The Secret Girl

by Stunich, C. M.

  Hopefully nobody's noticed. I was just too damn tired. I hate sleeping in dad's house. He turns the Wi-fi off when he goes to bed and hides the modem, so I can't get online. My phone service is crap out here in Nutmeg, Middle-of-Nowhere, so I've spent every night this week just staring at the ceiling and wondering if I'll still fit in when I go back to California.

  Just a few more weeks, and everything will be okay, I tell myself. Because honestly, I've decided that once I get back to Santa Cruz, I'm not leaving again. If I put up enough of a fight, Dad will have to realize that I'm serious about this. My whole life is in California; I have plans to go to UC Santa Cruz with Cody and Monica. Then when I graduate, I want to live locally anyway. If you really think about it, him moving me across the country was kind of a selfish, fucked-up thing to do.

  “It doesn't matter to me what you think, Chuck. You're a stuck-up asshole that nobody else in this school likes. Your opinion is dirt.” Church turns to look at me, still smiling, and then reaches out and taps my tablet with a long finger. “Now pull up your list of assignments, and we'll work our way through. I don't fail at anything: not even when it comes to educating idiots. We'll get your grades up if it kills you.”

  “You mean, if it kills me,” I say, and then I shiver because that expression is just so off-putting.

  “Exactly,” Church says, his smile getting wider. He's got a handsome face, but it looks like a mask. Nothing he says or does is real, and I wonder if even he knows why that is. “Now, let's get started. There's nothing I hate more than wasted time.”

  With a sigh, I open up my math homework and Church leans over to take a look, our heads nearly brushing. His fingers linger far too close to mine, and even though he's a cold-hearted bastard, there's a warmth that transfers between us that can't be faked.

  I swallow hard and try to focus on my work. At first, it seems virtually impossible, what with this weird hot/cold thing I'm getting from Church. But after a little while, we settle into a routine, and I decide his businesslike attitude works for me.

  When we're done, Church insists on walking me back to Dad's place—I'm sure only because Archie put him up to it—and I decide not to argue. I was chased by a guy with a knife, after all.

  The woods are barren and spooky, the limbs stripped of their leaves from winter's chill. With the fog rolling across the lawns between the path and the forest, there's an ominous feel to the whole scene that I don't like.

  “You think she died because she was a girl?”

  “Maybe.”

  My conversation with the twins resurfaces, and I shiver again. This secret keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it's all the more enticing because nobody will talk about it with me. I'm sure if I just sat down and heard the whole story, I'd forget all about it and move on. But there's something about Jenica's death that's nagging at me.

  We reach the front steps, and the door opens.

  “Mr. Montague,” Dad says cheerfully, more cheerfully than he's spoken to me in weeks. “I was just about to put dinner on the table. Join us?”

  I give Dad a look that very clearly says please shut up and rescind your invitation, but he ignores me and Church smiles prettily.

  “I'd love to,” he schmoozes, taking my arm and walking me up the steps. As soon as we get inside and Dad turns away, I pull my arm from his grip, frustrated that I now have to keep my uniform on for the entirety of dinner. I'd been planning on changing into a pink tank and sweats, sans bra. That won't exactly work with Church Montague in my freaking house.

  Dinner is a pot roast with mixed veggies, mashed potatoes, and some fresh bread with butter. Nothing at all as fancy as I'm sure Church is used to eating. His family owns some huge conglomerate that deals in seed production and engineering, one of those scary companies worth hundreds of billions that you never hear about, but that controls everything.

  I'm actually surprised Church is even going to this school. For as rich as he is, he could easily afford someplace like Burberry Preparatory Academy in California, where all the super-rich assholes go.

  “This looks delicious, Archibald,” Church says, still smiling, and I frown. Archibald? Since when is the Student Council President on a first-name basis with the headmaster? Isn't that, like, a breach of etiquette?

