In My Dreams I Hold a Knife Read online

  “Jess, what’d you get?” Caro smiled, but her eyes were worried.

  I thrust the card at her.

  “This is perfect!” She threw her arms wide. “We’re in it together! Jess, this is great. Now we can do it side by side!”

  I scrambled to my feet, ignoring her arms, and took off across the gym, dodging clusters of girls, some jumping with joy, others openly crying.

  I burst free of the gym and broke into a run, going as fast as my legs would take me, ignoring the cold January air, the strange looks, the guy who yelled, “Wrong way to frat row, freshman!”

  By the time I got to East House, I could barely see through the blur of tears. I’d failed. I was vaguely aware of passing Frankie and Jack in the quad, the two of them drinking beer and laughing in front of a suspiciously endowed snowman. But I didn’t dare stop, just darted inside and up the staircase—running smack into something solid. Arms reached out and grabbed me before I could topple back.

  “Jess?”

  I rubbed my eyes. It was Coop in his leather motorcycle jacket, probably on his way to wherever he always went and refused to tell us.

  His hands were on my shoulders, warm even through my peacoat. He studied me. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. I really wanted to go to my room. Even if Rachel was there, I didn’t care. I would let myself cry anyway, and she would have to deal.

  He rubbed my shoulders, and I couldn’t help leaning into him. “Seriously, you can tell me.”

  “I didn’t get into Chi O,” I blurted out, unable to keep it inside any longer. “I preffed them but they turned me down, and now I’m a Kappa. I can’t believe I didn’t get it. What’s wrong with me?”

  “This is about sororities?” Coop dropped his hands from my shoulders and stuffed them in his pockets. “You know that’s elitist bullshit, right? Why would you want to be part of that? It’s literally designed to make you hate yourself—that’s the juice the whole system runs on.”

  That was the final straw. I burst into tears.

  “Oh shit. You’re really upset. Okay, we can fix this.” Coop put his arm around my shoulders and opened the door to the third-floor hall. “Come on, let’s talk. You can tell me the mean things the Chi Os did, and then we’ll egg their house or something.”

  “No,” I said, even as I let him pull me down the hall to his and Mint’s room. “I don’t want to bother you.”

  He opened the door and ushered me in. I couldn’t help the ghost of a smile, even now, in their room. It was the perfect representation of how different Mint and Coop were: one side was masculine brown and blue, expensive sheets, swimming trophies, everything neat. The other was band posters and bright-pink sheets, crap strewn everywhere.

  “Trust me”—Coop planted me on his bed—“you’re far from bothering me.”

  He dropped his keys on his desk and walked to the door. “Stay right there. I’m going to get us root beer and Red Vines so we can get some sugar in your system. Those are your favorites, right? You’re always eating Red Vines when you study.”

  I nodded, trying to keep the tears inside.

  “Okay, be right back. Seriously, don’t move.” Coop slipped out and shut the door behind him.

  Alone, I let myself cry. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. During rush I’d tried to tell myself not to get my hopes up, tried to hedge my bets, but it didn’t matter: I’d wanted Chi O with my whole heart. I’d pictured walking around campus with those letters on my chest, letting everyone know where I stood. Imagined telling my dad I’d gotten into the top sorority on campus. Presenting him with the irrefutable evidence: Look who I am. So good. Other people saw it and gave me this as proof.

  The door swung open and I jerked in surprise. But instead of Coop, Mint stood in the doorway, staring. I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks, fingers coming away black with mascara. Oh, god. The day was only getting worse.

  “Sorry,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I was hanging with Coop. I’ll go.”

  “Hold on.” Mint swung his backpack to the floor, dropping his coat on his desk. “You’re crying.” He peered closer. “It’s sorority Bid Day, right?”

  Of course Mint knew about Bid Day. He, Jack, and Frankie started pledging Phi Delt next week. It was a relief he understood the significance of what I was going through, but also an embarrassment, because he hadn’t had any problems shooting straight to the top.

