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in the days after she

  left.

  I looked in every closet.

  I opened every door.

  I checked the garage twice

  for missing modes of transportation.

  For three straight days,

  I repeated,

  twice a day,

  like brushing my teeth,

  like it was normal,

  like it was my chore

  to find my mom.

  “Seriously, where are you, Mom?”

  I asked.

  But no one was around

  to answer my question.

  A Draft of Laurel LeBrea’s Essay

  We have often heard from alumni that their closest friend in college, for the rest of their lives, is the person they roomed with during their first year at Brown. Part of the closeness of freshman-year roommates is the bond that is formed over the mutual process of navigating the rules of dorm life together. Write a letter to your future roommate. What should they know about you? What rules do you wish to establish? What are your fears about roommates, dorm life, or college?

  Dear future roomie,

  You can borrow my clothes. I have always wanted to say that, but I’m an only child, so there never has been a sister to share clothes with. What’s your size? What’s your style aesthetic? You can borrow my frilly tops to wear to parties, the sparkly earrings to wear to class, or the aviators to wear while chillin’ on the quad. You can borrow almost anything—I swear—except the sweatshirt in my closet that is probably too small for the both of us anyway. It’s the tiny gray one, with a big heart and letters in cursive that say BE BRAVE. The tags are still on.

  I carry it with me because it reminds me of my mom and reminds me of all the times I’m brave without her. I was supposed to wear this on my first day of school in sixth grade, when I moved to Meydenbauer. But it somehow never got packed in the boxes or in my suitcase when we left my mom in California and my dad and I moved to Washington State. I was supposed to pose in a picture in front of our new house to show my mom what a brave and happy daughter she had raised, that I wasn’t devastated that we’d left her behind, that only two-thirds of our family got to embark on this shiny new adventure.

  What I didn’t know is that my mom went to rehab shortly thereafter. She had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. She is an alcoholic, which leads me to my biggest fear in college—drinking. I go to parties all the time. I love dancing. I love hanging out with my friends. I’m a big fan of standing by the chip bowl and crushing some salsa and guac. But I don’t drink. I haven’t drank.

  I’m worried about the pressure to drink in college, the friends I may not make because of it. I’m worried you will think that I’m boring and no fun. But most of all, I’m worried that I will drink someday and love it in the way that my mom loved it, in the way that one glass of wine was never enough.

  I know that’s a lot to take in, future roomie, but there are no words to express how excited I am to share with you the triumphs and tears that comprise the freshman-year experience.

  Love always,

  Laurel

  Our AP English teacher

  Stood before us

  in an A-line skirt

  and four-inch heels.

  Her hair was pulled back in a chignon,

  and not a strand was out of place.

  She held a dog-eared copy of Dostoyevsky’s

  greatest work

  and asked,

  “What are the crimes

  in Crime and Punishment?”

  “Murder!” someone shouted.

  A few people snickered.

  Our teacher rolled her eyes.

  “That answer

  will not get you

  into Harvard.”

  She paused

  and looked at all of us.

  “That’s what you want,

  isn’t it?”

  Silence slumped over us.

  Of course it’s what we wanted.

  It’s why we sacrificed

  our weekends,

  our sleep,

  our sanity.

  “Dig deeper, people.”

  Pages flipped fervently.

  Our teacher paced

  up and down the aisles.

  She smelled like intimidation,

  if that’s even possible.

  I raised my hand

  with confidence

  and said,

  “It depends,”

  before I was even

  called on.

  Faces turned in my direction,

  like they always do,

  and someone

  from the back of the room

  coughed “Slut.”

  Our teacher raised her finger.

  “No one in this class

  gets a letter of recommendation

  if you all keep this up,”

  she yelled.

  Miranda shot a look

  to the boys

  in the back row.

  I rolled my eyes

  and continued.

  “Raskolnikov rationalizes

  the murder

  so much so

  that he believes

  what he committed

  was not a crime at all.

  So it depends

  on who

  is defining crime,”

  I said.

  I understood what Dostoyevsky

  was trying to say.

  When we saw something

  as rational,

  how could it possibly

  be wrong?

  But what I didn’t say

  is that Dostoyevsky also knew

  that we were human,

  and sometimes we were meant

  to feel

  guilt.

