Page 20 of Come As You Are

“Do we need to wear hairnets?” asks the female half of the couple that was sucking face in the van.

Brenda smiles. “No, just keep your hair tied back and out of your face and you should be fine,” she replies, looking around at us. Her gaze lands on me, and she frowns. “Except you. You should wear a hairnet.”

Of course.

I do my best to ignore the stupid freshman boys taking pictures of me in my hairnet, and anyway, they mercifully stop when Isabel puts on her own. “If one of mine gets in the food, everyone will know it was me,” she says with a grin, tweaking a strand of her strawberry hair before twisting it all up into an elegant knot.

My heart warms at the solidarity, and while I don’t understand why Isabel is being so nice to me, Idowish Claire could see me and how I’m makingrealfriends. I would’ve traded a hundred Dunkin’ runs and ice-cream-filled sleepovers to have her stick up for me when it counted. And here, a girl I barely even know—a girl who clearly doesn’t need any more friends than the ones she’s already got—is letting herself look like a dork for me.

Well, okay, she doesn’t look remotely like a dork, because it’s just not possible, but. The sentiment is there.

I get assigned to peas and carrots, right next to Heather, who’s charged with distributing corn bread. Not the most exciting offerings, but I try to take my cues from the Nicest Girl in the World and prepare myself to serve every scoop with a smile.

“So how do you know Isabel?” she asks, the smile never leaving her face as she arranges the yellow squares neatly in the shallow rectangular basket. Her tone is casual, but I realize that this has probably been bugging her since I first introduced them. I pretended not to hear, but I caught her saying that she and Isabel have met before, and it makes sense—if they were both on community service last year, they’ve probably done this together already.

Is it wrong that the idea I might’ve somehow stumbled into a slightly higher social stratum than the girl whose boyfriend used me and threw me away feels pretty damn good? Yeah, it’s wrong. But Ineverget to be this girl. The sister of Sierra Riley never gets to be this girl. I just need, like, three seconds to enjoy it.

“Oh, we met at the club fair. Mutual friend.” And here’s my chance. “Speaking of people we met at the club fair, what’s the deal with you and Lucas? Are you guys, like, a thing?”

Her face lights up. “Yeah, I guess we’re official now. We hung out a lot last year, became really good friends, and then we just kinda started flirting and realized we liked each other. Right before the summer we said we’d see how things were when we got back, and then we talked, like, every day. So right at orientation, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and that was that.”

Cool. I want to hurl everywhere. The fact that he asked her “at orientation,” whether that means shortly before or right after he and I hooked up, is so gross. She seems so convinced of his greatness despite all evidence to the contrary, and it reminds me of, well, me. I deserved so much better, and so does Heather. But I just say, “Cool.”

“Yeah,” she says, her voice growing a little dreamy, making me incredibly sorry I ever opened this line of conversation. “We met at the parents’ luncheon at orientation last year and ended up sitting together. My mom’s from the Midwest, so she was excited to meet his parents. Honestly, it all feels very fated.”

“Cool,” I say again, because I’ve forgotten every other word in my vocabulary.

When she opens her mouth again, I’m already dreading whatever’s about to come out, but thankfully, it’s “Mr. Lambert! So nice to see you again!” I realize the time for food service has come, and the room has filled with hungry people patiently waiting for us to fill their trays with corn bread, chili, and, at the less exciting end of the table, my peas and carrots.

I tear my eyes off of the Nicest Girl in the World and get to work.

Chapter Six

THE NIGHT IS STILL YOUNGby the time the van drops us off at Camden, and I know exactly how I’m spending it. I bypass my room and head up the stairs instead to knock on Salem’s door. When there’s no response, I prepare to bang even harder, but then the door opens and Salem fills the frame, shaggy hair sticking out in all directions. “Skeevy? What has you darkening my door?”

“God, you stink.” The smell of weed emanates from his every pore. “How do you not get in trouble when you’re being that obvious?”

“For one thing, I don’t usually have girls standing in my doorway, loudly declaring that I’ve been smoking.”

“Well normally, this is when a gentleman would invite a lady inside.”

He snorts. “I’m not a gentleman, and you are definitely not a lady.”

“You’re not a gentlemanyet,” I correct him. “But we are going to fix that. And we are going to take our first big step tonight.”

“Which means?”

“Whichmeansyou’re going to crawl out of your room and join me at one of the many fine options available to us.” I walk across the hallway and scan the list hanging on the second floor’s communal bulletin board. “How about movie night?” I ask as I shoulder past him into his room, slipping off my shoes and making myself comfortable on his soft flannel sheets.

“Movie night sounds like—”

“A great idea? I know, I think so too. But you should shower first; you smell like bong water. And let’s introduce you to a comb. Also, this music is abysmal. Can we work on that too?”

He exhales sharply, rustling his damp shaggy bangs and proving my point. “This is Phish!”

“I don’t know what that means.” I curl my legs under my butt and take in my surroundings. Matt’s side of the room is pristine, like he makes sure to keep it in perfect condition in case a female visitor should come by. “Where’s he?”

He glances at his wrist, as if there were a watch there. “Hmm, it’s Friday, so… I believe that means Kylie.”

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