IN THE DREAM, I’m standing at the edge of the Narrow, and Delphine is on the other side. She’s young again, dressed in pajamas with slippers on her feet.
Don’t jump, I try to tell her, but she crouches and leaps. She sails across the water. She is going to make it.
A hand emerges from the water and snatches her ankle, dragging her down. I scream and reach for her—
But it isn’t me screaming. I’m awake in my bed, and the scream is coming from the hallway. It comes again, sharp and piercing. I bolt out of bed and run into the hall. The scream is coming from the other side of the door—from Delphine’s rooms. Delphine stands on the other side. She’s sobbing, her eyes wide, pulling at the door handle.
“Delphine?” I rush toward her, reaching for the handle. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t.” The voice is low and urgent. Madelyn Fournier, at her door. She reaches out as if to stop me. “Don’t open the door. You can’t let her out.”
“Please. Please, I have to go,” Delphine cries.
Madelyn snatches my hand, drawing me back away from the door. “She’s dreaming. There’s nothing to do but wait,” she says. Her voice is calm, but she grips my hand tight, and there are tears glinting in her eyes.
“I have to go. I have to go to her,” Delphine pleads. Then suddenly she drops back a step. Her hands go slack at her sides. She lets out a wail, grabbing her head in both hands, and sinks down into a crouch. “No, no, no. Not back there. Not again. I can’t—I can’t—”
She falls silent. Madelyn and I creep closer to the windowed door. Delphine is curled on her side on the ground, her eyes shut and her breathing even once more. Madelyn swiftly puts in the code and opens the door, bending down beside her.
“Delphine. Sweetheart. Wake up,” she says, reaching out but not quite touching her. “Delphine.”
I stand, numb and confused, as Delphine stirs.
“Maman?” she mumbles sleepily.
“You were sleepwalking again, dearest. You need to go back to bed now,” Madelyn says.
Delphine sits up, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. She blinks at her mother, then at me, frowning. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”
“It’s fine. You were just dreaming,” Madelyn says, like she’s talking to a small child. “Now, go on.”
Delphine drifts upstairs, hazy with sleep, glancing behind her only one more time. Madelyn waits until her footsteps creak the bedroom floorboards, then steps neatly into the hall and shuts the door again. She stands a moment, head bowed, hand on the door handle, before turning to me.
“I take it this hasn’t happened before while you’ve been here,” she says. “Mrs. Clarke should have briefed you.”
“She told me I wasn’t supposed to open the door at night,” I say.
“If she gets outside, she will die,” Madelyn says plainly. She stares straight ahead at the door beyond which Delphine vanished. She’s like her daughter, I think. When they want to tell you the truth, they look anywhere but at you. “You cannot let her out. No matter what. A single drop of water could destroy her.”
“How?” I ask. “How can it do that? That’s not medical, that’s—it’s—”
“What else would it be?” she asks, voice flat. She looks at me, her gaze unflinching, and I am utterly certain that she does not for a moment believe that Delphine’s malady is one that can be explained by science. “This is a lot to deal with for anyone. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to stay on.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
She gives me a long, considering look. “Don’t let her out,” she says finally. “And don’t let the water in.”
She walks back to her rooms and shuts the door behind her.
By morning, Delphine doesn’t remember what happened. “You were trying to get out,” I say. “And then it’s like you realized what you were doing and panicked. You said you had to get to her.”
“Grace?” Delphine asks.
“It seemed like it,” I say.
“She’s trying to get in. I’m trying to get out,” she muses. She frowns. She sits on her bed with a pillow clutched in her lap. She’s only finger-combed her hair, and a few strands stick out wildly. I have to resist the urge to brush them back into place. “It’s like I became connected to her that night. Somehow, I’m bound to her. We’re drawn to each other.”
“Her name was Grace Carpenter. Oster told me about her—she was his student,” I tell her.
She looks at me sharply. “She’s real.”
I nod. “And if we know her full name, maybe we can find out more about her. Mr. Campos mentioned there were newspapers at the library. We could look there.”