  There were no secrets

  At Meydenbauer.

  Jilly slept with a college guy.

  A sophomore totaled his Audi S4.

  I was in the business

  of writing other people’s

  college application essays

  for money.

  I was a somebody again.

  A somebody who mattered

  to the fabric of the school,

  whom people needed,

  depended on,

  who was deemed worthy enough

  by the masses

  who pushed their way through the halls

  during passing period.

  Then I saw Jordan.

  He saw me.

  And like in a movie,

  everything around us

  cycled by in a blur,

  but the air between us

  stood still.

  This time he didn’t smirk.

  He stared at me,

  eyes unreadable,

  until our line of sight no longer

  connected.

  The stillness ended.

  I remained alone, jostled

  in every direction by the masses

  that pushed their way through the hall

  during passing period.

  But the image of Jordan’s eyes hung

  in front of me

  like a mirage.

  They were gray.

  I had always known

  they were gray.

  When we were together

  I didn’t know the color

  of Ben’s eyes.

  I could see him looking

  at me, staring and blinking

  and opening

  his eyes

  wide

  like he was paying attention.

  He closed his eyes,

  then opened them

  dramatically wider, signaling,

  I’m listening,

  and I saw his eyes

  do this, so I started

  talking, blathering,

  but I stopped

  because I asked

  a question

  and I waited for a response

  that I never got,

  because he wasn’t listen
ing

  and I didn’t know

  the color

  of Ben’s eyes.

  Tell me I’m pretty #1

  “Tell me I’m pretty, Ben.”

  “You know you’re pretty, Nic.”

  “But I’m your girlfriend.

  You’re supposed to say

  these things

  to me,” I said.

  He kissed my forehead

  and said

  nothing.

  A million versions of me

  Walked the halls

  of Meydenbauer.

  There were the versions of me

  that were easy to see:

  the tennis champ me,

  the newspaper me,

  the perfect SAT me,

  the driven me,

  the studious me.

  There were the versions of me

  that were not so easy to see:

  the long hours of me

  who sat by a window with a textbook,

  struggling

  to push away

  the longing sighs for her mother.

  The anxious me

  who held her boyfriend’s hand tight

  and her emotions tighter.

  The lonely me

  who could be surrounded by

  people at a party

  and still feel disconnected

  from the whole world.

  I sat in an unused corner

  Of the cafeteria

  knocking out

  a calculus problem set

  because Kitty was nowhere

  to be found,

  and Ashok was somewhere

  off-campus.

  But in the back of my mind,

  past the derivatives and integrals,

  I drifted over thoughts of Ben.

  There was a barbecue

  at his house

  last May.

  Clumps of self-absorbed people

  scattered about the yard

  like the patches of grass

  that survived

  the frost and the winter

  still intact,

  still green.

  I stood to the side of Ben,

  watching the party

  hold itself off

  from dying.

  I was tired, cranky, and sober.

  I tried to nuzzle my head into his shoulder.

  The muscles around his back grew tight.

  He stiffened.

  I drew away.

  He flashed

  an empty smile.

  There was a sliver of space

  between us,

  where our skin no longer touched,

  a void that I felt

  drain of softness.

  His glassy eyes gazed

  through my sadness,

  my fear,

  the anxiety

  that shivered on my skin.

  I saw an empty smile

  that looked at me and said,

  I don’t know who you are.

  “Grab a beer for me, babe?”

  he whispered.

  I wanted Ben to notice

  that my eyes were heavy,

  that my smile had faded.

  I wanted to curl up

  on a couch next to him.

  I didn’t want

  to be here,

  pretending.

  “Get your own fucking beer,”

  I said.

  Ben pouted

  as loneliness crept back

  into the cracks

  inside me.

  When every exam becomes a midterm

  We were well past the middle of the term

  and so it didn’t make sense

  why every exam administered in every class

  was labeled “midterm.”

  We had three midterms in AP Bio,

  four in AP Government,

  and I swear there was a midterm

  every other week

  in AP Calculus.

  I almost looked forward to finals

  for the sake of veracity,

  when a final meant

  a final,

  a last,

  a determination

  of something

  like our future.

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  The new girl read to us

  a poem

  by Edna St. Vincent Millay

  in a voice that lulled the classroom

  and made our teacher smile.

