“It’s a good look,” Ren says with a wry smile, moving up beside me. Her expression softens. “You probably want a bath after such a long trip—come on, I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”
I follow her back into the corridor. This time it’s full of girls, loitering and chatting with their doors propped open. When we pass, their laughter quiets, and I feel the curious gazes trace my steps. Ren pulls open a door halfway down, not paying them any attention. At least ten sinks line one wall opposite a row of baths without any curtains. The lack of privacy unnerves me; I’d expected cubicles, at least.
As we enter, two girls wrap their towels tighter around themselves. “You could have knocked,” one of them says in a haughty American accent.
“Sorry,” Ren replies, not sounding particularly apologetic. “This is Cara; I’m just showing her around.”
The girl who spoke looks between us with an expression I can’t quite decipher.
“I’m Joy,” she finally says. “This is Hannah.” She gestures lazily to the other girl, who looks on unsmilingly.
They both have eerily polished black hair, and I recognize them as the girls you find in every school—the popular ones. Seeing them here, and judging from their stares, it is clear Ren is not one of them. Strangely, I feel an immediate, instinctive loyalty to Ren, so instead of trying to make friends, as I’m sure would be the thing to do with everyone at this point, I stare back and pointedly say nothing.
I see them for who they are—after all, who’d know them better than me? Up until nine months ago, I was them. It’s vaguely reassuring to find that five thousand miles from home some things never change. I was the girl who’d wake up early to blow-dry my hair perfectly before class, who made sure to keep my highlights touched up. My makeup was always flawless, my clothes on trend. I wonder what people back home would think of me now: pale, barefaced with barely blond hair, wearing ripped jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. I wonder what Joy and Hannah are thinking of me.
Back then, I would have cared, but now, something about their sense of superiority—their entitlement—repulses me. Because the truth is, I know how this works: they’re about to make their minds up, waiting for me to answer so they can judge where I sit in the pecking order, whether it’s worth their time to befriend me. When I don’t say anything, Joy’s eyes narrow.
I turn to Ren. “Are there no showers?”
She shakes her head. “I could guard the door?”
“Well, the two of you holed up in here will give us all something to talk about,” Joy says, beckoning the other girl to follow her into the corridor. As she passes, she puts a hand on my arm in what I guess is supposed to be a gesture of camaraderie. I pull it back, cradling it possessively. She shrugs. “Or maybe you’re into that sort of thing…”
I turn to Ren, whose chocolate-brown eyes are nervous as the door clicks closed. “Your response to that was a test,” she says in a quiet voice, “and you just failed.”
I shake my head with indifference. “Don’t worry about me.”
After a very quick bath during which Ren dutifully sits with her back to me reading, feet pressed against the door to prevent anyone entering, we get into bed. Our light is already off when Madame James comes around for lights-out at eleven.
I press my palms to my face in the darkness, wondering if now is the time I’ll finally find tears. Predictably there are none, yet the sadness is so acute it chokes me. I squeeze my eyes shut in another pointless attempt to block it all out, and hear Ren’s breaths level and fall into a steady rhythm as she is pulled into the haven of sleep. I’ll be there soon, I promise myself. It won’t be long until I’m enveloped by painless nothingness. Yet sleep doesn’t feel close enough; my mind is whirling. How will I be able to disguise my sadness here? How will I answer their questions about why I’m here for just the final year of school? What happens if we have to go somewhere by car again?
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
I push myself down the ladder and as silently as possible sift through my toiletry bag. The sleeping pills the doctor gave me back in California aren’t here; my mother must have taken them out after I packed them. I fight the urge to scream, before eventually—furiously—finding my way back to bed.
Blurred shapes come to life through the thick cloud of night in the dorm. When I let my eyes adjust, I count ten turquoise glow-in-the-dark stars fixed to the ceiling above Ren’s bed. I begin to count them again and again, like I used to count sheep as a child, soothed and bored by the monotony.
After what feels like hours of empty time, the blackness finally swallows me.
3
My sleep is different here: fitful, temporary, but uneventful. Back home, waking up meant one of two things. Some days, there were moments, just after I woke up but before the world came into focus, when I felt almost peaceful. That was before the wave, before the crashing realization of what had happened bore down over me. The other days were worse, when I woke straight from the dreams, the reconstructions of that night.
Those days I woke up screaming.
When I got home from the hospital and had to sleep without any of the pain medication, I quickly decided I couldn’t put myself through either outcome, instead losing a whole chunk of my life to never sleeping for fear of remembering, for fear of having to go through it all again. But not sleeping didn’t help: being awake for so long distorted everything. There were moments when I was sure I was going mad—mad enough for my mother to take me back to the emergency room, where I was given sleeping pills that were heavy-duty enough to ensure my sleep was dreamless. And, after a while, dreamless sleep became a way to hide. There was infinite beauty in not remembering. Even though my mother took to rationing the pills, sleep was my solace.
But today, as the morning sun begins to seep through the cracks in the curtains, waking up seems easy. Perhaps it’s jet lag, or perhaps it’s uncertainty? All I know is I can’t lie here for much longer.
I look down at my bare arms on top of the white duvet, pinning me inside. In the dimly lit room my scar is all the more noticeable, a jagged burgundy line from wrist to elbow, a reminder that I am here, and I was there. This I will have to cover at all costs. It was dark when Ren and I put our pajamas on last night, but still it was careless of me. I look at Ren’s untroubled sleeping form. I mustn’t let my guard down with her, or anyone else; otherwise there will be no point at all to this experiment of my mother’s.
It’s early, but still I dress quickly and head to the bathroom. As I expected, it’s empty; yet, even though I’m finally—properly—alone, I feel claustrophobic. I open the window a crack and let the icy air trickle into the room. The radiator beneath the window is on, so I sit with my back to it and turn on my phone for the first time since the flight. It buzzes for at least a minute, filling up with messages. I scroll through them absently; they’re all from my mother. Of course they are. I’ve long given up hope of getting any from anyone else. I delete the voice mails without listening to them and pull up the final text.