It was a text from Daisy:Excited about initiation Sunday?And pride swelled within me. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten into Sterling.
After typing my response—Hell yes!—I looked over my shoulder to where Lila had been. She was gone.
“Hey, Maya.” Lila leaned on the armchair across from me and tucked a loose strand of hair behind an ear, headphones dangling around her neck.
“Hey,” I said, unable to think. I suddenly became aware of my heartbeat. “Um, what are you studying?”What are you studying?I sounded like such a nerd.
“I’m reading T. S. Eliot. My thesis is on time and memory inFour Quartets,” she said. Her catlike eyes were a vibrant emerald green and she had light freckles scattered across her nose.
“That’s cool,” I said, regaining composure. “I readFour Quartets,it’s beautiful. ‘Footfalls echo in the memory…’ ”
“ ‘…down the passage we did not take, toward the door we never opened, into the rose garden.’ ” Lila smiled. She sat on the arm of my chair, leaned toward me, and whispered in my ear. “Be careful.”
I pulled back and looked at her, confused.Be careful?Of what?
“Did you say something?”
But Lila didn’t answer. She gave a small smile and walked away, leaving goosebumps on my arm where she touched me.
After returning to my work for some time, I grabbed the next book from the stack and opened it. Tucked in the front cover was a torn piece of paper. In scrawling handwriting, it read:Don’t trust them. Get out while you still can.
A part of me wanted to laugh at the cryptic message. Did Lila slide this note into my book? I looked around, expecting her to jump out of the shadows. Was this some kind of joke?
I glanced back in the direction Lila had been, but she was gone. A few students hovered over their reading—no one I recognized. My breath grew shallow. Was she trying to warn me away from Sterling Club? From Princeton?
A chilly draft swept past as I scanned the corners of the room, and somewhere in the depths of my subconscious was a flutter of unease.
Chapter Twenty
Naomi
November 2022, six months before her death
The next day is coldand gray, the trees’ branches wilted, as if exhausted from yesterday’s storm. In desperate need of coffee, I walk up to Nassau Street to get Olive’s for breakfast, and to my surprise, I nearly run headfirst into Ben. He’s carrying a bag of food, head down as if in a hurry. I wonder if he has one sandwich in there, or if he’d gotten a second one for his girlfriend.
“Hey,” I say.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and keeps his head bowed low like the trees. “Hey.”
We stand there in silence for a moment, until Ben speaks. “Look, about what happened at the game. She’s not my girlfriend, okay? We broke up months ago. I just, this is embarrassing, but I saw you with Liam so when she said it…I didn’t correct her. It was stupid and, yeah, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.” I look down at the sidewalk too, still damp from last night’s rain. I believe him. She seemed like she was there to win him back.
“Anyway, I’m guessing it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” When I look up at him, his gaze is somewhere past me. His hands are still in his pockets, and he has his guard up, like he knows I was with Liam last night after the game. Maybe it was for the best that he saw Liam kiss me.
“Yeah, umm…” I say, wondering how to word this. “Ben, I really like hanging out with you, but Liam and I, we still have some shit to figure out—”
“So I saw.” Ben says this abruptly and looks up at me for the first time. I’d expected to see a distant, if not angry, look in his eyes and am surprised to see a sadness there instead. He shifts his weight. “Well, I have to go. See you around.” He pushes his way past me and when he’s a few strides away he stops and turns around. “I just…I think you’re making a mistake. I think you deserve better.”
Defensive, I open my mouth to respond, maybe to tell him the truth—that I’m still in love with Liam—but before I can think of what to say, he dips his head and is gone.
—
On Monday, Iworry when Amy doesn’t show up to class. She seems like she’s going through something, but like me, she always tries to deal with it on her own. After class, I text her,where are you?to make sure she’s okay—I hadn’t seen her since Saturday morning—but also to talk, to tell her about Liam and Ben.
I grow more anxious when I don’t hear back from her all day, and after an evening meeting with my thesis advisor, I’m walking back to my dorm in the dark when I’m overcome by an inexplicable sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The sensation grows as I enter our building and climb the stairs. I’m rounding the landing when a scream from somewhere deep in the building rips through the silence. I freeze, holding my breath, listening into the dark, until I hear it again, followed by a string of laughter.
