The Secret Girl

by Stunich, C. M.

  “Did you do what I asked? Did you compare my kiss to hers?”

  The twins both pause to look at me. Hell, even Church glances my way. Ranger just turns away, dressed in a frilly white and blue gingham apron that makes him look like Dorothy from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

  “She was cheating with Cody.” And that's the truth right there. They both cheated on me in a way. And I did friend-breakup with Monica, so technically I'm not lying. “Anything else that happened was irrelevant.”

  Spencer slams his palms on the counter and makes me jump, smirking at me like a wolf that's just scented prey.

  “Bullshit. If you didn't like the way I kissed, you'd tell me. You're a too honest for his own good sort of dickhead, Chuck Carson.” He comes around the counter, handsome as all hell in his blue blazer, champagne colored tie, and slacks. But also … a little bit scary.

  Scary because I want him to touch me so bad that I know if he does, I'm in trouble. He'll touch me, and I'll forget to keep my secret, and he'll keep touching me until he finds out.

  I back away and use the island as leverage while Church watches on in bemusement, and the twins share a pair of matching frowns.

  “Leave me alone, Spencer,” I warn, but he must sense something in my demeanor because he hops the island and grabs me around the waist, yanking my back to his front.

  Spencer pulls me close, putting his mouth up against my ear. “I never knew I liked boys before—until I met you.”

  I shiver in his arms. If he only knew … I imagine if he ever does find out, he'll be pissed. Now that my plan of sinking into the shadows and hiding until my trip to California has gone down in miraculous, angry flames, what am I supposed to do? I could barely hide my secret from the twins for a handful of months. And now I have to survive the rest of this year and all of next?

  “Let go of me, Spencer,” I growl, because even if he does believe I'm a guy, he has no more right to touch me without permission than if I were a girl. Somehow, I imagine he'd treat this situation a lot more differently if he knew the truth. Then again, he is a rich, entitled asshole, so I'm not entirely sure about that. But fuck, he smells good, like cedar and hyssop.

  “Why? So you can keep running away? Let's talk about this.” I go to elbow him in the stomach, and he catches my arm. “You're really starting to piss me off.” My voice and body are shaking now. I like him touching me. Too much. But I also don't like being grabbed and held against my will.

  Spencer thrusts me forward, and I stumble a bit, turning around to find him watching me with a mix of frustration and want. He shoves his fingers through his silver hair, revealing the dark roots as he turns away with a scowl.

  An awkward sort of tension settles over us as I swipe my palms down the front of my jacket, and head back to my stool. Nobody says a word until Ranger turns and gives me a dark, evil sort of glare. Ugh, those silent brooding types are so annoying.

  “If you leave the souffle in the oven too long, it'll collapse. Don't fuck this up, Carson.” He hands me a whisk and a mixing bowl, and I spend the rest of the afternoon ruining not one, not two, but three souffles, until the Student Council finally kicks me out of the room … but not before pulling back my shirt and cracking a raw egg on my neck.

  “If you think that'll get me to like you, you've got another thing coming!” I shout as Spencer takes off down the hall with his hands tucked into his pockets. He turns around and grins, still walking backward.

  “I'm not trying to get you to like me, Carson. I'm just trying to get you to suck my dick.” He shrugs again, and spins away while I stand there with my face burning.

  “You'd only be so lucky,” Ross simpers, sneering at me as he elbows me aside and disappears down the hallway after his master. I bet if Spencer asked him, he'd drop to his knees in a heartbeat.

  “Gross.”

  I head back to the dorm with the twins as escorts, and settle into my room with a sigh. For months, I resisted putting any sort of personal touch on this place because I just assumed I'd be moving back to the West Coast. Now though … I've got five and a half months until graduation, and then an entire new year to survive.

  Better get used to the place.