“Let me grab my things,” she says wryly, and I wince.
“I can go look,” I correct myself.
There’s a knock on the bedroom door. I instinctively step back, putting more distance between me and Delphine before the door opens and Madelyn enters.
“Hi, Eden. I need to chat with Delphine a moment,” she says, an unsubtle signal for me to take off.
“Right,” I say. “I’ll talk to you later?”
“Let me know how it goes,” Delphine says.
Madelyn gives us a curious look but doesn’t ask as I slink out the door. I’ve barely reached the stairs when I hear their voices pick up again. They don’t sound happy.
Ten minutes later, I’m heading out the door. I cut across campus toward the library, and I’m so lost in my own thoughts that at first I don’t realize that someone is calling my name.
“Eden. Eden!” I whip around. Veronica is jogging toward me, a scowl on her face. “I texted you like eight times,” she says.
“I didn’t see,” I say. I hadn’t even turned my phone on yet today.
“We’re heading out. Are you coming or not?” she asks.
I blink at her for a moment before I remember what she’s talking about. Vespers shopping. The shopping trip is its own tradition. It all seems so pointless right now.
“I’m busy,” I say. “Research.”
“Research for what?” she asks, incredulous.
“It’s a personal project,” I say defensively.
Her frown deepens. “You are being so sketchy, Eden. Did I do something to piss you off? I know I wasn’t in touch as much as usual this summer, but with all the travel and Remi being around—”
I make a frustrated noise. “It’s not you,” I insist.
“Then what is it? It’s senior year. We’re supposed to be having fun. But even when you’re around, you’re like a little black hole,” she complains, throwing her hands up.
“Sorry to be such a drag,” I say bitterly.
Veronica puts a hand on her hip. “I’m not complaining; I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with you!”
“Wrong with me?”
“You know what I mean. I don’t know what’s going on with you, that’s all,” she says in a huff.
“Maybe you would if you ever asked,” I snap. But she never does. None of them have. They’ve never pressed, never expressed interest. My summers have always been three sentences and a shrug, and I’m suddenly furious that they’ve never noticed, never cared. They’re always so eager to let me turn the conversation back to them and their problems and their fun little anecdotes about their perfect families.
She glowers. “I am asking,” she says. Our voices are loud enough that a few people glance over curiously, but I don’t care.
“Yeah, you’re asking now. Because it’s a problem for you all of a sudden,” I say. I don’t know if it’s true. I can’t tell anymore. I’m just angry.
She turns red, eyes sparking. Then she steels herself. She flicks her hair back from her face and archly she says, “Okay. You’re going through something and you’re mad at me and you’re what, punishing me with this Abigail House thing—”
“I’m not punishing you by living at Abigail House, I’m living at Abigail House because otherwise I would get kicked out of school,” I say, my voice too loud. Someone on the quad swivels around to look at us, and I drop my voice as Veronica gapes at me. “I need the tuition, okay? So leave me alone about it.”
“That’s what’s going on? You can’t afford school? Eden, I could have paid for you,” Veronica says. “Problem solved.”
I stare at her. And then I turn and walk away.
“Eden!” she calls, but I ignore her—and she doesn’t follow.
Anger scorches away the tears that might otherwise threaten. Veronica has never wanted for anything. My family has money, but hers is rich. Multiple homes on multiple continents, luxury-boat-with-a-full-time-staff rich. In Veronica’s world, every problem has a price tag and money is no object. My tuition being paid doesn’t fix everything. Not even close.
Veronica and I have always been there for each other. Nine months out of the year.
I spend a few weeks with her family here and there, but for the most part, they prefer to have her to themselves when she’s at home. Which means I’m on my own. I’ve always accepted that. I’ve never resented her. And it has always been a good thing that she can be a little clueless about other people’s lives. Fewer questions, fewer lies.
But now I can’t tell her what happened this summer because that would mean telling her everything else. Telling her how I’ve misled her and hidden the truth and lied. It would mean having to explain the whole sordid thing, and I can’t.
