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I stand and meet her handshake with a warm greeting. “Kali.” Zoe exudes an energetic vibe. Totally opposite to me, which surprises me because, hello, we filled out a compatibility questionnaire. I was expecting someone more grounded…not bouncy.
She buzzes around the apartment, looking at everything with so much energy I wonder how much caffeine she’s had today. “Do you need help with more boxes? I’m all moved in, so I can help.”
“Oh my gosh!” she exclaims when she gets to my room. “Your room is to die for. You need to help me decorate mine.”
“Ahh…” I stare at my room, still not believing it’s mine, and shake my head. “That is not my doing. A friend did that for me. Give me a blank room, and it’d be worse than it started.”
“Oh well. I’ll just spend all my time in your room.” She laughs, but I have a feeling she’s not kidding. “I saw that you’re a freshman, but we’re the same age, right?”
When I chose her, it was because we were the same age. I couldn’t imagine living with an eighteen-year-old, and we have nothing in common. “Yep. I had to save up some money to come to school.”
She hands me a box, grabs the other one, and I follow her to the kitchen to unload it. “Good for you! They say if you don’t go right after high school, the odds are that you’ll never go.”
That’s me. Breaking all the odds.
She’s easy to talk to, given she likes to talk. After thirty minutes, I know her entire life story. All she knows about me is that I’m from Blackburn. Which is fine. There isn’t much more that I’m comfortable disclosing, so I’m happy to let her do the talking.
She sets out two plastic cups and pulls out a bottle of red wine, showing it to me before pouring. Like I care what it is. After handing me a cup, she raises hers and says, “Here’s to a new exciting year with a new friend.”
“Cheers,” I say, the excitement bubbling up inside me as this new adventure awaits. Dream number one is about to begin.
“Since we’re getting to know each other, is there a man?” She wags her brows. “Not that I care, but I like to walk around in my panties and bra sometimes, and I’m certain you don’t want your man seeing that.”
I bob my head from side to side. “Yes. And no?”
“So, complicated?”
That about sums it up in one word. I nod. “We’re taking a break. It might not work out.”
She lifts a brow. “You sound like you miss him. Are you sure it’s over?”
How do I tell her he’s the prime suspect in my torture case? At least she’d understand the complicated part.
“That’s a loaded question, Zoe,” I say, wrinkling my nose, staring at my cup. I don’t want to start off our first day together talking about all my drama. “We’ll get to that another day. Tell me more about what you’re studying.” I swallow the rest of my wine as she easily jumps into telling me about her nursing degree.
CHAPTER 30
Kali
“Where are you hiding, woman?” Zoe’s voice bounces into my room as she swings open the front door.
“In here,” I reply from my bedroom, dropping the heavy world history book in my lap. She waltzes in, wearing lively pink scrubs with yellow ducks on them. “Cute,” I say, pointing at her, and she does a little butt shake.
“The kids love them.” She works in pediatrics at the university hospital while she’s finishing her nursing degree. “Ugh. My least favorite subject,” she groans with a scrunched-up nose, eyeing my book. School has been a lot tougher than I imagined it would be. The four-year gap hasn’t done me any favors.
“Test tomorrow. Already.” I sigh, holding up note cards. How can a professor assign a test when we’ve only been in school for two weeks?
“Have time for dinner? After the day I had, I can eat a whole damn pizza,” she says, patting her stomach. I can’t imagine working with sick kids. The stress, anxiety, and on top of that, seeing innocent children hurt and in pain. I shudder at the thought.
“Pizza sounds delicious. Not studying sounds better.”
I should’ve had another beer. I’m making a new rule—study drunk, test sober. I groan, anticipating the mountain of study cards awaiting me as I stare up at our apartment building from Zoe’s front seat. Can you tell how much I hate studying?
“What’s that?” Zoe points at my car as we pass it, and I notice a small white paper under my windshield wiper. I shrug. It wasn’t there when we left because I had to grab my sunglasses out of it, and I would’ve noticed. But now, with the sky a midnight blue, the white stands out from the lights overhead.
I walk around my car. “It’s probably an advertisement to join some club.” Flyers are a frequent occurrence on cars being so close to campus. When I pull it out and realize it’s an envelope, I glance around at other cars and notice I’m the only one with one.
The hairs on the back of my neck tingle as I slide a paper out and read the words. The earth opens underneath me, swallowing me whole. I’m back there. Buried in darkness.
