by Eden Beck
I practically see all three pairs of boys’ ears perk up at that. If Rafael was here, I could imagine the look on his face.
“A ball?” I say, my voice cracking a bit. I have to keep my face forward, avoiding looking at any of the three pairs of eyes that are practically boring holes in the back of my head. “No one mentioned that before.”
“It was only just decided,” one of the investigators says. She glances over at me for a second, and then quickly away. “It was the dean’s idea, though it would add a much-needed elegance to what some see as a barbaric event.”
“What’s the matter,” Beck’s voice cuts over, “worried you won’t be able to find a date?” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Heath flinch slightly as Beck makes a cocky gesture at himself. “Don’t worry, baby. I won’t let that happen.”
It’s my turn to whirl around to face him, my cheeks burning. “I can promise you that won’t be necessary,” I hiss back. “Now, are you going to focus or are we going to have a problem? I’m sure Dean Withers would rather not have to hear you were harassing me again.”
I see the moment Beck realizes exactly what I’m threatening, but even then his face just looks confused, not angry.
But it does shut him up, even though I know it won’t be for long.
The coach does his best to steer the conversation back to the first event we’ll be participating in, some other kind of puzzle challenge, while Beck settles back into the bleachers—his face seeming to fall a bit with each passing minute. By the time I’m gathering an armload of books I’m supposed to read over the weekend, all that’s on my mind is getting away from here as fast as I can, the moment I can.
I’m hardly out of sight of the gymnasium doors before the thunder of footsteps behind me come skidding to a halt as Beck finally catches up to my side.
I ignore him, trying to step around him and up to the stairs, but he makes sure to place himself squarely in my way.
“So, you’re really not speaking to any of us again?” He asks, ducking down a bit to either force me to look him in the face or turn away.
I’m not backing down, so instead, I just square my shoulders and give him the grimmest stare I can muster.
“Ah see, at least you’re looking at me now,” Beck says, rocking back and making a sarcastic gesture in my direction. He searches over my shoulder for some kind of camaraderie from either Jasper or Heath, but I see the moment he doesn’t get it.
When I glance over my own shoulder, I catch the tail end of a hurried shake of the head from Heath. Jasper meanwhile, looks away in shame.
Whether that shame is real or just another game, I don’t know.
Even if the color that rises in his cheeks seems real enough.
It has its intended effect, for once. Suddenly Beck’s tone has changed when I turn back to face him.
“Wait, seriously, Alex …” Beck’s voice drops a bit, and for a moment the manic brightness seems to dull in his eyes, “haven’t we played this enough? Can’t we all just move on?”
Here in the hall, him looking at me like that … it’s almost enough to make my resolve waver. It was bad enough earlier with Heath, but now Beck’s look as his footsteps waver and he starts to move out of the pathway, it’s enough to make my heart feel like it’s going to explode.
His eyebrows are furrowed as his eyes dart side to side, unseeing as he steps the rest of the way out of my path. I can see the emotions flickering across there as he realizes, for the first time it seems, that there may not be a way back together.
Or, at least, that’s the thought that keeps running through my head as I push my way past him and dart up the stairs faster than any one of them can follow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
There may not be a way back together after this.
It’s about time I let that settle in, because the more time that passes, the more I realize it may be true.
I expected practicing for these competitions to force a head to the conflict between myself, Jasper, Heath, and Beck. But for that to happen, there would have to be some fire left in them.
Just a spark.
But there isn’t.
At first I think it’s because of all the added eyes on our practice, but soon I realize that it isn’t just the watchful eye of Dean Withers, the coach, and the not one but two investigators that keeps even Heath from so much as looking me in the eye unless absolutely necessary.
Even between themselves there’s an unusual stiffness. I saw them when they interacted earlier this year, what it looks like when they’re actually fighting.
But this, this … thing, that they’re doing. It’s different.
Before, watching them was like watching a still river with a strong current underneath.
Now, it’s as if the entire river has run dry. There’s no current to hide. No banks to wear away at.
And it lasts for weeks.
I guess I finally found the breaking point for The Brotherhood, but somehow it doesn’t make things any better. It does, at least, give me a good enough excuse not to act on the newfound power I hold.
Or, at the very least, the power that Neville seems to think I hold—and continually cannot understand why I don’t jump to yield.
“All I’m saying is that if I had the ability to send The Brotherhood packing, they’d already be loading their suitcases up into cars,” Neville says one afternoon as he and Rafael loiter outside on one of the tables beside me.
Our homework is spread out all around us, a conglomerate of senior projects, exam notes, and history papers that are guaranteed to inspire mediocrity in anyone unfortunate enough to read them.
I keep my head down and mutter another non-committal sound as Rafael shoots me what’s become a very common look these days. It’s the “I don’t know if I even want to ask” look.
