I leave her office feeling more confused than ever, but I’m also calmer. I’m seriously starting to wonder whether she’s right—maybe I am making progress. And maybe it’s time I stop being so hard on myself about everything.
Back on the bus, I check the time. It’s getting close to seven. A big part of me wants to go home, put on my pajamas, and get lost in a movie or a book so I don’t have to think anymore. But that’s the way I’ve dealt with pretty much everything since I got out of the hospital.
Instead, I get off the bus when it nears campus. I have twenty minutes to get to Paige and Karen’s dorm, and I don’t want to be late.
***
By the time the Thai food arrives, I’m shocked by how much fun I’m having.
“You go get it,” Paige tells Karen after the delivery guy calls up to the room.
“No way,” Karen says. She’s lying on the floor, waving her legs around in the air in an effort to dry her pedicure. “I went last time.”
“Karen, my nails are still wet,” Paige says, waving her bright purple fingernails. “If I have to root through my purse for cash, they’ll be ruined.”
“Should have thought of that before you painted them, shouldn’t you?” She looks up at where I’m perched on the edge of the futon. “The fetching schedule is sacred,” she tells me, her voice serious. “It’s a simple rotation whenever we need to go down to the front desk. My turn, her turn. If we turn away from the schedule over something so common as painted nails, it will be mass chaos. We cannot have mass chaos.”
I laugh. “I’ll go.”
“Oh, no,” Paige says. “You’re our guest. Besides, she’s right. It’s my turn.”
I stand, holding up my hands. “Yeah, but my nails aren’t painted.”
I arrived in the middle of their mani-pedi schedule. Paige squealed when she saw me, apparently having been convinced that I would be a no-show. They offered to paint my nails as well—”I’m, like, totally an expert manicurist, Daisy!”—but I declined. They might be nice girls and all, but there was no way in hell I was going to let one of them touch me. I never let people touch me. Instead, I sat and watched, more entertained than I thought possible, as they finished their tasks, gossiping and laughing the entire time. They kept the door open, and loud giggling could be heard from their dorm mates up and down the hall. I had imagined being there would overwhelm me, but so far, I was handling it well. A break, however, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Paige looks like she’s going to argue some more, so I grab my purse and take off before she can say anything else. Paige and Karen live on the third floor. There are no elevators, so I head down the hall to the staircase. A few girls pass me, and I keep my eyes firmly on my Converse so I don’t have to make eye contact with any of them. Safely in the stairwell, I breathe a sigh of relief.
When I reach the first-floor landing, I nearly stumble into another girl coming through the door. I tense, certain she’ll be annoyed.
But she merely pats my shoulder and grins. “Sorry!” Her voice is cheerful as she squeezes past me. “Not watching where I’m going.”
I shake my head. Not all girls are bitches. You need to relax.
I make my way toward the front desk. As I near the end of the hall, a familiar voice drifts out from an open door, and I freeze. Daltrey.
He’s singing a song I don’t know, probably something off the new album they wrote after leaving home. But I’d recognize that voice anywhere. My chest tight, I rush the remaining distance to the lobby to grab our food.
I still feel shaken when I get back the girls’ room. It’s crazy how the sound of his voice can take me back so quickly. It almost feels, for just a moment, as if no time has passed, as though I can just head next door and see his face, hear him sing, and watch him and his brothers play.
“You okay?” Paige asks.
I realize I’m standing motionless in their doorway and force my feet to move. “Yeah,” I say, trying to smile. “You guys hungry?”
Karen takes the bag of takeout from me and plops down on the carpet in the center of the room. “Mmm,” she says, opening a carton of pad thai. “Yummy.”
I join her on the floor while Paige grabs sodas from their mini-fridge. As we dig in, I take the opportunity to look around their room. When I first entered, I was immediately assaulted by a Ransom poster over Karen’s bed. I’ve done my best to keep my eyes down since then, but I figure the worst is over. Besides, this is my first time in a college dorm room, and I’m curious.