Free Again by Lisa Burstein Page A

looking sexy was akin to being punched in the
face.
    I was poured, thanks to
shapewear, into my Seven for All Mankind jeans and a white cashmere sweater
that showed off my supposedly nineteen-year-old boobs flawlessly. When you talk
about the geniuses of our time, you must never leave out the inventor of Spanx
and the push-up bra, especially when it came to taking ten years off.
    “Are you guys ready to go?”
I asked, my subtle way of making sure they weren’t going to try to lure me into
their room for vodka shots I would have to deny myself.
    “Why else would we be
standing out here?” Steph asked.
    “Where are your coats?” I
replied. Then, remembering I wasn’t their mom, I closed my mouth and eyes tight
and braced myself for their OMG you are such a loser response.
    Because what I’d asked
totally made me one.
    “Is this your first college
party or something?” Alex asked.
    “Where are we supposed to
put them when we get there?” Steph finished, her pink glossed lips pursing.
    I’d forgotten this detail. There
was no bed to put your coat on at a college party. This was something that
didn’t happen until later in life when you cared about your property because
you’d purchased it yourself. After college, you also wanted to wear a coat
because you realized your mother wasn’t just being a nag, and going outside
without a coat in the middle of winter was asinine.
    These girls hadn’t reached
that part of their lives yet, and as the nineteen-year-old I was supposed to
be, I shouldn’t have either.
    “I’m not drunk like you guys.
I can actually suffer in the weather,” I tried, gripping hard to my jacket.
    “Are you going to hold onto
it the whole night?” Alex sneered.
    “Not sexy,” Steph added,
clicking her tongue on the x.
    She was right. I wasn’t
trying to be sexy, but I did want to fit in. I did not want to be the only girl
at the party carrying her coat—the only girl carrying her coat because she was a
grown-ass woman.
    I opened my door and threw
my coat back inside.
    Pretty sad I could fall to
peer pressure so easily. It didn’t bode well for the night to come. No matter
what I’d said to Carter.
    I closed the door, but not
before Dawn yelled that if I brought a guy home she wouldn’t be able to control
what she drew on our faces in permanent marker while we were sleeping it off.
    I guessed penises ,
but it would probably be something a little more original and undead, perhaps
severed demon penises .
    I joined Steph and Alex back
in the hallway. Now it was me and my sweater against the twenty degree weather.
Me and my new mantra against a house full of alcohol.
    “Much better,” Alex said.
    I nodded, even though I was
pretty sure I was going to freeze my ass off to prove I was their age.
Considering the other stuff I would probably have to do over the next three
months, scratch that—three years, going coatless would definitely not be
the worst or most embarrassing.
    We headed toward the
elevator, dorm life existing all around us. A dorm was a lot like a zoo. Each
room held a different species that with every open door you passed you could
either study or ignore.
    The skinny, dorky guys at
the end of the hall playing Wii Mario Kart in their boxers were an ignore.
    “What’s Twilight doing
tonight?” Steph asked.
    “Reading,” I said, even
though I had no clue.
    “About how to be a vampire?”
Alex added, laughing and flipping her hair behind her. I smelled coconuts.
    “Dawn’s not so bad,” I
admitted. I mean she kind of was, but I also was starting to understand her. She
put up armor so she could make it through the crazy maze of college. Some
people used vodka, some people used sex. People like Carter I guess used
studying. Dawn used black hair dye and eyeliner and intimidation.
    Steph shrugged, her identical
brown hair flowing down her shoulders. I smelled apples. “She seems nicer since
you got here, anyway.”
    We stepped into the elevator
and headed downstairs. I