New Girl - By Paige Harbison Page 0,47

was. I’d always been the star of my own story. But not at Manderley.

Max said nothing, only giving a nod to the others, and then directing me firmly up the stairs.

“You’re freezing,” he said, when his warm hands touched my cold skin. He put his coat around my shoulders. “Not to be too cliché or anything.”

I clutched the jacket closer and summoned a faint smile but said nothing. He led me inside and to the library, which was open.

“This was locked earlier, that’s the whole reason I went down to the boathouse.”

“Shouldn’t have been. But I don’t know, I’ve never tried to break into the library in the middle of a ball before.” Max gave me a small smile and gestured for me to go in.

He led me to the senior study room, and then turned on the fire.

“You want to sit?”

I nodded and sat on the couch. He sat across from me in a chair.

“So…” he said. “What happened down there? You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

I cringed and stared into the flames. “I didn’t even think about whether anyone would be going there tonight.”

“How long were you down there?”

I shrugged. I really didn’t know.

“I was rude, I’m sorry.”

“No, please—” I didn’t want him to explain it.

“But Blake told you?”

“Yes. She told me. I didn’t know when I—” Furious humiliation filled my chest. “Dana suggested it.”

“I figured it was something like that.”

I tried to smile, but it didn’t work, and I just ended up taking a deep breath and looking at him. “I don’t know what everyone’s problem is. I realize I could never compare to B-Becca.” I had never sounded so pitiful. I’d never talked about myself like this. I’d never felt like this. “But everyone could stop telling me…Dana yelled at me about it the other day....”

I wanted to be honest, but instead I was just coming off as whiny. I didn’t feel like I could explain quite what it had felt like when Dana had said what she had. Or what dream or ghost Becca had just told me.

“You’re nothing like her.”

“Yeah, I get that.” My bitterness was not fully disguised. I bit the inside of my cheek anxiously. The whole “you’re not better or worse, you’re just different” response was not making me feel any more confident. “I don’t know. I just wanted to get away for a little while, I guess. And then I fell asleep or something.”

Or something. That was the only explanation. But it had been so incredibly vivid. Her smoke had made me cough. I’d smelled her. I’d heard her voice. Can you do all that in a dream? Obviously so, I guessed, but it still left me with a creepy feeling. But her cigarette had been on the ground…it could have just been left there from some other time, I supposed. But…

“It just felt like she was there,” I said out loud, without meaning to. I quickly looked up at Max.

“What?” he asked sharply.

I shook my head, regretting what I was about to say. “I don’t know. I fell asleep. I had a d-dream or whatever…and she was there. Becca was there.”

There was a pause. “You’ve never even met her.”

“Obviously. It was strange. I could hear her talking to me, and she was just…right here.” I held my hand in front of me to show how near to me her stupid, flawless skin had been. “She was chilly…just icy. The way she spoke, that is. And she smelled like…she smelled like cigarettes and liquor…but then this perfume that sort of made the other smells more agreeable.”

Max’s jaw clenched. “What was she saying?”

I shook my head. “Nothing important.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I don’t even remember. I just know I was startled when you… I could have sworn the light had been on when I fell asleep.”

“It’s an old boathouse. It hasn’t been used in years, I’m sure the wiring is just faulty.”

I bent over onto my knees, mentally exhausted. I heard Max rise, and then felt him next to me. He pulled me by my shoulders so that he was holding me against his chest. He was warm, and I was cold.

“You’re fine.”

I wished I could believe him. The silence that came between us was comforting and still. He ran his hand over my hair for a few minutes, until we both finally drifted to sleep. It was the best rest I’d had since before I found out I was going to Manderley.

I awoke hours later to Max whispering my name and