I step into the library blinking tears from my eyes and squaring my shoulders. Mr. Campos is there, and I stride up to him without hesitation.
“Miss White! More ghosts today?” he says.
“Yes, actually. Well, sort of,” I say. My voice is a wreck. I clear my throat, shoving aside the tangle of emotions inside me. “You mentioned newspaper archives. Do you think I could look at them? I need the local papers from the eighties. I’m not sure exactly what year.”
Mr. Campos presses a hand to his heart and looks up toward the ceiling. “Hold on. I’m having a moment.”
“Uh?” I say.
“A student wants to look at the newspaper archives—and not for a class assignment. My tiny librarian heart has grown three sizes this day,” Mr. Campos says, and a reluctant smile sneaks across my face. He stands, grabbing a huge ring of keys from his drawer. “Right this way, my young scholar.”
He leads the way to a door I’ve never been through before. He unlocks it and ushers me into a room that’s filled with utilitarian metal shelving filled with cardboard boxes.
“These are the Patterson Post and the Atwood Call archives,” Mr. Campos says. “We have copies of every issue back to 1924. The eighties should be . . . here we go, this row.” He waves a hand to indicate the right section. There are a lot of boxes. I have my work cut out for me.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “Is it okay if I stay in here a while?”
“No food or drink and no papier-mâché,” he says. “Otherwise, have at it.” He bows with a wave of his hand and retreats.
I walk over to the boxes. I decide to look at the Atwood Call first, since it only comes out once a week, so it’ll be faster to get through and pinpoint the right year. I start with 1980, opening up the box with a puff of dust and extracting a stack of papers.
I read about dances and school plays and new teachers, spicy editorials about politics, and reports on Atwood’s sports teams that confirm that they’ve always been terrible.
Then I find it suddenly. I open up a box from 1984, and there it is, the headline big and bold and startlingly out of place on the Call’s normally dull pages.
Atwood Student Still Missing: Feared Drowned
The paper was dated October 12, 1984.
The search for fourth-year student Grace Carpenter continues, now two weeks after she was reported missing from the Abigail House women’s dormitory. She was last seen by her roommate, Cheryl Pennington, who reported that Grace was in her bed by lights-out. Miss Pennington did not notice her leaving but discovered her bed empty in the morning.
Atwood’s dean, Alan Lawrence, says, “We pray that God deliver Grace safely home into the arms of her family.” Chief of Police George Fairfax states that it appears that Grace left her dormitory voluntarily. When asked if it is possible that Miss Carpenter drowned in the Narrow, Chief Fairfax said, “If she did, we may never know.”
A prayer vigil will be held in Atwood School’s St. Mark Chapel on Saturday at 5 p.m.
Grace lived in Abigail House. Maybe that was why she kept returning. Trying to get home.
That’s all there is. The next week contains an update—Grace still not found. Then the mentions stop. I step over to the shelves where the Patterson Post boxes are and find the one that matches. This article is longer. I sit on the floor as I read through it.
Grace Carpenter was from Connecticut, I learn. Her father was a banker and her mother was the youngest daughter of a wealthy businessman. She was the middle child of three. The night of the disappearance, her roommate saw her going to bed but slept soundly and didn’t notice that she’d left until the next morning. This wasn’t a cause for alarm, and so most of the day went by before a search began in earnest. She hadn’t left by the main road—there was a security guard stationed at the gated entrance—but there were service roads she might have taken. Or she might have headed into town for some reason. Perhaps to meet someone. It’s a little over an hour’s walk on foot if you cut through the woods and over the Narrow.
You could walk the extra half mile to the bridge, of course. Or you could make one easy jump and be on the other side.
