“For now? Is there a better time for you? You can pencil me in for next spring, how about that?”
He doesn’t answer.
I want to rage at him. I want to tell him we’re better than this. Stronger than this. That Grayson, and our assignments, and Margot’s stupid memory aren’t enough to shove us down.
But they are, because Caleb’s hands are tied. He needs Vale Hall more than I do, more than any of us do. If he doesn’t follow Dr. O’s directives, he gets kicked out of school. His dad loses his medical care. His mom can’t afford it on her cleaning job wages.
My future depends on this place, but Caleb’s family’s lives are counting on him.
If he’s lying to me, he doesn’t have a choice.
But if he’s lying to me, we can’t trust each other.
I lift my chin, unwilling to let him see me suffer.
“I have to get back,” I say. “Henry heard Moore say he’s doing room checks after curfew.”
Caleb’s head falls forward. He doesn’t try to stop me.
* * *
MY FEET FEEL like cinder blocks as I trudge through the attic and down the ladder into the storage room. I keep looking back, like he’s going to be there. I keep waiting to hear him call my name, to hear him say this was a mistake.
But he doesn’t follow me. He doesn’t confess anything.
And I don’t turn back, either.
I try to move faster, to escape the fist squeezing my lungs, but I can’t. He gave me his trust, but it came with strings attached. A disclaimer in the fine print I didn’t bother to read. He was mine, as long as it didn’t interfere with his job. He could only be honest to a point.
And the worst part is, I knew it the whole time. I never would have asked him to put me before his family.
As I open the storage room door, I run smack into someone and bite back a surprised yelp.
It’s Sam, but he rebounds off the door without looking at me and mumbles something I can’t make out as he disappears around the corner.
It hits me wrong, and so instead of going straight to my room at the end of the hall, I stop next door, at Charlotte’s.
Quietly, I knock twice, and before my knuckles strike the wood a third time, the door jerks inward.
She’s wearing a tank top and flannel pants, and her pale face is streaked with tears.
“Oh.” Her disappointment is obvious. As she turns away I slip inside her room, closing the door behind me.
“What’s going on?” I replay Sam’s hurried departure and grumbled words in my mind. They must have had a fight. Maybe she thought he was coming back when I knocked.
“Nothing,” she says. Then, “Life just sucks, you know? It’s like a giant vacuum cleaner in a black hole, inside a supernova black hole.”
She buries her face in her hands and starts to sob.
I’m not very good at the whole comforting thing, but seeing Charlotte in pain sucks worse than my own double black hole vacuum cleaner. In a few strides, I’m sitting beside her on the bed, one arm wrapped around her shoulders.
“What happened?”
“Oh, you know,” she says. “He loves me.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “I’m missing the part where this is a problem.”
“NYU doesn’t have a good law school,” Charlotte says on a hiccup. “Southern Cal has a great pre-law placement, but we can’t do this three thousand miles apart.”
I’m surprised it’s only college madness. With the kinds of lives we lead, it could be anything.
“People do long-distance relationships all the time.”
Of course, I can’t even manage one with a guy who lives in the same house, but whatever.
She shakes her head, which makes me think there’s more to this story. If they decide to break up, they still have almost an entire year together before they go their separate ways.
“Unless that’s not what you want,” I say.
Her bottom lip quivers as she looks to me. “I don’t know what I want.”
The part of my heart Caleb hasn’t crushed breaks for Sam.
“This might be harsh,” I tell her. “But if you aren’t all in, he deserves to know.”
She stares forward at the door, a blank expression taking over her face as her shoulders stop quaking. “I get a life, don’t I?”
“Of course.” I squeeze her shoulder. Now I’m feeling rotten for both of them. “If it helps, I think Caleb and I just broke up.”
Charlotte’s head snaps my direction, and she blows out a long breath.
“Your call or his?”
“His,” I say. “I don’t know. Maybe both.”
