Terrorscape (5 page)

Impatient, much?

She stared at her student account. All the icons
were labeled. That was something. She rubbed at her
eyes and pulled up the tab for course schedules,
which was shaped like a day planner.

Select major
, it prompted her.
Oh hell, she didn't have one.
Undeclared?
No, I'll just have to change it later
.

What was something easy? Women's Studies? No,
people were always making fun of the people who
took that. Ditto Philosophy. Psychology? She knew a
thing or two about that.

Her eyes caught on Animal Behavioral Science.
She hesitated. That was more her forte; she possessed
a greater affinity for animals than people. She loved
them, in fact.

So does he
.

Val stared at the screen for a long moment. Then
she selected Psychology from the drop-down list of
majors. Maybe it would help her understand why she
was so screwed-up inside.

After she chose her major, another tab lit up at the
top. This icon was shaped like an apple. It contained a
list of all the courses she would need to take in order
to graduate. Available courses were highlighted in
blue, with the day and time listed beside them.

Her schedule, once she had assembled it, was
about what one might expect. Abnormal Psychology.
Sociology. Social Psychology. Composition. All bare
bones courses and exceedingly dull-sounding.

A third tab started to glow, this one with a book
icon. Her mood darkened further as she ordered her
textbooks. Six hundred and fifty dollars down the
drain for something she felt lukewarm about at best.

She headed back for her dorm. A tall Asian boy
stopped her as she encountered the stairs. She eyed
him warily, the way she did with every man she
encountered now. “You live in Otoño?” he asked.
Her wariness increased. Slowly, she nodded.

“Oh, cool. Well, I'm one of your RAs.”

 

One of my what?
Then she remembered. Resident
Adviser. “That's nice.” She moved to go around him
and again, he blocked her path.

“Just letting you know that there's a mandatory
resident meeting tonight.”
“Mandatory? We have to go?”

“Yup, 'fraid so. It's at eight o' clock tonight in the
Bay Lounge. Don't even think about dodging the
draft,” he warned her cheerfully. “We'll be knocking
on the doors starting at seven tonight, just to make
sure nobody forgets.”

He mimed air quotes around
forgets
.

Val was unamused. Even though he seemed
friendly enough she couldn't bring herself to like him.
What was he so cheerful about?

“Thanks for letting me know.”

 

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

Val, determined to forget about the meeting, air
quotes or no, crawled into bed for a nap after a dinner
of ramen cooked in the microwave she and Mary
shared for when they couldn't make it to the DC. So
far, Val had been the only one to use it.

The RA proved as good as his threat. A sharp
rapping on the door yanked her out of another
nightmare, and when she answered the door she
found herself looking at the same boy from before.

He grinned at her. “Hey—you again.”
Val stared at him blearily.
“You coming to the resident meeting tonight?”
“Fine,” she said coldly.

“It's at eight o'clock. There will be food and
drinks and games. It'll be fun.”

 

Fun
.
She
could
hear
him
knocking
on
her
neighbors' doors now.
Yeah, right
.

Since her clothes from earlier were rumpled from
the nap she pulled on a new pair of jeans and a
flannel shirt. The makeup on her face had come off
and she wondered if the RA had noticed that her
eyebrows and eyelashes didn't quite match her hair.

He's a boy. He wouldn't notice.
Gavin would.

Val grabbed her stick of eyeliner and penciled
over the faint reddish-brown lines. Then, biting her
lip, she rolled black mascara over her eyelashes.

Angel was right
, she thought, stepping back to
regard her reflection in the mirror.
I do look pale
.
At least she fit in here. People didn't exactly flock
to Washington to sunbathe on the beaches. Her lips
quirked up a little; they would be very disappointed,
if they did.
All the freshmen staying at Otoño—or, at least,
the ones unfortunate enough to be in their rooms
when the RAs came by—crowded into the Bay
Lounge. They looked around at their heretofore
unseen neighbors with open curiosity and sexual
speculation.

Val stood at the back, nearest to the door. A line
formed between her eyebrows as the boy from earlier
walked in the door from the opposite side and smiled
at them all. “Hi everyone—I'm Adam Lang.”

