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“Sketchy, but okay.” Lucie chews thoughtfully. “Is that rosemary? Or maybe thyme? Whatever it is, it’s magical.”
It usually is. And yet I’m not hungry.
The reality of Lucie Lamont and me eating the Olmsted Eggstravaganza together is too strange for words. We ask about each other’s summer, and I learn that Lucie spent it interning (unpaid) for her parents. I tell her I mostly helped my mom in her shop, leaving out all the times I stared at my ceiling and replayed what happened at prom and afterward. Occasionally, my heart sinks, knowing the phone call that awaits her later.
I could tell her. Warn her.
But what would that even sound like—hey, your dad’s going to call later and make you cry? Yeah, no. Not when what we have is already so tenuous.
“You should really eat something,” she says. Before we left our room, she changed into her first-day outfit—black mock-neck sweater and denim skirt—but left her hair in the ponytail. “It’ll help you feel better.”
I stare down at my food, knowing she’s right but certain my stomach will revolt if I do anything but create an abstract egg-based art project on this plate. Whenever I shift in my seat, the bruise rewards me with a flare of pain. My body is wrecked. My mind is wrecked. My relationship with Miles—most likely wrecked, though I’m not sure to what degree.
It’s almost funny—without even planning on it, I’m living in my bad feelings, just like Miles suggested.
And that’s when I get an idea.
Miles and I have never used our knowledge of September 21 for evil. We’ve stuck to positive things, puppies and ice cream and Disneyland. But what if the thing that would fix this, the only thing I haven’t tried, is what I joked about to him all those days ago?
Revenge.
The sudden darkness of it fills me with more hope than I’ve had all day. A sharp and spiteful kind of hope. Maybe that’s why I’m stuck here—to get back at the people who made my life hell. What if this has been my unfinished business all along? My means to escape?
“You know what would really make me feel better?” I say, letting it swirl up inside me like possibility. “Screwing with Cole Walker.”
Lucie freezes with her fork halfway to her mouth, icy blue eyes lit with confusion. “What?”
Shit. Too late, I realize we haven’t had the conversation about prom yet. She doesn’t know that I know that she tried to intervene on my behalf. Once again, my brain is three steps behind my mouth.
“For, uh, what happened last year,” I say. “You don’t like him very much either, do you?”
For a few moments, Lucie just blinks at me. And then I watch her shut down, eyebrows pulling together, returning her gaze to the plate in front of her. “The Walkers can fuck all the way off,” she says with a stab at her eggs. “But they’re not worth wasting any energy on.”
And then she rushes to finish her breakfast.
After Lucie disappears to class, I do a little recon.
Cole’s social media is private, but on ice-cream day he was wearing his student ID on an orange lanyard around his neck. I know that lanyard—Paige gave them out during move-in, explaining that each dorm had a different color. I immediately stashed my yellow one somewhere in my suitcase because lanyard doesn’t match my aesthetic, but a quick search reveals that orange is the color for Brimmer Hall, on UW’s southern edge.
I camp out in the Brimmer lobby for a couple of hours, pretending to read an oral history of Clueless my mom gave me for my birthday last year, ignoring the way my whole left side screams at me when I sit in the same position for too long—until he emerges from the elevator, tanned and damp-haired, lanyard around his neck. And then I follow him.
All day.
The next morning, I gain Lucie’s sympathy again, oddly grateful my bruises haven’t disappeared. Again we go to the dining hall for Eggstravaganzas, and this time when I bring up Cole, I ease into it.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about,” I say between the few bites of breakfast I can manage today. “All summer, actually.”
Lucie lifts her eyebrows at me, interest piqued. “Okay…”
“I know what you did at the end of the year. Telling Cole Walker and his friends to quit it.” His name will never not taste sour on my tongue, but I power through. “And—I wanted to say thank you.”
“I didn’t do it because I wanted credit for doing the right thing or whatever,” she says, almost sounding defensive. “I did it because that was fucked up.”
“It—it means a lot to me. Really.”
Slowly, she nods, seeming to soften, and I hope she can tell I’m being genuine. “Are you… okay? About what happened?”
“Are you asking if I have any lasting psychological damage? Only time will tell.” When her mouth drops open, I try to laugh this off. “I’m… working through it.”