I am heavy enough to sink through this mattress and through the floor below. My eyes burn and I blink back the tears. If I cry it will be real. It will be over.
“This calls for chocolate.” She pulls out the giant bag of M&M’s from her nightstand and spills them on her comforter. I eat about fifty before I realized Charlotte hasn’t even had one.
I stay with her until we hear Moore’s steps outside, then I return to my room and lie awake, leafing through Caleb’s drawings of skyscrapers, hospitals, and me, sketched into his copy of A Tale of Two Cities. I bury the book along with his trust in the bottom of my nightstand drawer and then press the heels of my hands to my eyes until I can’t hear Charlotte crying through the wall anymore.
CHAPTER 15
The week stays in that supernova vacuum of suck.
We have tests in physics and precalc, as if some of us didn’t just finish studying our asses off for the SATs. Charlotte and Sam set up camps on opposite corners of every room—Charlotte throwing herself into party planning like some kind of manic birthday fairy, and Sam plucking at his guitar or staring forlornly into space. Caleb and I are pulled into sides—girls versus boys, just like on the grade-school playground. I tell myself this is because Charlotte needs me right now, and I’m sure Caleb is telling himself the same thing.
We both know it’s just a convenient excuse.
Focus on Grayson, he said. Like to do my job I can just turn off the way I feel about him.
Maybe he can, and that makes me feel even worse.
I go back to The Loft Thursday, but Myra isn’t scheduled, and when the campaign staff comes up for their afternoon meeting, I learn that Mark has called in sick. Ben and Emmett are consumed with raising the donations for their park event, which leaves me with nothing to do but apologize for Mr. Haruki’s lukewarm salmon pâté and clean up Ms. Dalton’s spilled gin and tonic.
Jimmy Balder is on hold until everyone is back on Monday, which is something I’m looking forward to about as much as running my knuckles over a cheese grater.
The rest of my time is spent with Grayson.
We play Road Racers. We pick the lock on the music room door and play drums like rock stars, and sneak desserts from Ms. Maddox’s stash after curfew. We even go running on the treadmills in the gym.
Which is less fun than running from the cops.
He sits by me at every meal and blocks out everyone else but Henry and Charlotte, whom he somehow deems nonthreatening. We practice our waltz, but only when Caleb’s rehearsing with Geri.
Grayson plays the cool guy in front of the others, but as soon as they’re gone, he asks me if I’ve heard anything new about his dad, or if Dr. O has a way to put him in jail yet, or what he’s supposed to say when he testifies against his father.
I tell him the truth: I don’t know.
Whenever I’m with him, I can feel Caleb watching me. But he doesn’t send me a single message, or ask me to meet him on the roof again, or run his fingertips over the small of my back as he passes. So I pretend it doesn’t matter. I pretend that our assignments really are the most important thing. I pretend to be the girl Grayson likes until it’s so natural, I forget the real me is still inside, ripped open and bleeding.
* * *
SATURDAY MORNING IS sunny and uncharacteristically warm for late September. After we finish brea
kfast, everyone is sent to clean their rooms in preparation for family visits. The residence has been a flurry of emotion all week—a crackling blend of excitement and wary anticipation.
We have to convince our families—those that are coming—that this is nothing but an elite boarding school. We can’t let anyone close to us become suspicious of what we’re really doing here.
For some, that’s the biggest con of all.
I know I should have called Mom to remind her about this weekend, but I didn’t want to pressure her—I know she’s happy for me, but hearing about this place and seeing it are two different things. She lives in a run-down house in the slums. This would make her feel weird.
I give my room a half-assed once-over, but pick my best jeans and a raven T-shirt. I may not have anyone here for me, but Caleb’s mom, Maiko, is coming, and even if Caleb and I haven’t really spoken since that night on the roof, I want to make a good impression. I do my makeup carefully, and even fix my hair.
It can’t hurt looking nice.
For Caleb’s mom.
