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tall and who I’ve known since I was six. I’d take parental neglect any day, thank you.”
“Well, lucky for us, we have mandatory counseling sessions,” Hana says, pointing to our schedules. “And looks like you’re first, Miranda.”
My counseling session happens that afternoon, after we’ve run through half the Sunday schedule (including breakfast, the nondenominational chapel service, lunch, and a trip to the bookstore to get our books for class). Honestly, I’m surprised they don’t just write in mandatory pee breaks. This place is more regulated than boot camp.
My assigned counseling session happens in Ms. W’s room at Capulet dorm.
“So your parents got divorced,” she says to me, as we sit in her room, a small, studylike space. I notice that there’s no bed visible. I wonder if this is why there’s a campus legend about the teachers around here never needing sleep. There’s just a desk, a love seat, and a couple of chairs. “How did that make you feel?”
“I don’t know. How do you think I feel?” I say.
I like Ms. W, but this sounds like a really dumb question to me. Ms. W doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me.
“Dad is a jerk, and Mom is a wreck. And it’s five years later,” I say.
“I’ve read your file. Why do you think you wrecked your dad’s car?”
“Because a tree got in my way,” I quip. This is, technically, true.
“Miranda, what’s the real reason?” Ms. W sounds like she’s starting to get annoyed.
“I was just picking up my sister, you know. She had this bully problem.”
“Why couldn’t your dad help your sister?”
“Please. He doesn’t even know our middle names.”
“And your mother? Where was she?”
I shrug.
“Does that happen a lot? Do you have to look after your sister because your parents don’t?”
“I dunno. I guess.”
I do feel like I’m the only one who seems to understand what’s going on with Lindsay, or really, with anything else. I’m the one who cooks dinner mostly (Mom can’t boil water, and if I don’t cook something then it’s order takeout). Dad’s MIA. At least half the weekends Lindsay and I are supposed to see him, Dad has Carmen take us and do something like shopping while he hits the golf course. His excuse is that we’d rather do “girly” things. I don’t call watching my stepmom snap at clerks at Saks Fifth Avenue girly. Neither is watching my college fund go down the drain.
“And if you’re taking care of your sister and your mom, and your dad is missing in action, then who’s taking care of you?” Ms. W asks me. “Did you ever think that maybe they’re the ones who are supposed to take care of you?”
I shrug.
“Can you see that maybe you were acting out to prove to them, and maybe yourself, that you are the kid. Not the adult.”
I think about this. Maybe she’s right. Maybe wrecking Dad’s car, charging up Carmen’s credit cards, and then going out with a known date rapist was my way of acting out. My way of saying, “Hey! I’m the kid — remember? You’re supposed to take care of me!”
Ms. W tells me I should think about writing out my feelings to both parents in a letter. My “assignment” for counseling is to have a letter written in a month.
“Anything else bothering you?” she asks me, before I go.
I pause a second. “Well, there is this other thing,” I say. I’m not sure how to tell her I think my dorm room might be haunted by Kate Shaw.
“Have you heard of Kate Shaw?” I ask her.
Ms. W looks startled, and then manages to put her features into a neutral expression. “Hers is a very sad story. How did you hear about her?”
“There are just rumors about her. The students talk about her. Did you know her? Were you here when she disappeared?”
“I was, yes, and I did know her. She lived in this dorm,” Ms. W says. “She was a very bright girl. But she had terrible taste in boys, you know. She went for the disreputable ones, and I think that may have