In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(6)

“Well, that does impart a sense of grandeur, doesn’t it,” said my dad approvingly. Even my mom took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot me an impressed look.

We glided under the arch and onto campus, driving slowly. Duquette was more than grand. Blackwell Tower, home to the chancellor’s office, was modeled after the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, single spire piercing the sky in a lethal spike, buttresses creeping out the sides like spindly spider legs. In the blazing glory of late August, rows of red crepe myrtles formed a sea of crimson everywhere, the ocean of color interrupted only by gnarled magnolia trees, twisted arms reaching out with scattered white blooms, clinging late into their season. Crimson and white. Blood and spirit, like the Duquette motto: Mutantur nos et vos, corpus et animam meam. We will change you, body and soul.

I was ready to be changed.

I shifted to see past the large crack in the windshield, left over from Dad’s incident. It had been months now, but we still didn’t have the money to replace the windshield, so we’d all learned to lean a little to the left.

“There it is,” I breathed. “East House.”

Although Blackwell Tower and the Dupont Observatory were the most iconic buildings on campus, I’d fallen hard and fast for East House. It was a modest-sized dormitory nearly covered, root to roof, with thick, green ivy. Though it was one of six halls reserved for freshmen, it was the only one that looked like a castle from a storybook, or a house out of The Secret Garden. Carved above the front door were the words “The sun rises in the east.”

This beautiful building—this imposing campus—was my life now. I’d earned Duquette, been selected out of thousands competing to go to U.S. News & World Report’s sixteenth-best college in the country. It may not have been what I’d originally longed for, or what my father expected—it was no Harvard—but it could be the start of something good. A new life. I could be a different person, starting now.

It wasn’t until my mom parked that I fully registered the circus of people around us. The dark thread of worry resurfaced.

“Well,” said my dad, unbuckling, “guess this is it. Time to see how knockoff Crimson Campus stands up to the real deal.” He reached for the door.

“Wait—” All I could think about was what he’d insisted on wearing: his Harvard alumni shirt. For the first time in my life, seeing it brought shame instead of desire. What would all these people—these Duquette students—think? Surely, they would understand the message my father was sending, not just to me anymore, but to all of them.

My mother gave me a sharp look, as always, finely attuned to conflict. “What’s wrong?”

I looked back and forth between them. My parents. Both here, though neither wanted to be, for vastly different reasons. It would only take two days, and then they’d strap themselves back into this car and make the return pilgrimage to Norfolk, to do who knows what in their empty house. I could stand it.

“Nothing,” I said, leaning back in my seat. “Let’s start with the trunk.”

***

My parents ended up leaving earlier than expected, but not before my mother got choked up during a tour of campus—It was just so expensive; didn’t I realize what I was getting myself into?—and my dad declared the campus pretty, but nowhere near as impressive as Cambridge. And oh, here’s an idea, what if I waited a semester and applied again to Harvard as a transfer student? I would never have to tell anyone I’d spent a semester in North Carolina.

After all that, and the hard work of cramming my stuff into the small, cinder-block dorm room, I thought I’d be relieved to see them go. But as soon as I was alone, I bawled like a baby. With a roommate—especially mine, Rachel, who was eerily silent and shot me anxious looks every time I breathed too loud—I had to lie under my comforter to hide my sobs.

College was not what I’d expected. All the other freshmen seemed to become best friends instantly. They were having the time of their lives. In the afternoons I walked down the hall with my head ducked, listening to conversations in doorways about all-night frat parties and hangovers so bad they had to skip 8:00 a.m. classes. In a flash, I was nine years old again, walking into that classroom and finding no one. It was like being invisible. Nothing had changed.

One night I woke at 3:00 a.m. and shuffled to the bathroom, catching two girls stumbling back to their room, actually crying with laughter. They were clearly drunk, but they were also glamorous, in miniskirts and bright lipstick. I’d noticed them before. They were both blond, and one was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Her hair was so glossy. Ever since I’d first spotted her, I’d spent nights wondering what shampoo she used, or if it was just genetics. It was a strange feeling to admire her so intensely from afar, like being half in love.

The other girl was pretty, if you were being generous, but more importantly she seemed wholly at ease in her own skin. She looked people in the eyes and spoke in a loud voice and acted like the universe revolved around her. Which, by the way the beautiful girl clung to her arm, it might. As I watched them together, the ache inside me sharpened to a knifepoint.

The next day was the freshman honor code ceremony, where we all had to sign our names on a contract pledging not to plagiarize. Everyone in our hall, even my roommate, who never opened her mouth to say anything, complained about having to go. It was a bit annoying to put on heels and a dress, but I was secretly grateful to be doing something with the whole freshman class, like we all belonged equally. It felt nice to move in a herd from the dorms to Eliot Lawn.