Begin Again(6)

“Let me see what I can do on my end,” I say, holding on to the idea that we can fix this like it’s a lifeline.

“Yeah. Me too. It’s—it’ll be fine, okay?” he says. “We’ve both got classes starting today, so—let’s take it one step at a time. Go to class. Then figure it out.”

Like I can go to class now without acting like the guilt is eating me alive. If I’d just told him. If I hadn’t been so stubborn about wanting this to be a surprise. It’s the Homecoming mix-up all over again, except I sincerely doubt either of us will be laughing about this anytime soon.

“Worse comes to worst, we’re apart for one more semester,” says Connor. “We’ll figure this out. We always do.”

“We always do,” I echo.

After we hang up I take a beat. When I was in middle school I read an article on how to stop tears from coming out of your eyes. The first step was to breathe in four seconds, then breathe out two. I stare at the wall and take that breath.

“Shit,” says Shay. “Are you gonna cry?”

There’s something in her very frank but empathetic delivery that makes me laugh, and snaps me right out of it. I shove my phone into the pocket of my dress and turn back to her. I can tell from the steady way she’s looking at me that the laugh is exactly what she’d intended.

“No,” I say thickly. “At least, not if we take these Zebra Cakes to the face right now.”

Shay nods, holding hers up as she shifts off her bed. “Good. Because I’ve got to get to my ten-thirty shift.”

“Cheddar cheese and Ritz crackers.”

She takes this oddity in stride a lot faster than others have. “I appreciate the specificity.” She reaches for a plush gray beanie. “Do you have class?”

“Not until stats at eleven. But I need to get to the quad,” I say, helping myself to the mirror she propped up by the bookshelf. Somehow, impossibly, I look every bit as intact as I did five minutes ago—blond ponytail still immaculately styled and curled, eyeliner unsmudged, berry-pink lip stain still smiling tentatively back at me. Given the number of legacy Blue Ridge kids with trust funds and immaculate test scores, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got here, but I made sure to try to look the part.

“I have to cut through it to get to work.” Shay hauls a tote bag full of books approximately half her own size. It is safe to assume, based on the titles on the bindings poking out of it, that 90 percent of them are not part of Blue Ridge’s core course curriculum. “I can take you there.”

“Thanks,” I say, tightening my ponytail and grabbing my Zebra Cake for the road.

When we emerge into the January chill the campus is teeming with students, the sidewalks and little winding paths so full of them that it feels like they’ve shoved the entire population of Little Fells into a few square blocks. At first I’m so dumbstruck by the sheer number of kids. It feels like someone raptured all the authority figures. I can’t stop staring at everyone, accidentally making direct and aggressive eye contact enough times that people start to give us a wide berth.

“You look like you just got dropped into another country,” says Shay, who has been lightly steering me by tapping my arm every time we’re going to pivot in another direction.

I shake my head. “Little Fells is kind of tiny. I’m just not used to so many . . .”

“Hungover co-eds in pajamas?” Shay supplies.

So much for me looking the part. I look more like someone about to teach a class than take one. But before I can answer, class lets out from a nearby building and a group of students nearly flattens us. Shay yanks me into the grass before we get caught in the maelstrom of elbows and bright blue coffee cups, and we watch them go by like Simba on the edge of a wildebeest herd.

“My life may have just flashed before my eyes,” I say after we’re in the clear.

“Was it pretty?” asks Shay.

“Honestly, there was a lot of scrolling through Instagram.”

Shay squints at the crowd we just dodged as they sharply pivot to the quad just ahead. “Oh, right. The Knights’ Tour. Is that what you’re headed to the quad for? You’re trying to get into one of the secret societies?”

I pick up the pace to keep up with the crowd in front of us, but slow when I notice Shay doesn’t change her stride. “Yeah. You aren’t?”

“Eh, probably not,” says Shay. “I’m busy enough as it is. And besides, whatever’s at the end of this ribbon hunt might just be a waste of time.”

I think of my mom’s ribbons, still tucked away safely with my things, and am suddenly glad I didn’t pull them out in front of her. “But you don’t know that.”

“And you do?” Shay asks, raising an amused eyebrow.

I open my mouth to defend it—the ribbon hunt, the secret societies, my compulsion to be a part of it all—but the truth is, I don’t know much at all. Only that it’s so much a part of my mom’s legacy that it all feels inextricably tied to me, too.

Off my look, Shay pivots and says, “Well, if you know about the kickoff event, I take it you’ve been listening to The Knights’ Watch.”

I nod, grateful for the change in subject. “Yeah.”

But “listening” is an understatement. “Living and breathing” might be a better one. I’ve been keeping up with The Knights’ Watch since I was a little girl, either on the livestream or the downloadable version that always pops up as a podcast after it plays.