Marianna Baer - Frost

gossiping about this.”

“Nicole,” Sera said, stretching out the last syllable. “It’s not

gossiping.”

Nicole drew in a breath. “Okay,” she said. “Well, this girl had,

like, bruises all over her body. I don’t know. Like someone’s

hurting her.”

“Maybe she’s on the girls’ rugby team?” I said. “Have you

ever watched one of their matches? They’re totally brutal.”

“I really doubt it,” Nicole said. “Her leg’s been in a cast all

semester.”

Nicole never mentioned Celeste’s name. I don’t know

whether she even realized I knew Celeste. But once it was clear

that’s who she meant, I told her not to worry. That I’d figure out

what was going on. I also told her not to spread this to anyone

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else. I was upset that she’d already told Sera, and who knew how

many other people.

I continued on to town alone, my book bag not the only

weight on my shoulders. Since Celeste and I rarely saw each other

now, I had been trying to think about her as little as possible.

Especially since when I did see her, she looked harried and tired.

I’d heard her call out in the night, too, through her door. So I

knew she was still having nightmares.

One thing Nicole said that struck me was the fact that

Celeste had been showering at the gym. She wasn’t playing a

sport, of course. So why would she be at the gym? Was she

hoping to keep me from seeing the bruises? I tried to remember

the last time I’d had to wait for her to get out of the bathroom so

I could use it, the last time I’d seen her coming out in a towel. But

I couldn’t. Whenever I was in my room I had my door closed, and

if I heard her in the hall, I usually made a point of waiting to go

out.

Sure enough, when I got back to the dorm and checked, I

saw she’d taken away her wire basket of shampoo and soap. Her

toothbrush still rested in the holder. That was the only sign of her

in the bathroom. For some reason she was using the shower at

the gym. And for some reason, she was covered in bruises.

Of course, they could be from Whip, like she’d said before.

But I had my doubts. This had gotten to the point where I’d have

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to tell someone else—David or the dean. First, though, I wanted

to know what I was dealing with.

I knocked on her door. “Celeste? Are you in there?”

I tried the knob. It wiggled only the slightest bit. Locked. I’m

not Nancy Drew at heart and didn’t entertain thoughts of lock

picking or anything like that. I decided to just wait until Celeste

was back and go in while she was there. It’s not as if I knew what

I’d be looking for, anyway. Just, something . . .

I’d given up and had moved on to writing a paper about the

unreliable narrator in Nabokov’s Pale Fire when it occurred to me

how stupid I was being. I had the key from before she’d changed

our living arrangement. Duh.

Celeste’s windowless room was nighttime dark. I ran my

hand over the rough plaster wall until I felt the switch. I held my

breath and flipped it.

I don’t know what I expected. Nothing as obvious as whips

and chains, of course. Something more subtle—a clue . . . One

wall was covered with sketches and notes. Her hat collection sat

piled in a corner. Shoe boxes sat in stacks, labeled on the side

with notes like Bugs—done; Bugs—to do; Nests. All perfectly normal—for Celeste, at least.

Under her desk, there were six large, white candles, with

deep enough depressions at the top that I could tell they’d been

burned quite a bit. Candles were definitely not allowed in dorm

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rooms, so she was risking something by having them, which was

odd. But nothing to do with bruises, clearly.

I turned off the light and closed and locked the door behind

me, simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

David was standing in the hallway.

“What were you doing in there?” he asked.

“Oh, hi!” I shoved the key in my pocket. “I was just looking

for my Barcroft sweatshirt. I thought I might have left it in the

closet when we switched rooms. I wanted to wear it to the

assembly later.”

“No luck?” His words, and his eyes, were steel hard. Because

I’d been in there without Celeste?

“Nope,” I said, ignoring his strange reaction. “What’s up?

Should I get parietals?”

“That’s okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Is there

something you want to tell me, Leena?”

So it wasn’t me being in her room that had made him mad. A

pressure started in my chest. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.

You’re just making it worse.”