  “Come on.” Mint sat on his perfectly made bed and patted the spot next to him. I walked across the room and sat, looking at him out of the corner of my eye.

  “I didn’t get into Chi O,” I admitted, the words painful. “I really wanted it.”

  “Of course you did. What’d you get?”

  “Kappa.”

  Mint knocked my knee with his. “Kappa’s a good one.”

  I looked at him. How was it possible that even here, midday in a dingy dorm room, his eyes were so impossibly blue?

  “You don’t have to lie to me. We both know Chi O’s the best. Courtney and Heather both got in.”

  “Heather?”

  I swung to face him. “I know, right? I don’t mean to be rude, but…” I stopped. It was eating at me, chewing a hole in my heart. I wanted to say it out loud, but I wasn’t sure how Mint would react. What if he told me to leave, then told Heather? I took a breath, then took the plunge. “Why her?”

  Courtney, I understood—of course she got Chi O, she was born for it. But Heather? Heather was barely pretty. Her forehead was too big. She was short. It’s not like she had stellar grades or was so much more popular. Being part of the East House Seven gave Heather and me equal standing, or so I’d thought. She came from money—was that it? Or was it the power of her loud voice, her confidence, her outsized personality?

  It was a terrible way to think. I loved Heather. She made me feel brave, like there was nothing we couldn’t do when we were together. But I just couldn’t stop picturing her jumping with Courtney, laughing and waving the card that should have been mine. What if our spots had gotten mixed up? What if I went to the Panhellenic president and opened an inquiry, and they realized their mistake? I envisioned the president taking Heather’s card from her and handing it to me, the rightful owner.

  No. Obviously, I couldn’t do that. But I felt so helpless. I wanted to do something to take control, take away the pain. The vision of Heather’s happy face cut at me.

  “Look,” Mint said, putting a hand on my leg. “Chi O made a mistake by not choosing you. Show them that.”

  “How?” Where we touched, my skin tingled.

  “Kappa is number two, right? All you have to do is take the number-one spot from Chi O. Rush harder. Beat them at their own game. I’ll help you.”

  “You will?”

  He turned and faced me, cross-legged. I couldn’t help it—I pictured the scene in Sixteen Candles when Jake Ryan sits across the table from Molly Ringwald’s character, birthday cake between them, and tells her to make a wish. He was Jake Ryan, but in gold.

  “Of course. Whatever I can do.”

  I almost asked why, but didn’t want to ruin the moment. “Tell me something,” I said instead. “Something embarrassing.”

  “What?” Mint looked taken aback.

  “I just told you how I failed,” I said, “and now I’m sitting here feeling ashamed. Tell me something to level the playing field.”

  Mint’s cheeks actually turned pink—was I witnessing him blush? I marveled at my power.

  “Something you’ve never told anyone else,” I added, emboldened.

  He studied me. I must have looked pitiful, because he blew out a breath. “Okay. I’ll tell you something I’m ashamed of, if you swear never to repeat it.”

  “I swear.” The words were a binding oath. I could feel a string snap taut between us.

  “My mom…” His voice caught,
and he took another deep breath. I got goose bumps—he really was going to tell me something important, I could feel it.

  “Last year, I found out my mom cheated on my dad.”

  I gasped sympathetically.

  “It was humiliating. She’d been cheating on him a long time, it turned out, with one of the members of the board of my parents’ company. Everyone found out. But she refused to stop seeing the guy. I expected my dad to end things, divorce her—hell, punch the asshole in the face. I was preparing myself to be a latchkey kid. But he totally folded.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was so weak. He didn’t even fight it. He let her walk all over him, let this other guy emasculate him. He cried for days and begged her not to divorce him, said she could keep seeing the guy, anything she wanted. Everyone found out about that, too, and now everywhere we go, people whisper about how my mom’s getting it from some other guy, and my dad’s a fucking cuckold.”

