They Wish They Were Us(34)
Buzz. A deep, instantly familiar voice crackles. “Hello?”
“It’s Jill Newman,” I say, suddenly feeling my nerves in my throat. Do I sound young? Can she sense the sweat collecting between my fingers?
“You made it,” she says. “Watch the steps, they’re steep as fuck.”
The lock unlatches like a switchblade and I push inside, coming face-to-face with a set of rickety stairs that look like a fire hazard. She wasn’t kidding.
I dart up, moving one foot in front of the other, afraid if I stop now, I’ll stop forever. And finally, when I reach the top floor, Rachel is standing barefoot, leaning with her back propped up against a purple doorframe. She’s wearing baggy acid wash jeans and a thin, nearly see-through white T-shirt. Her hair is wavy and shaggy, with big, voluminous layers hanging around her face. She’s somehow prettier than she was in high school, vivid and kinetic with sparkly dark eyes and round pink cheeks. I want to reach out and touch one finger to her chin, just to see if she’s real.
“Jill Newman,” she says slowly, cocking her head. I wonder how she sees me. If I look older or different. She didn’t stick around for the after, to see how everything changed or didn’t.
“Rachel Calloway.”
“C’mon in.” Rachel turns and leads me into her apartment. The space is tiny, and I can see the entire place from the entryway. Stacks of books line the brick wall, and a mid-century maroon couch, covered in thick wool blankets, has been shoved to one side. Her walls are bare save for an oversize watercolor painting of bold, abstract flowers that’s been tacked to the plaster with thumbnails. It looks like an unfinished art project. Leafy plants hang in macramé swings on either side of the sofa.
“Welcome to the real world,” she says, offering me a smile. “Want some tea?”
I nod and follow Rachel into her kitchen, which is really just a narrow hallway that happens to have both a stove and a fridge.
She squeezes honey into two ceramic mugs painted with outlines of curvy female bodies. Their nipples are just pink points.
“Cute,” I say.
“Thanks. My girlfriend made them.”
I try to hide my surprise but Rachel laughs. “Yep, queer. Started telling people a few years ago,” she says. “I guess no one from Gold Coast would know.” She pauses. “My girlfriend’s name is Frida. She’s a coder. Lives around the block.”
“That’s cool,” I say. I mean it, too. She and Adam never really seemed to fit together. But obviously I thought that.
“It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” I respond because what else is there to say? Standing in front of Rachel makes me long for the past, for the months leading up to Shaila’s death and our initiation. I want to burrow inside those weeks when we were all bonded together. Even when it felt like torture, when we were pushed to the absolute brink and I thought I would explode from the adrenaline and the fear, I knew, I hoped, it was worth it. We were holding on to a thread that was always at risk of unraveling.
A sunshine yellow kettle whistles and Rachel turns away. As she pours the hot water into the mugs, I spot faint raised scars, white as stone, lining the backs of her arms and the nape of her neck. Some are thin, as if someone drew a sewing needle over her skin, and others are thick and fat, scary.
She turns and follows my eyes. “Ah,” she says softly. “Had a bad year after everything. Coulda been worse.”
It never occurred to me that Rachel also suffered, that she had been a victim of what Graham did or didn’t do. Her only crime was loyalty, I guess. And she paid for it, too.
“Come on,” she says, picking up the steaming mugs and walking past me to the couch. “Let’s get this over with.”
The cushions sag with our weight and I wait for her to start, trying hard not to be the one to fill the silence. Seconds pass, maybe a minute, before Rachel stands again, her fingers tangling themselves together. “Wait a sec,” she says.
She retreats behind the bedroom door and I hear paper rustling, weight shifting from one foot to another. She finally emerges holding a thick envelope, the old-school kind with ruled lines and little cardboard circles bound together with tiny red string.
“Open this,” she says, and hands it to me.
I unwind the thread and slide out a stack of uneven papers. It’s a whole jumble of random shit. Rachel stays quiet and I set the folder aside. I pick up the first page. Graham’s transcript from freshman year. An 87 average. Good thing he didn’t need a scholarship. The next page is a thick piece of cardstock covered in a full-bleed glossy image of Shaila and Graham. Their mouths stretch into wide smiles. His arm wraps around her shoulder and she leans her head against his. Their white teeth glimmer and their navy Gold Coast blazers are perfectly pressed. No grass stains or stray crumbs. I look at their eyes and shiver, dropping the rest of the papers in a mess on the floor.
“Shit,” I say. I’ve never seen this picture. It looks like it was taken at a lacrosse game, like they’re leaning against the bleachers. I was probably only a few feet away.
“Never made it into the yearbook,” Rachel says. Her lips curl up, her attempt at a joke. “But it was always my favorite.”
Shaila stares back at me. She was so young. She wasn’t done yet. My throat is dry and my fingers clench around the edges of the paper. It’s all so messed up, that Graham’s alive and Shaila’s dead. I want to hurl my mug at Rachel and her smug little face, for bringing me here, taunting me with memories I had tried viciously to forget. I pull at the edges of the photo, wanting to rip Shaila from Graham’s grasp. Then in one crushing tear the sheet gives, leaving me with just Shaila’s smile. I let Graham float to the floor.