Shelter in Place (Page 16)

It made her feel different. It seemed she searched forever for something that made her feel different from the girl from Rockpoint, Maine. Something that would make her look in the mirror one day and think: Oh, there you are!

She liked New York, liked the crowds, the rush, the noise, the color. And God yes, the freedom from parental criticism, questions, and expectations.

But she knew she’d come to fulfill Tish’s dream.

She liked Columbia, had worked her ass off to get in, but knew she’d done that to be a part of Mi’s dream.

She couldn’t find her own, and wasn’t sure she had one.

But being there on borrowed dreams was better than being home where everything reminded her. Where her mother would look at her choice of hair color with puzzled disapproval or her father, with that worried look in his eyes, would casually ask how she was doing.

She was fine. How many times did she have to say it? It was Mi who still suffered from anxiety attacks and nightmares. Though they came less frequently now.

She’d done everything possible to bury that night along with her friend. Since Mi’s release from the hospital, Simone read nothing that connected to that night, watched no reports on it. Every anniversary, she watched and read no news at all, in case she tripped over some mention.

She went home only on winter break and for a week in the summer—and the summer week she spent on the island with CiCi. When she wasn’t in class, she worked. When she wasn’t in class or working, she played—hard.

Out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a bath sheet—Egyptian cotton, courtesy of her mother—then swiped off the skinny mirror over the teacup sink.

No, she thought, not yet. She saw a girl with tired eyes and wet hair, and nothing more.

She hung the towel, dragged the sleepshirt back on. When she stepped out of the batheroom, she saw Mi in their sorry excuse of a kitchen, putting a kettle on their two-burner stove.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Restless. I heard the door.”

Mi had let her hair grow into a straight rain of black. When she turned, Simone saw another pair of tired eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter. Do I know him?”

“I don’t think so. Doesn’t matter, either.” Moving into the kitchen, Simone got out two cups. “The music was good, and he wasn’t a bad dancer. I wish you’d come with me.”

“I needed to study.”

“You’re acing everything—again.”

“Because I study.”

Simone waited while Mi fiddled with the tea. “Something’s up, I can see it.”

“I’ve been accepted for a summer research program.”

“That’s great—like last summer? Dr. Jung, biomedical engineer.”

“That’s the dream. Not exactly like last summer. The program’s in London.”

“Holy shit, Mi!” Grabbing her friend, Simone danced her around the room. “London! You’re going to London.”

“It’s not until the end of June, and … my family’s asked me to come home first. To spend the time after the semester ends and before I leave for London at home. I need to give them that.”

“Okay.” Maybe her heart dropped a little, but Simone nodded.

“Come home with me. Come home, Simone.”

“I’ve got a job—”

“You hate that job,” Mi interrupted. “If you want to waitress at some dump of a coffeehouse, you can do it anywhere. You’re not happy here. You’re doing okay at Columbia, but it doesn’t make you happy. You have sex with guys that don’t make you happy.”

“Rockpoint’s not going to make me happy.”

Trim, tiny, with that gymnast’s grace, Mi went back to finish making the tea.

“You need to find what does. You’re here because of me and Tish, and I’m not going to be here all summer. You should find what makes you happy. Your art— Don’t do that!” she snapped when Simone rolled her eyes. “You’ve got talent.”

“CiCi has talent. I’m just playing around.”

“So stop playing around!” Mi snapped again. “Stop playing around, stop screwing around, stop fucking around!”

“Wow.” Simone picked up the tea she no longer wanted, leaned back on a fridge manufactured in the last century. “I like playing around, screwing around, and fucking around. I’m not going to spend my life studying, researching, holed up in a lab because I don’t want to have a life. Jesus, when’s the last time you had sex?”

“You have enough for both of us.”

“Maybe if you got laid, you wouldn’t be such a bitch. You won’t go to parties, won’t go to clubs, you haven’t had a date in months. It’s school, labs, or this shithole apartment. Happy, my ass.”

As her eyes fired, Mi curled one hand into a fist. “I’m going to make something of myself. I didn’t die, and I’m going to make something out of my life. I am happy. Sometimes it’s almost happy, and sometimes I hit it. But I know I’m working toward something, and I’m watching my best friend pushing back at everything.”

“I go to classes, I go to work, I go to clubs. How’s that pushing back at anything, much less everything?”

“You go to classes, but you don’t care enough about any of them to do more than get by. You go to work at a job that means less than nothing to you, instead of looking for something that would.” It poured out now, a flood over a broken dam. “You go to clubs because you can’t stand being alone, being quiet for more than an hour. And you hook up with guys you have no intention of seeing again because you have no intention of seeing them again. Not letting yourself be close or involved with anything or anyone is the freaking definition of pushing everything away.”

Simone smirked, adding nasty to it. “I was damn close to the guy who just left.”

“What’s his name?”

Austin, Angel, Adam … shit, shit, shit. “Ansel,” she remembered.

“You had to dig for it. You brought some guy home, had sex with him, and have to dig for his name in less than an hour.”

“So what? So the fuck what? If I’m such a ho, why do you care what I do, what I feel?”

“Because, goddamn it, you’re my ho.”

Simone opened her mouth to rage, and laughter gurgled out. As Mi—face bright pink with temper, tears of fury sparking in her eyes—stared at her, the gurgle built into a roll.

Even as Mi let out an insulted huff, Simone toasted with her tea. “This calls for a T-shirt. Mi-Hi’s Ho.” She tapped her free hand on her chest.

While she knuckled temper tears out of her eyes, the absurdity pushed a watery laugh out of Mi. “You’d wear it proud, too.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh hell, Sim.” Mi set her tea aside, scrubbed her hands over her face. “I love you.”

“I know. I know.”

“You’re wasting yourself, taking classes you can basically sleep through.”

“I’m never going to be a biomedical freaking engineer, Mi. Most of us are still figuring stuff out.”

“The only courses you’ve shown any real interest in are art related. So focus there, and figure it out. You’re wasting yourself on a job you don’t like, don’t need, where you’re so stupidly overqualified you should be running the shop.”