“And I'm Tiffany Landsteiner,” a blonde girl said,
pulling away from the group she had been chatting
with to bound up beside him. Val recognized her as
the chipper girl from resident check-in.

“We're your Resident Advisers!”
They spoke almost, but not quite, in unison.

Looking around, Val could not shake the feeling
that she was in the middle of a cheesy Old Navy
commercial.

Adam
and
Tiffany—God,
even
their
names
sounded forcefully prep—went over the rules. Don't
drink. Don't blast loud music after 10 P.M. No pets.
No smoking within twenty-five yards of any doors or
windows. Rules that meant nothing in the grand
scheme of things.

She felt a migraine forming behind her eyeballs.

Mary was standing in the corner with a group of
boys and girls Val didn't recognize. Maybe that was
why Mary hadn't been in the dorm all day. She had
been doing what
normal
college students did, hanging
out with her friends. Telling them horror stories about
her crazy roommate who screamed in her sleep, and
lived like a ghost.

Val stared at her, trying to make eye-contact. If
Mary saw, she was making a schooled attempt not to
notice. She didn't look up once.

I don't care, anyway.
She did, though. That was the problem.

“—but if you follow all the rules, there's no
problem. I know we're going to have a great year!”
Are we? Can I get that in writing?

“And now, just to make sure that we all really do
get to know one another—” Tiffany wielded a sheaf
of marigold-colored papers like a weapon “—we're
going to do ice-breakers! Yay! Isn't that fun?”

Did that girl seriously say “yay”? Val looked at
the door, longingly, but it was blocked by a group of
rambunctious boys and she couldn't bring herself to
approach them and ask them to move.

The RAs made circles around the room passing
out the sheets of paper. They were printed with bingo
squares that had things written in their centers like
“someone who has two different colored eyes” or
“someone fluent in more than language” or “someone
who lived in another state.”

She'd always hated exercises like these. They
made
people
resentful,
because
they
essentially
yanked
the
carpet
out
from
under
you
while
simultaneously making you feel as if it were your
fault for failing to remain upright.

Val looked around for Mary again, but she had
already been reabsorbed into the group. The door was
unblocked, though, and she crept towards it. Neither
Tiffany nor Adam were looking at her right now, so if
she could just make it to—

“Hey.”

Val yelped and dropped her paper, causing two
boys near enough to hear her over the din to laugh.
She picked up her paper, flushing, and then whirled
around to face her interloper.

He smiled gently. “Did I scare you? Sorry.”
Damn it, I was so close
. “What do you want?”

“Uh…well, you could tell me if any of these apply
to you, for a start.”

He shoved his paper at her, and she belatedly
recognized him as the red-haired boy who had
spoken up in her defense at the resident check-in. He
was even more attractive up close and she faltered.

“I—”

Most of the little squares were already signed off.
How had he gotten so many so quickly? His sheet
was a veritable autograph book.

With reluctance she asked to borrow his pen. He
gave it to her and she signed her name off in one of
the squares.

“There.”
“Valerie, huh?”

She nodded, keeping her lips pressed together,
afraid her breath was rank. She hadn't eaten anything
since the ramen before her nap, and she was pretty
sure that had garlic in it.
Garbage breath.

“I'm Jade.” He shook her hand as he took her own
sheet from her, pretending not to notice when it tore a
little as the edges stuck to her sweaty palms. Val did
notice, however, and thought,
Oh God
.

“Let's see—hmm.” He scrawled his name under
the square for two languages and studied his own
paper. “Which state are you from?”

“California.”
He must think I'm a total loser
.
“Really?” He eyed her with mock skepticism.
“Not Alaska? Huh. Got any movie star neighbors?”
“Ha ha.”

“Tough audience.” He handed her paper back.
She stared at the lone signature and wondered
whether he was talking her because he was being nice
or being sadistic. “Don't you want to know what
language I speak?”

Val flicked the paper sticking to her palm to the
floor. “Spanish?”