  As I unpack some of my trinkets, I pull out a crystal suncatcher that my mom gave me, fingering the purple and blue jewels with a smile. Apparently, the amethyst and angelite stones help with anxiety, depression, and sadness. Giving it to me for my sixteenth birthday was a sweet gesture—I got nothing for my seventeenth from her—but it just goes to show how little she knows me. I don't struggle so much with anxiety or depression, those are her issues. Me, I have problems with self-worth, self-love, and fitting in.

  Still, I stand up and go to hang the suncatcher in the window (despite the fact that there's definitely no sun, bleh) when the fishing line that holds it all together catches on the button of my blazer. One of the tiny crystals on the bottom snaps off and goes bouncing across the old wood floors before falling into a crack.

  “Shit.”

  I put the rest of the suncatcher safely aside on my bed, and get down on my hands and knees to see if I can't somehow dig it out. But it's way down there, beneath these huge old wood planks that are warped and distorted with age. Giant square-topped iron nails give away the age of the place, and it's quite clear it's been a while since it was sanded or polished.

  Biting my lip in thought, I get up and dig around in my stuff until I find a big, metal nail file. This I wedge into the crack and jiggle around, and sure enough, it seems the floorboard's a tad loose. I pick and pry at it, but the nail file breaks long before the board ever comes up. It might be loose, but it's not about to magically pop off and reveal a secret, hidden chamber.

  Sitting back on my heels, I try to tell myself it's just one crystal of many, and that it's no big deal. Only … it kind of is to me because my mom gave that suncatcher to me as a gift, and now … she's in rehab and too ashamed of what her life's become to even let me see her.

  “I'm getting that damn crystal back,” I grumble, heading downstairs to the janitor's closet. It's supposed to be locked, but there's been a day or two here and there where Eddie the Janitor’s left the giant bolt hanging loose. I pray today's one of those days and give a huge fist pump like a total dork when I see it's open.

  As I pass by the community corkboard however, another note catches my attention, and I'm suddenly reminded that there's not only an asshole on this campus who's willing to use a knife to intimidate me, but also knows my real gender.

  I snatch the piece of paper from the tack and read it carefully.

  Dear Eve,

  You should have stayed in California.

  Keep your head down and stay quiet.

  I don't like nosy bitches.

  Love, Adam

  Chills shoot through my body as I clutch the piece of paper with its menacing words scrawled in purple ink. Whoever this 'Adam' guy is, his note has severely escalated its aggression.

  “Jesus,” I groan, pulling the note against my chest. I go to the janitor's closet anyway, and dig out a crowbar and a hammer. Best case scenario, I get the floorboard up. Worst case scenario … I can use both items as a weapon.

  I hurry back up to my room as fast as I can, and I promise myself that the feeling of eyes following me is just my imagination.

  The next morning, I'm bleary-eyed and exhausted, but I've got the satisfaction of knowing I have my crystal back. The floorboard did not come up nice and clean and easy. Instead, it splintered in parts, and even though I've jammed it back in place, it doesn't look so hot. Underneath the boards there was just the rough wood of a subfloor, some pennies, and lots of dust bunnies.

  Nothing cool or mysterious to be seen.

  When I tell the twins about the note, they exchange a look and tell me to meet them after school.

  During Mr. Murphy's English class, I try to distract myself by checking him out, but every time I think about something that's nice about him—like his tight, firm butt or his full m
outh—it seems so much less enticing when compared to Spencer. Or the twins.

  I can't seem to get the bullying dickheads from the Student Council out of my mind.

  After school lets out, the twins surprise me by showing up with a picnic, and then escorting me down to the girls' dorm. I've missed coming here, but only an idiot would traipse through the woods alone in the dark to hang out in an abandoned building with a maniac on the loose.

  “Do you think I should tell my dad about the notes?” I ask as they unlock the door and let us in. It feels almost wrong not to go in my usual way. “Where did you get those keys anyway?”

  “Which question would you have us answer first?” they say, stepping back and holding their hands out to gesture me inside.

  I slip past them and settle down on the couch, noticing that the class photo of Jenica that I left on the table last time I was here is gone.

  “What the hell …?” I murmur, checking around on the floor, and even underneath the sofa. It's not back on the nail either. It's just … vanished. “Jenica's picture is missing.”

