Chapter Three Naomi

Chapter Three

Naomi

October 2022, seven months before her death

A dull throbbing headache creeps in like a drum, prodding me from sleep. I blink my eyes open as the bright morning light cuts through the blinds. My phone, thankfully, is on the nightstand, the screen smeared with glitter. 8:07. Shit. It’s past eight already?

Next to me, Liam is still asleep. Why does he look so hot with his arm over his head like that? Who sleeps like that?

As I take in my ex: his blond hair, tousled, his shirt off, I suddenlyremember his hands running down my back last night, his lips pressed against mine, and feel my whole body flush.

It was almost as if he were himself again—but no. He was just drunk. We’d hardly talked. This definitely wasn’t supposed to happen.

Trying to be quiet, I slip on my jeans and gather the rest of my things that are scattered around his room. Where is my shirt?

Liam’s phone vibrates on his desk. It’s a message from someone saved in his phone as Mollie Field Hockey.

I look away, trying to fight the urge to pick it up and throw it at him. We’re not together. I need to remember that. He can text whoever he wants now; last night doesn’t change that. We broke up last spring after his brother passed away unexpectedly earlier that year. It was horrible. Impossible to imagine losing a loved one like that, until I saw it firsthand. And I felt awful, sick to my stomach seeing him in pain like that. I did everything I could to be there for him—bringing him food and water when he refused to leave his bed, writing his papers, waking in the middle of the night and holding him until he could breathe again—but it wasn’t enough.

For a few weeks after the funeral, I thought he was doing better. He was going to tennis practice, going to class. He’d stopped drinking and was seeing a new therapist. Though he was grieving, as he should’ve been, there seemed to be moments where the sadness would lift, and I thought that, eventually, he’d be okay.

But then one night in April, he didn’t come home. We’d planned to meet up, so I was waiting for him in his room. Instead, I found him outside his dorm at the bottom of the stairs, wasted, his face bruised and bloody like he’d gotten in a fight. He wouldn’t tell me what happened, and he wouldn’t let me take him to the student health center to get looked at.

That weekend, we argued about it. I can’t watch you do this to yourself. I was trying to get him to get help when the words slipped from my mouth— I love you —and I immediately regretted it. He blinked at me, stunned, and I could see he was shutting down.

I can’t do this, he said as he walked out the door.

I stand frozen in place as the hurt I’d felt that day swells.

Since we broke up, I’d focused on dance, my friends, our nights out. I tried seeing other people, but no one could fill the gap he’d left.

I can hear my sister’s voice as though she’s standing right next to me— He’s not good for you, you deserve more —and I know she’s right. But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it? When you find someone who sees you in a way no one else does, who understands you and makes you feel like you can’t be whole without them, it wraps you in a vise and makes you forget how to live life without them.

I blink tears from my eyes and, unable to locate my shirt, grab Liam’s instead and throw it on. It smells like him, damn it.

“Hey.” He props himself up on an elbow and watches me. “Where are you going?”

“I have dance.”

“Naomi. Last night—”

“Don’t. It’s fine.” I don’t need him to explain that it meant nothing to him. That I mean nothing to him. “I have to go.” On my way out, I hide my face so he can’t see my tears.

—

I take off across campus at a jog and don’t stop until I arrive at Dillon Gym, where BAC, the Black Arts Company, is rehearsing. Sweating and out of breath, I try to slip in unnoticed.

“What the hell, Naomi?” It’s Zalikah, my roommate. We met freshman year in the BlackBox basement nightclub in line for free Red Bull and have been best friends ever since. Zee choreographed today’s piece and is pissed I’m late because she’ll have to teach it again just for me.

I square my shoulders and take my place in the formation. “Sorry I’m late! Keep going, I got it.”

She rolls her eyes and finishes teaching the eight-count. I match her movement as she runs it again slowly, watching me.

“Okay, at tempo, from the top. Let’s go!” Zee yells.

