Has to Be Love (19 page)

“Stop!” she hollers when there are doors on my right and on my left.

She slips her key into the door on my right and shoves it open.

Lachelle's apartment is almost comical in its smallness. The kitchen is just a tiny counter, hot plate, and microwave over the top of a mini-fridge.

Her hand is on mine as I stumble around the tiny futon into an even smaller room than we were in before. “How many people usually live here?” I ask.

“Three.” She points to bunk beds. “Two of us in here and one in the living room.”

She flops my suitcase onto her futon. “Let's see if you brought something fun to wear. If not, I have a wretched addiction to my sewing machine and to Modcloth.”

I'm still admiring her skirt. “You … you look like a fashion student, not a … writer.” I clamp my mouth shut because it's probably a rude thing to say or an insensitive thing or something.

“No judging, Clara,” she chides with a smile. After a quick scan of the very few things in my suitcase, she surveys an assortment of hooks on the wall.

“To hang out with my people, I think …” She shifts her weight a few times in front of her wall of clothes. “This.” She tosses down a simple black dress with antiqued ivory lace. I grab it and stare, wondering if I'll look cool or like someone's grandma.

“With this.” She tosses a jacket. “And this.” A wide belt hits me in the head before I can duck. “And this.” A small, soft cardigan lands on me next. “Which means you don't need this.” She snatches back the jacket.

“Um …”

“Just change.” She flits her hand between us as she smiles. “I'll be right back.”

She closes the door to her room, which might even be smaller than our entry closet—clothes hanging on pegs on the walls, books stacked above my knees in other places. Music filters in on one side, there's the constant noise of the cars and the streets, and every time the upstairs neighbors move, it sounds like elephants are roaming the roof. This is amazing.

I clutch the dress and belt and cardigan.

The feeling here is so different. A place I've never been with people I've never met … I resist the urge to dial Elias for a piece of home about four times before finally undressing and putting on clothes that belong to a girl I just met.

I slide on the dress, and it's a couple inches above my knees, which my dad would give me raised eyebrows over, but he's not here, so it seems fine. The thin sweater is trickier, but I adjust it over the dress and get the collar laid down and the belt on, and I'm feeling … like me, but better. In someone else's clothes. A tornado of a girl I just met, who I'm pretty sure would never fit into the confines of any kind of poem.

“You done?” Lachelle hollers.

“Coming out,” I call back. Maybe my outfit is cute enough that no one will notice my face.

“Holy fantastic body!” she squeals. “You comfortable in that?”

“I think so.” I glance down again. It's just more put together than I ever bother to be.

“And it even matches those little flats you brought.” She kicks them toward me. “Also, I have people for you to meet, so let's play with makeup so we can get out of here. Cool?”

“Cool.” Because I don't know what else to say. Everything since I left home for this trip has felt like a whirlwind, and Lachelle is just helping my spinning thoughts pick up speed.

“You have an insane amount of energy. You know that?” I say as Lachelle smudges more eyeliner on my lids.

I'm sitting on her toilet, and I'm sure her back is pressed against the wall opposite me as she straddles my lap with a makeup brush in hand.

“Life is so incredibly short!” She shifts her weight and bites her lip as she concentrates. “I just don't wanna miss anything, you know? I mean, I've seen almost none of the world, which is totally not okay. I'm a city girl though, so I've already realized that if I'm going to be a happy traveler, I need to be a city traveler. I really wanna go to the Sorbonne. The second they accept me, I'm dropping everything to go.”

I laugh as she moves around the eyelid that leads into one of my scars. “I'm about as opposite of city as you can get.”

“But look at you, all fitting in and wearing my clothes like you own them,” she teases as she pinches my shoulder. “I'm so glad we get along. I mean, I get along with most people, but still. So glad.”

“Me too.” I release a breath. “I know my scars are—”

“A good challenge to work around. You'll have to tell me if something I do feels weird.” She pops her lips a couple times and sets down a brush on the worn white counter only to pick up another one that looks exactly like it. “Don't apologize for having scars. They're here. We'll deal.”

