“Is it true you’re a freshman?” one of the men—Miles Clairborne—asked, leaning forward with sharp green eyes. “On scholarship? What’s that like?”
“Fine? How did you—”
“My father’s opposed to the Godwin Scholarships,” Miles continued. “He hates handouts since he pulled himself up by his bootstraps.”
Hudson gave Miles a bored look. “By his bootstraps with nothing but a half-a-billion-dollar loan from your grandfather to start his business, isn’t that right?”
“What’sthatsupposed to mean?”
“Can I use the bathroom?” Ellory asked, before the inevitable fight could get underway. Greer and Sofia were still arguing with each other about what was or wasn’t racist, while the final guest, Percy, shrank between them like he wanted to go home. Kendall, Duncan, and Quentin were talking about cruises they’d taken and where they considered the best place to grab some winter sun. Hudson was looking at Miles the way that he looked at the whiteboard during class sometimes, like this was a war and he was already making plans to win the first two battles. It was a lot.
It was too much.
“Down the hall,” Colt said absently, without taking his gleaming gaze off Miles and Hudson. “Past the sunroom.”
Down the hall and past the sunroom, Ellory opened the door to a short mirror-lined hallway. There were chairs and majesty palms, like someone might have a meeting in here. Beyond that was a second door that led to the actual bathroom. English ivy spilled from baskets hung from the ceiling, and the floor was lined with oversize tiles with a wooden finish. The sink was a white marblevessel with gray veining, the bathtub was a freestanding matte-black pool with no curtain, and the toilet was a wall-mounted contraption with a built-in bidet and a gold stripe. It was almost a crime to pee in it.
How many times was she going to hide in bathrooms? This couldn’t be her entire life at Warren, accepting invitations to social gatherings only to break down next to the nearest available toilet. It wasn’t as though she had never experienced things like this. In job interviews, there had always been that brief moment of surprise when she’d shown up, as if Ellory Morgan were too normal a name for a woman who looked like her. Once, she hadn’t unfrozen fast enough to hold the elevator for a man running toward her, and she had heard him call her a slur through the closed doors. She’d been asked if this was her real hair, she’d been told by friends’ parents that they had made chicken for her, and she had seen stifled smiles if she chose watermelon-flavored anything.
Like most Black women, she had a lifetime of microaggressions to prepare her for Warren University.
But they had been spread out over seventeen years, humiliation that built and burned but could then be rationalized and forgotten. This was a night designed to remind her that progress would always be slow when there were whole classes of people who thought like this, surrounded by other people who thought like this, who never—by choice or by coincidence—had to engage with the fact that they might be doing anything wrong at all.
Trust me, I’m not doing you a favor.
This is a punishment, Morgan, not a gift.
At least Colt seemed to like her so far—or didn’t actively dislike her, which was good enough. It was even more important that she went home with his goodwill, because she was leaving her dignityin tatters across his wooden floors. This was not the time or place to call people out on their shit, she knew that, but fuck if it didn’t make her feelsmallto swallow her thoughts and force her smiles.
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that her thoughts were the only things she’d swallowed tonight. All that food going to waste while they gorged on self-indulgence.
“Morgan?” The knock on the door sounded so distant that she would have thought she had imagined it if not for Hudson’s voice. She’d never heard concern in it before, and she wouldn’t have known how to make it up. It softened the way he said her last name, until it sounded more like a nickname. “You’ve been gone for twenty minutes. It’s disrupting dinner. Do I need to drive you to the hospital?”
That was more along the lines of what she’d expected.
Ellory wiped her damp hands on a small towel and stuffed it in the laundry hamper. “I’m all right,” she said as she returned to the mirror-lined hallway. “Go back to the dining room. I’m coming.”
There was a pause. “Are you certain? If this has been too much—”
“I’m fine. Go away, Graves.”
Somehow, without opening the second door, she knew he was still standing there. She could picture him leaning against the wall, his arms folded, his eyes downcast while he tried to think of some witty rejoinder that she didn’t want to hear. The night wasn’t over, and Ellory was not in the mood to be comforted. A part of her yearned to ask him again why he put himself through this once a month, but the rest of her refused to show that weakness. Not because it was him, but because if he could do it alone all this time, then she could certainly make it through this single event with him looking out for her.
And in the quiet of the bathroom, she could admit that he had been doing that. Looking out for her. Curbing the worst of what he’d dealt with, leaving only the echoes for her to handle. She didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. That kindness.
“Colt’s asking for you,” Hudson added. He rapped his knuckles against the wall in a nervousrat-tat. “We’re actually eating now, so things should be more fun from here.”
“I’m okay,” she said more softly. There was a smile that wanted to inch onto her face, a smile that she fought back. If she didn’t know any better, she would think he was trying to cheer her up. “Really. Tell Colt I’ll be there soon.”
She waited until she heard him shuffle away before she stepped closer to the mirror. Though her makeup had held up well, she reapplied her mascara and brushed her thumb across the corner of her mouth to make sure her lipstick hadn’t migrated toward her cheek. She’d figured there would be wine, so she’d gone for a long-lasting brand that was, so far, living up to its name. Finally, she dragged a hand through her curls to give them a bit more bounce, like maybe that would give her the confidence she’d need for whateverfunentailed.
Ellory stilled with her fingers near the crown of her head.
The mirrors faced each other, allowing her to see herself from the front and back. With her hair still half smooshed by her hand, she could see something on her neck, deep black like an ink stain. She walked backward until she was in front of the other mirror, but no matter how she contorted her body, she couldn’t get a better look. The longer she tried, the more her heart attempted to gallop out of her chest—and not from the exertion. That nameless dread had returned with a vengeance, and it would choke her if she didn’t do something. Already, the overhead lights felt too bright, and goose bumps crept up her arms likebaby spiders erupting from Charlotte’s posthumous egg sac.
Ellory fished a scrunchie out of her pocket and pulled her hair up into a messy bun, baring her neck to the aloe-scented room. Her phone was unearthed next. She used the mirrors to line up the camera as best she could and took several pictures. Black spots danced before her vision, and her fingers shook around the phone. She nearly dropped it twice trying to look at the results. It was as if her body was protecting her from what she was about to see by completely shutting down.
“What the fuck,” she whispered, leaning against the mirror in case her legs decided to give out. “What thefuck.”
