Rose and Portia giggled as we all took our own glasses. I looked around at the circle of my friends—Kiran, Taylor, Natasha, Ivy, Tiffany, Rose, Portia, London, Vienna, Shelby, Constance, Lorna, Kiki, and Astrid—everyone dressed in their colorful cocktail gear, everyone smiling and glowing, and felt completely and utterly at peace. The only people missing were Noelle, who was off with Dash somewhere, and Amberly, who was a freshman and therefore not eligible to attend the party.
“Well?” Kiran said. “What should we toast to?”
Everyone looked at me. “How about—”
“Um, Reed?”
Everyone lowered their glasses as I turned away. Diana Waters and Shane Freundel, two junior classmates of mine, approached tentatively. Diana bit her lip and glanced over at Kiki, her former roommate and one of her best friends.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, clutching her purse in both hands. “I just wanted to ask you before we all left for the summer . . . how do we
apply to be in Billings next year?”
I smiled. Junior girls had been coming up to me all day asking me this same question, and every time someone did, I felt more and more like a rock star—and more certain I’d done the right thing by bringing Billings back. But now I felt the mood among my friends shift. Some of them were probably realizing, not for the first time, that they were out of here—and that they were bound to be replaced in Billings.
“Every rising junior and senior girl will receive an application sometime in the next month,” I said. “As long as you get it in on time, you’ll be considered.”
“Cool. Thanks,” Shane said.
She glanced around longingly at my friends. It was a look I knew well. I’d seen it on the faces of tons of girls over the past couple of years—people who wanted nothing more than to know what it was like to be a part of the Billings inner circle. I licked my lips, feeling guilty for excluding anyone, but now was not the time. They’d have their chance next year. For now, my senior friends deserved to get to celebrate with their sisters.
“Well. See ya,” Diana said finally.
The two girls strolled off slowly, as if hoping to be stopped and invited back, but I resisted the urge and turned around again, reforming the circle.
“It’s so weird that we’re not gonna be here next year,” London mused, brushing her hair away from her face with her fingertips.
“Promise you won’t let in anyone heinous, Reed,” Shelby said, spreading her manicured fingers wide.
I laughed. “I promise to try.”
“So are we gonna toast or what?” Portia asked.
I nodded and lifted my glass, looking around at Kiran, Taylor, and Natasha; at Ivy, Tiffany, and the other seniors; at Constance, Lorna, Kiki, and Astrid. “To all Billings Girls,” I said, my voice almost cracking. “Past, present, and future.”
“To the Billings Girls!” my friends shouted.
We all laughed as our glasses came together in the center of the circle, clinking against the starry sky.
GOING HOME
My bags were packed. My tickets booked. My car waiting at the curb in front of the dormitory circle. Junior year was over. I had somehow survived. It was time to go home.
But going back to Croton never really felt like going home. I felt more like I was going away on a two-month vacation and when I came back, my home would be here again. As much as I loved my mother, father, and brother, as much torture and insanity as I had endured at Billings over the past two years . . . the dorm had always felt more like home. It was where I’d made my first real friendships, where I’d lived when I first found love, where I’d started to figure out who I was and who I was going to become.
I stood behind the blue, swagged rope surrounding the Billings construction site, the sunlight glinting against my mirrored sunglasses. It was amazing how quickly the building was coming together. Already the entire five-story frame was in place, the steel and wood beams rising up toward the sky. On the top floor of that building would be my room—the room Constance and I had decided to share—with windows looking out across the quad and the rest of campus. I reached up and touched Eliza Williams’s locket, imagining she was standing right next to me and smiling.
It was all going to be different next year. I could feel it in my bones, in my heart, in my soul. This Billings really would be a new Billings. Ariana was gone. Sabine was gone. Cheyenne was gone. Even Missy was gone. As I listened to the sounds of the saws buzzing, the hammers pounding, the gears on the machinery grinding, I felt as if Thomas was really and truly being put to rest. As if every last awful thing that had happened to me over the past two years was firmly behind me. There was no place to go but forward.
“Why so pensive, Glass-Licker?” Noelle asked, strolling up behind me.
She cradled two champagne glasses against her chest, and held a bottle in her free hand.
“Noelle!” I hissed, glancing around the quad. Several faculty members and students still milled about, waiting for their rides or saying their good-byes for the summer. “It’s the middle of the day.”
“So?” She handed me the bottle and held out the two glasses. “They can’t do anything to me now. I’m outta here.”
The bottle was cold in my hand. “What about me?” I said through my teeth.