The Ivies - Alexa Donne Page 0,19
text Sierra.
Aves and Em had huge fight, and I ended up doused in someone’s drink. Heading back early to shower & sleep. See you at practice, tho!
And I do precisely that. By the time I’m under my covers, I’m exhausted and also more than a little drunk. I should be ecstatic. I got into Harvard. Harvard. But Emma and Avery’s fight has shaken me. I feel nothing. I glance at my phone before drifting off; it’s just shy of 11:00 p.m.
* * *
—
I wake to my bed shaking, swaying beneath me like a mattress riding a wave. Earthquake? My sleep-deprived brain panics. I take a second, two, to orient myself. Logic tells me, no, it’s not an earthquake; my mind is playing tricks on me. This happens sometimes when I go to sleep drunk. Unpleasant middle-of-the-night wake-ups.
My heart thunders in my chest, so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. My eyes seem glued shut. I force an eye open, then the other. It’s dark, but the shadows playing on the ceiling and wall are familiar. I’m in my room. I must have had a nightmare.
The wisps of the leftover dream don’t leave quickly, though. I was somewhere cold and inky black. An amorphous place, but a strong feeling: someone was with me, and I was afraid. They were trying to kill me. A classic anxiety dream. At least it wasn’t the one where a psycho chases me through a hedge maze.
But I’m fine now; I’m safe. I tell myself that. My brain knows it, but my heart thinks I’m a liar. Too spooked to go back to sleep, I fumble on the side table for my phone, depressing my thumb into the power button. I squint against the brightness to catch the time. It’s a little past 2:00 a.m.
I roll over as my eyes adjust, more dynamic grays slowly edging into view, and that’s when I finally notice: the bed across from me is empty. Emma’s not here. Is the party still going on? No way, curfew is 11:30. Not that there aren’t ways around that.
Now I throw back my duvet, allowing a flash of cold to wash over me, wake me more fully as I swing both feet out over the edge of the bed and sit up. I scan the room. My heart leaps into my throat. The door is open, just a crack. I grasp the fluffy down cover tight to my chest, like it could protect me from an intruder. I look for hulking shadows crouched by the desks, hiding in the closet. Nothing. Everything is normal. No one is in here with me. I release a breath, and the tension rolls off my shoulders. But then why is the door open? I definitely closed it before I went to sleep, right? I try to remember pressing hard against the metal until I heard that satisfying click of the bolt.
Suddenly I’m parched and in desperate need of Advil. I go to the mini fridge to grab a bottle of water. The fridge light illuminates a slice down the middle of the room. It falls on Emma’s desk chair. Her cherry-red sweater hangs over the back of it.
The sweater Emma was wearing at the party. Which means she came back to the room. I heave a sigh of relief. She’s probably in the bathroom and didn’t want to take her key. It’s definitely late for her to be getting back, and she’ll regret it in the morning, but that’s her problem.
I gulp down the water like a dying man in the desert and then check my phone to see what I must have missed. Instagram first; I tap through Stories, looking at the time signatures to figure out if there’s an after-party somewhere in Bay. But the last images from the party are hours old, and there are no after-party snaps. I open my text app and go into the Ivies’ group text. Radio silence. Avery’s clearly on strike, given everything that happened with Emma, and the rest of us are too cowardly to take a side.
Emma’s not back yet. Weird. I cap the half-drunk bottle and place it on my bedside table. Slink toward the door, open it carefully, and poke my head into the hallway. Listen for running water or the sloppy shuffle of my drunk roommate moving around. There’s nothing but an eerie drip of a loose faucet.
A chill creeps up my spine. I rush back