Environmental studies had been Sara Wood’s major, too. It probably still was, though Sara would have already moved out of Nash. She’d planned to get an apartment after her freshman year “since the dorms suck”—a criticism Maggie had answered with a shrug. Her own plan had been to apply for a loan so she’d have enough money to move into the dorms her sophomore year. She’d avoided revealing this. Sara would have laughed.

Maggie scowled at the wet walkway, remembering how Sara used to tease her about attending a local university and living at home. Sara had been allowed to choose Carlton—the college had meant escaping the Midwest and her family. It had meant excellence plus freedom. For Maggie, it had meant only the former. She’d justified her decision by bringing up Carlton’s top-notch English department, by pointing out that she wasn’t rich and the only way she could afford a private college was by living with her parents and saving on room and board. But Maggie had sensed the futility of her own argument. She’d simply come across as shy, unadventurous, scared. Scared to leave home.

Or had Sara just worked hard to make her feel that way?

“You’re like the baker’s daughter,” Sara had said once. “The baker’s daughter, like any kid from a decent family, gets to choose what she’s going to eat on her birthday. And sure, if she wants, she can wander through the bakery and go crazy, picking cakes or pies or tarts or scones, the kinds of treats kids love. But she gets those things every day, whatever sugary sweet she digs. So on her birthday, she says, ‘I don’t want my candles in a cake. I want them in a plate of lobster ravioli.’ Except you didn’t. You still went with the cake. See?”

“I love cake,” Maggie had snapped, annoyed with the analogy.

“But you might have loved lobster ravioli, too.”

Maggie shook off the memory. People were leaving Tanner Center in a rush, probably glad to get out of class and into the sunshine. They looked happy, despite it being a Monday.

Maggie wished it were a Friday, when the campus turned into a ghost town. Practically no one took Friday classes.

She unzipped her jacket and walked faster. It was warmer today. The thaw made the campus noisy with pings, plops, crunches, and splashes. Icicles oozed from eaves. Between short lawns of softening snow and walkways, between the main road and the curb, wherever two places met in a dip, water ran.

Up ahead stood the statue of Ebenezer Carlton. It used to make Maggie smile, how the artist had given the college’s founder such a pissed-off look. Not exactly a welcoming expression.

Two girls stood at the statue’s base, their heads almost touching. They were watching Maggie and whispering.