Frost

“Sorry. I’ve been out here for a while.” My cheeks, cold from the damp fall air, heated up.

“Didn’t you have your interview at two?”

“Mm-hm.” I turned my attention back to the hole I’d been digging for the next bulb. An angular stone blocked my trowel from going deeper. I reached down and worked it out of the hard earth.

“So . . .” he said. “How’d it go?”

“Okay.”

“Just okay? C’mon, you’ve got to give me more than that.”

David leaned his knees against my back. His hands raked through my hair, tingled my scalp. The affection intensified the guilt in my stomach.

“Good. It was good.” I nestled a lumpy tulip bulb in the hole. “Harder than I thought, maybe.” I couldn’t possibly tell him the truth: that I’d been twenty minutes late. And that my interview clothes had been rumpled and wrinkled from my time in the closet. A raw breeze slid across my scarfless neck. I shivered.

“Hard? What kind of hard?” David said.

Why couldn’t he leave it alone? I fil ed the hole with soil and smacked it down with the back of the trowel, then brushed my hands together. I stood up and turned to face him.

“Look,” I said, “you’re not going through all this college stuff, so maybe you don’t get that it’s really not a fun topic.” My voice had an edge to it.

His lips parted for a moment. “I’m just asking because I’m psyched for next year. That’s all. Did it . . . did it not go well?”

“I’m going inside. It’s cold.” I walked around the side of the house. David’s steps crinkled dry leaves behind me.

“Leena,” he said. “Wait . . .”

My throat tightened. David had no way of knowing it was myself I was angry at. He followed me inside, down the hall.

Hot water from the bathroom faucet cut through the blackish soil on my hands and swirled it down the drain. Warmth flooded up from my hands and through my body as if the boiling liquid was running directly through my veins.

“I’m sorry,” David said from outside the bathroom door. “I just—”

“I can’t hear you,” I called over the whoosh of water. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

I turned off the tap and dried my pink hands on a towel. Afternoon sun filtered through the bathroom’s small stained-glass window, a window not so different in style from the one drawn on my skin, the one that continued to fade, as if my body was trying to forget the memory of my old room. The late sun cast a red-and-blue glow on the wall above the tub. The chalky white paint absorbed the color like a bloodstain.

I did want to live with David next year, didn’t I? Why had I jeopardized that by screwing up my interview? Twenty minutes late is unheard of. Unthinkable. A big, red X on my application folder.

What had Cubby told me when I’d been in the closet after my interview? You’ll end up where you’re supposed to be. A good philosophy to live by.

I found David waiting for me on my bed.

“Did you get parietals?” I asked.

“I checked before. She’s not home.”

“David.” I stood next to him instead of sitting down. “You know we can’t risk getting busted.”

“When has she ever, ever come back here?” he said. “Not once.” He reclined on an elbow and patted the bed with his other hand. Reluctantly, I shrugged off my jacket and sat next to him. He reached his hand under the back of my sweater. The cold touch sent tentacles creeping up my spine. I lay down so he’d have to move it. But he took my shift as an invitation to lean over me, to remove my glasses, to place hands alongside my shoulders and start kissing.

I want this. I want this. I had to repeat this over and over in my head whenever we fooled around in Frost House. For some reason, at David’s dorm, I was completely relaxed. I loved every moment of touching him, and being touched. And loved that we were having fun without going further than I wanted, which, for now, meant we hadn’t had sex. But here, in my own room, my skin never felt quite right with someone else’s hands on them. My heart would pound, but not in a good way. My mind wandered . . . began to picture things like Celeste’s cockroaches lying right where we were. And, I hated to think it, because it made me feel like Celeste, but I had a bit of a sensation that someone was watching us. Probably because I knew she could be right outside the door at any time.

I rolled out from under David and reached for my glasses. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just too paranoid. It’s not worth getting kicked out.”

He sat up, his face flushed, readjusted his pants. “So you want me to leave?”

“I don’t want you to.” I leaned over and nuzzled his cheek, rubbed my nose in the warm crook of his neck. Did I want him to leave? He smelled so good. And when he left, it would just be me. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just freaked about the probation thing.”

“That’s all it is?” he said.

“Yeah.”

I gave him what I meant to be a quick kiss but it turned into a long, hard one. For a moment, my body hummed and squirmed and wanted to be against his. This time, he pulled away.