“”
The words blurred in her ears, became familiar chords in a song she knew all too well. She knew where this would end up, with her father ranting about how hard he worked and how grateful they should all be, about how he never had this kind of life growing up, about respect and family and how spoiled his daughter had turned out, and with her mother eventually going to the backyard, pretending to get some air but smoking hard out beneath the walnut tree.
Dee turned the shower on and let the sound of the water drown out everything else.
FIVE
She lasted two days.
She tried, she really did.
She fell into her old routines; she cleaned the bathroom and tossed the moldy food from the fridge. She took refuge in the backyard, tried to pull prickly weeds from the overgrown lawn—a joke, she thought, since her father kept other yards pristine. Of coursetheirlawn would resemble a half-dead jungle.
She slept in late enough so she didn’t have to join in at any awkward morning conversations. Once she heard the distinct slam of the front door, she would venture downstairs in pajamas and robe to make breakfast for her mother. Dee knew the basics of cooking, had taught herself with her grandmother’s recipe book propped up against a can of lentil soup. It had been simple stuff at first—omelets and pancakes and French toast. But then she’d moved on from breakfast to soups and stir-fries, and by the time she left for Brannigan, she knew how to crack an egg with one hand, how to whip up a meal from nearly any kind of leftovers, and how to judge if she could cut away the mold on a piece of food or if it was a goner.
But now, no matter how she tried, she could not slip back into this old life. She was fine with short visits; she enjoyed her mother’s company and the familiarity of the house, but the prospect of living here permanently made her want to scratch at her neck until the skin was raw.
Her mother took the news of Dee’s leaving like she always did—with bright smiles, overfull eyes, and hands that trembled.
“Sorry,” Dee lied. “It’s just, this project is half our biology grade and Gremma can’t do all the work. That’s why they break us into pairs.” She insisted on making breakfast, which consisted of digging out two clean bowls and trying to determine which cereal hadn’t gone stale yet. Dee sat at the dining room table, fingers knotted in her lap, filled with a combination of pity and affection.
“At least the coffee’s still good,” said Mrs. Moreno, smiling as she set down two mugs. Dee took the nearer one and sipped.
Bitter heat flooded her mouth. She swallowed the burn of the whiskey, making an effort to keep her face normal. “I think I got your cup,” she said, and pushed it back.
The dorms were startlingly quiet. Dee liked it that way. The only person she spoke to was the dorm monitor when she lied about needing to return for a school project.
Dee sat with her secondhand laptop looking up fellowships, scholarships, jobs, anything. The problem was that while her parents weren’t wealthy like most of the students here, they also weren’t poor. They were the middlest of middle class, and thus she was disqualified for most financial aid. Her own scholarship had been merit-based.
Looking up summer jobs was next, but there weren’t any good ones—at least not for someone who wasn’t eighteen. And none of them paid a fraction of what tuition cost.
She did have a college fund—her grandmother had started it when Dee was a kid. “Always have something in the bank,” she had said, placing a hand on Dee’s tiny shoulder.
Dee had added to the fund long after her grandmother passed away. Checks from distant relatives, odd neighborhood jobs, pet-sitting for classmates—it went into the bank. After all, that was what responsible people did. The problem was, her parents were still technically the holders of that bank account. Dee couldn’t make withdrawals until she was eighteen—at the beginning of next December, long after school started up again.
She’d need her parents’ permission to access the funds.
Sadness settled heavy in her skull, made her temples ache and her head feel heavy. Her eyes stung, but she didn’t cry; she’d stopped crying years ago. Crying never solved anything. It just made her nose run.
She couldn’t go back to that house.
But it looked like she didn’t have a choice.
Dee was suddenly so tired she was in a daze, unable to do more than flop down on her bed and stay there.
She recognized the lethargy: a familiar and entirely unwelcome reminder of her old life. Small things suddenly became insurmountable: getting a new pencil off her desk, rolling over in bed, or even blinking. The air felt thicker, as if the world conspired against her every movement.
No, she thought. This wasn’t happening again. She wouldn’t let it.
She was grabbing her robe when a knock sounded at her door. Dee flinched and for a moment, her mind was overrun with irrational fear. That they’d followed her here, that she’d open her door and her family would be standing there, ready to drag her home.
She considered not opening the door, but a young, female voice said, “Hey, Gremma! You awake?”
All the tension went out of her. Shaky with relief, she crossed the room to open the door.
Dee had never been a very social person. Having a lot of friends meant needing to keep track of every half-truth, of every careful scrap of information… it was exhausting. She tried to limit her interactions. She talked with the same few lab partners, ate with a group of girls that desperately wanted Gremma to be one of them, smiled at the same people, and was polite to everyone.
But despite her attempts to remain aloof, dorm life meant she knew people. The girls in the next room over were named Tabitha and Courtney, and they happily chatted with Gremma sometimes while Dee did homework. There were others—Julia, the local distributor of instant coffee if anyone needed a fix; Nicky, who annoyed everyone by playing her music just a little too loud; and that one girl who always wore the same shirt when she wasn’t in uniform.