She starts the music, and the room shakes with bass and the rhythmic steps of the dancers. I dance in the middle, flowing through the moves, blood pumping through my veins.

Dance studios are where I feel most at home. My mom died when I was eight, and I never knew my dad, so home became the friends that kept showing up, the spaces that welcomed me.

When I was eleven, after living in San Jose with my aunt Ella and having a close call with child protective services, Maya sent me to stay with the St. Clairs, a family she’d met through friends at Princeton. I moved from San Jose to Greenwich, Connecticut, from a futon to a bed fit for a princess.

Margaret and John’s house was enormous, marble-floored and high-ceilinged, with gilt-framed landscapes and antiques from their travels. It had a unique smell too, like a museum or an old library. People were everywhere—cooks and cleaners and drivers—and they had more books than a person could read in a lifetime.

Their friends would come over for dinner parties and stare at me like I was a new pet, speaking in high, careful tones, or commenting on my beautiful skin and wild hair. But Margaret would tell them off without missing a beat. She was an odd, quirky woman, and my eleven-year-old self had never met anyone like her before. She was obsessed with tennis, gardening, and the Bront?s. Grew up in South London and lost both of her parents when she was a kid too. Over time I realized how much she cared about me, and I grew to love her in return. She and John gave me everything, even though I didn’t have many friends or feel fully at home at the new private school. But when I was fifteen, I finally found a place where I belonged.

It was at the dance studio—in those humid, sweaty, overcrowded rooms with their blown-out speakers and mirrored walls—that I found space to breathe. I met other kids like me, a bunch of misfits who wanted to escape their hometowns as much as I did. By sixteen, to the horror of my ballet teacher, I’d gotten several piercings and started wearing my hair in an Afro. He told me not to come to class like that, but I didn’t care. I was in heaven—working at the studio with my friends, eating take-out Thai in the splits on the dance floor, taking hip-hop, contemporary, West African, and jazz funk classes. And when I was too tired to dance, I read. I read so much that I got myself into Princeton, just like my sister had.

“Here we go. Full out this time!” Zee resets the music and counts us in. She bends to the left, long ombré twists flying over one shoulder as she dips her head and winds her hips to the beat. “More attitude, ladies. Come on!” She moves so fast that all I see is a blur, then points to a girl on my left. “Ayyyeee. I see you, Chichi!”

After another eight-count, Zee cuts the music. “Naomi, I know you can give me more than that.”

I bend over, catching my breath. She’s right. I’m hungover but I’m also distracted, stuck on Liam. “I’m working on it.”

—

After rehearsal, I grab my gym bag and head for the door, eager to get to class.

“Hey, wait up.” Behind me, Zee waves, running to catch up as I exit the dance studio. “I didn’t mean to call you out back there…”

I shrug. “It’s okay. I’m just tired.”

“I bet you are,” she teases. “What’d you get into last night? You disappeared.”

Outside, the air is brisk. Students study on the lawn, surrounded by autumn leaves and Gothic towers, trying to squeeze everything out of the last warm days before the brutal winter months ahead.

I don’t feel like admitting I’d lost all self-control and slept with my ex, so I change the subject. “Did you grab some mixers for tonight?” We’re throwing a surprise birthday party for our roommate, Amy, and Zee volunteered to handle the setup.

“Of course, got everything we need—hey, what are you going to wear tonight? And I got a new hook-up for guest passes. Where do we want to go after the pre-game?” Zee asks. “DJ Tongo is playing at BlackBox, and Sterling’s members only.” Being in several different circles, Zee always has a hook-up to get us into any of the clubs. But lately, she’s had her eye on a guy who frequents BlackBox, a student-run nightclub where a lot of our friends hang out, and even though Zee loves Sterling Club, she also likes the more chill vibe of BlackBox…and the chance to spend more time with Trey.

“Shit, I don’t even know,” I tell her, thinking of the pile of clothes in my room. I haven’t done laundry in a month.

I’m running through the options in my head when Zee grabs my arm. “Hey, who is that gorgeous guy?”

