Chapter 12: The Frame

The whole house was loud until two in the morning.

Half the baseball team came over, and some of the linemen.

One girl from the dining hall cried and hugged me and told me about her own awful roommate.

Somebody had turned the clip around, and now Lacey's voice memo was the one with the views.

Twelve thousand, then forty thousand, then more than I could count.

I stood in the middle of my own kitchen and let strangers shake my hand.

I should have been happy.

Mostly I was watching Rory.

He had laughed at all the right places and filled everybody's cups.

But he had not touched me since the stage, and he kept checking his phone with his thumb over the screen.

At one in the morning I caught him in the hall by the stairs.

"Hey," I said. "Are you okay?"

"Great. You were great."

"What did Lacey mean? When she looked at you?"

"Nothing." He smiled at me, too wide. "She likes to stare. It's a hobby."

"Rory."

"Go to bed, Anneliese. You won tonight. Let yourself have it."

He hugged me hard, with his chin on top of my head, and for a moment I felt him shake.

Then he let go and went back to the party.

I went upstairs and lay on my bed and listened to the music through the floor.

I did not sleep for a long time.

In the morning the house was quiet.

Cups sat on every surface, and someone had fallen asleep in the armchair with a baseball glove on his chest.

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