Chapter 21: Her Own Glass

Erin's POV

Alec had stayed until midnight, lying on top of my blanket in his jeans, with my head on his shoulder and neither of us talking.

When I woke at six, he was gone, and the carton of milk was still on the shelf.

There was a note under it, in his square engineer's capitals.

KEEP IT. DRINK IT. I'M NOT ANGRY AT THE MILK. J.

I read it four times.

Then I took the carton to the sink, broke the seal, and poured myself a glass.

I stood by the window in the gray light and drank it all.

If I could not stand in a kitchen with a glass of milk and not shake, he would never be able to.

It was the first thing I had done that whole winter that was only for him, and he would never know I had done it.

The cost of Fairmont came due on Monday.

The scholarship I had thrown away in August had gone to a girl from Toledo, and the bursar's clerk said so without looking up.

"Full price, then," I said.

"Sixteen thousand for the rest of the year. Plus housing."

My mother's fourteen thousand and Rhett's fourteen hundred covered most of it.

I got the rest at a pharmacy two blocks from campus, where I stood behind the counter four evenings a week and counted pills for old men.

The pharmacist asked me what I wanted to study.

I said I did not know yet, and I heard how good it sounded.

The following Saturday, Dani Frost stood in the doorway of my apartment holding a white paper bag.

She wore the long coat and a Briarwood bookstore name tag she had forgotten to take off.

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