Nobody in Particular(6)

“Do you get to pass off digs as a sense of humor when you don’t have a last name?” Danni asks.

If I was surprised at her gall before, it’s nothing compared to how shocked I am right now. I’m rather used to strangers and acquaintances politely pretending to find my jibes hilarious. “It’s one of the many perks,” I say finally.

Molly turns to Danni. “Well, we’d better finish getting everyone to tell you their surnames,” she says in a tone that tells me she thinks I’m being unfathomably rude. I would argue Danni seems perfectly capable of dishing out just as much as she’s served, but I keep that argument to myself. I am, it’s rather apparent, on considerably thin ice with Molly as it is.

I raise my eyebrows in place of a goodbye. Danni moves to follow Molly, but then she pauses and glances at me. “Nice to meet you, Rose,” she says, before turning her back to me. I stare after her for several seconds.

Eleanor flips around on the couch again and follows my gaze. She gives a knowing “hmm,” and I jump, embarrassed to be caught staring.

“What?”

“She’s definitely acting odd,” she says. It takes me quite a bit longer than it should to realize she’s referring to Molly.

“I told you,” I say. “I think she hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Eleanor says, but it’s far from convincing. “She’s just grieving.”

Yes, that’s how I’d justified it, too. She’s just grieving, I told myself when she avoided me at the funeral. She needs space, I reasoned when she kept to herself throughout the end of the school term. She’s distracting herself, I rationalized when she started posting on social media again while ignoring my messages over the summer holidays.

There does come a point, I think, where denial starts to feel an awful lot like lying.

“You should just ask her what’s going on,” Eleanor says when I don’t reply, and I give a curt nod.

“I will,” I say. Unlike Eleanor, I’m well-practiced in the art of sounding just as convincing as I mean to. “Just not here. There’s no reason to ruin her party.”

Of course, I know deep down what the matter is, even if I don’t want to know. She blames me for what happened in Amsterdam in June, and so she should. I would hate me too if I were her.

By the window, Harriet Tomas grabs onto Danni’s arm as she and Molly pass, tugging them into the group conversation. Harriet was there that night, but Molly seems perfectly amiable when she says hello to her.

Something acidic and dark bubbles in my core, and I shove it back down before the emotion fully announces itself.

Alfie, who’d been watching us from afar with a measure of curiosity, saunters over to join Eleanor and me once more.

“Who’s that, then?” he asks, without any other indications. It’s obvious enough who he means.

“Her name’s Danni,” Eleanor says.

“Right, but who is she?” Alfie presses.

And Molly thought my surname advice was mere snobbery. I have half a mind to reach out to Molly later and tell her what Alfie just said, to prove my point. Only, she wouldn’t reply to my message, would she?

Danni glances over and catches the three of us staring at her. She tears her eyes away while her long piano fingers fiddle with the cuff of her sleeve.

“Nobody in particular, apparently,” I say to Alfie.

As though she somehow hears me across the din, Danni looks back. This time, her eyes land on mine.

I hold her gaze until she tears it away only a heartbeat later.

Poor little blossom. Our world is going to break her.





THREE

DANNI




When Mom and Dennis finally drop me off at Bramppath, I’m surprised at the lump that keeps forming in my throat. I’ve been so busy thinking about what life at Bramppath will hold in store for me, I forgot one of the things that’ll be missing from it. Family.

There aren’t going to be family mealtimes, or family movie nights, or family walks anymore. Now, I’m gonna be doing all that stuff with a group of strangers. Are they strangers who’ll end up feeling like family soon? Will I wish I didn’t have to leave by the time term’s over? Or am I going to be counting down the days until I can escape this place, and the people in it?

I try to remind myself that I already have a good reason to believe it’ll be okay. I know Molly now. And a bunch of my classmates’ last names, to boot.

I’m going to be fine.

Just breathe.

As we walk, Dennis makes a huge deal out of the size of the school. He goes on and on about the turrets and arches on the main building, and the ivy snaking over the windows of the residential halls, and the gray-brick masonry he explains was only used during a certain time period. I ask if he’s sure he doesn’t want to move into my dorm room with Mom, and they laugh, but it’s only sort of a joke.

The wheels of my suitcase scrape over the uneven cobblestone path as we wind through the grounds toward my hall. Dozens of girls and their parents are darting all around us like squirrels setting up for winter, lugging suitcases and decorations, blankets and bags. You wouldn’t think I’d even get noticed in all the chaos, but, oh, they notice me. Over and over again a student or parent will catch sight of me, scan my clothes and my hair and my face and decide that I haven’t made the cut. Then their noses wrinkle, and they raise their eyebrows, and move on with what they were doing without even nodding at me.