Since we started, I've tried not to think about how she's going to know my scars probably as well as I do after this. She's gone over them with concealer and foundation and who knows what else.

“So this party tonight …” I start, needing to not think about how she sees my scars.

“Just lit students. It's our end-of-the-year bash.” She starts smoothing shadow over my other eyelid. “You know, once you get mascara on, you have such long lashes that it sort of masks how that one big scar touches your eye.”

My stomach tightens. Masking a few missing lashes is very different from being one of the pretty girls. “Huh.”

I wait for Lachelle to ask me something else, but her hands have stopped pressing on my face and she's leaning over me with her cat-eye makeup and glossy lips. “I think … Yep. I think I'm done. The scars aren't easy … you know … to work with, but …”

She backs up to the doorway and gestures toward the mirror.

I stand slowly and turn. The second I catch my reflection, I freeze. My scars are there, but they're less … No. They're the same but lighter. Maybe this is sort of what they'll look like after I do some more serious bleaching. But the rest of my face … My eyes look bigger and my lips fuller and my cheekbones higher and my skin smoother. Aside from my scars, I actually look like the kind of girl who could belong here. “You're … amazing.”

“A bit. Yep.” She rocks back on her heels. “Now slip on your flats. I'm pretty sure the night will end with a scavenger hunt for those of us who aren't sloppy drunk, and neither of us will want heels for that.”

“I don't drink,” I blurt.

“Then don't drink.” She snorts and shoves me toward the living room. “Now go get what you need so we can get out of here!”

When I'm in the living room, I flatten my hand over my heart and feel it pressing into my palm. I look so … not pretty but so much better than I thought possible. I always thought that drawing attention to myself would just draw attention to my scars, but … but what if I was wrong?

24

I follow Lachelle out the door as she chatters about modern poets, and the archaeology trip she went on with Rhodes, and I see why they're friends. They're both into everything. It further makes me wonder if they were ever a thing. An unease traces over my nerves, which is stupid. Rhodes can be with whomever he likes.

I check my phone again for any word from Elias, but there's nothing new. He's probably at work. No, wait. Four hours earlier. He's at
school
right now. By the time he's out of school, we'll probably be at the party. And then when I'm crashing, he'll hopefully be off work so we can talk. Well … he
might
be. How awkward.

The streets here are busier and more frenetic than Seattle. Fuller. So many rhythms and beats and thoughts and ideas clash, but I find the chaos calming. Like I don't matter as much. My freaky face won't be noticed as much. There's too much to take in.

“This is such a fantastic school. Seriously, aside from a few pretentious assholes, you'll totally love it,” Lachelle gushes as we move up the sidewalk toward the school. “Ya know, if you decide to come.”

Columbia.

For a moment I forget I'm so far from home because we've stepped off a busy street and I'm on a gorgeous campus with old brick buildings and sidewalks and grass lawns with big trees. All the while the noise of the cars and the city buzz through me. New York stretches above the campus buildings, making it feel almost like a sanctuary in a city so massive it doesn't feel real.

When I breathe in, the smell of city and heat and exhaust mixes with grass and trees and the warm smell of the coffee shop we pass.

A small group walks by and the guy on the end glances at us, gives Lachelle a quick wave, and glances at me again before frowning and turning away. My gut rolls, and I pull my hair down, figuring I'm not doing well at shading myself. Maybe I
will
be noticed in the crowd.

“This is … gorgeous,” I say as the grass spreads out in front of us and the old school buildings become the backdrop rather than the sprawling city.

“Yeah.” She slips her hands into her skirt pockets. “This is the greenest part of campus, so it's in all the brochures and all the online pictures. What they don't show you are all the odd buildings on the fringes of campus with classrooms that are impossible to find.”

I'm still twisting my head back and forth, trying to see everything. “Huh.”

