by M. F. Lorson
It didn’t seem to matter what I said though because he never wrote back. Not one angry letter to call me a jerk. No begging me to reconsider. Nothing. Maybe he thought the same thing. Maybe I was just someone to have fun with over the long, dull summer. It felt real, but what did we know about real? We were barely fifteen.
Chapter One
It was my third year at Shelfbrooke Academy, and after the long winter break, moving back into the dorms felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I loved my father and my younger sister but sharing a space with them, no thanks. This fall when Mary got her rejection letter from Shelfbrooke, I had actually been a little relieved. The last thing I needed was her following me around at school the way she did back in Chicago. Besides, Rachel wouldn’t stand for it, and what Rachel said pretty much went around here. Not that I took issue with that. Rachel may have had an influence over me, but she never forced me to do anything I didn’t want to. She was my rock and had been since day one. The fact of the matter was, somewhere along the way, Shelfbrooke had become more of my home than my actual home.
It didn’t matter if it was summer break, winter break or a long weekend at home. Rachel always beat me back to Stratford Hall. Sometimes it felt like she came with the room. Today she sat at her desk, barely lifting her head in my direction as I entered the room. I rolled my unwieldy suitcase piled up to the extended handle with extra bags and my favorite pillow across the familiar threshold. I’d picked up a few things since sophomore year. Like the fact that Shelfbrooke-issued bedding sucked and bringing your own pillow was a must.
“Ms. Bennet,” drawled Rachel continuing to scroll down her computer screen. “Pleasure to see you again.” I shoved my bag into the corner. Unpacking could wait; the flight from Chicago had me ready to enter a coma willfully. Vaulting up like a gymnast, I sprawled on top of Rachel’s bed. Unlike my barren mattress, it was already outfitted with her extra fluffy purple comforter and matching pillow set.
“I see you have wasted no time catching up on school drama,” I said, peering across the room at the black and silver Knight Watch logo in the right-hand corner of her screen.
Rachel grinned, “As if you didn’t log in on the ride over.”
I shrugged. Of course, I had! Monitoring the school's student-run social media site was a basic requirement for functioning in Shelfbrooke society. Without it, how would you know who was dating who, and furthermore, who was ticked off about it?
“I saw that girls rugby is a thing now,” I said, “And that Owen Duke is hooking up with the girl next door?” Owen Duke’s family was loaded, just like Rachel’s. You would think that would make them friends, but Rachel was picky. She liked her boy friends single, and Duke was perpetually in a serious relationship.
“I find myself more surprised by the rugby bit,” laughed Rachel.
“Speaking of extracurricular activities,” said Rachel, closing her browser and spinning around to face me. “I signed you up for the Admiral’s Circle.” I frowned, Admiral’s Circle was when upperclassman gave campus tours to newbies and hosted break-the-ice games to help them get used to campus life. It wasn’t mandatory. When I was a transfer student, I’d skipped it entirely. Come to think of it. I had skipped it because Rachel said only total nerds volunteered for that.
“Um, pass. Hard pass.” I said.
Rachel leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Anne Bennet, you are halfway through your senior year and what volunteer experience do you have?”
I cocked one eyebrow, “Plenty. You’ll recall last year when I scooped poop at the animal shelter?”
Rachel grimaced, “I try my best not to recall. This room has never smelled worse than when you were altruistic.”
I laughed, “Yeah well, that was meant to be my last venture. Besides, since when are you concerned about my volunteer activities?”
Rachel looked sheepish, “Since my father required me to get some if I want to take that trip to Europe this summer.”
I let out a deep sigh, pushing myself up onto my elbows. “That makes a lot more sense. Why Admiral’s Circle though? I distinctly remember you telling me that was for nerds.”
Rachel smiled, “I’m so pleased to see you listen when I talk. Yes,” she admitted. “In the past, I would consider this an exceptionally awful way to spend a few afternoons, but it won’t be that bad because…”
“Because of what?” I asked, knowing Rachel was about to convince me no matter what her response was.
“Because we get to do it together,” she said, batting her eyelashes dramatically.
