CHAPTER 1
I EXPECTED A SOFTER landing than this.
With the two seconds I took to scope the drop before jumping, I thought I’d be sinking into a snowy, pillowy shrub that I could roll off the top of and make my escape with ease.
But there’s no snow built up along the foundation of the building, and bushes are apparently a lot stabbier than they look and very easy to crash through.
I keep my eyes closed and breathe softly through my mouth. It’s freezing out here. My shirt was damp with sweat from that crowded double room, but now it’s soaked with the melting snow that piled on top of me in the wake of my destruction.
There’s warmth on my face, though. On my arm. Warmth and a familiar sting, like the branches fought back. I swipe my knuckles across my cheek and they come back bloodied.
“And what about the guy that went out the window? What’s his name?”
The gruff voice of one of the campus safety officers drifts down from above, and a smile stretches across my face. I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment the trajectory of my life shifted to lead me to this, lying in the snowy bushes outside a college dorm while the party I was at gets busted.
Maybe it was the first time I slipped a candy bar into my pocket at the grocery store, eyes on my mom, waiting for her to turn around and catch me in the act. She never did.
Or maybe it was the time I sat on the curb with my hands cuffed behind my back, red and blue lights burned so deeply into my retinas, I saw them every time I closed my eyes for days afterward.
Really, it was probably the moment my dad sat me in front of the family computer with tab after tab of college apps slowing the Wi-Fi to a crawl and said, “It’s this or prison.”
I’d mumbled, “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” and Dad snapped back with a “Yes. I would.”
He watched me fill out every one of those apps, put in his bank information for the fee on each one, but still, I never thought I’d find myself here.
“I don’t know—I think he’s some freshman?” a guy in the room says. “Nathan or something? I didn’t even invite him.”
I scrub another bead of blood from my face.
I might not have been invited, but I was absolutely the life of that party, with everyone enraptured by my cardistry and storytelling.
“All right, one of you guys wanna go look for him while I do this? Make sure he didn’t break his neck,” the officer says, and I push myself to my feet, scrambling out of the bushes and away from the building.
I brush snow and broken twigs off my clothes as I stagger down the hill toward the walkway. Shake out my hair. I angle away from the main exit around the corner of the building, letting my footprints in the snow make it look like I headed toward the center of campus before cutting back once I hit the shoveled, salted path. Campus safety won’t expect me to walk right past them. I was out the window before the door fully opened, before they could get a good look at me, but I pull my hood up anyway. With my middle part and the black and white split dye job, it’s best to cover up when I’m trying to avoid notice.
With a deep breath of icy midwinter air, I stretch my arms over my head, twisting at the waist to make sure I didn’t really hurt myself. My tailbone feels a little sore, and there’s that burn on my left arm that has me tugging down my sleeves. But when I wipe at my cheek again, no more blood comes away.
A couple people stand in the light of a streetlamp at the base of the dorm’s main steps, looking right at me as I round the corner, like they were expecting me. Guess I made a bit of noise as I crashed through the bushes, no matter how gracefully I tried to fall. I slouch my shoulders and put on an easy grin as I head their way.
“Hello, hello,” I say in a singsong, sliding my hands into the pockets of my shredded black jeans. I stop close enough to look like I’m with them without encroaching too much on their space.
“Did you just jump out a window?” the girl in black jeans and a purple puffer jacket asks me. She’s absolutely in my public speaking class, but I’ve never talked to her before. Think her name is Celeste? She’s Mexican, dark hair that hangs down to her waist, covered by a white beanie with a rose embroidered into the front.
“Pfft, what?” I say. “No.”
“We literally watched you,” says Celeste’s friend. I don’t recognize them, but they’ve got a they/them pin on their denim jacket, along with nonbinary and pansexual pride colored ghosts and a little witch hat. They’re Korean, wearing a burgundy dress that looks like it’s made of velvet over black tights. They hold their knees together like they’re freezing. Their black hair is cut to their chin, half of it pulled into a tiny ponytail with bangs cut straight across their forehead. “We’ve been waiting to see who’d come around.”
