Chapter 8: Zelda

I texted Chad back before I took off my coat.

I never agreed to anything. My room is not available.

He left it on read.

I changed into sweatpants and sat on the edge of my bed with my knees pulled up.

My room was the biggest bedroom in the apartment, with the one tall window and the radiator Emmett had fixed.

It was also the one Lacey had admired out loud for four years.

At nine there was a knock on my door.

It was not the knock Tobias used, which was two loud raps, or Chad's, which was a polite tap.

It was three little taps and a pause.

"It's me," Zelda said through the wood. "Lacey's out. Chad went with her to the store. Please. Can I come in?"

I opened the door.

She was standing in the hall in her thrifted jacket with her bangs pushed back and no phone in her hand.

It was the first time I had seen her without it in a year.

She held out a folded gray scarf.

"This is yours," she said. "I borrowed it in October. I've been meaning to give it back."

I took it.

It smelled of her perfume.

"That's why you came?"

"No." She looked at her silver rings. "Can I sit?"

I let her sit on the desk chair, and I sat on the bed with the scarf in my lap.

For a while neither of us said anything.

Zelda and I had met on the first day of freshman orientation, in a line for student ID photos.

She had told me my hair was the color of October and then handed me half of her pretzel.

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