Page 35 of Distortion
I lean against one of the great white, hideously ostentatious columns outside the front of the house and breathe deeply.
I can do this. I can be out here. I can make a life for myself outside The Heath. I can!
My mind returns to the paper I found in the envelope as it has more than a few times this morning. I can’t figure out why anyone would give me something like that. I didn’t see or speak to my mother for almost ten years. If the car accident wasn’t anaccident, why is that what they called it? And why tellme? Does this person think I’m some sort of Sherlock Holmes character? They must have an expectation of me, or else why give me the note in the first place?
The door is ripped open a second later, drawing me out of my thoughts, and Mav comes barreling out of the house. He stops short when he sees me, clearly surprised that I’m waiting for him, but he doesn’t say anything. He just starts walking.
I trail after him, and then make an effort to catch up to his long strides.
‘Yesterday, what you said in front of your friends ...’ I start, trying again to make sure he understands since yesterday’s attempt didn’t go well.
He doesn’t slow, but he turns his head a little so I think he’s listening.
‘Can you not mention where I was, please? I was hoping for a fresh start here.’
He stops abruptly and I almost smack into his arm. He looks at me and I see his eyes moving around my face before I avert my gaze to the ground in front of me.
‘I won’t say anything.’
Relief has my belly unclenching. ‘Thank?—’
‘The whole campus knows about you by now anyway. Ifyou wanted your life kept under wraps, you should have said something sooner, Tulip.’
Daisy.
I glance up and notice a nasty smirk that makes me take a step back.
My disappointment hits me with the force of a truck.
‘Everything?’ I whisper, my stomach twisting.
What if people don’t just know where I was sent, but learn thereason?
Mav just shrugs and starts walking again, leaving me to be enveloped by fear and a tempest of other emotions that I can’t unpick right now, but make me want to go back to bed and not leave it again.
But I force them back and trudge after him. There’s nothing else I can do.
Like yesterday, he takes me to my first class and then disappears.
And, like yesterday, I sit through the professor droning on and on, not understanding much of what they’re talking about while I try not to think about what everyone will have heard about me already. Do they know my name? Do they know I’m living at the frat house? Why do I care about what Thoreau’s state of mind was when he wrote Walden? I have my own state of mind to worry about!
But I dutifully take notes on the empty pad of lined paper I found in the lost and found at Grinder yesterday, anyway, hoping that something will click soon.
When I get out, I don’t see Mav, thankfully. I go over to the coffee shop and Lu lets me help her with the lunch rush. I find that the drinks aren’t too hard to memorize, so it isn’t long before she’s stepping back from the red Formica countertop and letting me make them myself with two thumbs up, a smile, and a ‘I knew you’d be awesome!’
Her confidence in me is ... nice. It makes me think that Ican do this. Douglas told me once that Rome wasn’t built in a day. At The Heath, I didn’t really get it, but I think I do now. I just need to take things one step at a time.
My shift goes great for a couple of hours, and I’m practically glowing at how well it’s going at my first ever job. I hear the bell and some loud laughter. At first I think it’s just a regular group of girls, but when I look up, I recognize the one that I saw with Blake in the library yesterday. She’s with a few other girls who are all dressed basically the same. She smiles at me, but it feels off.
‘Is this her?’ the one next to her whispers loudly. ‘Oh, my gosh, Jolie, I didn’t think it was true!’
I blink. ‘What can I get you?’ I ask.
The one from yesterday, Jolie, the Blake-sucker, answers, flicking her long blond hair back. ‘Soy decaf vanilla frap with two shots, one and a half pumps, and crème on top.’
‘Uh. Okay, please just bear with me for a minute. This is my first day,’ I say, trying to sound apologetic as I begin making the most complex order I’ve had so far and looking for Lu in case I need help. But she’s not here. It was quiet, so she went on break. I’m by myself.
I ring Jolie up and take her money. Then, I make the drink, putting the coffee shots, syrup and ice into the blender with some soy milk and starting it. I try to ignore how loud it sounds in my ears and idly wonder if I’d be allowed earplugs for just when it’s on.
