Free The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North Page B

as different, because we all had shirts with our favorite cartoon characters or sports teams on them. He said his parentswere spies, which I didn’t believe—in retrospect, since it was spring, they were probably migrant farmworkers. As proof he taught us some phrases he said were French—they were actually gibberish, I knew even then, but I remembered them for years and used to repeat them to myself when I couldn’t sleep. After that day, though, I never saw the kid again. I wondered if Sophie wanted to be like this, showing up in my life just for a second, asking for nothing.
    “If I’m not supposed to help you,” I said, “what do you want me to do?”
    “Can I sleep in your bed?” she asked. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I don’t want to be in my apartment right now.”
    It surprised me that she didn’t want to be alone, and that she’d admit it, but I was glad to have something to do. I cleared the textbooks off the bed; she kicked off her sneakers and crawled in, but she didn’t lie down. Instead she lowered her head.
    “Can you?” she asked.
    I put my hands to her scalp. It was hot and smooth. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d touched her bare skin. As a kid I’d imagined I could read her thoughts through her head, but now I couldn’t even guess. She shut her eyes, and I took my hands away. As she slept, her face got calm—even with her shaved head she looked so normal, somebody’s twenty-one-year-old sister who needed a place to stay.
    Sophie slept for hours with no sign of waking up, and I couldn’t stop myself from going to find CeCe. I knew where she lived—she and her two equally high-maintenance roommates, both of whom were dating slightly-less-popular versions of Daniel, had exclusive pre-parties there on Friday nights, and even people too cool to want an invite or too uncool to ever get one (until recently I’d been thelatter) knew where they were held. I didn’t know what I’d do when I got to her—I knew I couldn’t hit her, even though I wanted to. I thought maybe there was something I could say that would make her cry, and then Sophie, sleeping soundly in my bed, would have the upper hand.
    CeCe’s roommate Leigh, a tall girl who was dating the heir to a pesticide fortune, answered the door. I could see behind her into the living room—there were actual framed pictures on the walls, landscape prints and photos of the girls laughing. Leigh’s hair was wet. The air around her smelled like shampoo and perfume.
    “CeCe’s not here,” Leigh said. “She went home to see her family.”
    “When will she be back?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “It might be a while.”
    I felt stupid and powerless. What was I supposed to do, leave a message? I looked down at my empty hands.
    “Look,” she said. “We’re all sorry about what happened. If we’d been there, it wouldn’t have.”
    “Well, you weren’t, were you?” I shot back.
    She looked hurt and embarrassed, and I immediately felt guilty.
    “Sorry,” I muttered as I turned to go.
    Before she shut the door, Leigh said shyly, “I think your sister’s cool.”
    For the next month, Sophie barely spoke. She spent as much time as she could in the editing room, and when they kicked her out to lock it for the night, she’d either go home or come to my dorm, where she’d eat my snacks and resist my attempts to talk to her. She didn’t seem angry. She just seemed checked out, like she was trying to pretend she wasn’t at school anymore.
    When she got the fellowship in New York, I couldn’t be happy for her. At first I didn’t even understand what it was.
    “How can you go to grad school when you haven’t graduated yet?” I asked her.
    “It’s not grad school,” she explained. “It’s a fellowship. They teach you how to make a movie.”
    “And you hate it here so much that you’re just going to leave with a whole year left?” I asked.
    “I don’t hate it here,” she said.