Page 1 of Nowhere to Hide
act 1
one
SLOANE
The trickto walking into a place like Halden University is to pretend you’re not bothered by walking into a place like Halden University.
The look I’m going for isgirl who belongs without trying and who won’t embarrass her family (again),which equates to a cream cashmere sweater over dark jeans, soft leather boots, and small gold hoops — because anything more reads as trying too hard.
As I walk down the corridor of Sterling House with my suitcase, every door is open and every room is its own little scene of move-in day chaos. Through it all, I keep my eyes forward, nodding at people the way a Halden Girl nods at people, like someone with places to be.
Which, in my case, is Room 214.
The door is propped open a little with a suitcase, music is playing inside — something with a beat that feels both a bit too aggressive for eight in the morning and something I’ll need to get used to — and a girl’s voice is carrying over it at full volume.
“No, Mom, the suite doesn’t have a tub, it has ashower,” she says, and I can practically see the eye roll. “Yes, anactualshower, likenormalpeople have.”
I push the door open fully and drag my case inside.
My roommate is standing in the middle of a war zone. There are open suitcases that look like they detonated, and the fallout is a tangled heap of clothing on the bed… the floor… the…everywhere.
She’s just as much of a mess, with messy dark curls in a chin-length bob, an oversized sweater that’s slipping off one shoulder, and only one sock. But it all feels deliberate, a sort of style that, combined with her bright blue eyes, could end a boy’s life on contact.
She glances up, and her face lights up. “Mom.Mom. I can’t have this conversation right now, my roommate just walked in.” She mouthssorryat me. “Yes, she looks normal?—”
I wave, keeping it small and Halden-appropriate.
“—okay bye. Yes, I love you. Yes.Okay. Yes. Bye.Bye.” She drops the phone onto the bed and throws both arms out like I’ve walked in at the finale of a musical.
“Uh, hi?” I say, unsure, but trying not to show it.
“You must be Sloane.” She stands and crosses the room. “Oh myGod. Tell me if you hate me already, because I want to know where we stand.”
The laugh jumps out of me. “I’ve been in the room eleven seconds, so I haven’t really had time to form an opinion.”
“Plenty of time.” She pulls me into a hug and then lets me go. “I’m Ivy. I’m a mess. I’m very sorry in advance for being the problem in this room most of the time.”
“You’re not a mess,” I say on reflex, although she seems like a mess, my voice hitting the exact register I’ve practiced in mirrors for the past few months. “I’m Sloane.”
“Sloane.” She tries it out, like she’s trying to divine my personality. “I can work with that. Now, tell me, are you one of those terrifyingly organized people?”
“I’m—”
“Because, disclosure time,” she says. “I have never unpacked anything in my life. My mother has unpacked for me every time we’ve gone anywhere, which I just realized is humiliating to say out loud.”
“I’d feel the same way.”
“Rude,” she says, grinning, slow and delighted and a little wicked. “We are going to bejustfine.”
I love her immediately, and it feels mutual.
This is a problem.
As we make small talk, I set to work on my half of the room exactly as I’ve been picturing it — clothes organized by category, sweaters folded neatly, shirts on hangers, shoes paired along the closet floor — while Ivy continues her Jackson Pollock approach to unpacking.
“What’s your major?” she asks, chucking a bra at a pile.
“Communications,” I say. “You?”
