My eyes widen. “You can talk to dead people?”

“Why don’t we sit first?” Patricia intervenes and indicates the blanket near the bench, where there’s three cafeteria to-go boxes.

Mariah follows Patricia’s suggestion without argument, so it seems like I’m expected to as well. Patricia kneels daintily and draws her legs and skirt to one side while Mariah settles into a cross-legged position. The blanket is soft and worn, and the grass and ground underneath holds heat from the afternoon sun.

After I decline their offer for lunch, Mariah reaches for one of the boxes. “You a member of BSM?”

“BSM?”

She smiles pleasantly. “Black Student Movement. We meet up for meals and events, and we’ve got a room in the Union, a magazine, performance groups, committees. It’s pretty dope. Lots of ways in.”

“I didn’t realize there was a BSM,” I murmur, shifting on the blanket. Another group, another place to belong, except this time it’s not a secret. I can hear my father now. You need a community, Bree.

Reading my face, Patricia assures me. “It’s only the first week of school, Bree. No need to beat yourself up if you haven’t found everything and everyone.”

The gentle grace and warmth in their faces gets me by the throat, and my face contorts into a grateful expression that’s out of my control. I take a deep breath, then give Patricia a wobbly smile. Mariah tells me more about BSM and invites me to a meeting next week, and I ask about her major, because that’s the question everyone on campus seems to ask first.

“Art history,” she says around bites of roast beef. “My parents weren’t thrilled when I declared, but I studied abroad in Paris this summer and got a curation and archival internship at the Musée d’Orsay. That helped.”

“I bet.” I hadn’t considered studying abroad at all. EC students couldn’t apply through Carolina, but exchange programs were out there for high school students.

“How ’bout you?”

“I’m Early College, so we don’t really declare a major. We take a lot of liberal arts classes and pre-reqs.”

Mariah leans forward to inspect my face, concern pulling at her mouth and eyes. “You’re so young! I didn’t realize.”

I shrug. “I’m tall.”

“No,” she says, pausing with her sandwich halfway down, “that’s not what I meant. I mean you’re so young to be so acquainted with death.”

I hadn’t heard anyone say something like that since the funeral. I look between the two of them again and see it—the pity. My wall is up before I reply, “I’m sorry, how are you supposed to help me again?”