  “Thank you, Mr. Montague,” Dad replies smoothly, either ignoring or not caring that one of his students is calling him by name. They smile at each other across the table, and I frown. This is the most awkward dinner I've ever been to in my life, I think as I stab a bit of zucchini and take a bite. “So how did the studying go?”

  “Chuck's basic level of understanding when it comes to math is deplorable. Clearly, there are issues here that are catching up to him, issues that probably began years ago. He's been barely keeping up for a while.”

  I frown and give him a look.

  “So, what you're saying is that Chuck's low grades are actually just a symptom of how much … he's been slacking since elementary school?” Dad adds, giving me a dark look. He's clearly disappointed in me, but I don't care. Church spent one afternoon studying with me; he doesn't know shit.

  “Math is all about foundation. Chuck has none. We're going to have to start back at the basics, or we're not going to get anywhere.” Church glances over at me, and smiles. But as soon as Dad's phone rings, and he looks away for a moment, the asshole's smirking at me.

  I flip him off, and Dad glances back at just the right moment, so that's all he sees.

  “Chuck Carson!” he snaps, and I drop my hand to my lap, pursing my lips. “You've caused enough problems for the Student Council already, and now here Church is trying to help you, and you've got an attitude?”

  I grumble an apology as Church smirks at me again.

  Again, Dad completely and utterly misses the exchange.

  “I have to say, during our Culinary Club meetings, we’ve grown quite fond of your son. If only he’d apply himself …” Church gives me this smile that’s two parts sugar, and one part sweet. Meaning, it’s all a bunch of cloying crap. The urge to flick mashed potatoes into his face is astronomical. “Friendships are here for you, if only you’d accept them.” He puts his hand to his chest and gazes at me with such adoration that I’d almost believe it … if any of that expression actually transcended the physical shape of his face and reflected back in his eyes. Nope, still a cold, cruel something-path. Why can I never remember the difference between psychopath and sociopath?! Are those even the right terms anymore? And why do I consider myself some sort of amateur psychologist?!

  “Chuck is adamant about moving back to the dorms,” Dad begins, sighing and setting his fork down. He dabs at the edges of his mouth it, giving me a very critical sort of look. “And to be quite frank with you, Mr. Montague, I think we’re at just about wit’s end with each other.” He shifts his attention to the Student Council President. “If—if I let Chuck move back into the dormitory, do you think you and the other boys might be able to keep a sort of unofficial eye on him? I’d never ask a student to take responsibility for another, but—”

  “Mr. Carson,” Church begins, smiling pleasantly and tilting his head to one side so that the feathered honey-colored pieces of his hair slide enticingly across his forehead, ever the picture of beautiful teenage Americana. When he stands up and puts his hand over his heart, like he’s about to say the Pledge of Allegiance or something, I can’t control the eye roll. Dad gives me one of this signature ‘headmaster glares’, the one he’s perfected over decades working in various universities, prep schools, and academies. “As the President of the Adamson All-Boys Academy, I’d just like to say that it would be my honor to keep an eye on your son. I consider it my civic duty to help the less fortunate.”

  “You are the ideal Adamson student, Mr. Montague,” Dad says, and my jaw drops. Seriously? He’s buying this crap?!

  “Dad,” I start, and both men turn to glance my way. Church still has his hand over his heart, eyes wide and full of total BS. This innocent act sure as h
ell isn’t going to work on me, not after the jerk locked me in a trunk and almost got me stabbed by some maniac.

  “If you want to return to the dormitory, you’ll obey direct orders from me. And if your student body president has any concerns or objections to your presence, I’m sure he’ll let me know about it?” Dad glances back at Church who nods, and I fume. Seriously, steam must be rising from my head now. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom.”

  Archie stands up and exits the room, leaving me alone with Church.

  The stupid asswad comes over to stand beside me, bringing with him that particular scent of lilac and rosemary. I hate that we use the same shampoo. His smell is almost, like, comforting to me. Gross. He leans down and puts his lips right up against my ear.