Across the quad, a good-looking Asian guy—tall, tan, shirtless—is jogging past. It takes me a moment to realize I know him. “That’s—Ben. Ben Wong,” I tell her. “He’s treasurer of Sterling. We’ve sat next to him at dinner there before.”

“Ohhh, he’s men’s soccer, right? Wow. He looks…good.” Zee looks at him appraisingly, a smile forming on her lips.

I remember sitting next to Ben in psych freshman year. He had these cute glasses and was always doing his engineering homework during class, penciled numbers packed to the edges of his notebook. But I don’t remember him looking quite so fit—did the guy spend all summer working on his abs?

Ben notices us staring and smiles at me. My stomach flutters.

“Girl, I don’t know what you’re waiting for,” Zee says. “Invite him tonight!”

I laugh. “I barely know him.” But Zee’s got me thinking…maybe someone new would be the perfect distraction from Liam.

—

That evening after class, I’m doing laundry in the basement of our building when movement in the corner of the room catches my eye. Ben is at the far machine, noise-canceling headphones on, peeling off his socks and tossing them one by one into the washing machine. Unaware of my presence, he takes his shirt off too and throws it in after. He glances my way and shrugs, gesturing to the washer.

Embarrassed, I look down, continue pulling my clothes from the dryer as if I wasn’t just staring at him. I’ve turned away and am sorting my socks into pairs when, out of the corner of my eye, I see Ben pull his athletic shorts down and toss them in too. I suppress a laugh.

“Something funny?” To my surprise, Ben is somehow standing right behind me, naked except for his banana-print boxers.

“Oh, sorry, just wasn’t expecting you to strip down,” I say, flustered, trying not to stare at his perfect torso. Blood rushes to my cheeks, spreads up my ears.

As I distractedly gather my things, my hand manages to knock a pile of clothes onto the ground, lacy thongs and socks scattering everywhere. Oh god.

I bend down to grab them. He kneels too, and our heads nearly collide. “Sorry,” we say at the same time.

“I was just messing with you,” Ben says as he hands me a sports bra that had fallen onto the ground, expertly avoiding the brightly colored thongs that are inches from his foot. “What can I say, I waited a little too long to do laundry.” He laughs and his smile lights up his eyes.

“Thanks.” I laugh, taking the bra from him. I gather the rest of my clothes from the floor and stand. “I didn’t know you were in this building.”

“Well, I’m actually in Foulke, but all the machines are full, and I couldn’t afford to wait another day.”

My phone vibrates loudly where I’ve left it on the machine. I glance at it, expecting it to be my sister calling me back, but instead DOUCHEBAG—DO NOT ANSWER lights up the screen. Liam.

I silence it.

When I look back at Ben, I can tell he saw the name by the slight smile playing at his lips. He seems like he’s going to say something but then doesn’t.

“You going out tonight?” he asks instead.

“Yeah—actually, we’re having a surprise party for my roommate, if you want to stop by. Bring whoever.”

“Cool. Yeah—I’ll see what the guys are doing.”

My phone vibrates again, and I rush to silence it.

“You gonna get that?” he asks, a subtle teasing in his tone.

I tug at one of my hoops. Look away. “Nah—it’s…nobody.”

My phone vibrates with a text. We both look.

“Looks like Nobody’s really trying to get your attention,” he says.

I can’t help but smile. “Well.” I release a breath. “Exes tend to do that,” I admit. “But I really don’t want to talk to him right now.”

“Ah,” Ben says, with a knowing nod. “Been there.”

“Yeah…”

“Well.” He grabs his empty basket and gives me a salute as he makes his way for the exit. “See you tonight. What’s your room number?”

“Right. Vital information.” I smile. “We’re 211.”

“Cool. Well, see you later, then. And, hey, I hope Nobody lets you finish folding your laundry in peace.” Ben gives me a broad smile and disappears down the hall. I bite my lip, surprised by the giddiness I’m left with as I grab my basket and make my way upstairs, grinning to myself like an idiot.