Then I stop outside the glass-walled conference room, peeking my head through the doorway to not take up too much of everyone’s attention.

“I’m headed out,” I say, watching Rebecca lose as much of the color from her face as possible when it’s covered in expensive fake tan, as all the girls turn toward me.

“Congratulations!” They all start cheering, bringing their hands to their hearts, as if my joy is their joy.

“Send us pictures!” someone in the front yells, I can’t see who.

“Can’t wait to hear all about it!” Kiley exclaims, her lips stained slightly black from the icing on the cookie she’s scarfed down since I last saw her.

I smile around the room, meeting a few people’s eyes, and finally land on Rebecca, front and center, now with jeans covered in blue bows. “Congrats, Bec. Can’t wait to meet the little dude. Sorry I have to bail early.”

She takes a deep breath and smiles so slowly it’s as if each centimeter of emotion is exhausting for her to muster. “I’m so happy for you,” she says back, cradling her belly with her left hand. Her engagement ring is nowhere near as impressive as mine. There’s at least a carat’s difference. Maybe one and a half.

“See you Monday!” they echo as I walk away, leaving the office, and my desk, as empty as it was when I arrived nearly five years ago.

I don’t respond. They’ll figure it out eventually.

FOUR

One-Point Violations** (may include a $15 fine):

Late to convocation (1 additional point for each additional 10 minutes late)

Late for curfew (5 additional points for each additional 30 minutes late)

**Any further 1-point violations (no fine) are up to the sole discretion of the Resident Assistant, including but not limited to: untoward behavior, untoward language, untoward association.

The hallways of Willits Hall—and all the other dorms, I assumed—were as bleak as our bedrooms. Cinder block walls painted a harsh light yellow. Gray carpets worn so thin you could see where the stitch met the backing. A cross loomed above each and every heavy metal door. It felt like ghosts lived here. Not that I believed in ghosts. But if I did, this is definitely where they’d haunt.

The only thing that attempted to offset the general air of dreariness of the dorms were the dry-erase boards. Two days after we moved in, Brigid knocked on our door, offering an overzealous smile and a fistful of colorful markers, and asked us to pick one that represented our best self, whatever that meant.

Ruthie grabbed green and I chose pink, to which Brigid proudly responded, “Perfect complementary colors, great job, ladies!” From the floor, she lifted a recently bleached dry-erase board, a piece of thin black tape sectioning it off into four quadrants. On the top and bottom right, she wrote Ruthie’s name, and on the top and bottom left, mine.