The Hearts We Sold(9)

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.

The girl at the door was Coffee-Distributor Julia. “Is Gremma around?”

Dee blinked. “She’s gone for spring break.”

“Oh.” Julia’s face fell, then brightened. “Oh, well. You doing anything tonight? There’s a party in Grover. Their dorm monitor has the flu, and from the way the boys tell it, she’s so strung out on cold meds that she wouldn’t notice if we threw a rave.” She beamed. “We figure all of us left behind on spring break should at least have a little fun.”

Dee opened her mouth to decline. She didn’t do parties. But something caught in her throat. Maybe it was the scent of the unwashed sheets or stale popcorn; maybe it was simply the paralyzing knowledge that she wasn’t sure what she would do if left to her own devices.

“Sure,” she said.




Brannigan had three dorms: Whiteaker, where Dee lived; an all-boys building called Grover; and Moody, the other girls’ dorm. Dee never visited Grover—she had no close male friends and she didn’t date. On the outside, the boys’ dorm looked like the other two buildings, but once inside, Dee wrinkled her nose. “And I thought we were slobs,” she muttered.

“The prank wars are legendary here,” said Julia. “Even Moody gets in on it sometimes.”

“Why doesn’t that kind of thing happen in our dorm?” asked a blond girl.

Julia snorted. “Pretty sure the last time anyone tried to mess with Whiteaker, some crazy girl threw a Molotov cocktail into the idiot’s room.”

“It was a stink bomb,” said Dee, surprising herself by speaking up.

“You sure?” asked Julia.

Dee would know; it had been Gremma who’d devised the counterstrategy with stolen chemistry equipment. Their room hadn’t smelled right for a week.

The party was being held in one of the larger dorm rooms—the kind meant for four kids. Someone had pushed the bunk beds against the wall and made a diligent effort to shove the mess of dirty clothes under them. Even so, the room smelled distinctly of teenage boy and stale chips.

The dorm had been set up with twinkle lights and mirrors, and with the overhead lamp flicked off, even Dee had to admire the effect. The small room suddenly looked larger, and the small crowd was amplified by the mirrors. Dee found herself gravitating toward a corner. She could tell the party had been going on for some time; there was a sense of charged energy, of anticipation and restlessness. Already, she found herself longing for the security of her own dorm. But she knew the moment she returned, so would her depression.

Without the constant vigilance of the dorm monitor, plastic red cups were passed from hand to hand. Dee took one, accepting it the way she would a prop in her drama class. It was a thing to hold. Nothing more.