Most of the other students are downstairs when I finally get the courage to come out of my room. Charlotte is wearing a dress with a black ribbon tied around the waist. Her red hair is in perfect spirals, and her makeup is impeccable. As I go sit beside her, she swears down at a chipped nail.
“You all right?” I ask.
“Don’t I look it?” She swears again. “Ten bucks says she tells me to get a manicure.”
I’m curious to meet Charlotte’s parents, if only so I can put faces to the terrible people that believed a rapist’s word over their own daughter’s. Charlotte tried to tell them what their friend had done when she’d been called over to “house-sit,” but they’d called her dramatic, and when she’d taken matters into her own hands and set his living room on fire, they’d given her over to the courts.
And eventually, to Dr. O.
“Why did you invite them?” I ask.
“Oh, I didn’t. Dr. O did. He thinks it’ll be therapeutic.”
I wince.
“Also, he needs them not to accuse him of holding me captive and throw a giant lawsuit his direction. It’s twice a year. Whatever.”
But her face is pale, and her brow is dotted with sweat.
“I’ll stay with you,” I say. Out of habit, I look for Sam, but he’s absent. Belk left early this morning to take him to the train station so he could take it Bennington Max, the women’s prison north of the city, to see his mom.
Charlotte squeezes my hand. “I love you too much to subject you to that.” Her eyes fix on something behind me. “Besides, you might be needed elsewhere.”
I look over my shoulder to find Henry bypassing the living area to head straight into the kitchen. His head is down, his back slumped. He’s wearing jeans that are baggier than normal and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a hockey logo on the front. His hair is combed straight back, and there’s even some yellow stubble on his jaw.
Charlotte and I both rise and make our way to the kitchen. Henry’s getting an apple out of the basket on the island, but stops as we approach.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey yourself,” says Charlotte.
My eyes narrow at the fierce ice-skating penguin on his shirt. “Since when do you like hockey?”
“Since when do you curl your hair?” He scowls, pulling at a wrinkle in the bottom of his shirt while I self-consciously run my hand over my coiled ends.
Behind me, Caleb enters the living room, his gaze only glancing over us as he moves to Paz and Joel. My hand drops from my hair, and I will myself not to think of his drawings in the book in my room, how he drew the long lines of my neck, and how curling my hair shows them off.
He’s not looking at me.
“Is this day over yet?” Charlotte asks. We all know what this is about. Henry’s mom and stepdad don’t know the Henry we do. They know this version, this toned-down creature who can’t even hold his back up straight.
I pity them.
“So I guess I’m not invited.” Grayson strides into the room, cutting in front of Charlotte to grab an orange for himself. She sighs and steps out of his way.
“Oh hey,” says Henry, lifting a little. “You’re not missing anything, don’t worry.” His cheeks go a little rosy, highlighting his golden stubble.
Grayson glances over at him, then narrows his eyes. “Wow. You look interesting.”
Henry sags again.
“Be nice,” I tell Grayson. I hadn’t thought of him this morning, but of course he wouldn’t be around for Family Day. No one’s supposed to know he’s here, and anyway, it’s not like anyone needs his dad showing.
“I’m missing the inevitable drama that comes when adults are forced to remember they’re parents.” Grayson grins at Charlotte. “I was looking forward to meeting yours. Don’t they own a fast-food chain?”
Charlotte’s eyes narrow, but I catch sight of her hand balling into the side of her dress and my teeth press together. I doubt she expected Grayson would still be around when she made up her little alias.
“A hotel chain,” she corrects. “Too bad you’ll be on room arrest. I’m sure they would have loved you.”
I’m not sure she’s lying about that part.
Grayson chuckles. “I’m supposed to get food for the afternoon before I go upstairs.” He nudges Henry with his elbow. “Want to make me a sandwich?”
“Sure,” says Henry a little too eagerly.
I’m not certain what’s happening here, but I don’t like it.