Celeste’s bruises? Was that what he meant? “David,” I said,

“I really don’t know what you mean. Honestly.”

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“I know, Leena,” he said. “I know you were an hour late for

your Columbia interview. An hour late.”

“No, I wasn’t,” I said, stiffening. “Who told you that?”

“Doesn’t matter. Is it true?”

“No!”

David raised his eyebrows.

“Twenty minutes,” I said. “I was twenty minutes late.”

“Still. You’re never late. Why would you be twenty minutes

late for something so important?”

“It was an accident. Why are you so mad? Please, don’t be.” I

reached out and touched his arm, but he brushed my hand off.

“Why am I mad? Leena, if you cared about being in New York

with me, you wouldn’t have screwed up the interview. And you

lied to me about it, too.”

“I didn’t screw it up,” I said. “The interview itself was fine.

Look, don’t you want to go in the bedroom to talk?” Honestly, I

didn’t know how the interview had gone. Once I arrived I was in

such a state—blurry from sleeping, panicked at being late,

nervous about being unprepared—that I barely heard myself

answering the woman’s questions. It was probably a moot point,

anyway. Columbia had been a long shot. And I had blown it.

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“Not particularly.” He leaned against the wall and rested one

foot on top of the other, his arms tightly crossed. I was in sock

feet, and he seemed to loom over me in a way he didn’t usually.

“That’s a whole other thing, the bedroom,” he said. “You’re

different in there. Here. In the dorm. You’re always so

preoccupied and nervous. The other day you couldn’t get me out

of here fast enough. When’s that going to change, Leena? Maybe

you just don’t want to be with me, is that it?”

I grasped his arm, but he shook me off again. Roughly. My

elbow jolted back into the edge of the door. Pain fired through

my nerves. “Of course I want to be with you,” I said, trying to

ignore the sharp pulsings. “Maybe I’ve been weird, but don’t you

know what a hard semester this has been for me? With Viv and

Abby and Dean Shephard all disowning me? Thank God I have

you! But maybe that’s why I’ve been acting weird, if I have been.”

My heart pounded. I couldn’t lose David, too.

But you will, Cubby said. The words, her voice, came to me

out of nowhere.

“What about when we fool around?” David said. Had he

heard Cubby? Had I said that out loud? “We’re talking about

moving in together. I can’t imagine you’ve been like this with

other guys.”

“No,” I said. Why had I imagined Cubby’s voice? “No, I

haven’t.”

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“Doesn’t that tell you something? That this has all been a big

waste of time?”

“No, that’s not it. I promise. I haven’t been like this with

other guys because I haven’t been with any other guys.”

David shook his head as if he was clearing water from his

ears. “What do you mean? I thought you dated a couple other

people?”

“Yeah, but we . . . I . . . I only got together with them a few

times,” I said. “They wouldn’t . . . they wouldn’t really count in the

scheme of things. They weren’t relationships.”

David hesitated. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“What? Why I’m so incompetent?” I said.

“No, no. Come here.” He held his arms open. I hesitated a

moment, then let him wrap them around me. “It helps me

understand why it makes you nervous. I thought it was me.”

“David.” I tipped back my head to look up at him. “I’m scared

to death to leave school at the end of the year. And the only thing

that makes it seem bearable is that I’ll be with you.”

“Really? Because it seemed so strange about the

interview . . .”

“I know. I don’t know what that was about, honestly. It was

weird and not like me, and I didn’t even want you to find out. I

think maybe I was so nervous about it that I freaked.”

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I remembered my feelings before the interview. Looking

back, they seemed as foreign as if they belonged to a stranger. All

I wanted was to live there with David. It was the only way I could

imagine feeling safe when leaving Barcroft. No matter what

Cubby said.

We stood there, his arms around me.

“Columbia was my first choice,” I said. “But it was a huge

long shot to begin with. There are other schools in New York.

NYU, The New School . . . or if I want to do architecture,

somewhere like Pratt or Parsons. I’ve been looking into them. It’ll

all work out. I’ll end up where I’m meant to be.”