I cock my head to the side and smile with all my teeth. “Couldn’t’ve been me.”
They both give me unimpressed looks, and the door up the stairs behind them opens on one of the campus safety officers. He pulls a flashlight from his utility belt and jogs down the stairs, giving us a nod on his way by but barely looking at us. We watch him trudge through the snow up the hill, completely missing the footprints a few feet farther. He disappears around the corner.
“Y’know, if you were at a dorm party or something, you’d probably just get a warning,” Celeste says. “Not a big deal. I mean, unless it’s not the first time?”
I put a hand over my heart and scoff in mock offense. “I am extremely innocent.”
“So you just get your kicks from jumping out of windows and running from campus safety for no reason?”
“Who’s running?” I say with a shrug.
I’m practically begging her to pry. The more she pushes, the more I can push back, the more nonchalant I can appear, the more intriguing I can become.
It’s not like I was afraid of a slap on the wrist from campus safety. I wasn’t drinking at that party, so I had nothing to worry about. It’s just that crashing parties and jumping out of windows gets people to talk about a person, and if there’s one thing I want out of this life, it’s for people to talk about me.
But Celeste doesn’t pry any further. She narrows her eyes and purses her lips to the side, and her friend whose name I don’t know snorts a laugh.
I let my hand fall from my chest. “I am feeling very judged right now.”
Celeste raises both hands in a semblance of surrender and shakes her head. “No judgment here. It’s actually kind of hilarious. Nathaniel, right?”
It’s a rush, having a practical stranger know my name. “That’s me. And you’re … Callie?”
Her eye roll is knowing. “Celeste Hernandez. This is Tasha Seo.”
Tasha gives me a smile and a small wave, eyes sweeping over me from head to toe. There’s a camera bag hanging from their shoulder. “I really love your look.”
Another rush, being ogled like that. I dress like I do for that exact purpose. With my torn-up jeans and chain hanging from my belt, the short-sleeved hoodie and the striped long-sleeve tee underneath. The hair. The black nail polish. The dangling earrings and ear cuffs. The eye shadow under my eyes to make me look tired in an aesthetic kind of way.
Mom and Dad refused to buy me makeup and nail polish and flashy jewelry when I lived with them. I still managed to get my hands on it.
“How do you feel about modeling?” Tasha asks.
I try not to act surprised, like this is a question I get regularly, but I can’t hide it from my voice. “Like, in general?”
“No, I’m—”
“Hey, you guys seen some drunk kid come through here?”
The three of us look back toward the window I came from, where the campus safety guy is plodding toward us. He looks beyond bored, like he can’t believe this is what his life has come to, searching for college kids in bushes. As he moves more into the light and gets a good look at me, there’s a moment where I’m sure he’s going to make the connection. But my clothes are dark enough to hide how damp they are, and Tasha is shivering just as violently as I am, and I probably seem way too unconcerned to be who he’s looking for.
Plus, he’s looking for some drunk kid, and I am 1,000 percent sober.
His lip curls as he takes in my appearance. I can practically hear his internal rant on generational trends.
I smile at him.
“No?” Celeste says, making a show of glancing around at the empty sidewalk. Shrieking laughter echoes from further into campus, and I crane my neck to get a glimpse of a group of people as they step into the main building.
The officer sighs, one hand on his hip and the other pinching the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t hear anyone fall out a window?”
Tasha gives an impressively convincing wince. “Oh, that. Yeah, he went that way.” They point over the officer’s shoulder in the direction of my footprints. “He gave a thumbs-up when we asked if he was okay, though.”
The officer shakes his head and grumbles to himself as he starts back up the stairs. “I’m not playing hide-and-seek.” He gets halfway up before tossing over his shoulder at us, “Stay out of trouble!”
“Will do!” I call after him. We watch him leave, and as soon as the door closes behind him, I laugh. “Wow. Honestly, I didn’t really think about it before going out the window. It was there and open, so I went for it. Surprised it worked.”
