Zoe Letting Go Read Online Free

counter was already clotted with a drugstore’s worth of shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, toners, cleansers, soaps, lotions, contact lens solutions, shaving creams, glosses, serums, sprays, toothpastes, tweezers, and sticks of deodorant. Staring at the bottles and tubes on display, I was reminded unpleasantly of how much effort it takes to be a female. And how much money, too—there must have been three hundred dollars worth of shaving products alone.
    My own room was the last of the bunch.
    “This is you,” Angela said. “If you have any questions about accommodations, I’m sure Caroline or Devon would be glad to help you.”
    “Caroline?”
    “Your roommate.”
    “Oh,” I said uncertainly.
A roommate?
Was I supposed to know this information already? If so, how? I pinched my thumb and forefinger together tightly, which is something I do when my composure is failing me. The presence of minor pain keeps me on my toes.
    “Devon,” Angela continued, misreading my confusion, “is the coordinator of our program.”
    I reviewed this information once more. Had I been told about Caroline? I had not. My processing devices were cluttered with new data: the layout of the house, the names of the people, the rules and regulations and schedules. It was a lot for one afternoon.Especially for a summer afternoon, when my brain wasn’t primed for anything.
    I wheeled my suitcase into my new room, which was arranged as if for a pair of twins: two beds, two desks, two dressers, all identical. A clean, scrubbed room. The kind of room where you could swipe a finger along any surface, no matter how obscure, and find it free of dust and cobwebs. Nearly everything my eyes swept over was painted or woven of the same color, and the predominant feeling of the room was, therefore, an overwhelming sensation of yellowness. Yellow walls, yellow curtains, yellow lampshade, yellow bedding: Nothing was the same shade of yellow as anything else, but it all belonged to a very specific category of yellowness. The shades were rich and saturate, like shortbread and banana cream pie, or the golden tips of a crisp meringue cookie. I wondered if this was supposed to add up to a subliminal message, and if so, how I would resist it.
    One half of the room was a blank slate. Presumably, this was my half. The other half was populated with a dozen items, each organized neatly across the top of Caroline’s dresser. I had only a few seconds to eye my roommate’s possessions, but a few seconds was long enough for an uneasy feeling to creep up my neck.
    “All right?” Angela asked. “Ready to meet the girls?”
    I nodded to Angela, signaling that I was ready for whatever came next.
    First came the smell. Then came the heat.
    I sniffed the air as Angela led me toward the kitchen. Christmas. It smelled like cinnamon, spice, and everything nice. Likewood-burning stoves and ribboned gifts beneath a tree. But it was June, not December, and instead of good cheer, the smell cast a disorienting spell. With each step toward the source, the air grew hotter.
    The kitchen was a hybrid of different purposes and shapes, like the rest of the house—a former home kitchen remodeled, with baffling additions and corrections, into an industrial cooking space. Three ovens blasted at 350 degrees each. The room contained three tables, six stools, and six people. Five of the people sat hunched at the stools. The sixth strolled among them, passing out nickel-sized objects. At my entrance the entire group looked up. I pinched my thumb and forefinger together again, praying for the knot of pain to distract me from my nerves.
    “This must be Zoe,” said the sixth person, strolling over to where I stood. She was solidly built, maybe in her late twenties, with a blond ponytail spouting from the base of her head like a garden hose. Her posture was uncommonly erect, and I could tell she was the kind of person who is genetically engineered to be a camp counselor, soccer coach, or some