“Just as long as it’s in New York, I don’t care about anything

else,” David said, pulling back a bit. “Hey, now that I know you

don’t want to get rid of me, I need to ask you something. Sunday

the seventeenth is my mom’s fiftieth birthday. She’s having a big

party at the house—kind of like a family reunion. Would you

come with me and Celeste?”

Celeste. Bruises. The sincerity in David’s eyes. Why did there

always have to be something about Celeste hanging over me?

I tried to smile. “I’d love to.”

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Chapter 32

STUDENTS ENTERING THE CHAPEL later that afternoon

filled the cavernous space with shouts and laughter, waved at

each other, and rushed to get seats near friends. More than one

person had blue face-paint on; Barcroft apparel was ubiquitous.

Stupidly, I’d worn a red sweater. After my talk with David, the last

thing on my mind was Barcroft-Edgerton weekend. Now I looked

like a Red Sox fan in a room full of Yankees.

Instead of letting my eyes stray in the direction of the left-

side balcony, where I used to sit with Viv and Abby, I watched the

hundreds of bodies milling around the oak pews on the main

level. Too short, too pale, too heavy—no one matched my David

blueprint. He’d had an appointment with his advisor right before

this. Maybe she’d kept him late.

I randomly followed a group down the center aisle, now

searching the pews for anyone to sit with. I was about to give up

and sit alone when I saw a familiar green beret.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you saving that seat?”

Celeste followed my eyes to the spot next to her. “Nope.”

I stepped over her crutches and sat on the hard, wooden

bench. Almost none of Celeste’s skin was showing. She had on a

velvet blazer, a high-necked, Victorian-style blouse, and men’s

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khakis, slit up the leg to accommodate her cast—an interesting

change from her usual style.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I craned my head around and saw peer-counselor Toby’s

dark hair and silver glasses. “Hey, Toby.”

“We miss you,” he said.

“Of course you do.” I smiled. “Can’t say it’s mutual. I’d

forgotten how nice it is to have free time.”

He laughed thinly. We both knew I was lying.

I turned back around, bumping my elbow lightly against the

pew, reigniting the pain. I rubbed it as I studied the assembly

program and tried to decide what to say to Celeste. My eyes

caught on a familiar name.

I nudged Celeste and held the program out in front of her.

“Did you know Whip’s father and grandfather are speaking?

Telling stories about fifty years of blue-red rivalry?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m having dinner with them.”

She was? “So you’re still hanging out with Whip? I haven’t

seen him around the dorm.”

“I wouldn’t bring him there,” she said. She tipped her face

toward the chapel’s soaring windows. The light brought out the

thin lines on her chapped lips.

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“Is everything okay, Celeste?” I asked in a lower voice.

“Yeah, fine.”

“Well, is there some reason you haven’t been using our

bathroom?” I felt like I was walking on hummingbird eggshells. “If

something’s wrong with the water pressure, or whatever, I can

figure it out. I’m good with that stuff.”

A low, rhythmic thumping crept into my ears from behind us.

“No. No reason.”

“I know you’re not using it,” I said. “There must be

something wrong. You didn’t burn yourself again, did you?”

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “I’m showering at the gym

after physical-therapy sessions. The tub is too slippery with my

cast.”

“Really? That’s it?” I said. The thumping had gotten louder.

Now I could feel it under my feet.

Celeste turned to face me and smiled. “Somehow you know

that little redhead saw me in the locker room, and now you’re

trying to find out why I’m all beat-up looking. Right?”

“Well?”

She began to make quick, precise folds in her program, like

origami. “I’m fine,” she finally said. “I’m handling it.”

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“There’s no reason you should have to handle it on your

own,” I said.

“If I needed to talk about something, I would. Okay?” Her

program had turned into an origami crane. She balanced it on the

back of the pew in front of us. It trembled from the vibrations

coming up from the floor.

“It’s weird, Celeste. Being covered in bruises. I don’t want to