He thrust a finger in my face. “Get out of my office, and tell your psycho friends to stop wasting their lives on internet conspiracies and start contributing to society. Or you can all rot.”
I practically tripped in my haste to leave, wrenching open the chief’s door and storming out. I could feel the eyes of the officers at their desks following me until I disappeared into the lobby.
“Thanks for nothing,” I said to the woman at the desk and strode out of the station, chest heaving.
What a disaster. Why had I thought going to the police was the right answer, when they hadn’t helped before? It was like the years I’d spent away, safely nestled in Cal’s blue-blood crowd, had erased those lessons.
And Adam Dorsey—that motherfucker. I pulled at the driver’s door, cursing when it wouldn’t yield, stabbing the key fob until it finally unlocked and I could throw myself in.
He was every inch as terrible, as condescending, as he’d been when we were freshmen. Except now he had so much more power. Whatever nascent, half-formed fantasy I’d conjured about partnering with the police—my vision of coming here and sharing information, of helping them dig into my friend’s life until we found answers—was a crock of shit. Dorsey had shut me down as summarily as he had in college. I was on my own.
I peeled out of the parking lot and sped onto the street, foot heavy on the gas, no idea where I was going but going there fast.
The streets were familiar, even if the stores had changed. I found myself almost unconsciously taking turns, like I was pulled by a magnet. I only realized where I was heading when the streets turned wider, the urban sprawl surrounding the police station relaxing into residential homes, pine trees lining the road, dense branches forming an awning over the asphalt.
I was going back to school.
And there it was, the long, perfectly groomed hedge and large silver letters announcing Whitney College. Behind it, a swell of trees, vivid green lawns, and muted brick buildings, a campus that looked more like a summer camp, or another tony suburb. I turned in, driving down a street I’d traveled a million times, half in waking life, half in dreams.
I passed the science center, the faculty house, then Davis, the large, sprawling dining hall. There was no looking at Davis and not remembering going to their cheesy themed dinners with Laurel and Clem, or studying together in the lounge until ungodly late hours. Their famous weekend brunches, heaven for a kid like me who’d grown up worrying about her next meal. Clem’s plate stacked unapologetically high with waffles—soccer carbo-loading. Laurel downing thimble after thimble of espresso, a habit that had started as a way to impress the other theater students, then morphed into an addiction.
Today there were students everywhere: crossing the lawns, jogging down the side of the road, trickling in and out of Davis. It hadn’t occurred to me they’d be back already, but of course—it was nearly Labor Day. If I remembered right, school would’ve started about a week ago. They’d had a death on campus before fall semester even began, but you couldn’t tell by the way the students buzzed around, calling to each other and laughing.
They hadn’t changed much since my time. Kids with brightly dyed hair, septum piercings, undercuts and side shaves; others with long, scraggly hair, defiant acne, thrift-store clothing. The campus was a sea of black, rainbow-flag shirts the lone exception.
Whitney: the most progressive school in America, according to the Fiske Guide to Colleges. How we’d groaned, Laurel and I, whenever someone said, “Whitney—that’s the school for commies and lesbos, right?” Clem had loved it, would always say, “Damn straight.” And the truth was, Laurel and I had liked the school’s reputation, too, no matter how much we complained.
We’d made our choice, after all, had come here for a reason. For me, it had been an act of defiance, of self-naming, and so no matter how hard I rolled my eyes, inside I cherished what attending meant about me. The reputation was a shield, a suit of armor I was determined to grow into. We’d marched in the quad for equal pay, signed petitions, and watched ads from the fifties in our history of gender class, snickering at the women vacuuming in black and white, those poor, blind fools.