“They would be the ones to know, right? And didn’t you say she was like, a huge partier?”
“No, she definitely was,” I allowed. “But there was also this lamp that got knocked over—”
“A lamp?”
“On the desk.”
“Couldn’t Bri have knocked it over herself before she passed out?”
“I mean, sure, I guess,” I admitted, the slightest of edges creeping into my voice, “but—”
“Did they do an autopsy?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe? I haven’t like, heard anything about it. There was a bunch of crushed-up oxy on her desk, so I think they probably just assumed that’s what she took.”
“Were the police acting like they thought anything was suspicious?”
“I mean, they interviewed us.”
“Harvard police?” she asked. “Or real police?”
“The Harvard police are real police.”
“That’s what it says on their website, yes,” Holiday agreed with a wry smile. “What did they ask, stuff about Bri using?”
“About what happened that night,” I recalled, “and when we found her. And yeah, about her being on drugs.”
“Have they been back?”
“Well, no,” I conceded, “but that doesn’t mean anything, right?”
Holiday tilted her head like,Not quite.“Bri was a white girlin the Ivy League,” she pointed out. “If there was even a whiff of something sketchy going on, they’d be all over it. Or forget the police, even—theHeraldwould be all over it. Or like, Fox 25.”
I shrugged a little belligerently at that, sitting back against the ripped fake leather of the booth. It was a fucked-up assessment, but I couldn’t act like it wasn’t true. “I guess.”
Both of us were quiet for a moment. Holiday took a long sip of her coffee. “Look,” she said finally, her voice gentle, “I know first year is a mindfuck. Even if you think you’re settling in fine, it’s a lot to get used to. There’s one girl on my floor who hasn’t eaten anything but cereal since she got here. There’s another one who makes her roommate leave the room every night between six and six-thirty so she can walk around naked for half an hour and air out all her various crevices.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Is it you?”
“Fuck off,” Holiday said sweetly. “The point is, we’re all still figuring out what we’re doing here, even if we don’t want to admit it. And what happened on the Vineyard last year was a thrill—I mean, a massively messed-up thrill, but still a thrill. It felt, like, purposeful. And concrete. I can get why you’d be looking for something like that now. But sometimes…an accident really is just an accident, you know? One weird note from a maybe-dealer does not a murder mystery make.”
“Hold on a sec,” I said, blinking at her across the table as I took in her meaning, my whole body flushed with humiliation and shame. “You think I’m manufacturing a violent crime because I’mhaving trouble adjusting to college?”
Right away, Holiday shook her head. “That’s not what I’m—”
“Really?” I interrupted. “Because it kind of sounds like that’s exactly what—”
“It’s not,” Holiday insisted. “Michael, come on. I just— Remember what I was saying the other day, about spending all your time with the lacrosse team? What if you joined a club, or something?”
“Aclub?” Oh, I was livid. I was so fucking pissed. “Screw you, Holiday. I bring something like this to you and you turn around and tell me I should join the literary magazine?”
Holiday blew a breath out. “Michael—” she started, then broke off as the waitress arrived and set our plates down, the smell of fried potatoes and bacon filling the air between us. We ate in silence for a moment, passing the ketchup sullenly back and forth. “Did you show it to Greer?” she asked me finally. “The note, I mean.”
I shook my head, remembering the way Greer’s body had crumpled to the floor the other night in the hallway. Remembering how she’d shaken in my arms. “She’s like, super upset.”
“I mean, understandably,” Holiday pointed out. “I’m sure everyone is. It’s an upsetting thing.” She sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you, okay? I felt like we were kind of fighting the other day by the river too. But you’re my best friend. I’m so happy we’re living in the same place again. And I’m really sorry this whole thing happened. Also,” she said, bumping my ankle with hers underneath the table, “just saying, if you want to hang out with me so bad, you don’t need to bring me a murder investigation to work on. All you need to do is say so.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fuck off,” I said, but I was smiling, I couldn’t help it. I reached over and snagged a fry off her plate.