The article continues on the next page. I turn it, and there she is, staring at me: Grace Carpenter. It’s a formal photograph. It’s printed in black and white and fairly faded, but her gaze immediately arrests me. She has a fair complexion and dark brown hair, swoopy and curled where it falls around her shoulders. I think of it wet and lank, dripping water, but it’s hard to hold the image of the Drowning Girl in my mind while looking at the living one. She has an elegant oval face. She’s pretty in a way that sneaks up on you, a beauty that blooms softly as you look at her hooded eyes and the sly smile at the corner of her mouth, like she’s keeping a secret and dying to tell you. I have the fanciful thought that we would have gotten along, Grace Carpenter and I.
I’m so absorbed in the photograph that I don’t hear the door open or the footsteps approaching behind me. I only realize that Veronica is there when she speaks. “Eden.”
I twist around with a gasp. She rocks back on her heels, hands held up in a placating gesture.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were going into town,” I say, voice rough and adrenaline spiking.
“I ditched,” she says. She folds herself into a sitting position on the ground next to me, elbows on her knees. Her bleached-blond hair flips over her eyes, and she blows a puff of air at it. A row of silver hoops marches up the cartilage of her left ear. I have a sudden, vivid memory of holding her hand while she stifled a shriek each time the needle punched through. “I’m sorry.”
“Cool,” I say, looking down at the paper in my hands. “Thanks.”
“Eden. Come on. I’m really sorry. That was dismissive and bitchy of me. You’re right. I haven’t asked what’s going on with you. You’ve always been so private, though, you can’t totally blame me. You don’t like people asking questions.”
I want to protest. But she’s right. What came first—Veronica not asking me about my life or me dodging the questions every time? I can’t remember.
“I’m asking now,” Veronica says softly. “What’s going on, Eden? It’s not just the money.”
“It’s not just the money,” I confirm. I’m staring at the words on the page. Feared drowned.
“Then what?”
I know what the honest answer would be. It would be the pool house and the pills, Dylan and Luke. But when I look up, I say, “Do you believe in ghosts?”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
“Not just in theory, not just a maybe. Do you actually believe in them?” I press. I reach up, touch the pentacle she gave me. I laughed it off, but I’ve worn it ever since.
She bites her lip. “I think that ghosts are our way of perceiving spiritual energy,” she says. “Like spells are a way of shaping energy and intention, you know?”
“What about what happened to Delphine? That night at the Narrow?”
She looks uncomfortable. “I don’t know what happened to Delphine. What does that have to do with ghosts?”
“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head and looking away.
“Eden. What’s going on?” she presses.
I can’t look at her. “The Drowning Girl. I think she’s real. And for some reason she’s coming after Delphine Fournier.”
Silence. Then, a slow intake of breath. “Because of what happened. With the Narrow.”
“We think so.”
“We. You and Delphine.”
“She’s really nice,” I say, though of course that isn’t the word to describe Delphine at all. I look away.
Veronica puts a hand on my knee. “You like her,” she says, like she suddenly understands what’s going on.
“I want to help her,” I say, which isn’t a denial, not exactly.
“And you think this girl is the ghost? Grace Carpenter,” Veronica says, looking at the newspapers. Her voice is carefully neutral. She doesn’t believe me, I realize. She’s indulging me. She takes the paper from me and reads through it with a line between her brows. “What do you know about her?”
“Just what’s in there. I couldn’t find anything online,” I say.
“You could ask Geoffrey,” Veronica says. “He was a teacher back then, you know.”
“I know,” I say darkly. “I already talked to him, sort of. He’s the one that gave me her full name. But he wouldn’t tell me more than that.”
“You’ve been researching this for a while?” she asks.
“Not long,” I hedge.
“I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised,” she says, jostling me with her shoulder. “You’re the sneaky one, after all.”
“The what?”
“The sneaky one. I’m the hot one, Zoya’s the smart one, Ruth’s the strong one, and you’re the sneaky one. Your basic literary archetypes.”
I can’t tell if I should find it funny; I’m too wrung out to feel much of anything. She’s here, she’s trying, but that almost makes it worse. I don’t want her to have to try so hard. I just want things to be easy.
