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hung awkwardly at my knees made her
legs look a thousand miles long. "Oh, your room is much better than mine.
I love it!"

The rooms were all pretty much alike, actually—a bedroom large enough for two
people, with white, cast-iron beds and carved wooden dressers on each side. The
window looked out upon one of the trees that grew closest to Evernight, but I couldn't
think of anything special about it.

Then I realized there was one thing. "We are closer to the
bathrooms," I said.

Courtney and Patrice both stared at me as if I'd done something rude. Were they
too refined to acknowledge that we needed bathrooms?

Embarrassed, I kept going. "I've never, um, shared a bathroom before. I mean,
I have with my parents, but not with—what, it's like, twelve of us sharing each
one? That's going to be crazy in the mornings."

This was their cue to agree and gripe about it. Instead, Courtney kept studying
me, curious. I figured her curiosity was only normal, but I wished she would
say something. Her narrow-eyed gaze felt threatening, even more so than most
strangers' did.

"We're going out on the grounds tonight," she said—to Patrice, not to
me. "To eat. A picnic, you might say."

Meals at Evernight were meant to be taken in the students' rooms. Apparently
they explained this as "tradition," the way things were back in ye
olden days before anybody had invented the cafeteria. Parents would send care
packages to supplement the Spartan grocery allowance delivered each week. This
meant I had to learn how to cook using the little microwave my parents had
bought me. Patrice obviously didn't worry about such mundane problems.
"Sounds like fun. Don't you think so, Bianca?"

Courtney shot her a look; apparently that invitation wasn't meant to be open.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm supposed to eat with my parents.
Thanks for asking me, though."

Courtney's lush lips could look almost ghoulish when twisted into a smirk.
"You still want to hang out with Mommy and Daddy? What, do they feed you
with a bottle?"

"Courtney," Patrice chastised her, but I could tell that she
was amused.

"You've got to see Gwen's room." Courtney began tugging Patrice out
the door. "Dark and dreary. She swears it might as well be a
dungeon."

They took off together, and whatever fragile connection Patrice and I had
created was broken in an instant. Their laughter echoed throughout the hallway.
Cheeks burning, I fled my new room, then the dormitory floor, hurrying upward
toward my parents' apartment and refuge.

To my surprise, they let me in without a fuss. They didn't even ask why I was
early. Instead, Mom gave me a big hug, and Dad said, "Check out our
packing job, okay? There are a few things for you to do, but we got you
started."

I was so grateful I could've cried. Instead I went to my room, eager for peace
and quiet in some safe place.

Only a few pieces of winter clothing still hung in my closet. Everything else
had been bundled into Dad's old leather trunk. A quick check of my overnight
bag showed makeup, barrettes, shampoo, and the rest all neatly tucked in. Most
of my books would stay here; I had too many for the few shelves in our dorm
room. But my favorites had been set out for me to box up: Jane Eyre, Wuthering
Heights, my astronomy texts. The bed had been made, and on one pillow was a
packet of things for me to hang up on my walls, like postcards friends had sent
over the years and some star maps I'd hung on the walls of our old house. But
something new had been hung in this room, an affirmation from my parents that
this was still my home, too: a small, framed print of Klimt's The Kiss .
I had admired the print in a shop months ago, and apparently they'd bought it
as a surprise for me on my first day at the new school.

At first, I was simply grateful for the gift. But then I couldn't quite stop
looking at the picture or shake the thought that somehow I'd never really seen
it before.

The Kiss was a favorite of mine. From the days when my mother