Author/Uploaded by Allison L. Bitz
Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Contents one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three ...
Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Contents one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine thirty thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three thirty-four thirty-five thirty-six Epilogue I Orbit Venus Sandwiches Author’s Note Acknowledgments Books by Allison L. Bitz Back Ad About the Author Copyright About the Publisher ii iii v 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 iv Guide Cover Contents one Dedication To my grandparents, including the OG Socks and June one Two things are immediately apparent: dorm rooms bear a remarkable resemblance to jail cells, and they smell like Grandma Evelyn’s basement but with zero homey nostalgic vibes. I flip-flop into the middle of the joint, doing a full one-eighty. “Bridget? What’s wrong?” Dad snakes a suntanned arm across my shoulders and hugs me to him. My long lashes are fanning away, working hard to keep my eyes from overflowing. “It’s, um. Small.” Dodge, my other dad, chuckles. Which makes sense. The system with my parents is that Dad comforts me, Dodge toughens me. “C’mon, kiddo. You knew this was the size of the room.” “Reading on a website that a shared room is fifteen-by-fifteen and then seeing it in person are two very different things.” The cinder-block walls are a god-awful shade of light blue, like someone threw a bad Insta filter over a perfectly fine cloudless sky. There’s a gross tile abomination underfoot, and the trim is black rubber of some kind, I think. All of this is a far cry from my comfy farmhouse room back in Lynch, with its gleaming wood floors, original oak trim, and massive picture windows. Dad is an antique-loving contractor, and our house is his second baby (I’m number one, of course). The state of this room is confusing, really, because Richard James Academy in Chicago is the boarding school of my dreams. It’s extremely prestigious. Rigorous. Everyone who goes here is effing brilliant, so I’ll fit right in. Best of all, it’s very, very far away from my backward rural hometown in Nebraska, where I have always stuck out like a glittering emerald in a sea of shale. But I suppose I forgot to account for the fact that it’s also old, and old doesn’t always mean “cool vintage vibe.” Sometimes old just means shabby—hence, this dorm room. Just as I’m about to throw myself onto my unmade mattress in despair, I’m hit with inspiration—a Bridget Bloom specialty. This room isn’t at all like my bedroom, but it is like Lynch. Drab and dingy and too small for the likes of me. I’ll do to it what I’ve been doing to my hometown for the entirety of my sixteen years—I’ll make it fabulous. I grab the garment bag I’d slung over the school-provided desk chair, unzipping with gusto, but not too much gusto. Its innards are sacred. Carefully, I draw out a prized possession: my mermaid costume. My dads fought me on bringing this. “Why in the world would you need that at boarding school, B?” said Dodge, ever the practical dad. But I knew—just knew from some deep place in my soul—that I needed it by my side. A talisman, maybe. A reminder of who I am. A Halloween costume, if worse comes to worst. And, in the case of this shit dorm room—wall decor. “Help me. I’m hanging this up,” I say. “I’m confident in your ability to wield a clothes hanger. On your own,” says Dodge, shaking his head. “No, I mean—I’m hanging this up here. Over my bed. Like a mural.” Because it’s perfect. It’s green and purple