  Mint’s voice had grown harder and sharper as he spoke. When he said cuckold, that strange, old-fashioned word, it was like jagged glass. I leaned back. “My dad’s the biggest coward. I hate him. Everyone at home talks about me behind my back, and it’s all his fault. At a dinner party my mom threw before I left for Duquette, he came late from work and I locked him out of the house. People were laughing and pointing at him through the windows. And you know what? Instead of feeling bad for him, I felt good. Really good. He was the loser, not me.”

  “Mint, that’s terrible,” I said, unable to help it.

  “Yeah, well. Now you know a shameful secret. Feel better?”

  We sat in silence while I processed the fact that the perfect Mark Minter had such a messed-up family. I swallowed. “I think I hate my father, too.”

  Mint had been studying his comforter; now, he looked up at me. “Really?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, will you look at us. Two jerks who hate their dads.”

  I laughed with relief, because of course Mint wasn’t a jerk, and if I was grouped with him, I was going to be okay.

  “I can’t believe you told me something so personal,” I said.

  “You asked me to.”

  “Yeah, but…I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

  “Jess.” Mint blinked. “I like you.”

  For the second time that day, the world tilted on its axis. Mark Minter liked me? Me, Jessica Miller? It was the most improbable of victories, like winning the lottery, or finding a golden ticket in your chocolate bar.

  He swallowed, looking unbearably nervous, and I realized I hadn’t yet responded, lost in wonder. “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  He cracked a smile, bright as the sun, and he was back to being the golden boy, shameful confession far behind him. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re…Mint.”

  He put his hands on either side of my face. “I like the way you think of me.”

  I took a deep breath, smelling his cologne, orange and spices, and then he was pulling me toward him, kissing me with that beautiful mouth. It was slow and gentle at first until I scooted closer, rising onto my knees, and he deepened the kiss, tangling his hands in my hair. I pulled away, breathless. The most perfect boy in the world.

  “I like you, too,” I said, the understatement of the century, and kissed him again.

  A heavy thud made us wrench apart. I twisted to the doorway, heart racing. Coop stood there staring, Red Vines in his hand, two bottles of root beer rolling at his feet.

  Chapter 7

  Now

  If there was a hell on earth, it was this moment.

  “Kill your father, then you’re free? Quoting Freud at a college party is too clichéd for you, darling.” In slow motion, Caro walked past me to where Coop stood, leaning in to kiss him. It was a surreal image, like rewatching a beloved movie, only to find the actors suddenly switched and everything now wrong. I looked away, focusing on the way my stiletto heels stabbed twin holes into the grass.

  “I, for one, would be sad if Coop’s brand ever changed.” Mint raised his glass. “Long may my favorite roommate darken our otherwise idyllic lives.”

  Courtney’s candy-red lips widened into a smile, flashing teeth as white and straight as her husband’s. “Actually, since Minty and I couldn’t make the engagement party, let’s cheers to Caro and Coop.”

  The engagement party. Memories surfaced, too fast for me to push back, edges blurred by alcohol but still clear enough to be damning. I refocused, realizing everyone else had lifted their glasses. I hastily added my own, though it was empty.

  “To Caroline Rodriguez,” Coop toasted, “a living saint, who rescued me from depression and poverty after law school. May I eventually be worthy of her.”

  Caro blushed prettily.

  “To Caro and Coop,” everyone sang. I echoed, a beat too late.

  “Speaking of depression and poverty, guess who I saw?” Courtney raised her brows. “Eric Shelby. Remember him, always creeping around wherever we went? Figures he’d worm his way into our Homecoming party.”

  Caro’s cheeks flushed. “He works here. And you should be nicer to him.”

  “I need a drink,” I announced, to no one in particular, then dug my heels out of the dirt and hurried in the direction of the bar.

  My plan was unraveling. No one was reacting the way I’d thought. I hadn’t anticipated Caro ambushing me so quickly, hadn’t expected to be shoved into Courtney and Mint, to feel the claustrophobic pressure of Eric somewhere out there, circling us. I hadn’t in a million years expected my own reaction to seeing Coop again.