  “Is this poem supposed to teach us

  not to sleep around,

  lest we end up old and alone?”

  someone conjectured.

  I heard the words of lips and lovers,

  of a lonely tree

  and birds that vanish.

  “I think it’s about the ephemeral

  nature of love.

  It won’t be around forever,”

  someone else said.

  “It’s about loneliness,”

  Jordan responded.

  “Care to expand?”

  our teacher asked.

  He shook his head.

  “It’s obvious.”

  Which tree is the most lonely?

  The one with

  or without

  birds?

  I saw the loneliness

  as clearly as Jordan.

  I saw my mother.

  What lovers has she forgotten?

  Which feelings have stirred a quiet pain?

  What ghosts visit her nightly

  and tap on her window

  like rain?

  How could she forget

  the love that life brought?

  How could she

  leave behind

  me?

  I’m not fine, Mom

  I felt like you left

  and the whole house emptied.

  I felt like you left

  and my whole heart emptied.

  I felt like you left

  and I wasn’t your daughter—because you left me.

  You emptied me, Mom.

  I didn’t know you could.

  I didn’t see it before—how much

  I am still

  your daughter.

  If I were to pinpoint where it all went wrong

  It was polishing off a bottle of Jameson

  with Jordan

  last summer,

  at his party.

  Or maybe lingering too long in the kitchen

  with Jordan

  and not Ben.

  Or maybe it was

  Jordan’s question

  that wriggled under my skin

  and wouldn’t let me go.

  “Why the sad smile, Nic?”

  If Ben were to describe me

  He would have said I was the smartest

  student at Meydenbauer,

  at least I hope.

  Or maybe he’d describe me as

  pretty and cute,

  like rainbows and puppy dogs,

  lake views and llamas.

  Or maybe he’d say

  she’s the girl inside

  with the long brown hair

  wearing a T-shirt and jeans,

  talking to Jordan.

  But if Ben were to see me

  Would he see the way

  I watched him,

  as we all did,

  nearly land in a fire pit

  in a failed attempt

  to ride a skateboard

  over an asinine jump?

  Would he see the way

  I gulped down

  too much Jameson

  and not enough Coke?

  Would he see the way

  I was drunk and crying

  and never

  ask me why,

  or did he see the way

  I deflated

  over time

  like tires

  on an old bicycle?

  “Where are your parents?”

  I asked as we watched someone

  w
e both didn’t know

  do a keg stand

  in Jordan’s kitchen.

  Jordan tipped his empty

  cup, then topped off

  both of our drinks.

  “Avoiding each other’s

  existence.”

  “So they’re gone for the weekend?”

  “They’re just gone.”

  “Like my mom?”

  “No. Like my parents,”

  he said.

  We both said nothing,

  and watched

  the kid at the keg

  wipe away beer that drenched

  his face.

  “Wanna do a keg stand?”

  Jordan asked.

  “Fuck no,” I said.

  “Well, talking about our parents

  is a buzzkill,”

  he said,

  and downed his drink.

  In the kitchen

  Jordan and I swapped

  embarrassing stories.

  We laughed

  at jokes I don’t remember.

  We bantered.

  We listened,

  we felt better,

  we cared.

  We lightly touched each other

  on the arm,

  on the face, and then,

  somehow,

  we ended up

  upstairs, no longer

  in the kitchen.

  Tell me I’m pretty #2

  “Tell me I’m pretty, Jordan.”

  “You don’t want

  to be pretty, Nic.”

  “Why not?”

  “Pretty is conventional.

  It’s dull perfection.

  It’s attractiveness without

  being truly beautiful.”

  “Then what am I, Jordan?”

  He shook his head and sighed.

  “The way you fidget,

  the way you roll your eyes,

  the way you say very little

  and everything

  all at once,

  you’re beautiful, Nic,

  but you’re not perfect.”

  Tires screeching #1

  Through the open second-story window

  I heard Ben’s truck

  sputter and then start.

  I heard him rev his engine

  while still in park,

  to keep it from

  dying.

  I ran to the window

  naked

  just in time to see

  Ben—my ride,

  my boyfriend—

  drive away,

  at a speed that

  left the sound

  of tires screeching around a corner

  reverberating in my ears

  long after he

  left.