  The twins exchange a look and then glance back at me.

  “You didn't take it?” they ask, and I shake my head. It seemed wrong to remove it from this place, like clearly this girls' dorm was started for her, the first female student at Adamson. The photo belonged here.

  “No. At least I still have a picture on my phone though …” I glance over at them with narrowed eyes. “My Samsung. Thankfully I've got everything set to auto-upload to the cloud. You could've cost me some irreplaceable memories, you know that?”

  “We have to save face,” the boys reply, shrugging together before they each take up one of the big, comfy (but rather dusty) armchairs that sit across from one another.

  “Nobody at the academy likes you, Chuck,” Micah says, smirking at me as he crosses his legs at the knee. I notice that when they're not trying to fool everyone into thinking they're just two halves of the same whole, he sits with crossed legs while his brother keeps both feet flat on the floor. “You were a weird, introverted jerk who shunned any offers of friendship or good will. You refused to help Church fix a mistake that you made, and now your fate is sealed. You're the resident pariah. Just be glad that we, as the compassionate, good-hearted Student Council, have decided to take your punishment on ourselves.”

  “So you're saying if you guys didn't pick on me, somebody else would? Pretty cheap excuse if I say so myself.” I flop back down on the sofa and rub my hands over my face. We didn't come here to discuss me. Quite frankly, that's the last thing in the world I'd like to discuss. I'd actually prefer discussing the threatening note, the guy with the knife, or the missing photo. How messed up is that? “So who took the picture?”

  “Could've been Ranger,” Tobias muses, looking up at the beautiful detail on the ceiling tiles. I think they're tin. “Then again, he's known the picture was here for years and didn't touch it.”

  “Maybe the creeper who's been leaving me these notes then?” I watch as Tobias reaches down and unbuttons his blazer with a slow flick of his fingers, his green eyes focused on me as he takes it off with an agonizing precision meant to rile up all my girly bits. Dick-weed, I think as I swallow hard and try to focus on what he's now pulling out of the picnic basket instead. He hands me a beer, and I take it.

  “There are no cameras that work in here, not anymore.” Micah points at the corner where the quiet, black eye of a security camera gazes down at us. “There used to be, but there's no electricity to this building now.”

  “So … does everyone know this was going to be a girls' dorm?” I ask, and Micah raises his brows. “I'm taking it that's a no then?”

  “We were told they wanted to expand the school. Nobody ever said anything about a girls' dorm.” Micah frowns and leans forward to accept a beer from his brother. “Who told you that?”

  “My dad,” I reply with a shrug. “Why?”

  “Most people don't know anything about Jenica. Even we didn't know this was supposed to be the girls' dorm.” Micah leans back in his chair and twists the top off his beer, swigging a good portion of it before he sets it on his thigh and spins it in a slow circle.

  “Are you guys going to stop being cryptic and tell me about Jenica? Why does Ranger think she was murdered when everyone else believes she committed suicide?” I twist my own top off and take a sip of beer. It's got an almost … cinnamon like aftertaste. Better than most beer, actually. I'm pleasantly surprised.

  The twins exchange a look, and Tobias sighs, reaching up to run his fingers through his sandy-orange hair. He purses his lips and gives me a long, lingering look.

  “As soon as I figured it out, I was worried about you.” Tobias stands up and moves over to the opposite end of the couch from me, taking a sip of his beer. “The only girl to ever attend Adamson, and she was killed.”

  “But why does everything think it was suicide?” I repeat, starting to get frustrated. The twins exchange another look, and then Micah scoffs, like he's irritated with his brother.

  “She was found hanging from a noose in the woods outside the school, barefoot and wearing her nightgown.” Micah throws his hand out to indicate the back side of the dormitory. “This building was just getting ready to officially open when she died. They gave her the first room, the one on the top floor, so she could have some privacy. Jenica moved her stuff in, what, the night before she died?”

