Page 7 of Come As You Are
“Well, it’s pretty epic,” says Sabrina, and I can’t tell if it’s a compliment.
I offer a “Thanks?” anyway, and she nods, so I guess it was.
“So what’s it like living there?” Heather asks as she pulls a bunch of random stuff from her bag, including a stuffed unicorn, a stack of picture frames, and an extremely well-loved fantasy novel I recognize as being one of Claire’s favorites. For a brief moment, I miss my former best friend, and the way she’d drag me to the bookstore every single time a new sci-fi novel with a Black main character released, how she’d call them her “supreme autobuys” and hug them to her chest.
Then I push her out of my head so I can answer Heather. “It’s still new, but I have a feeling it’s going to be very… loud. And that I should really stock up on scented candles, or at least air freshener. I’ve never been so grateful not to have to share a bathroom in my entire life.”
“I’ve never actually had my own bathroom,” says Heather, arranging the frames on her shelves so I can see an array of photographs of her with a pair of girls who must be her little sisters and a woman who looks like Heather with a “You in Twenty Years” filter on. It’s an entire family of French-braided doppelgängers. “Our apartment only has one bathroom for the four of us, which was another point in favor of boarding school. At least here, when we share, there’s more than one shower.”
“Yeah, I definitely don’t miss sharing with my sister,” I mutter, watching Heather arrange the stuffed unicorn on her pillow.
“And I will not miss Salem being obnoxious about my hair being everywhere.” Sabrina grips her wild mass of black waves in one hand and swings it over her shoulder. “I guess boarding school does have its perks.”
“Salem mentioned being a transfer,” I say to Sabrina, “so I guess you are too?” She nods, and I look to Heather.
“Not me,” she says, pulling the last few items from her suitcase and closing it up. “I was here last year too, and I loved it. Don’t worry, I wasn’t sure about it either, at first. My mom was having such a tough time being there for all three of us, and my grandma suggested it might be easier on everyone if there were one fewer kid to shuttle around everywhere. My sisters both cried at the thought, but I like trying new things, so, I said I’d give it a shot, and here I am again the next year. You’ll both love it as much as I do, I’m sure of it.”
“I like your confidence,” I tell Heather, both of us ignoring the way Sabrina rolls her eyes. “I did choose to come here, so I definitely hope to like it, but I, uh, did not choose the whole boys’ dorm thing, or to have random assholes on campus cracking jokes at me like I begged to live there so I could catch glimpses of bare boy ass in the showers.”
She seems to think on that for a second before offering a hopeful shrug and a “This too shall pass?”
“Here’s hoping. But now you’re both required by law to be my friends, so that I don’t become completely warped and maladjusted. I’ve already spent way too many hours of my lifewatching boys play video games in dank basements, thank you very much.”
“Deal,” says Heather sweetly, and I take Sabrina’s grunt to mean the same.
I help them finish unpacking and get their luggage into storage, and by the time we’re done, the big orientation icebreaker dinner is nearly upon us. I’m feeling grungy and dusty from the combo of the bus ride this morning and the whole rest of the day, so I say goodbye to Heather, Sabrina, and The Dorm That Should Be Mine and head back across the patio to Rumson so I can rinse myself off and change into something that’ll hopefully make a better first impression.
The whole time, I try not to feel bitter that if I just lived where I was supposed to, the three of us could get ready together, help one another pick outfits, do one another’s makeup… it’s exactly the kind of thing I pictured when I applied to boarding school.
Instead, I’m gonna have to walk through clouds of Axe body spray and guys loudly calling one another “Asswipe” on the way to my room, where I’ll change while double-checking about twelve times to make sure the door is locked.
New start, yaaaaay.
Chapter Three
INEVER GOT OUT THAT MUCHin Greentree, but on the rare occasion Ididgo somewhere more interesting than Craig’s basement, FaceTiming with Claire for outfit consultation was a must. If Sierra was feeling charitable, she’d toss something at me that would look a thousand times better than what I was already planning to wear; if she wasn’t, she’d just make a comment that made it clear I needed to change.
This is all to say that despite my desperately wanting to look cute and approachable and like someone you’d want to know beyond “Oh, that’s the Rumson Girl,” I have never been very skilled at getting myself ready for social things.
Too bad the icebreaker dinner is not optional.
I’d planned to wear a lilac dress that I’d bought for Claire’s family’s Easter dinner last year, but looking at it now, it’s too fancy. And my blue top isn’t nice enough. And I’ll be too hot in my red sweater. And the last time I wore this star-patternedshirt, Sierra approached me very seriously to ask when I was making her an aunt, because it made me look about six months along.
For a minute, I wish I could just dress like everyone else in my dorm—throw on a pair of jeans and a polo and be done with it. And technically, I could, but that would not yield the look I was going for. Finally, I dig up a black-and-white polka-dot top I feel decent about, and just pray that Sierra was being genuine when she told me it looked cute with my red belt and black jeans, even if it was “in a Minnie Mouse kind of way.”
I slip into my black Converse and spend a solid fifteen minutes trying to make my hair cooperate before I finally give up and head out into the late-summer night, only the slightest of chills in the air.
Since the Beast isn’t big enough to house all the students at once, the icebreaker is at the Student Center, which is thankfully an impossible building to miss. I figure if I show my face for five minutes, claim my name tag, and choke down a sandwich, I’ll have fulfilled whatever obligation I have to attend.
Positive attitude,my mom’s voice warns in my head, and it has the effect of making me stand up straighter and paste a smile on my face. She didn’t like the idea of me coming here at all, but when she finally relented, she told me that if I did go, I’d better do it with a positive attitude. And I know she isn’t here to watch me, but she isn’t wrong, either.
You look cute,I tell myself as I walk up the steps, my thumb gliding over the top of the Emotional Support Deck in my pocket.You look cute, and your outfit is cute, and youalready made a couple of friends, maybe, and your dorm-room situation will get straightened out—it has to. Everything is fine. You are fine.
I pull open the door and head straight for the sign-in desk, where a girl with a round face and a big smile asks my name and then hunts for my badge. “It’s not in here,” she says, her lips drooping into a frown as she riffles through the envelope. “You said your last name is ‘Riley’?”
Deep sigh. “Check the boys’ folder.”
She does, and lo and behold. “That’s so weird,” she says with a furrow of her eyebrows as she hands me my name tag and watches me plaster it to my shirt. “How—Oh,you must be Rumson Girl.”
