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“I mean the girls and guys,” I said. “Do they keep us apart for everything?”
“No, we eat together,” Roman said gently, trying to erase the sting of Victoria’s obvious anger towards me. “As long as we’re appropriate for our manners and don’t cause any reason to be kept apart.”
“So basically no footsies under the table, and I’m not allowed to kiss you in front of the monitors,” Alexander said. He brushed my hair off my shoulder, leaned down, and kissed my neck. “But don’t worry, we’ll be able to kiss… andmore… once you feel better. We’ll get back to normal in no time, babe.”
I couldn’t fathom what it would feel like to kiss him, so I backed away and said, “I think I need that nap now.”
Victoria shot me a look of pure disgust and said, “I’ll show you the way back since you keepactinglike this is your first time on campus.”
I wanted to tell her it felt like my first time, but like with my parents, she didn’t want to hear about the gaps in my mind. I felt like I was letting everybody down by being so filled with emptiness.
“I can find my way back,” I laughed. “I’m just tired, that’s all. You stay here, and I’ll meet you at dinner.”
“Do you know where the dining hall is?” she asked, thrusting out her hip and cocking her head to the side.
“Of course,” I smiled. “I’m not an invalid, you know.”
“Of course not,” Victoria replied and raised a single eyebrow. She watched as I turned around and headed back down the stairs to the connecting tunnel.
As I hit the bottom, I heard her say, “I don’t even think it’s that serious. She was probably faking the coma.”
And the guys laughed as they gathered around her. Alexander’s guffaw was the loudest of all.
I cringed at the sound of it and hurried my step. I made it back onto the girl’s side without notice and walked across the lawn with my tower in my sights. I needed to be alone for a while to process the information I’d gathered during the day.
None of it made sense, and with every step I took, the ground felt like it was reeling beneath me. I felt barely anchored to reality, as if I could float away and disappear back into the darkness at the first moment I closed my eyes.
I was almost at my tower building when I saw Victoria’s core group of short-haired blondes walking toward me. I needed desperately to avoid them, so I took a hard right and slipped down a short passage to remain hidden as they passed.
I watched them, and they took their time, laughing and talking loudly about the boys they liked and the classes they hated. They seemed to take forever, walking in slow motion as I became more agitated.
I heard somebody clear their throat behind me, and I nearly jumped back into the open. But instead, I whirled around and looked at the source.
A girl was sitting on the stairs behind me with short, dark hair cut into a bob. It was shaved underneath, and she had dark eyeliner drawn around her eyes, with a pierced lip and the tip of a tattoo peeking from underneath the collar of her uniform, snaking up her neck.
She was watching me with piercing dark eyes, and as I stood frozen, she lifted a cigarette to her mouth, drew a long breath, and exhaled smoke. It curled around her and up, dissipating into the atmosphere, but not before a cloud of it engulfed me.
And I knew I wanted a drag. I needed it. I was a smoker. I was sure of it.
“You running from somebody?” she asked with an amused tone.
“I’m running from everybody,” I replied and stepped toward her.
“You’re that coma girl, aren’t you?” she said.
I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s me now. That coma girl.”
“You look tired,” she said, taking another long drag off her smoke, entrancing me with the satisfaction of it.
“They keep telling me that,” I replied. “I guess it’s because I am tired. Can I have one?”
I gestured towards her cigarette.
“You’re not a smoker,” she laughed. “At least I never saw you smoking anything.”
“So you know me? Why did you ask if I was that coma girl?”
She fumbled in her pack, pulled out a single long, thin cigarette, tapped it against the open lid, and handed it to me.
