The Hearts We Sold(5)

“Not your fault.” Those words also came easily to Dee; she always spoke to adults with the same quiet surrender. “I understand.”

“You should talk to your parents. You have until the end of the school year.” Mrs. Garrett slid Dee’s file back into place. “We’d hate to lose a promising student.”

“Yeah,” said Dee numbly. “Me too.”





FOUR


D ee enjoyed midterms.

In the days following her visit to the registrar’s office, she listened to several freshmen quizzing themselves in the library, murmuring to one another in French; two boys Dee barely knew yelled algebra equations at each other until the dorm monitor told them off; a girl’s sobbing could be heard through a thin wall; a gaggle of haughty seniors flaunted their disinterest in exams by stripping down to bikinis and boxers and stretching out on the lawn, taking in the weak sunlight. Some of them read textbooks, but most had the latest gossip rags. Dee saw a picture of an actress with a prosthetic leg, decorated in tiny diamonds to match her dress. THE SECRET BEHIND HER OSCAR? went the headline.

Most of the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors looked at the seniors with resentful envy, then went back to desperate studying. When anxiety hung heavy in the air, people were their most honest—and terrified—selves. Dee enjoyed it because it was the one time she didn’t have to monitor her every word; with everyone on edge, no one noticed if she slipped up. Her own worry seemed natural when people could blame it on academic pressure rather than the constant thrum of nerves that seemed to never leave her. Her shoulders were drawn tight and her jaw ached from clenching it in her sleep. Old fear beat within her, as solid and familiar as her pulse, and for once she could blame it on the stress of tests, of papers, of final projects.

“What are you doing for spring break?” asked Gremma once Dee got back to the dorm. She slouched on a large green beanbag—a joint purchase of theirs—and a chemistry workbook sat open across her lap. “Got any hot parties planned?” She grinned. In contrast to her designer jeans and high-end computer, there was a slight overlap in Gremma’s bottom teeth. It’s not like she couldn’t have afforded to fix them. Dee wondered if Gremma had refused braces out of sheer stubbornness. It would be a very Gremma thing to do.

Dee set her backpack down and settled on her bed. “What are you planning?”

Gremma snorted. She sat up, the beanbag’s foam beads crunching beneath her. “Spend a week at my parents’ vacation house in Newport, hooking up with the girlfriends of the boys my parents try to set me up with. Probably drink lots of tequila, dance around bonfires, and run naked down the beach. Want to come?”

It was the first time Gremma had ever offered, and Dee considered it. Escape, if only for a week. She imagined some ritzy beach house, complete with cocktail glasses and mini umbrellas—but she would be somewhere unknown, at the mercy of strangers, and without an escape route. Her stomach twisted at the thought. “Doesn’t seem like my kind of scene,” she said truthfully.

“The house is nice,” said Gremma. “Plenty of room.” She paused, then added, “But, yeah, I can’t really see you running naked or getting drunk.”

Dee’s smile went brittle. “Not my thing. You have fun, though.”

“Oh, I will. So what will you be doing?”

Dee’s smile dropped entirely. A familiar hollow ache opened up inside her rib cage. “Maybe hang out with some friends,” she said. “Do some cooking with my mom.” The lies came easily, as they always did.

“So you’re going home, then?” asked Gremma absentmindedly.

“Yeah.”

Some part of Dee yearned for home. For the familiar smells, for the old furniture, for the overgrown yard and the television that only worked if you adjusted the coat-hanger antenna just right.

And maybe—just maybe—things would go well. Hope bloomed within her. Perhaps, when she went back, they would see how well she was doing. Her parents had to recognize she’d made a good life for herself. She’d come armed with a 3.65 GPA and the most responsible of requests. She would ask her parents if they could help out with her tuition. That’s what parents were for—in theory. To help their children be more. Other teenagers asked their parents for money for piercings or cars—and Dee had never asked for anything frivolous. At least not since she’d been ten and begged her parents for an Easy-Bake Oven, only to have her father snap that they had a perfectly working oven in their kitchen.

Gremma let out a sigh, as if she couldn’t imagine doing something so mundane as going home for spring break. “Well, you have fun with that.”





Home looked the same as ever.

It was a pale green, and in the dim evening light she almost didn’t notice the peeling paint. Two stories high, with an obligatory attempt at a garden. Dee knew the backyard made no such effort—behind the tall fences and trees was a tangle of overgrown blackberry brambles and a graveyard of abandoned home improvement projects. She’d played in it as a kid, taking plastic dinosaurs through the overgrown grass.

Gremma’s shiny black Camaro couldn’t have been more out of place. “You sure you don’t need help with your bags?” she asked. She’d already dressed for spring break—in high-waisted shorts, a crop top, with her hair twisted into some elaborate knot. She looked effortlessly confident and Dee both loved and resented her for it.