“Can’t you make your own sandwich?” I grab a plate off the counter and shove it in Grayson’s direction.
“I could, but it wouldn’t be as good.” He winks at Henry and passes him the plate.
Definitely not loving this, but I don’t say anything, because Geri’s just strutted into the room, wearing a short pink dress and a string of pearls around her neck. It’s not that her outfit’s particularly unusual, but the way Caleb stops his conversation with Joel and Paz to go talk to her is.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but he leans closer to speak in her ear, and when she smiles a pure, unscheming, uncalculating smile, flames sear across my skin.
“That guy’s got it bad for her,” says Grayson, following my line of sight. “Hope he knows what he’s doing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Curious is what I’m going for, but the words come out far too harsh.
Grayson doesn’t appear to notice. “She’s like those praying mantises that eat their mates’ heads after sex. Only hot.”
“That’s disgusting,” says Charlotte.
“She’s not that hot,” says Henry.
I suppress a groan. “How’d you escape alive?” Geri made it sound like he used her, not the other way around. If he actually did like her, Geri would have exploited that to get what she needed.
I never would have been brought in to take her place.
There’s more to this story; I can see it in Grayson’s bitter stare. Whatever actually happened, she hurt him, and that’s something not many people can do.
“Emergency eject button,” he says. “Don’t worry. You’re better than her anyway.”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say thanks or laugh. But as Grayson’s blue eyes find mine, I realize he doesn’t just think I’m better than Geri, he thinks I’m better for him.
He smiles, and it’s small, but unguarded, an echo of what Geri just gave Caleb. It’s exactly what I’ve been aiming for this entire week—his comfort, his trust.
Which means now is when I should try to find out anything else he might know about Susan, or his father, or Jimmy Balder.
But I don’t ask, because we’re not alone. And because even though he’s a spoiled brat, driven by competition, he’s becoming a real friend, and when he finds out I’m lying again, it will destroy him.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, the families begin to arrive. Joel’s foster parents arrive first, bearing choc
olate chip cookies for all the students. Paz sticks by his side the whole time, and when they hold hands, his foster mom hugs her.
Geri’s dad comes next, pulling into the drive in a BMW. He’s got her dark hair, but lacks the face of Satan I was expecting. Instead of being smooth and small like her, he’s huge. Her waist is as big as one of his biceps, and when she hangs on his arm while they walk, she looks like a little kid.
There’s something familiar about him I can’t quite place. Maybe he’s an actor or something.
If he was, I’m sure Geri would have mentioned it.
Charlotte’s parents come next, and they spend an extra five minutes outside by the fountain arguing before they even reach the front steps. After that, Belk shows up in the SUV, and out of the back pour seven more adults—those who met him at the train station.
Mom is not included.
Soon, the house is alive with conversation and laughter. A few more cars arrive bearing parents and kids. People go upstairs to show off the bedrooms, or down to the pit. They head outside to the pool area or walk to the gardens. Ms. Maddox has made a feast of fancy finger foods and little desserts, and Dr. O, dressed down in a collared shirt and dark jeans, positions himself in the living room, where he can visit with everyone.
When Charlotte’s parents finally make it inside, she greets them with an awkward hug and brings them into the kitchen for snacks. Her father wears the kind of glasses that sit on the tip of his pointy nose, which makes him lift his chin as he peers around the room.
“Where’s the boy you were hanging all over last time?” asks her mother, waving off a dessert while she pats the updo of red hair she shares with her daughter.
“He’s at the jail, I told you,” Charlotte says.
“Well, it was just a matter of time, I suppose.”
Maybe this fanfare is all necessary for our continued survival as a program, but right now I hate Dr. O for making Charlotte go through this.
I go in for the rescue, or maybe to pick a fight. Her mother acknowledges me with a superficial smile, aided in part by Botox, but before I reach her, I’m stopped by a Japanese boy half my size dodging around a crowd of people to skid to a stop in front of me.
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