  “Did you hear what your father said, Chuck Carson?” He licks my ear, and I reach up to slap him away, my jaw clenching with anger. He doesn’t even know my secret, and it feels like he’s hitting on me. Pretty sure it’s all just part of his fucked-up personality, built on intimidation and BS. “You’ll obey.” Church strokes my hair back, and I jerk my head away from him. He laughs in my ear, this cold, awful sound that gives me the chills. “Just remember that, Chuck. This is my school, and if you want to survive here, you will obey.” He stands back up and returns to his seat, plastering on one of those stupid happy smiles of his. By the time Dad comes back, he’s the very picture of adolescent perfection.

  I stab my fork into my pot roast and try to consider myself lucky that Dad’s even thinking about letting me move back to the dorms. If I have to suffer one more night without Wi-Fi, I might just die. All I want is to talk to Cody and Monica, that’s it. Just a little taste of home.

  Church seriously overstays his welcome, refusing to leave until he’s ruined my movie night with Dad. The entire film, I swear he’s staring at me.

  I mean, seriously, what’s this guy’s problem?

  If I were actually sticking around at this school, maybe I’d have time to find out? As it is, I just don’t care. All I have to do is survive a few more weeks, just a few short weeks, and I’ll be home.

  Permanently.

  On Sunday, Dad finally lets me move back into the boys' dormitory, and the twins offer to help carry my stuff. Thankfully, they already know my secret, so there's nothing for them to find. Unfortunately, they … well, already know my secret, so when I come out of the bathroom at Dad's place and head down the hall to grab the last few boxes, I find them going through my dresses in the closet.

  Well, Tobias is looking through my dresses. Micah is holding a pair of lacy panties with a hole in the crotch. Like, um, a purposeful hole. Monica bought the undies for me as a sort of joke, but also as like a let's get you to lose that V-card nudge. Didn't work out quite like that, but I still have the underwear.

  “Crotchless panties, very racy.” Micah twirls them around on his finger as I march over with my jaw clenched tight and try to grab them. He lifts them out of my reach and continues to spin them.

  “This is a huge violation of my privacy,” I snap, and Micah shrugs.

  “They were literally lying on the ground at the edge of the bed. I didn't exactly go looking for them.”

  There's a knock on the door, and I spin around to find Spencer standing there, frowning at us. His eyes go right from me to the underwear, and a dark scowl takes over his face.

  “You got a girlfriend, Chuck?” he asks, a dark note in his voice that makes me shiver. Micah tosses the underwear over to him, and Spencer catches them, finding the hole in the crotch right away. His cheeks redden slightly, and he clenches his jaw, looking up at me with those turquoise eyes in an accusatory sort of way.

  “We shared one kiss,” I snap back at him, and the twins exchange a look. “And yeah, I do have a …. girlfriend back in California.” Mentally, I just swap Monica and Cody for the time being. It's mostly true, right? I mean Monica is my girlfriend, a platonic girlfriend, but still. “Her name is Monica Peters. And yes, these are her panties.”

  I march over to Spencer, snatch the underwear back, and shove them in my pocket while Tobias surreptitiously closes the door on my dresses without Spencer noticing. Thank God.

  “Good to know,” Spencer snarls, snatching up one of the other boxes and turning to leave. The twins take up the last two boxes, and we make a little train back to the dorm.

  After we've dropped my stuff off, Spencer disappears, and I head downstairs for a glass of water. On the way past the community corkboard, I notice a new letter, written in purple ink.

  Dear Eve,

  You don't belong here.

  Last time was a warning.

  Next time, I'm not giving you a head start.

  Love, Adam

  I stop dead in my tracks, my heart thumping wildly, and reach up to grab the letter, tearing it off the thumbtack and staring at the words with wide eyes. There is no way in hell this letter is for anyone but me. I mean, come on: Eve, Adam. In Christian mythology, those are the names for the first woman and first man.

  “Whatcha got there?” the twins ask, appearing on either side of me and snatching the letter from my hand. They read it together, exchange a look, and then glance up at me in unison. “What is this?”

