“I totally get that. I’ve lived here my whole life, and some days it feels bizarre to me, too. But you’ve only been in the state about twelve hours, and you’ve been feeling gross for most of those. Why don’t you give it a few days, wait till the altitude sickness wears off and you’ve gone to a couple classes? Maybe things won’t seem as strange once you get into a routine.”
“I know you’re right. And I wasn’t even feeling that terrible about things when I woke up, until—” I break off, trying to think of the best way to tell her about what just happened.
“Until what?” She throws back her covers and climbs out of bed.
“I know it’s a pretty big school, but do you know two guys named Marc and Quinn?” I ask.
“That depends. Does one of them have a septum piercing?”
“Yes. It’s a big black ring.” I hold my fingers to my nose to demonstrate.
“Then yeah, I know them. They’re juniors like me. And good guys, really funny. In fact, there was this one time—” I must not have a poker face, because she stops abruptly. Narrows her eyes. “Then again, I’m beginning to think the question I should be asking is how do you know them?”
“Maybe they were just fooling around, but…I’m pretty sure they tried to kill me tonight. Or at least scare me to death.”
“They tried to what?” she squawks, nearly dropping the bottle of water she had gotten out of the fridge for me. “Tell me what happened right now. And don’t leave anything out.”
She seems adamant, so I faithfully recite the events until I get to the point where Jaxon saved me. I’m not sure how I feel about that—or how I feel about him—and I’m not quite ready to talk about it yet. And I’m certainly not ready to listen to Macy talk about it. Plus, I’d sort of silently agreed to keep something about the interaction a secret, although admittedly now, back in my room, I wonder if I’d imagined that silent exchange or not.
“So what happened?” she asks when I don’t say anything else. “How did you get away from them?”
“Someone heard the fight and came to investigate. Once the boys realized there was a witness, they chilled out pretty quickly.”
“I bet they did, the jerks. The last thing they’d want is to be reported to my dad. But they should have thought of that before they put their hands on you. I swear, I’m going to murder them myself.”
She looks, and sounds, mad enough to do just that even before she continues. “What were they thinking? They don’t even know you, so why do this?” She gets up, starts pacing. “You totally could have gotten hypothermia if they’d left you outside for too long, let alone what could have happened if they’d kept you out there more than ten minutes. You seriously could have died. Which makes no sense. They’re always a little wild, super high energy. But I’ve never seen them be malicious before.”
“The whole thing doesn’t make sense. I’m beginning to think they were high or something, because there’s no other explanation as to why they would have been outside in only jeans and T-shirts. I mean, how did they avoid getting hypothermia?”
“I don’t know,” Macy says. But she looks uncomfortable, like maybe she knows for a fact that they do drugs. Or like she thinks I’m delusional for even suggesting that they were outside without any protective clothing on. But I know what I saw. Those two guys were definitely not wearing any kind of cold-weather gear.
“Maybe they were only outside for a minute or two,” she suggests eventually, handing me two Advil. “Either way, whatever’s going on with them, I’m sure my father will figure it out.”
There’s a part of me that wants to ask her not to tell Uncle Finn, because it’s hard enough being the new girl without also being a snitch. But every time I think about what might have happened—what would have happened if Jaxon hadn’t come along—I know Uncle Finn has to be told. Otherwise, what’s to stop them from doing it again to somebody else?
“In the meantime, you probably need to get some more sleep. Unless you’re hungry?”
Since just the thought of food has my stomach spinning in protest, I tell her, “I think I’m going to pass on that. But I’m not sure I can sleep, either. Maybe I should unpack my suitcases, get stuff ready for tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about your suitcases. I already did them.”
“You did? When?”