In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(71)

It was almost like I wanted to get caught.

I watched the parade inch nearer and considered it. I’d thought I was obsessed with Homecoming because it was the perfect second act, and I wanted to be admired and envied for once in my life. But what if it was more than that? What if all along there’d been another plot, orchestrated by my shadow self, the subterranean Jessica Miller, who was capable of things I couldn’t imagine?

The last thing my therapist said to me was a warning: “Listen to me, Jessica. The real you—whoever she is—will get what she wants in the end. Whether you realize it or not. It’s what the subconscious always does. Wouldn’t you rather know? Don’t you want to see it coming? You have to reconcile yourself.”

She’d been right. Maybe this is what the real Jessica—the one who came out when I was too drunk, the one who existed in the moments I shoved away—wanted all along. To get caught. To be punished. And now, finally, we were reconciled, all her crimes my own.

I couldn’t breathe. The air in the room was too thick, heavy with dust, and I couldn’t force it into my chest. I had to do something.

I looked at the chairs stacked in the corner, then at the window, and lunged, hauling a chair to the window. With all my strength, I lifted it and smashed it into the glass.

Nothing. I swung the chair again, almost doubling over with the lack of air. Again and again, I struck the window until my arms ached, and finally there was a crack, unspindling like a thread across the glass.

I held the chair aloft and brought it down, hard, over the crack. The window splintered. I smashed the pieces of glass, fighting the strangest sense of déjà vu. It felt like every move was a move I’d made before.

A chill wind whipped into the room. I took a deep breath, cold air filling my chest, inflating my lungs. There, that was better. Now I could breathe.

I stepped to the edge of the window, glass crunching under my shoes, and looked down at Crimson Campus. My heart swelled, hair flying like a flag behind me—no longer the mouse-brown of college but blond, like Mint’s and Courtney’s, Jack’s and Heather’s. I stretched out my arms. A strange calmness filled me that made me think of Eric. A calmness that came with having nothing left to lose.

I’d loved this place so dearly. It had been an escape, an open world of possibilities. I’d screwed it all up, of course, but I wouldn’t think of that now. I would think only of how right it felt to be back where it began, where the magic of my old happiness still pulsed in the soil.

I inched both feet onto the windowsill. The sky was so blue. I could swear I smelled the magnolias—heady and sweet—luring me toward them.

I’d really loved it. I swear I’d loved them, my friends, even when I hadn’t. But I’d made every wrong decision, I knew that now. Since the day East House first loomed into view, and probably long before then. The wrong boy. The wrong major, wrong career, wrong obsessions, wrong allegiances. Valentine’s Day, I’d made the worst possible choice, done something there was no coming back from.

I was so sorry. I hoped they’d know.

“What the hell—”





Chapter 34


April, sophomore year

“—are you kids doing?” The gas-station owner, a silver-haired man in coveralls, stepped out of the doorway, waving a red kerchief at us.

“Oh shit,” Frankie said. “Hurry up, guys. I can’t get in trouble—”

“I’m on the football team,” we all finished, nailing his inflection.

“You know, Frankie,” Heather said, carving her last letter, “I’m really starting to get over this whole football thing. Constant practice, never allowed to have fun. You should really find a hobby that suits my lifestyle better.”

“Your lifestyle of petty vandalism?”

Heather kissed the blade of her pocketknife, then blew the kiss at Frankie.

“Why does the gas-station owner look like an extra in a 1950s gangster movie?” Caro asked. “Did we slip through a wormhole and travel back in time?”

“One more Star Trek reference,” I warned her, “and I’m going to start calling you Eustice.”

“But Tiny’s right.” Mint slid his sunglasses over his eyes in full movie-star mode. “We should get out of here, daddy-os. Go burn some rubber before the fuzz shows up.”

“Nerds.” Jack waved a hand at us. “And everyone at school thinks you’re so cool.”

“Give me—one more… Okay, done!” Coop rose from the picnic bench and snapped his pocketknife closed. “You asked for immortality? Well, here it is. Feast your eyes.”

The seven of us gazed at the tabletop, where Coop had carved a message—with a little help from Heather, who couldn’t stand being out of the spotlight. EH7 was here.

“It’s beautiful,” Heather said. “I commend myself.”

“Classic,” Jack said. “Concise.”

“Good craftsmanship,” Mint agreed. “I know we’re all so surprised Coop knows how to wield a knife.”

“Did anyone else realize we just signed our names to a crime?” I asked.

“Uh, guys?” Caro looked over her shoulder. “The owner’s coming.”

“Oh fuck,” Coop said, scrambling. “Run.”