Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [87]
He buttoned up the coat, grabbed the kitten off her hair, and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he shoved his hands beneath the girl’s back and thighs and did his best to lift her.
She was bigger than he was—tall. Her dark hair and big feet dragged on the ground as he staggered behind the dorms, skirting the fringes of Dexter’s campus, to the parking lot across the road from Coke. The sun was getting brighter now, but it was still early, and the campus was quiet. Stumbling, he dropped the girl in the deep, powdery snow and opened the back door of the Mercedes. Her head bumped against the door frame going in, but she didn’t even flinch.
The car sputtered to life. “Come on,” he growled as the wheels spun in the deep snow. He backed onto the road and floored the accelerator, headed toward the hospital just outside of town. Back behind the dorms, the fire burned bright inside the yurt, causing it to smoke like a volcano.
Sea Bass was the only one with four-wheel drive and snow tires. “You’d think, coming to college in Maine, people would have more sense,” he scoffed. Nick, Eliza, and Geoff were huddled in the back of his 4Runner. Everyone else was stuck at Adam’s house, trying to dig their cars out with the two shovels they’d found in the barn.
“I’ve got chains,” Damascus announced defensively from the passenger seat. “On my car at home.”
“It’s not about the tires,” Geoff spoke up, his bony hands folded placidly in his lap as he gazed out the window. None the worse for wear after staying up all night and huffing an entire bottle of ether, Geoff couldn’t wait to lace up his Nikes and head out for a run. “It’s like running shoes. What matters is the distribution of weight.”
Eliza was holding Nick’s red, welted hand. They’d fallen asleep on top of each other in the hay. Now Nick’s entire body was covered in an angry rash and his eyes were almost swollen shut.
“I think I need to go to the Health Center,” he complained. “Get some cortisone.”
“I think I need to sleep in a bed,” Eliza muttered. She turned to examine Nick’s profile. She expected him to look older, more manly, after last night. But his beard was just peach fuzz, not even worth shaving. “Sorry to be a buzz kill, but we have exams tomorrow,” she reminded everyone.
“Fuck,” Sea Bass moaned. “I’m so fucking screwed.”
Nick wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirt. “Maybe I can get the nurse to write me a note.” He looked down at his other hand, tucked inside Eliza’s. He hadn’t expected her to be the hand-holding type—more the whips and leashes type—but she was almost affectionate. He imagined her introducing him to one of her friends back home. “This is my boyfriend, Nick.” He supposed that would be all right.
“Hey,” he murmured into her ear. “Do you think I could go home with you for Christmas?” After all, he had nowhere else to go.
“Hell yeah,” Eliza whispered back. She grabbed his swollen, drippy face and kissed him. This was what she’d always yearned for—someone who wanted to be around, someone who was hers. “Better not bring your bong though.”
She imagined Nick smoking up right in the middle of the living room while her parents were out working in their real estate office over the garage. Are you burning incense, princess? they’d ask with their usual distracted cheerfulness.
“I was thinking of quitting anyway,” Nick said. Something about the snow and staying up most of the night in a dusty barn without getting high had made him game for contest. Or maybe it was Eliza who made him want to stay on his toes.
The 4Runner barreled up the hill toward campus. Dexter looked like it was trying very hard to look adorable so the students would remember to come back after Christmas. Golden rays of morning sun shone gloriously down on the dapper redbrick buildings nestled in nearly two feet of fresh, white snow. A giant snowman wearing a Dexter baseball cap stood