  It changed everything. What chance did I have of showing everyone the newer, truer me—brilliant, beautiful, successful Jessica—if I had to spend all weekend avoiding him? How would I secure my triumph if, at every moment, I had to focus on pushing memories away, acting like I didn’t care?

  I thought I’d already beaten this, the stirring in my blood, the prickling awareness of real, flesh-and-blood Coop, only yards behind me. My body was so alert, and he’d barely glanced at me.

  I had to leave. Put as much distance between us as possible. The bartender filled my glass to the brim with wine, somehow sensing my need. I shoved money into his tip jar and fled out of the tent, heading toward the velvety blackness of the trees. Tonight was ruined, but I’d recover tomorrow. All was not lost. The important thing was staying away from—

  “Running away?”

  I froze midstep.

  “I guess your brand hasn’t changed much, either.”

  I turned slowly, hoping against hope, but there he stood, tall and lit by the glow from the tent, his face half-shadowed.

  I straightened. He watched the movement closely, following the way the straps of my dress pulled over my skin. I cleared my throat. “Coming in swinging. That strategy always worked so well for you.”

  Coop grinned. A rare thing.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I graduated from Duquette, didn’t I? No matter how hard those bastards tried to stop me.”

  I tipped my glass back, letting wine slide down my throat. Talking to him alone is a bad idea. Walk away, Jessica.

  “Cheers,” he said, lifting his glass.

  I tried not to look at his eyes, but I couldn’t help it; his gaze dragged mine up from the ground. Eyes vivid green, dark-lashed, looking at me like he always did—too intense. Goose bumps crawled across my arms. “If I recall, the old Coop thought Homecoming was stupid.”

  “Maybe the new Coop is full of school spirit.” The new Coop—of course. It had been ten years since college. A full year since we’d even talked. Like me, he was different now. It wasn’t just that he was a lawyer, which had always seemed so improbable in college. Or that he lived in a new city, wasn’t joined at the hip with Jack and Frankie and Mint. He was eng
aged now. He belonged to someone else. To my best friend.

  I repeated it to myself, over and over.

  “Well,” I said, starting to step around him. “I’m glad you came. If you’ll excuse me.”

  He caught my arm. “What… We’re not going to talk about it?”

  A chill ran the length of my body. His hand was warm, the fall air cold. He was so close. I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head.

  “Don’t you dare say talk about what.”

  I didn’t move. “I don’t think there’s anything to say. It’s been a year.”

  He clenched his jaw. “Can we have an honest conversation for once in our goddamn lives?”

  I laughed—I couldn’t help it. “Having an honest conversation is what ruined things in the first place.”

  A light sparked in his eyes. His fingers flexed on my arm. “I thought you said you were drunk at the engagement party.”

  A memory: my heart, shattered into pieces. My body, unsure how to function without it. Unable to put one foot in front of the other, swimming in pain. The beautiful brass bar, the bottles of red wine, Caro, resplendent in white. The desperate thought: I have to tell him.

  We were crossing into dangerous territory. I could feel the ghosts starting to stir. “I was,” I said carefully. “Very drunk.”

  “Well, which was it? Were you being honest, or were you drunk?” The look in his eyes was too serious. Jesus Christ, Coop. He always wanted so much.

  It all rushed back. Caro and Coop’s engagement party. Everyone there—families, all our college friends, except Mint and Courtney, of course, off on some glamorous vacation. At first, the news that Coop was dating Caro had been a slash to my heart. As Caro’s friend, I had to hear every excruciating detail about how they’d reconnected. How Caro—who checked in on her old friends, no matter how much time had passed, because she was that kind of person—gave Coop a call one day out of the blue.

  And apparently it was perfect timing. Coop, struggling with law school and full-time work, but also haunted by something—Caro had whispered it, like a secret between us, haunted. He’d needed a friend, and there she was. I’d acted puzzled, kept my voice light over the phone, even as my heart hammered, even as I wanted to scream that I knew what haunted him, and it had its hold on me, too.