“Surprised you didn’t break your neck,” Celeste deadpans.
I shrug her off. “The bushes broke my fall.”
“Still.”
My arms sting with the scratch of branches through my sleeves and there’s blood on my knuckles, but I bite my tongue, press against the cut on my face with my fingertips, and keep on smiling.
“Seriously, though,” Tasha says. “I’m looking for people to shoot for a photography project. Would you be interested?”
I stop myself from asking why they’d want me. Self-doubt doesn’t fit the persona I’m trying to cultivate this semester.
“Yeah, I’d be down,” I say. Casually. Completely unaffected.
They clap their hands in front of their chest and bounce on their toes. “Awesome! You have Insta?”
I spell out my Instagram name for them and get a follow notification a moment later. I follow them back and do a quick scroll through a profile filled with artsy—and really beautiful—photos.
“I’ll message you the details when I have it all figured out,” they say.
“Sounds good.” I put my phone away and take out my deck of Star Wars–themed playing cards instead, sliding off the rubber bands as I pull them from my pocket. “You two have plans tonight?”
“We’re actually late to some team bonding because of you,” Celeste says. She glances at her phone. “Bailey’s blowing up the group chat.”
Tasha sighs heavily, brushing hair behind their ear. “Would hate to make the captain angry.”
“See you in class Tuesday?” Celeste asks me.
“I’ll be there.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “If you don’t fall out any more windows.”
Tasha wiggles their fingers at me as they leave, heading toward the north road off campus.
As soon as their backs are turned, I deflate. My shoulders come forward as my head falls to the side. My body feels empty. Like I don’t possess it unless I have eyes on me.
It takes teeth-gritting effort to get myself moving again, like the February cold has seeped into my bones, freezing my joints in place. I drag my feet back to my building, up the stairs to my floor, and the sound of laughter in the lounge shocks me back into my body.
I stand up straighter, plaster on a crooked smile, and dribble my deck of cards from hand to hand as I step into view of the lounge.
It’s not until I have the attention of everyone in the room that I feel real again.
CHAPTER 2
Hartland University@hartlanduni-14hr
Students, first floor windows are higher than they appear. Please don’t use them as exits, except in case of emergency.
I WASN’T ALWAYS LIKE this. Needing eyes on me the way I need oxygen in my blood.
In fact, it’s a brand-new addiction.
I spent fall semester of my freshman year of college holed up in my dorm room, only emerging for classes, meals at the tail end of each time slot when the dining hall was at its emptiest. I didn’t want to see people and I sure as hell didn’t want them to see me.
I passed the semester unnoticed, and when I went home for winter break, I sat at the kitchen table while Mom and Dad asked about friends, campus events, anything noteworthy, anything at all … I had nothing to say.
College on its own had never been in my life plan. I was meant to be a student-athlete, never just a student. Once lacrosse fell apart for me, I had no passion left for anything. At least not anything I was willing to put myself into inescapable debt over. But hearing my parents ask about the people, the campus life, not just grades and classes—which, don’t get me wrong, they asked about plenty—made me realize that college doesn’t have to be just a gateway into the workforce. I can use these years to remake myself and shape the way people see me.
My college education can be dedicated to creating the person I want to be.
And that person isn’t afraid to leave their dorm room, or be seen, or talk to people. The ideal Nathaniel Conti doesn’t care what people think of him and will do anything to prove it.
I can’t spend my life locked inside my own head. I need to be seen.
And people sure see me now.
They do a double take as I walk past them Monday morning. Point me out to their friends. Laugh. There’s a part of me—very small and tucked in the way back of my mind—that burns with embarrassment. It’s the same part of me that remembers the way people looked at me in middle school, with my greasy hair and oily skin. My nose, too big for my face. My ill-fitting clothes courtesy of an older brother who’s two inches shorter than me and far more muscly.
Copyright © 2024 by A. L. Graziadei