“We could help, you know. I love a good scavenger hunt. I’ve never done ghost research before,” she says, waggling her eyebrows. She doesn’t get it. She thinks it’s a fun lark.
“You should go. Do the Vespers run,” I say.
She chews her lip. “Are we okay?” she asks, searching my face.
I smile. It stretches the new skin on my lip. “We’re okay,” I assure her. I want it to be true; is that enough to make it something other than a lie?
“We’re hanging out tonight. Just the girls. Please come.”
“Okay,” I say. Please let things be okay, we both are saying.
“I love you, Eden,” she says. She leaves without waiting for me to respond.
I put the newspapers away and close the boxes. I have what I came for. A name, a date, a story. But it doesn’t tell me what I need to know.
What happened to you, Grace?
And what do you want from us?
When I get back to Abigail House, I towel off thoroughly before changing into my customary loungewear. Madelyn’s door is closed, and it looks like the light is off inside. I didn’t see her car out front, so I assume she’s gone out.
My arm is throbbing. I fish out one of the five remaining pills and down it quickly, trying not to think about it too much. I need it, so I’m taking it. Simple as that. In another week, even a hairline fracture should be healed enough that I won’t need the assistance anymore, and I can stop.
I hate the feeling of it sliding down my throat all the same, the memory of those days surfacing.
You back? Delphine texts, lighting up my phone. I pick it up, dashing off a response.
Yeah. Didn’t find much, though, but it’s a place to start.
Can you come up?
The answer is of course, but I send a more restrained response. I go through the decontamination procedures yet again, dress in the maroon scrubs, and trudge up the steps. Delphine is waiting at the top of the stairs, wearing one of her too-young dresses with the Peter Pan collar and shiny black Mary Jane shoes. Her hair is long and loose, perfectly smooth. She looks as put-together as always, but there is something off—the way she moves is jerky and uncertain, and there is red around her eyes like she’s been crying.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
“It’s nothing,” she says. “My mom and I had a fight. Nothing new.”
“What were you fighting about?” I ask, worry creasing my brow.
She makes a sharp, frustrated gesture with one hand. “The usual. Everything and nothing. I want to be looking at colleges to apply to next year, and she won’t even talk about it.”
“I thought you were a senior,” I say. “Aren’t you applying this year?”
“I missed too much time when I was sick. I’m a year behind you,” she says. Her lips twist mirthlessly. “I’ll get a whole new hired friend next year. I wonder who will be desperate enough to take the job.”
“What about a real friend?” I ask. “You’re in classes. You must talk to people. What about when you do group projects?”
“I use AtChat for projects,” Delphine acknowledges. “But I don’t know how to make friends. Or hold a normal conversation.”
“You do fine with me,” I tell her. She gives me a skeptical look, and I chuckle. “Okay, you don’t have the most polished social skills in the world.”
She walks over to the window, staring, but she isn’t actually looking outside. She’s looking at her reflection. “My mother thinks she can lock me in here like I’m in a time capsule, and I’ll stay perfectly preserved,” she says, almost a whisper.
“She wants to keep you safe,” I say.
“She doesn’t even know who I am,” she says fiercely, and turns to me. “Look at me, Eden. I look like I’m twelve. I’m seventeen. But my mother buys all my clothes. I’ve never been allowed to cut my hair because she likes it long. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being the weird girl locked up in her room, and now I don’t even have Aubrey anymore.” Her eyes are feverish. She stalks past me to the kitchen. “I’m tired of being stuck in here. I’m tired of wearing what she says to wear and doing what she says to do. I’m tired of never being able to leave these rooms or talk to people.”
I follow behind her. In the kitchen, she looks around wildly, then wrenches open a drawer and takes out a pair of scissors. She wraps her hair around one fist and raises the scissors.
“Delphine, stop,” I say, alarmed.
She looks at me, her teeth bared. “I want it gone,” she says, and her voice breaks. She squeezes her eyes shut. Her preternatural calm is shattered.
She’s so alone. So utterly alone. “Let me do it,” I say.
She opens her eyes.