As usual, I let him know that he doesn’t want to ask by loudly turning several pages and trying to change the subject for what feels like the fifth time already today.
But this time, Neville won’t be so easily swayed. And here I was thinking I might be actually starting to like him.
Guess I was wrong.
“But hear me out,” he presses, one hand slapping down onto the table in an uncharacteristic show of emotion for him, “what could you possibly have to lose by getting those three thrown out?”
He looks between Rafael and I, neither of which even looks up from our reading to look at him.
Somehow, of course this just makes him even more tenacious.
“I mean, do they have some sort of hold over you? You do realize that they’re assholes through and through, right? Like … you’re not going to be able to fix them?”
His voice has gotten loud enough that a couple other tables look up from their studies to glance in our direction.
Neville just doesn’t know when to shut up does he?
If he’s been bullied by The Brotherhood, well … maybe he at least kind of deserved it. It’s this thought that makes me slam the book shut and get to my feet. Both Neville and Rafael look up at me in surprise as I stretch my neck to either side, relishing the way the sunshine has finally melted away the snow from the courtyard.
Has it really been that long?
As if reading my thoughts, Rafael slowly closes his own book in front of him. “Maybe we all need a break.”
“No,” I say, holding up a hand for a second. “I think it’s just me. You know what I haven’t done in a while?”
Rafael groans. “Don’t tell me …”
“That’s right,” I say, “I think I could use a run. But don’t worry,” I say, mock reassurance dripping from my voice as he tries to flick a pen in my direction, “I don’t expect you to follow me. Not with that fat ass of yours.”
“Look who’s talking,” Rafael just mutters, but he can’t hide his secret smile fast enough behind the book he’s still pretending to read. “Just make sure if you get attacked by wolves again that this time they eat that growing ego of yours.”
I just stick my tongue out at him as I hurry out of the courtyard in search of my running shoes before Neville can prompt me to properly start bullying him myself.
For what feels like the first time, when I round the first bend in the trail—much more out of breath than I was this time last year—Heath is not there waiting for me.
I find my footsteps faltering at the sight of the empty trail.
Of course, Heath wasn’t going to be here. I knew that.
Didn’t I?
A pang of something settles in my stomach, but I attempt to run it off by picking up the pace. It doesn’t work, likely because I simply don’t have the stamina I did last year … but I like to blame it on the spots of trodden ground I keep finding myself looking at more closely.
Guess it’s a good thing we aren’t doing another relay this year. I doubt I’d be of any use.
I don’t see any wolf tracks, but that doesn’t stop me from nearly tripping over my own feet three times when I think, just for a second, that I do. Can’t really blame me for that, after what happened last year. The dean might have promised the wolf problem has been dealt with, but I’ve seen how he handles other problems. Most recently, of course, that problem has been me.
And The Brotherhood.
By the time I get to the break tree, I’m so winded I don’t think I can even run the length back—let alone take another one of the trails that loop further into the forest from here. For a while last year, this tree was the place where Heath and I spent the better part of dozens of afternoons.
Right up until he kissed me. Right up until everything went horribly wrong.
I stop myself here again and consider banging my head against the rough bark of the old tree. I must be going inside, because only a crazy person would call what happened at the end of last year going “horribly wrong”.
Sure, I was found out … but that should be a good thing. I don’t have to pretend to be a boy anymore. There are no more secrets. No more lies.
Why then am I not able to get rid of the nagging feeling that somehow, this time last year, I was somehow … less miserable than I am now?
I lean my back against the trunk and let my head fall back against it, my chin tilted up to catch the dappled sunlight just making it through the trees. I’m preparing to allow myself to spiral into a proper pity-party when the silence is broken.
The first place the rustling sound brings my thoughts is straight back to wolves. But before my heart can lurch entirely up my throat, the noise is accompanied by something else.
Voices.
Female voices.
I freeze, unsure for a moment what to do. I’ve never actually run into anyone else on the trails, but I realize that might have actually been because of the wolves last year. I remember everyone making such a big deal out of the fact I was running out here in the first place.
Maybe now that the wolves have been dealt with, these trails are no longer as private as they once were.
I’m just deciding to sneak off back towards Bleakwood when a snippet of conversation carries over to me, making me pause.
“ … can you believe it? This whole thing has been a joke.”
I don’t know how I know they’re talking about the competition coming up, I just … know.
And of course, I decide to linger just a moment longer.
“But when hasn’t it? I never wanted to come here in the first place. You know it’s only a matter of time before both these places are just another one of those tacky has-been boarding schools everyone makes fun of.”
And maybe a moment longer. This is the first I’ve heard of the girl’s school being just as unhappy as they are here at Bleakwood.
From the sound of their approaching footsteps, there are just two of them. Their conversation is punctuated by heavy breaths, so I’m guessing they’ve walked all the way here from the girls’ school. I’ve never made the whole trek myself. I’ve never needed to.
