In Harmony

He’d pretended she was joking, though I knew Mom was deadly serious. Country life wasn’t going to suit her. She’d been a Connecticut socialite, a Wellesley girl and a fixture on the Upper West Side. I gave her six months in Harmony before she gave my dad an ultimatum: go back to New York or find a new place in Divorceville.

As the school bus let me off on my new street that first day, I inhaled the crisp air deep into my lungs. This was an entirely different kind of cold than New York. A cleaner cold. Probably just my imagination, but I felt like I could breathe a little easier.

Our old townhouse had been spacious by Manhattan standards, but our new home was huge. No barn or paddock for Regina Holloway—she insisted we buy something entirely remodeled. Like Winona Ryder’s stepmother in Beetlejuice, she wanted to tear the country charm out of a house and replace it with cold elegance. I would’ve loved an old country house with little flowers on the yellowing wallpaper and warm wood banisters on the stairs. The more polar opposite to our city home the better. No subconscious reminders or throwbacks to the illicit party I’d thrown and what had happened in my bedroom that night.

I unlocked the front door and stepped into the warmth. We had a grand entryway with a chandelier that belonged in a ballroom. I crossed the blond-gray hardwood floors, and I kicked off my snowy boots before heading through the maze of couches and chairs and rolled up area rugs—all still wrapped in plastic.

The house was quiet and empty. Our furniture from New York wasn’t enough to fill this hulking space, and Mom was in Indianapolis buying more. Dad was at work, naturally, slaving away for Mr. Wilkinson to keep up with Mom’s spending.

The kitchen was mostly unpacked. I made some strawberry tea and took it up to my room. My new bed was supposed to be delivered today. It was the only purchase I’d demanded for the move. I argued we had the space now and Dad, pleased as hell I wasn’t bitching about Indiana, was more than happy to oblige.

I peeked my head into my room, then exhaled.

Yes.

My old bed with its X-marked mattress was gone. Consigned to the scrap heap or recycling. In its place was a queen-sized cano

py bed with gauzy curtains.

I’m going to sleep in this bed, I vowed. Like a normal girl.

I set my tea on the table next to it and lay down on the plastic-wrapped mattress. I folded my arms over my stomach and closed my eyes.

“Untouchable,” I whispered.

After countless nights of shitty sleep, it reached up quickly with clawed hands and took me under. Down into black darkness. Muffled, pulsing music through the walls and floor. A warm, beer-coated, peanut-smelling mouth on mine. Squeezing hands on my throat. And that weight. Xavier’s crushing, smothering, destructive weight…

I bolted upright, a scream stuck in my chest, trapped between my tight, gasping lungs. My eyes blinked until my new room in my new house came into focus. The afternoon light was gone. The clock radio read 6:18 p.m. I sucked in deep breaths, wiped the tears from my cheeks and slid from the covers onto the floor.

No bed was safe anymore.

I sat, legs splayed out like a doll thinking that old song, “Living Dead Girl.” I thought about bundling into my bedspread, cocooning myself in the comforter and spending the rest of the night there, waiting for morning light. Then I remembered Angie’s invitation to Isaac’s show.

With a nightmare still clinging to me, the idea of dragging myself out of the house to socialize, felt impossible. But maybe seeing a play was like reading—immersive and escapist. I could lose myself in ancient Greek times and get some goddamn distance from my own pathetic tragedy.

I wrestled my arm out from under the blanket and stared at the phone number on my palm.

Was I really going to the play? Why?

To make a new friend in Angie.

To see this so-called acting prodigy, Isaac Pearce.

To get out of the house.

To be normal.

I pulled my sleeve down and compared the blue ink of Angie’s loopy print to the ugly black X’s I’d scrawled below.

I grabbed my phone and shot Angie a text.

This is Willow. I’m in. See you at 7:45?

The reply was almost instant. Make it 7 and we can grab burgers and shakes at The Scoop. You have a ride?

I realized I didn’t, and that Uber drivers or cabs probably weren’t as plentiful in Harmony as they had been in New York.

No, pick me up?