“Let me do it for you,” I repeat.
“My mother won’t be happy.”
I glance up at the camera in the corner. I have to hope that Madelyn Fournier hasn’t chosen this moment to look in on us. “She’ll be happier than if you hack it all off and leave it looking like you used hedge clippers,” I point out. “Let me help you, Delphine.”
I reach out, palm flat. She hesitates a moment more, then sets the scissors in my palm. I take them, then touch the ends of her silky red hair with my other hand. It’s beautiful—coppery red, perfectly straight.
“Do you think it’s ridiculous? Throwing a fit and cutting off my hair?” she asks. Her voice is equal parts challenge and vulnerability.
“Is it even boarding school if you don’t rebel and cut off all your hair at least once?” I ask her, a touch playfully. Then, more serious, I say, “Hair is important. The way you look is important. I understand wanting to look on the outside the way you feel on the inside. Or the way you want to feel.” I still have that length of hair between my fingers. I let it drop slowly.
“Okay. Let’s do it,” she says.
I take her hand and lead her to the bedroom. Her room is as anachronistic as the rest of her clothes, with its four-poster bed and thick rug. A mirrored vanity sits at one end, and I guide Delphine to sit in the stool in front of it. I stand behind her and set a towel over her shoulders, letting her hair fan out across it.
The mirror frames our reflections. Delphine with her elfin features and coppery hair, parted neatly in the middle. The perfection of her face is almost unsettling, her build so delicate you can see at a glance that she’s fragile, that she ought to be handled with care. Behind her, I look almost brutish with my hair scraped back and contained in its protective cap, my face broad and plain.
She’s beautiful—but anyone can see that. It takes another look to see that she’s more than that. To see not the vivid blue of her eyes but the sharpness behind them. Not her soft lips but the way they tighten when she’s uncertain of something.
“What do you want?” I ask her, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
“I don’t know,” she says, a helplessness in her confession. “Not this. Do whatever you want.”
“I can’t do what I want,” I say. “It has to be what you want.”
“But I don’t know what I want.”
I haven’t ever touched her. Haven’t been allowed to touch her. But I can’t avoid it now. I brush my fingertips as lightly as I can along her hair, let them hover near her shoulder. “Like this?” I ask. “We could cut off a few inches.”
“No. Shorter than that,” she says.
“See?” I say. “You know something.” I reach forward and slide my fingers into her hair at her temples, the backs of my fingers bumping against her scalp. She jumps at the touch, but I only run my hands down, sliding through her hair until I reach her jaw. I use my hands to hide the lower length of her hair. “What about that?”
“I like that,” she says.
My knuckles are just touching the soft skin of her neck. I let my hands run the rest of the way through her hair, the strands whispering between my fingers, and I shiver.
I want to run my fingers through it again. Instead I say, “I can manage that.” She watches my every movement in the reflection.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asks.
Do I? But that isn’t what she means. “I cut my friends’ hair all the time.”
“Then I guess I trust you,” Delphine says.
I pick up the scissors. “Are you sure about this? That’s a lot of hair to lose,” I say.
“I’m sure,” Delphine replies.
I gather her hair together behind her back. “Last chance,” I tell her.
She looks at me in the mirror, her head tilted ever so slightly. “Eden.”
Soft, chiding. Almost affectionate. I laugh a little. “Okay, but don’t hate me when it’s done.”
“I could never hate you,” she says.
And I slice through all her hair in one smooth motion.
The now-shoulder-length strands fall away, the rest left gripped in my left hand. She sucks in a little gasp. I hold the long tail of coppery hair out over her shoulder to show her. It’s a foot long—and gone.
“No going back now,” I tell her.
“Good,” she says firmly.
I go slowly after that, trimming, checking the length, trimming again. Again and again I touch her—tilting her head, bumping my fingers against her jaw, parting the strands, my fingernails nicking her scalp. Her breath is quick and her eyes stay fixed on me, on every movement. When the cold metal of the scissors touches the back of her neck, she gives a little shiver, but she never looks away.