Even when I needed to get ahold of Headmistress Robin, she always seemed to be here, instead of at her own school.
I edge a little closer around the tree, trying to catch further snippets of their conversation.
“At least we have the dance to look forward to,” the first girl says, after a moment of uncomfortable silence.
The second girl lets out a bit of a snort. “Sure, as if there are any good dates left to take. You heard about The Brotherhood, right?”
“How could I not? It’s no fun now that the three of them are off the table.”
My heart skips a beat, but this time for an entirely different reason.
Off the table? What have the girls been saying about Jasper, Heath, and Beck? I know they had something of a reputation last year, before the last dance the two schools dared to host, anyway.
Before all three of them kissed me. Before they made me believe we were something more, that there was something between us.
And then all three of them went ahead and ruined it right away.
The second girl has continued, and I find myself creeping to the edge of the path to hear her better … only to immediately regret it.
“I’m not so sure about that …”
Their footsteps come to a sudden halt and I have to duck back behind the underbrush here beside the trail to keep from being spotted. Even still, I can see the flash of them hovering just at the edge of my vision further up. I’ll have to leave soon to keep from running into them, but I find myself completely unable to make my feet move.
Not, at the very least, until I hear what the second girl means.
After a second, and once they seem sure that they are actually alone in the woods, the second girl continues.
“Yeah, I heard something happened to that girl.”
“You mean, Olive?”
The second voice lets out a meanspirited laugh. “As if anyone’s even spoken her name since she left.”
“Though from the sound of it, she may have made the right decision,” the first girl grumbles.
But the second girl isn’t finished. “But the other girl. The one who was pretending to be a boy or whatever.”
Now my heart truly starts to race.
“Well, I heard they had a falling out. So apparently …” she makes another gleeful noise, “apparently The Brotherhood is back on the table. And word is, they’re looking for dates. Actively.”
I lose my footing for a second and have to lay flat on the ground for a moment to keep the girl’s from spotting me through the underbrush. By the time their footsteps start up again, I have to duck into the trees and creep a ways off before tracing my way back to the path to be sure they don’t spot me.
The whole time, my mind is racing.
Those bastards.
I knew it had been a long time, longer than I expected them to leave me alone.
But I didn’t expect them to leave me alone quite like this.
I feel simultaneously sick to my stomach and overwhelmed with rage at the same time.
Actively looking for other dates to the dance? I scoff out loud, causing myself to have to stop and stick a finger into the stitch at my side. I’m really not in the shape I was last year.
But even if my body can’t run, my mind can still race ahead of me by leaps and bounds.
I thought that Jasper, Heath, and Beck were sorry, truly sorry. I thought maybe they’d started to change, that their quietness, the space they were giving me, that it was a good sign.
But it was the wrong sign.
They aren’t sorry. They’re just moving on.
Without me.
I don’t expect to see Rafael and Neville still at the table outside in the courtyard when I stumble, breathless, back out into it—but apparently, they don’t expect to see me the same way either. From the looks on their faces, I might as well be a ghost come to haunt them.
Rafael half gets up from his seat at the table. “Alex …” he starts, his eyes raking over me with concern. “Are you alright? Did somethi
ng happen?”
I wave his question away, instead flopping forward and planting both my hands squarely across the top of the table.
“I take back what I said before,” I say between gulps of air. I fix Neville with a stare so intense he almost falls backwards off his chair, then glance up at the doors leading back inside. “You were right, Neville. No more letting The Brotherhood run these halls. Let’s make sure that by the time we’re done with them, no one will even remember their names.”
Neville just gapes up at me, surprise freezing his face into a comical expression.
Rafael, meanwhile, looks over me a second time—this time with suspicious eyes.
“I don’t want to know what happened to you in those woods,” he says, “but I’m not about to complain. Whatever you want, Alex. I’m here. We’re all here. We’ll help you do whatever it takes.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
In this case, “whatever it takes” is going to be mostly sitting back, waiting, and watching for the perfect opportunity.
Fuck The Brotherhood.
They thought they could make a fool out of me. Again.
Well, not if I can help it this time.
I need to make sure that when I make my move, I don’t go and end up getting myself expelled in the process … or somehow convince the ever-present investigators to shut this whole school down because of it. If it were as simple as revealing The Brotherhood for all its gory glory, all I’d have to do is march over to the girl’s school and ask Headmistress Robin for her help.
Or any one of the dozens of investigators that seem to be passing through this place these days.
True to Dean Withers word, the closer the weekend of the competition grows, the busier the halls of Bleakwood grow. Soon it won’t be just students, teachers, and the seemingly-always-growing number of men and women carrying official-looking tablets and pinched looks on their faces. Soon it’ll be college scouts too.
