My smile dimmed. My parents weren’t religious, but they each had their devotions. My dad’s life was a shrine built to everything I’d struggled with. He’d never said it out loud, but I knew what he believed: if you couldn’t be the best, be the winner, life wasn’t worth living, and you had to find some way to escape. He’d found a very effective way, once life started disappointing him. My mom, on the other hand, was simple. She devoted herself to anything my dad thought wasn’t worth our time. She worshipped settling, he would say. A constant tension.
How could I possibly explain that?
I cleared my throat. “Why are we spending a Friday night talking about religion like a bunch of nerd theology majors? Here’s what I want to know: where are we going tonight?”
“Hell yeah.” Frankie pounded the table. “Phi Delt Anything-But-Clothes party.” He gestured between himself, Jack, and Mint. “We got invites from one of the brothers.”
The table broke out into a heated discussion about how to fashion clothes out of trash bags and how early we should start drinking in East House before walking to frat row. I leaned back and watched. All around us, fireflies dotted the air, sparks of light, here and gone. Tree branches swayed and stalks of grass lifted with the breeze, in time to some secret song. I could feel it, humming and weaving around us, the lawn and the trees and the brilliant dying sun. Knitting us together.
It was magic. Each of them a star on earth, pulling me in with the force of their gravity. I was theirs. In that moment, I gave myself over completely. I worshipped them. I died and started new, right there in the grass, in the center of the lawn.
The next day, rolling awake in bed, trash-bag dress sticking to my legs, I finally opened Coop’s fortune. Seven strange words:Today, something starts that will never end.
I taped the fortune to my door. I thought I knew what it meant. But I was young, and so naive. I had no idea what was barreling toward us, just around the corner.
Chapter 4
Now
At night Duquette was a dark kingdom, lit by old-fashioned lamps that cast circular glows, like halos in a Byzantine painting. The cab dropped me at the edge of campus, outside the Founder’s Arch. As I walked under the imposing white stone, carved with the school promise—We will change you, body and soul—I thought of how it had impressed even my father, on his first and only trip to campus.
When I passed to the other side, the air changed. I could hear, distantly, the sound of music and voices. I took off down the path, listening for it against theclack-clackof my heels on the stone, thethump-thumpof my heart.
My flight had arrived late, giving me only enough time to rush to my hotel room and presenting me with the perfect excuse to beg off on Caro’s invitation to get ready together. I knew I’d have to see her—there was no getting around it, she was my best friend. But tonight I would talk to as many people as possible, dance away, flit to different crowds. I had a plan, and it had many purposes.
In front of me, in the center of Eliot Lawn, rose the white tent. I could see them now, hundreds of my classmates in dress clothes, the tent spilling over with dark suit jackets and black cocktail dresses. Music swelled from a string quartet in the corner. I took a deep breath, smoothed my dress over my hips, and walked in.
At first, no one noticed me as I wove toward the bar. But then, the first head turned, caught by the plunge of my neckline, the delicate snow-white straps over my shoulders that gave way to nothing but the smooth plane of my back. I’d spent two months’ mortgage on this dress, and it was worth it. More heads followed the first, and then they were turning everywhere I walked, the girl in white cutting through a sea of black. They whispered, scanning me head to foot. But it didn’t matter what they said, only that they were talking. The adrenaline had me buzzing, making my hands tremble as I finally touched the bar.
It was working.
Just as I lifted a glass of wine to my mouth, Caro materialized at my side. “Jessica!”
I almost spilled wine down my dress. “Christ!”
She wrapped herself around me, hugging tight. How had she found me so fast? I supposed my dress had turned me into something of a beacon.
She pulled back, examining me at arm’s length. “Look at you. I love this so much. You’re like a sexpot angel or something.” Out of habit, she reached for the cross around her neck, though she hadn’t worn it in ten years.
Caro. My truest friend. The one who’d never left my side, who loved me as much today as the day we graduated. The guilt threatened to overwhelm me.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I said, swallowing my feelings. “You look great, as always.” She hadn’t aged a day since we’d met. Like everyone else, she wore a tasteful black dress, but since she was Caro, small and dark and beautiful, she pulled it off better. The sameness of her made it hard to avoid the only thing that had changed—the sparkling diamond on her hand. I cut my eyes to the crowd.
“Who’s here?”
“Oh, everyone,” she said dreamily.
Not Heather, whispered a voice, but I cut it off. Searching for Heather’s face in a crowd was a habit I’d put to rest years ago. I couldn’t start again now.
“I’m so happy with the turnout,” Caro said. “This whole weekend was Eric’s vision, you know.”
I froze. “Eric?”
“Eric Shelby. Remember? He works at Duquette now. We were on the Homecoming planning committee together.” Vaguely, I recalled something about Caro volunteering to send reminder emails to the Class of ’09. It must have been from one of her many text messages, half of which I’d deleted without opening, out of sheer fear she’d tell me she and Coop were pregnant, or they’d gone ahead and eloped. “Eric grew into such a sweetheart.” Before I could say anything else, Caro grabbed my arm and started to pull. “Come on, we should find the rest of the gang.”
No, no, no.
I dug my heels in. “Is that Elizabeth Barley and Vanessa Reed?” I waved with feigned excitement at the girls, standing a few yards away. It seemed to work, because they rushed over.
