In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

Chapter 30

February, senior year

February 14: Valentine’s Day. I used to know that, used to dream about red roses, the Phi Delt Sweetheart Ball, a golden crown lowered onto my head. But this year, the day meant only one thing: the winner of the Duquette fellowship would finally be announced.

I sat in my pink dress for Sweetheart, refreshing the fellowship website over and over. I was intensely grateful that it was a Saturday, and I didn’t have to suffer through classes, hadn’t told any of my friends, keeping it clutched close like a treasure. Because what if I lost? No, my brain whispered, impossible. Still, it was better this way. This was a private dream, a private moment between me and my dad.

Four fifty-nine—one minute to go. I was so close, just a sliver of time away. With my high grades, thanks to Adderall and constant all-nighters, my essay, revised seven times until it was perfect, like my dad taught me, and my recommendation letter from Dr. Garvey, I had to win. It had to be me, for once.

Five o’clock.I took a deep breath and pressed the refresh button, closing my eyes. The butterflies in my stomach were on speed, banging around everywhere. I opened my eyes and blinked at the screen. The announcement was up.

We are pleased to congratulate this year’s winner of the Duquette Post-Graduate Fellowship: Ms. Heather Shelby.

Heather Shelby? I closed my eyes, rubbing them vigorously. Reality had blipped, gone sideways for a second, but all would be fine.

I opened my eyes and squinted.

Ms. Heather Shelby.It was still there, in black and white pixels. Like someone had dug into my nightmares and pulled out the worst possible scenario, the one that stabbed the deepest. It didn’t make any sense. Heather hadn’t applied for the fellowship. Had she? She hadn’t said a word about it. How was her name on the screen?

It hit me, sudden and fierce: I didn’t win.

I tried to step outside myself, to look from a distance, but the pain was too much. It kept me tethered to my body. I felt the loss like someone had cracked open my rib cage, thrust a hand inside, and squeezed my heart.

I’d failed again. Now my father would be nothing more than a body buried in a hole in that shithole town he hated. Forever a small, unimportant man. He’d fade away into nothing.

Everything I’d done to get here—none of it mattered. Dr. Garvey, his arms encircling me, pulling me down—

The door to the suite burst open. “Jess, you home?”

It was Heather. I sat frozen, the walls of the room closing in.

“There you are!” She practically bounced into our room, wearing a sparkly red sweater printed with Sweetheart candies, her idea of a cocky joke. But maybe she would get crowned Sweetheart tonight. Maybe she’d get everything. “Jess, I have the craziest news!”

Her presence in the room felt threatening. Like a gun pressed to my temple. No wrong moves.

I snapped the laptop shut. “What?”

When she spoke, I had a sense of déjà vu. Like I’d been here before, a thousand times, and knew exactly how it would go.

“I won that fake-Fulbright thing. I just found out. Can you believe it?”

When I didn’t say anything, too choked with emotion, she rolled her eyes. “I know, I know, it’s super-nerdy. Honestly, much more up your alley than mine. I totally applied on a whim, because I was like, why not? We’re in the middle of a freaking recession, and there are no jobs, anyway. Everyone’s going to grad school to wait it out.”

“How?” I whispered. How had she done it? How had she managed to steal the thing I wanted most? Her grades were average. She wasn’t a virtuoso writer. How, how, how?

Heather flopped on her bed and shot me a look. “I’m going to choose to not be offended by that. I am smart, you know. I wouldn’t have even known about the fellowship if that professor hadn’t sought me out.”

I twisted in my chair. “What professor?”

“That famous one. You know, the one you love.” Heather snapped her fingers. “Garvey. He just came up to me after class and said I was totally gifted and should consider applying for the fellowship. He even wrote me a recommendation.”

Dr. Garvey?Suddenly it was clear. He could only have had one motivation.

I recoiled. “You went to dinner?”

Heather frowned. “What dinner?”

“With Dr. Garvey,” I said. He’d done it to both of us. I couldn’t believe it.

“Ew,” she said. “Why would I have dinner with him? He’s old. And, like, a professor.”

I froze. Dr. Garvey hadn’t made Heather have dinner with him? Hadn’t made her go back to his house, kneel on his bed?

She wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was texting on her bed, legs propped up on the wall.

Dr. Garvey had simply written her a letter because he thought she was good.

I didn’t know what was keeping me alive, now that my heart was outside my body.

“Anyway, it’s silly, I know,” Heather said, swinging her legs off her bed. “But my mom was happy, and it gives me something to do for a few years. And I needed some good news. This has been a surprisingly shitty semester. Speaking of which, Caro didn’t find a date for Sweetheart, did she? Because she is the absolute last person I want to see tonight.”

I should have asked why, or what’s going on between you guys. She paused, waiting for me to do it. But I couldn’t make my mouth move.

Heather waved her hand, as if casting away the negativity. “So the deal with this fellowship is you’re pretty much guaranteed a spot at whatever school you want. Maybe I’ll go to Haaa-vard.” She pantomimed pulling a monocle away from her eye. “With all the supersmart uptight people. I know that’s your vote—you’ve always been obsessed. Or maybe Oxford, and then I can go to the theater in London whenever I want.” She clapped. “Okay, well, I’m off to get a blow out for Sweetheart. Mom said I can do whatever I want as a reward. You want to come?”

She doesn’t know, I reminded myself. Somehow, I managed to shake my head.

“Boo. Fine. I’m sure you have some very important studying to do or whatever. Pregame in the basement tonight, don’t forget. You better be there.”