“What do you think?” I ask.
I haven’t done much. It’s a simple short bob, slightly higher in the back, framing her face. It turns her features from delicate porcelain to precise marble.
Her expression is perfectly still, and my stomach twists with nerves. Did I screw it up?
Her hand reaches out and closes around mine. She doesn’t meet my eyes, but keeps her gaze fixed on her own reflection, and her voice cracks when she speaks. “Thank you,” she says.
She doesn’t let go of my hand.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I say. I take the towel away. With one end of it, I clean the little stray hairs from the back of her neck and shoulders. Her hair is scattered across the floor around us in clumps and drifts.
She turns in her chair toward me and fixes me with those sharp eyes. “How do I look?” she asks.
My mouth feels dry. “You look beautiful.”
“You’re just saying that to be nice,” she says immediately, shaking her head. She looks down at herself—that ridiculous little-girl dress. “I hate these clothes,” she says. She stands abruptly. “Help me get this off.” She turns her back to me, gesturing toward the zipper. I hesitate.
“Eden, can you get the back?” she asks, looking over her shoulder, and I force myself to step forward.
I unhook the tiny wire clasp, unzipping the back of her dress. A pale triangle of skin appears. I unzip the dress past the white band of her bra and step back, dropping my hands quickly.
She lets the sleeves of the dress fall down over her arms, shrugging out of it. Her torso is long, a constellation of moles along her back. She steps out of the dress and turns to me. I can’t help staring at her—her ribs, her flat stomach, the flare of her hips. The curve of her small breasts.
She sees me looking, but she doesn’t turn away or cover up. She walks toward me instead. “Eden? Is everything okay?”
I feel my cheeks go hot. My stupid blush. “I didn’t expect you to . . .”
“You must change in front of your roommates all the time,” she says.
“That’s different,” I say.
“Why is it different?” she asks.
I can’t answer; I shake my head instead. She makes a little sound, a hm with no particular meaning. She reaches out, adjusting the neckline of my scrubs, her eyes tracking the movement of her own hands. Her fingernails trail against my skin. I catch my breath.
“I wish I got to see you the way you usually look. Not in these scrubs with that stupid cap,” she says.
“But those are the rules,” I remind her. My pulse is speeding up.
Her hand drops; she catches mine lightly by the fingers, already moving as she does and pulling me, trailing along behind her, toward her heavy oak wardrobe.
“Help me find something to wear,” she says, and I fix my gaze on her shoulder, wondering how I can be entranced by the simple shape of her shoulder blades, the hollow of her throat.
She’s grabbing things from the wardrobe now, tossing them behind her. Skirts and dresses and blouses. “These are all made for a little girl,” she says, scowling at a frilly white blouse.
“Here,” I say. I reach past her. “Let me.” I pick out three pieces quickly and hold them out to her.
I turn away while she dresses. Somehow it feels even more intimate to watch her get dressed.
“Well?” That one syllable holds so much: a plea, a demand, a challenge. I turn and take her in.
The little girl dress is gone. She wears a white button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and the top two buttons undone, and over it, a black three-button vest. Completing the look is a pair of tailored pants in a tan plaid pattern. I can see why her mother bought every piece for the doll she thought she was dressing, but together with the new hair, with her chin tilted up and fire in her eyes—
“You look amazing,” I say.
“Amazing is a good start,” she replies playfully.
“You look hot,” I blurt out, and then feel my cheeks get warm again, but she laughs.
I made her laugh.
There is such wild happiness on her face that I want to grab hold of her, grab hold of that happiness. I want to kiss her and taste the smile on her lips.
She steps toward me. She puts her hand over my sternum, as if to feel my heartbeat.
“It’s perfect,” she says.
“It is. You are,” I say.
“You’re just saying that to be nice,” she says again, but this time it has the faintest edge of a challenge to it.
“I promised not to lie, remember?” I ask her, almost a whisper.
I think for a moment that she is going to lean toward me—
But she only smiles and turns away.