer, we’d been fighting for something that felt already gone.
And maybe if we’d just admitted the truth, maybe if we’d just let each other be instead of clinging to a past that no longer was, maybe then she’d still be here.
Well, not here because she hated this school and gagged anytime I mentioned it—too close to home, too isolated, too safe.
But she’d be somewhere collecting a new gang of followers to bask in her glow, and I wouldn’t be standing in my freshman dorm on the first day of school struggling to fight back tears.
Sometimes, I’m so angry I can’t breathe.
Other times, it feels as if my heart is trying to claw its way from my chest just to escape the pain.
And then there are moments like this, where I’m so torn between the two extremes, I freeze. It’s as if I exist outside of the world, stuck without time or place, until something suddenly pulls me back.
Or in this case, someone.
“Roomie!”
I snap my eyes open just in time to see a petite girl around the same size as me bound into the room.
Long black hair streaks out behind her as she runs right past me, then stops short and spins.
Her bright green eyes widen as her gaze lands on me.
A huge smile transforms her face, confusion giving way to an infectious sort of enthusiasm that crosses the distance between us, stirring me back to life.
She’s the sort of beautiful that would normally leave me feeling intimidated, but there’s no time for that as she quickly pulls me into a firm hug.
“I’m so excited to finally meet you in real life!” she gushes.
“Nova?” I ask just to be sure.
“In the flesh!”