  “Two nights before,” Tobias corrects, finishing his beer and getting out another. “Of course, this is all hearsay and rumor. Ranger was eight years old back then. None of us know shit about what actually happened here.” He sighs again, and Micah rolls his eyes.

  “But we do know that before she died, she was mixed up in a bunch of stuff. There was a journal … well, there are pages missing from it, but from what we’ve seen, Jenica wrote about some pretty fucked-up shit.”

  “Ranger has the journal?”

  “Yep. Pretty sure he’s read it a hundred times already. He’s let us see a few pages here and there, but I think he wants to protect what’s left of his sister’s memory.” Tobias stares straight ahead, at the little red wax drops on the coffee table. “Can’t blame him, I’d do the same.” His voice drifts strangely, and I swear, the tension in Micah rachets up a hundredfold. Once again, there’s something going on between them that I don’t understand. I decide to leave it be. The twins are big mouths: if they wanted to tell me, they would.

  “She did stumble on Spencer’s brother selling drugs in the woods,” Micah adds, “we know that. For a while, Ranger wondered if he or one of his cronies might’ve killed her.”

  “Drugs?” I ask, raising a skeptical brow. “Like the weed Spencer sells?”

  Tobias lifts his head up to glance over at me.

  “No, not at all. I mean like hardcore shit. Hardcore. Spencer’s a great guy, but his brother’s a twat. He’d be in prison already if their family didn’t keep paying off the police.” He shrugs his shoulders, takes another sip of his beer, and then looks away, toward the wall of boarded windows. “No point in telling him that though. He loves the guy too much to see his true faults.”

  “Are you trying to infer something here?” Micah snaps, getting edgy and irritated again. “Because if you are, then just come out and fucking say it. I’m tired of dancing around the Amber issue.” Uh-oh. My eyes widen and I focus straight ahead, drinking from the brown bottle in my hand, and pretending like I’m not supremely interested in the direction this conversation is going.

  “Did I mention Amber?” Tobias growls, turning to glare at his brother. “No. You’re reading into shit that isn’t there. Stop projecting all over me.”

  Micah scoffs and stands up, staring down at his brother with narrowed eyes.

  “You’re never going to let it go, are you? How many times can I apologize before you stop doing shit like throwing pretty girls in her room just to mess with me?”

  Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The room I stayed in was Amber’s? Why did sh
e have a room at the twins’ house in the first place? And … did Micah just say ‘pretty girl’ in reference to me? Tobias ignores him, sending Micah into a total fit. He throws his beer bottle against the wall and storms out, slamming the door behind him so hard that dust settles down from the ceiling.

  “If I ask about Amber …” I start as Tobias turns back my way.

  “You’re not going to get answers, sorry.” He tries to smile, but the expression doesn’t meet his eyes. Reminds me of Church. Tobias sighs, and we sit in silence for a while. I can’t stop wondering who might’ve taken Jenica’s picture, and if it isn’t the same person who’s been leaving me all the notes. Don’t forget: how did they find out your secret in the first place? Probably by creeping around in the bushes outside Dad’s house, that’s what. I shiver just thinking about it.

  “Anything else about Jenica I should know?” I ask, and Tobias finally glances back at me before standing up.

  “Other than the fact that the police don’t care, the administration doesn’t care, and even her own mother turned her back on her? Yeah, not much else. It’s just one, big fucked-up mystery.” He takes another drink of his beer, tosses the bottle into the picnic basket, and reaches down for my hand. When I take it, a little thrill zings through me and Tobias yanks me close.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as my cheeks heat and he puts his hands on either side of my waist. My heart pounds frantically as I lay my palms on his chest. He’s staring down at me with dark green eyes, shadows dancing behind them that hint at a million hidden emotions. “We’re supposed to be worrying about Jenica here.”

  “I’m only worrying about Jenica because her situation is concerning to you.” Tobias pauses and tilts his head slightly to one side, a faint smile working its way onto his lips. This time, it really does meet his eyes. “You know, ever since my brother kissed you, I’ve been dying of curiosity.”