“Nope.”
“French?”
“Latin.”
Latin? “Really?” she asked suspiciously.
“
Ave atque vale
.” He flashed her a grin.

That smile cut right to the core of her. It had been
such a long while since anyone had smiled at her like
that, with such sincerity and open kindness—
Unless he really was having her on.

I should have told him I speak hieroglyphics
.

Words were the bane of her existence. She
drowned in them when all she wanted was silence,
only to have them recede when one desperatelysought phrase would be the key to her salvation. Most
things were like that: excess in times of abundance,
and shortages in times of dearth. Life, she realized,
was an unbalanced scale, and would never weigh in
one's favor, struggle as one might.

Certainly not hers.

The moment his back was turned, Val sneaked
out of the lounge. Relief was as instantaneous as the
cold creeping on her skin.

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

Mary was gone again when Val woke up. Her bed
was made and a fluffy pink unicorn was sitting on the
folded
coverlet,
nestled
comfortably
against
the
matching pillow. A stack of romance novels were
piled up at her bedside. All of them had vintage
covers, women in the arms of men who were all but
exploding out of their clothing.

Must be a gift from her sisters.

Val groped for her stuffed cat and when she
couldn't find it, leaned over to search beneath her
bed. A wave of dizziness overtook her from leaning
over so suddenly and she thought,
Serves me right if I
fall
.

Something soft tickled her fingers and her fingers
closed around the striped tail. She pulled the cat back
into bed with her and hugged it to her breast,
squeezing it, letting the polyester fur absorb her tears.

Not that she was miserable. The light shearing
through the blinds was just making her eyes water. At
least, that was what she told herself as she pulled the
sheet back over her and the stuffed cat's heads.

Her
therapist
had
said
she
was
depressed,
anxious. Who wasn't? Val never revealed her thoughts
aloud. Therapists—and psychiatrists, too—had a way
of using your words against you, turning a simple
statement into something clinically profound.

It wasn't that she was sad—sadness had very little
to do with it, really, considering that most of the time
she felt close to nothing at all. Feeling required
nerves, connections, sensory input. The only thing she
felt was numb. And tired.

Yes, she very frequently felt tired.
Mornings turned her limbs to lead. When she
went through the daily routine in her head—shower,

get dressed, eat breakfast, explore campus, buy lunch)
her body became a deadweight.

It was all so exhausting.
Easier to lie in bed.
Easier to think nothing at all.

And so Val slept, and dreamed, and woke only
when she heard the door slam and the heavy
footsteps tramping across the squeaky floors.

There was a thud. Val leaned up, squinting as the
light flicked on, and Mary looked at her in mild
surprise. “Oh! I'm sorry. Were you sleeping?”

“Um, yeah, I was.” She raked a hand through her
hair. It felt slightly damp. “What time is it?”

“Almost five o' clock.”
She had spent the entire day in bed.

Mary tilted her head. “Hey, what happened to
you yesterday? At the resident meeting. I thought I
saw you, but then you disappeared.”

“I went to sleep. I was tired.”

“I can see that.” Mary's tone was dry. “Listen, I
won't be here long—I was about to head out to the
DC with some friends. You know, for dinner. I just
wanted to change shirts. You can join us, if you want.”
“I'm not dressed,” Val began, plaintively.

“I can wait. They're all slowpokes, anyway, and
the DC doesn't close 'til eight.”

 

“I don't want to impose.”

“Again with the imposing thing.” Mary rolled her
eyes. “Don't give me that talk. Back home, my friends
would just waltz right into my house, sit down at our
table, and ask, 'What's for dinner?' You're fine—okay?
Good,” she said, without waiting for an answer.
“Now come on, get dressed, slugabed. I'm starved.”

Which left her with little choice but to pull on a
fresh change of clothes and follow her roommate
meekly out of the room. Her stomach churned, and
the thought of putting food into it boded ill.

But if she went back to bed now she wouldn't be
able to sleep later, and the idea of spending the night
with
her
chronic
insomnia
was
slightly
more
unappetizing than the prospect of cheap dorm food.

And Mary already thinks I'm a freak, anyway