  “I just found it on the community board,” I whisper, glancing over at the hole-addled cork. There's an anonymous note from someone on floor two begging his neighbor to please do something about his snoring pinned next to a piece of paper with missed encounter: I saw you changing after track and we shared a brief brush of lips. call me, written on it.

  The twins exchange another look.

  “There are security cameras in here,” they both say, pointing up at the ceiling. My eyes go wide, and I turn my attention back to them.

  “Do you know how we could access it?” I ask, feeling a small burst of hope in my chest. If we can look at the cameras and find out who the guy in the hoodie was, we'll have our perp, and then I won't have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my time here.

  The twins look at each other, doing some weird sort of silent twin communication thing that I don't even remotely understand, before turning back to me.

  “We know the president of the AV club,” they say, shrugging their shoulders in time with one another. “We'll get you in.” I grin and throw my arms around their necks. They both seem surprised as hell, green eyes wide as I drop back to my feet.

  “Let's do this,” I say, feeling a huge spark of excitement. Whoever this creeper is, he clearly knows my secret, and if it's not one of the twins trying to prank me again, then I'm in big trouble.

  “That, and the last girl that went to Adamson ended up dead.”

  For the rest of the night, that thought echoes relentlessly in the back of my mind.

  What if Jenica really was murdered? And what if she was murdered for something as stupid as her gender?

  As much as I'd like to solve the mystery of her death, I'm not about to do it by laying my own life on the line.

  The president of the AV club is this nerdy dude that the twins grab by the arms and chuck unceremoniously into the hallway after forcing him to pull up the footage from the common area. I guess when they said they 'knew him', what they meant was that they aren't afraid to throw their weight around a little to get what they want.

  “Here it is,” they tell me, holding out their palms to indicate the computer screen. I'm not nor have I ever been a techie person, but the interface is user friendly, and everything's labelled pretty damn clearly. It's a matter of pushing play and then scrolling forward until I see a figure in a dark hoodie approach and stick the note to the corkboard.

  “Holy crap,” I murmur, trying to zoom in. But this isn't like some FBI office on a TV show; I can't just enhance the image and see it all crystal clear. It is what it is. “This doesn't tell me anything!” I fast forward a bit then rewind, and watch it all over again.

  The person putting the note on the board is wearing the same outfit as they were the night they came a
fter me: black hoodie, loose blue jeans, dirty brown boots. Average size, average weight. All I can say at this point is that after getting a closer look at the dickhead in question, it's pretty obvious that the twins aren't involved. They're way too tall to be the man in the security footage. Oh, and the guy isn't near short enough to be Ross.

  Damn.

  I was sort of hoping I could pin this all on the little weasel.

  “Well, shit.” I sit back in the chair with a sigh and rub at my face. We have our culinary club meeting in about half an hour, but frankly, it's sort of the last thing I feel like doing. Spencer's been acting ten times worse since the crotchless panties incident. “So there's some guy out there who knows my secret, who is either the worst sort of misogynist known to man, or just really doesn't like me in particular.”

  I put my head down on the desk and try to decide if I should tell Dad or not. Why bother? He'll think I'm making it up again, and it won't get me anymore. Actually, it might even get me further away from that plane ticket to California.

  “We really should tell her all about Jenica,” Tobias says, and Micah gives him this awful, awful sort of look when I glance up.

  “Why? What would knowing about Jenica do for me now?” I ask, lifting my head up, but Tobias sighs, and then both twins make a zipping motion across their big mouths.

  Fine.

  I don't even want to know.

  Pushing up from the desk, I feel frustration churning in my gut. Two weeks left, just two. And then I'm never coming back here again. So screw it. Guy with a knife can have his way; I don't even care.

  I storm out of the room and down the hall toward the kitchen where the rest of the Student Council is already gathered. The home ec teacher (learning how to cook and clean is like, novel and hilarious to these guys) Mr. Johansen is standing in the room chatting with them.