All of a sudden, Heather reached down and hugged me. I stiffened in her arms, but she didn’t seem to notice. She pulled back, squeezed my shoulders, and smiled. “I don’t know why you’re being weird, but tonight’s going to be the best night ever. We’re going to celebrate, okay? And look, I know we’re Sweetheart rivals, so—” She winked, flashing her impish smile. “May the best woman win.”

When she slammed the door, I picked up my laptop and threw it against the wall. It hit the floor hard, screen tearing free of the keyboard. Looking at it—the laptop I’d bought with a credit card I couldn’t afford—I sank to my knees and sobbed, each breath like dragging glass up my throat.

Everything had been ripped away in a single moment. Heather had beaten me, and she’d barely even tried. Like always, she’d come out on top, and I was second-best. I needed to get rid of this pain—it was going to destroy me, burn me from the inside out.

I scrambled through my desk drawer until I found the Adderall, opened the plastic bag, and shook the pills into my mouth. I chased them with the handle of whiskey Heather kept in her closet.

It wasn’t enough. I needed to really escape.

I tore through Heather’s dresser, looking for whatever else she had that could take these feelings away. In the bottom drawer, I found an orange bottle with Chinese writing that I recognized as Courtney’s diet pills. Heather was always stealing them from her, saying, we have to save her from herself. But it was pointless—Courtney’s mom just overnighted her more whenever they went missing. Evil woman, Heather would say. The depths some parents will sink to. But what did Heather know about bad parents, or the weight of expectations, or what it felt like to want more for someone, want to be more for someone? Heather’s parents did nothing but dote on her. What did she know about anything?

I popped the top off and poured the little white pills into my palm, then froze, and thought of my father. The number of times I’d witnessed him doing exactly this. Where it had led him.

Then I thought of Dr. Garvey and the life my father should have had. I swallowed the pills and chased them with whiskey.

After time, my vision blurred, and I wobbled, catching myself on Heather’s desk chair. The cocktail was kicking in, doing what it was supposed to: carving away the sadness, the horror—but instead of soothing numbness, the hollow space in my chest filled with anger.

Not anger. Rage.

Dr. Garvey had used me. Taken advantage of how much the fellowship meant to me, flexed his power and authority, dangling the letter over my head, all to get what he wanted.

My pulsed raced. And Heather. It had all worked out for her. Of course it had. She’d been approached by Dr. Garvey out of the blue, the kind of opportunity people like me only dreamed about. He’d treated her like he should have, like a student, using his power and authority to help, not hurt. The world had worked the way it was supposed to for Heather Shelby. Why her and not me?

Four years of Heather getting everything. Chi Omega. A BMW on her birthday. Beautiful dresses. Heather was never afraid of the future, never afraid to speak up, never afraid she wasn’t worth listening to. Heather had two loving parents and a bright future. Heather had the fellowship. Heather had Harvard.

A seething rage rose inside me, tall as a tidal wave. You were supposed to win if you were the best, but Heather somehow tricked the system, threw the scales out of whack. She was the one who deserved to have everything ripped from her. She was the one who deserved to be left with nothing. Not me.

My thoughts blurred into a single desire: I wanted to claw it back from her. I wanted to punish her, erase everything unfair that had happened. All the way back to the first day, freshman year.

I looked at the pictures pinned on the corkboard above Heather’s desk. The seven of us, smiling. Sophomore year, Myrtle Beach, waves behind us. Junior year, Coop’s and my hands clasped, our secret. Freshman year, seven round faces outside East House.

In all of them, the light seemed to shine special on Heather. She was in the center of the group. The center of attention, with her high theatrics, breezy confidence.

I tore the photos from the wall and stabbed a pen down hard into Heather’s face, scratching her out, erasing her, clawing back the spotlight she’d gotten unfairly. I scratched, X-ing her out, and it felt so good.

I stabbed harder, the pen piercing the photograph, marring the desk underneath. Without Heather, I could’ve had so much—Chi Omega, Amber Van Swann, the fellowship, Harvard. Moving to DC, becoming an important person, the kind my father wanted to be himself.

I hated her. It was the truth, pulled from my shadow life, a feeling that had been simmering underneath my conscious mind for four years, growing and growing.

I stared at the pictures, at Heather’s face, destroyed with vicious hex marks.

It wasn’t enough.

Everything was kicking in now. I could feel the dizziness circling, trying to tug me under. I stumbled into Caro’s room, running into the doorframe, then pulled myself straight. I grabbed for her desk drawer, missed, and tried again. Yanked it open, searched clumsily for her scissors.

The silver pair, nearly large as my forearm, twin points as sharp as blades. For scrapbooking, of course, because it was Caro, who did that sort of thing.

I made it back to my room and took the ruined photographs to Heather’s desk. I slid the scissors in and cut, again and again, carving Heather into pieces.

I hated her.

I wanted her gone.

I wanted her to die.

The dark thought twisted in my mind. If she was dead, the world would be balanced. I could finally have what I wanted. I could be best, first place, winner.

I cut until she was nothing more than scraps littering her desk.

But it still wasn’t enough.

A new idea was dawning. One that could restore the balance, right the wrongs—take back what Heather had stolen from me. It was terrible, and cruel, but as the rage seethed inside me, I knew I’d do it. To punish her, and Dr. Garvey. Everyone.

I dropped Caro’s scissors onto Heather’s desk and swept the scraps of photographs into her desk drawer.

Then I walked out the door and into the night. And for the first time in a long time, I was in control.