“I love the library,” Lachelle whispers as we move through the wooden doors. “This is the undergrad services one.”

I open my mouth to say okay, but the ceiling stretches above me, study carrels stretch in front of me, marble walls and wood paneling and … every kind of perfect stereotype of an amazing campus library.

“Renee!” Lachelle whisper-yells to a gray-haired woman sitting at a desk stacked high with books. “This is Clara. From
Alaska.
You chat with her for a minute while I look for Trey.”

I feel my jaw hang as I keep staring at my surroundings.

Renee points toward a corner. “He's that way,” she whispers.

Lachelle taps my arm. “Be right back.”

Renee peers at me over thin glasses, her gray hair cut short and framing a long, thin face. “So, you're from Alaska?” she asks in a practiced whisper.

Her light blue eyes scan my face, and I feel myself shrink under her gaze.

This sucks. One day.
Any
day I wish to meet someone without this. “Yep. I want to write.” I want her to see that part of me, not the scars.

There's no way for me to meet someone and for them to not see my scars. Without them being blind, it won't happen.

There is. No way. For that to happen.

I stare at where Renee sits, her studying eyes and long face. I'm not sure how to feel okay about people staring. And they always will. At least a lot of them always will.

“And I'm guessing you're thinking of coming to Columbia? That's what Lachelle said, I believe?” Renee asks.

“Or University of Alaska,” I say quietly. Where being attacked by a bear would be a big deal, but maybe not as big a deal. Maybe I can't escape it anywhere—I'd just have the comfort of home
or
I'd have the comfort in knowing I'm tough enough to be in New York.

“But you were accepted here? Why wouldn't you take advantage of that?” She slides a few library books across her desk, scanning them as she does.

“UAA is more what felt available to me.”

“Why would you be tied to your local school?” she asks.

“I'm …”
Not sure.

“You a criminal?” she asks with a smirk.

“No,” I sputter. “I'm not quite eighteen. About to graduate from high school,” I say more quietly.

“Then come. You're eighteen, my dear. With no major criminal history.
Everything's
available to you.” She grins as she leans forward and rests her elbows on the desk between us. “So the question is … what do you want to do with all that freedom?”

Those words are terrifying.
Everything?
That's so many choices. So many unknowns. So many people and places I've never seen or even thought of. My hand comes to my face, and I find the scar just off my mouth, touching the familiar welt and tracing the same section over and over. But maybe … maybe if I allow a bit of hope at how much could be open to me, I might find more hope and then more until I'm not afraid to move forward.
That
would be amazing.

“I don't know what I want to do. Not exactly.” Honesty seems like the only safe thing right now. “I have to tell the school if I'm coming this fall so soon, and …” In four days they need to know, and it'll come so fast.

Renee chuckles. “At your age, you also have to remember that as you move forward you may open doors, but you also shut others. As you're making decisions on where you want to go to school and what you want to do with your degree, keep that in mind. And then make sure that the doors that are most important stay open.”

She gives me the same raised-eyebrow look my dad does when he wants me to seriously consider something he's just said.

“I'm … I'm thinking about it.”

“If you're even thinking of coming here, you might want to read some books by the staff.” She reaches to a shelf behind her and pauses for a moment. There's a sign just above her that reads, “Staff Publications,” and then she turns and places five books in front of me. “Our modern staff, I should say.”

I've read books by graduates of Columbia, but how had I never thought to read the books the professors here were writing?

She taps the top of the books with pale fingers. “It would be smart for you to read a little
outside
of the standard reading lists—especially before classes start.”

I run my hands over books written by people who I might get to learn from. These aren't books from small Alaskan presses. These books have stamps on them from awards and more awards listed on the back.

“Take pictures of them or whatever you kids are doing to keep track of your reading piles.” Renee slides the books she scanned onto a cart. “It was nice meeting you, Clara. I need to find a lackey to put these away. Just leave the books on my desk, and I'll slip them back onto the shelf after you leave.”