Save the Date(33)

With Danny gone, it was just me and this girl, who I didn’t know at all, looking at each other across my room. The silence between us seemed to expand and stretch out, and I was suddenly aware, in a way that I hadn’t been just a few seconds earlier, that my room probably looked stupid and childish to her—the posters on my walls, the photos of me and Siobhan pinned up on my corkboard, the jewelry in a heap on my dresser.

“So!” Brooke said brightly, giving me a smile. “What can I do?”

“I really think we’re all set. I just need to grab a few things.” My dresses for the wedding and the rehearsal dinner were hanging in my closet, but I could get to it from Linnie’s room. I just needed a few odds and ends to get through the weekend—I wasn’t sure how much access I’d have to my room once Danny and Brooke settled in. I pulled a canvas bag off my doorknob and crossed over to my dresser.

“I’m happy to help if I can.”

“There’s nothing to help with,” I said, then wondered if I’d been too sharp. “Really. This is a one-person job.” I grabbed a clean pair of pajamas from my drawer and tossed in some underwear and a few T-shirts.

“I’m really sorry to put you out of your room,” Brooke said, twisting her hands together. Her nails, I could see, were long and perfectly painted a dark shade of pink.

“It’s fine.”

“I guess I just thought—I mean, I had no idea that you wouldn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off. I knew I should probably say something—lie, like Linnie and J.J. had done, pretending we’d known who she was and that she had been coming. And she clearly wanted me to tell her that I didn’t mind at all being displaced out of my own room. But I wasn’t about to do any of that.

An awkward silence fell as I looked around, trying to figure out what else I would need for the weekend, so that I could get out of here as quickly as possible.

“Are these from your college?” I glanced over to see Brooke standing by my desk, looking at the blue Stanwich College folder.

“Yeah,” I said, not liking at all that she was going through my stuff. “But don’t—” But Brooke had already picked up the stack of shiny, brightly colored folders and was flipping through them.

“Oh, College of the West is a great school,” she said, stopping on the orange one. “I almost went there.”

“Oh yeah?” I was trying to fight being interested, and leave it at that, but my curiosity overruled me. “Where did you go?”

“USC,” she said, flipping open Northwestern’s purple folder. “For med school too. You got into Northwestern?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” I said, feeling my defenses start to go up. This girl didn’t even know me; why was she surprised at my college acceptances? “Why?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, setting the folder down again. “Sorry. I just . . . When Danny told me you were staying around town, going to the local college here, I guess I just assumed . . .” Her voice trailed off, but it was like I could practically see the words she wasn’t saying floating in the air between us. I assumed you didn’t have any other options.

“It’s not the local college,” I said, hearing my voice rise. “It’s a hugely respected liberal arts school that just happens to be in this town.”

“Right,” Brooke said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

“Not everyone has to go away to school,” I continued. “There’s nothing wrong with staying close to home.”

“Not at all,” she said, nodding a little too emphatically. She looked at the folders on the desk, then back at me. “So . . . I guess you don’t need these anymore, huh?”

“Just leave them,” I said, not liking at all the look on her face, like she understood something about me that I didn’t. “I still need to let the other schools know I’m not going, that’s all.”

“Right.” She stacked the folders in a neat pile on my desk, then turned to me. “I’ve no doubt Stanwich is a great school too,” she said, a note of false cheer in her voice.

“Yeah,” I said shortly, pulling open my top drawer and looking around for the necklace I wanted to wear tonight. The last few minutes had confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t want to come back in here—or deal with Brooke in any way—unless I absolutely had to.

“Oh my gosh!” she said, and I turned to see her picking up the picture that I kept on my nightstand, the one of me and Danny that had run in the newspaper, him at eighteen, me at six, leaning back against his dented ancient Volvo, both of us in sunglasses, arms folded across our chests. “This is the greatest picture! This is when Danny won that contest, right?”

“Right,” I said, fighting the urge to walk over and take the frame back from her.

“He told me all about it,” she said, still looking at the picture with a smile on her face. “I couldn’t believe it. Like, who does that?”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t like this was a secret—most articles that were written about Danny had it in there somewhere. It was a human-interest detail, a fun fact about the successful venture capitalist. But I still, somehow, didn’t like this girl talking about one of my favorite memories like she’d been there.