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“Are they all waiting for our Willow?” Father asked, and the closer we got, the more likely it seemed.
There were five girls in total, all wearing matching short plaid skirts and white blouses with the school’s crest embroidered over the breast. Each of them was blonde, and they all had short hair except for one tall, gorgeous girl in the middle.
She looked like somebody I knew. Not personally, but I had the distinct impression she was famous. Had I seen her in movies? A half-formed moment of recognition tapped against the outside of my thoughts, teased me and disappeared. I couldn’t catch it. I couldn’t pinpoint who she was.
“Will-Oh!” she shrieked my name and jumped up and down before running towards me. “Oh my god, I’ve been dying to see you!”
She threw her arms around me and pulled me into a whirling embrace as we circled around together in front of the other quiet girls.
“There she is, Victoria. How lovely of you to greet us,” Mother said. “Will you be sharing a floor this year?”
And that’s all it was. I must have mistaken the creeping sensation that she was famous for my familiarity with her as my friend and roommate. I was disappointed but didn’t know why.
“Yes, we are,” Victoria said as she let me go. She turned abruptly around before I could say anything and pointed to a girl holding up an old-fashioned camera. “Did you get that? Good, print it out and get it on my social board in the Rook Hall asap. I want everyone to know I was the first one to greet Willow after the accident.”
The girl nodded sagely and held the phone close to her chest as she scuttled off to do Victoria’s bidding.
“You can leave her with me now,” Victoria told my parents. “We’ll take excellent care of her, won’t we?”
“You must remember to take your pills,” Mother said, grasping my shoulders and staring intently into my eyes. “They will keep your brain from swelling. If you forget, you could start getting headaches. Or worse, you could give yourself a stroke. Do you understand?”
I nodded, yes.
“The doctor programmed the alarm in your room to alert you, and your pill holder is in your purse. The rest of them are in your bags, and new ones will be delivered to your room every month. If you need anything else, the main research clinic is on campus.”
“I’ll make sure she takes everything she needs,” Victoria reassured them. “I wouldn’t want her stroking out and dying on my watch.”
She hooked her arm into mine and offered my parents a sunny smile. They nodded, gave me a stiff hug, and left.
I was suddenly alone with girls who knew me, but I had no idea who they were. I patted the Vuitton bag slung across my chest as if giving myself comfort through it.
“Youhaveto tell me everything,” Victoria said scandalously and leaned against me as we walked into Rook Hall, our dorm building. I spotted a giant collage of photographs on one wall, all of them seemingly dominated by her. The social wall, I assumed. She used it to visually express her popularity.
She held me tighter and kept going. “I want to know what you were doing on that road and why you were driving Alexander’s car.”
“I don’t know if you heard anything about my coma, but I actually don’t remember much,” I said and blinked rapidly as I desperately tried to recall a single thing about the girl next to me. I shook my head and added, “I’m drawing a blank.”
“Listen, I won’t tell anyone,” Victoria said as we crossed a wide foyer with photos of blonde girls all staring down at us in equal parts contempt and superiority. “You don’t have to keep up that act with me.”
“It’s not an act, seriously,” I said.
She didn’t seem to hear me, and she kept talking as we approached an elevator. She pressed the button, the single door slid open, and she told the remaining girls, “There’s only room for us, sorry.”
We stepped in, and she pressed the button for the top floor, seven. As soon as it began to move, she let out a huge sigh and said, “I swear the Lowers keep sending stupider and stupider girls to us.”
“The Lowers?” I asked.
“You know, where we get most of the girls from for this whole school,” Victoria said with thinly veiled irritation. “Seriously, Willow, if I find out you’re lying about not remembering stuff, I will be so fucking mad about it.”
The elevator stopped, and the door opened. We stepped into a beautiful hallway filled with framed photographs of even more beautiful girls, all headshots. They all had their hair and makeup done to perfection. They were wearing classically beautiful clothing despite the obvious fact they were from different eras throughout the decades.
The hall was short, and I realized we were at the top of the turret. A window overlooking the courtyard gave me a view of where I’d just walked with my parents.
Curiously, there was a tall brick wall intersecting the entire thing. I’d mistaken it for a building when I was on the ground.
“Why’s that there?” I asked, pointing at it as I looked at students milling about down below, wishing I had their carefree lives.
“You really are fucking stupid now, aren’t you?” Victoria snapped and sighed dramatically. “This is going to be a rough year. That’s the Wall. It separates the boys from the girls and keeps us from doingthingswe shouldn’t be doing.”
