The girl at the door was Coffee-Distributor Julia. “Is Gremma around?”
Dee blinked. “She’s gone for spring break.”
“Oh.” Julia’s face fell, then brightened. “Oh, well. You doing anything tonight? There’s a party in Grover. Their dorm monitor has the flu, and from the way the boys tell it, she’s so strung out on cold meds that she wouldn’t notice if we threw a rave.” She beamed. “We figure all of us left behind on spring break should at least have a little fun.”
Dee opened her mouth to decline. She didn’tdoparties. But something caught in her throat. Maybe it was the scent of the unwashed sheets or stale popcorn; maybe it was simply the paralyzing knowledge that she wasn’t sure what she would do if left to her own devices.
“Sure,” she said.
Brannigan had three dorms: Whiteaker, where Dee lived; an all-boys building called Grover; and Moody, the other girls’ dorm. Dee never visited Grover—she had no close male friends and she didn’t date. On the outside, the boys’ dorm looked like the other two buildings, but once inside, Dee wrinkled her nose. “And I thought we were slobs,” she muttered.
“The prank wars are legendary here,” said Julia. “Even Moody gets in on it sometimes.”
“Why doesn’t that kind of thing happen in our dorm?” asked a blond girl.
Julia snorted. “Pretty sure the last time anyone tried to mess with Whiteaker, some crazy girl threw a Molotov cocktail into the idiot’s room.”
“It was a stink bomb,” said Dee, surprising herself by speaking up.
“You sure?” asked Julia.
Dee would know; it had been Gremma who’d devised the counterstrategy with stolen chemistry equipment. Their room hadn’t smelled right for a week.
The party was being held in one of the larger dorm rooms—the kind meant for four kids. Someone had pushed the bunk beds against the wall and made a diligent effort to shove the mess of dirty clothes under them. Even so, the room smelled distinctly of teenage boy and stale chips.
The dorm had been set up with twinkle lights and mirrors, and with the overhead lamp flicked off, even Dee had to admire the effect. The small room suddenly looked larger, and the small crowd was amplified by the mirrors. Dee found herself gravitating toward a corner. She could tell the party had been going on for some time; there was a sense of charged energy, of anticipation and restlessness. Already, she found herself longing for the security of her own dorm. But she knew the moment she returned, so would her depression.
Without the constant vigilance of the dorm monitor, plastic red cups were passed from hand to hand. Dee took one, accepting it the way she would a prop in her drama class. It was a thing to hold. Nothing more.
She watched the swell and tide of the small crowd, the few people who had begun dancing—but it was just an excuse to grind against someone they liked. Dee watched with half annoyance, half longing. She couldn’t imagine letting someone stroke the line of her back, to grasp her hip or press a kiss to her throat.
It wasn’t that Dee didn’t want sex or kissing or any of the other things her classmates always seemed to be doing. It was just—she was afraid. She tried to imagine speaking to a boy, flirting with him, taking her clothes off—and her mind just went blank.
She wasn’t attached to her virgin status. As far she was concerned, it was like a mole on her forearm—it was simply there, visible for all the world to see, and sure, it would be nice to be rid of it, but when was the time? Or the opportunity?
Besides, she would probably do it wrong.
Dee found herself near a desk—its contents cleared away and replaced with a hastily assembled assortment of snacks. She considered the bowl of pretzels, wondering how many people’s hands had been in that bowl, when someone joined her.
Dee sensed the girl before she saw her. She must have been someone’s friend, smuggled on campus. There were seniors who swore it was easy to sneak people in if you knew the security routes. This girl was pretty, with lush dark hair and heavily lined eyes. She was the kind of girl who wore a lot of makeup and wore it well. But that wasn’t what drew Dee’s attention.
Her red cup was held in a prosthetic hand.
Dee froze. She knew better than to assume. People lost limbs for all sorts of reasons. Maybe she’d been born that way. Maybe she was a cancer survivor. She could’ve gotten her left hand stuck in a garbage disposal for all Dee knew.
But it still didn’t stop her mind from racing. Because there was one sure way to lose a limb these days.
To trade it away for something else.
“You think the pretzels are any good?” said the girl. She spoke slowly, as if the syllables were difficult to pronounce.
Dee shrugged. “I don’t think you can get food poisoning from a pretzel.” Her eyes were fastened to the girl’s sleeve, to the place where the metal and plastic prosthetic disappeared.
The girl cleared her throat, and Dee’s gaze snapped to hers.
The girl smiled—half defiant, half mocking. “See something you like?”
Dee’s eyes fell to the table and she shook her head. “Ah, no. Sorry. I mean—I shouldn’t have stared. Sorry.”