I probably should have argued, possibly even used the situation for leverage. I could have, for example, demanded first shower rights, there was always a line to shower in the mornings, or an extra meal credit in the dining hall. But there was no use. When Rachel got an idea, there was no talking her out of it. Besides, she was right. If we were together, it was going to end up being fun. Everything I’d ever done with Rachel had been a good time.
“Fiiine,” I groaned, lowering myself back onto the soft downy pillow. “I will join your stupid club.”
“I’m glad,” said Rachel jumping to her feet. “Because it starts in ten minutes.”
After the world's shortest shower and record-breaking makeup application, the two of us piled down the staircase connecting the dormitories to the common room. The room was packed this morning with students arriving last minute. They trudged past us, their wheeled luggage rumbling across the hardwood floor, catching on the oversized rugs along the way.
Ms. Bingley stood near the fireplace, her clipboard hugged tight to her chest.
“At least it’s not Mr. Croft,” whispered Rachel as we approached the small circle of students surrounding our instructor. If you had never seen Ms. Bingley escaping for a weekend, you might think she was a boring little cat lady. She acted the part, what with her oversized glasses and enamel pin collection. We had seen her, however, in the town outside of school property, getting awfully cozy with a senior member of the faculty. Ever since, I’d been convinced that each and every one of our teachers had a secret life. Ms. Bingley tapped her clipboard with a pencil.
“That’s everyone,” she said scanning the circle once more to be certain. “No Mr. Brooke but that’s not all that sur—” Will Brooke chose that exact moment to push open the door of the common room. His hair was sticking up in the back like he’d just rolled out of bed. Because most likely he had. Will may have belonged to one of the founding families of Shelfbrooke, but that didn’t mean he took the place seriously. There wasn’t a single other student I could think of that arrived to class late more often than Will. You could actually kind of see Ms. Bingley sink into a pit of despair realizing she would have to deal with him for the better part of a week. I could relate.
I always tried to act like Will didn’t bother me. But the sound of his name did terrible things to the pit of my stomach. He was the boy after Christopher. The one Rachel introduced me to back when she thought being friends with a Brooke would catapult her to popularity. I wish we had known then what we did now. That it was easier to be liked by being nice than it was by attaching yourself to a bunch of rich snobs. Will didn’t bother apologizing for being late. Instead, he hopped in line beside me. His shoulder grazed mine, and he winked at me as if I should have counted my lucky stars for the contact. Amazing how you could totally despise someone, and they still managed to like themselves too much to notice. Rachel leaned back and rolled her eyes at me.
“The purpose of today,” began Ms. Bingley, “is to prepare you for tomorrow's activities. How many of you remember what it was like to be new here?” The students remained quiet. We were here to pad college applications or make our parents happy, not because we genuinely wanted to lead tours and play corny get-to-know-you games. Still, I felt bad for Ms. Bingley. It wasn’t her fault we were all exhausted from staying up all night catching up. I raised my hand and watched as a few others slowly raised th
eirs beside me.
“Good. So you can relate. Some of these kids will have gone to private school their whole lives. Shelfbrooke will just be a new building. Others will be attending for the first time. We want to make both feel welcome.” Beside me, Will snickered. With a name like his, he didn’t need to volunteer to get into college. His parents would probably just pay off the admissions team the way they paid off Shelfbrooke every time he screwed up. When I did something insubordinate, I got detention. When Will did something insubordinate, Shelfbrooke got a new building.
“What are you even here for?” I asked as we followed Ms. Bingley across the grounds to Kellylynch Hall.
“Helping out my fellow student, Anne. Same as you,” replied Will. His tone was serious, but I knew better.
“Doubt it,” I mumbled.
Will rubbed his hands together, an attempt to stave off the biting cold of a January morning in New England. “If you must know, I have a particular interest in one of the newbies,” said Will. Big shocker, I thought. Preying on the new girls was sort of his thing. On the outside, Will was very appealing. Handsome, loaded, seemingly charming. But he was also entitled, chauvinistic, and a big fat jerk. Those things were easier to keep under wraps on a first date. By the third, however, his true colors began to show. Or at least they had with me.
Rachel weaved her arm through mine pulling me away from Will. “Don’t let him ruin this. Today we are good, giving people. I can feel the altruism flowing through my veins.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t that you whining last night about your last two school-free days being stolen away from you?”
“I believe I referred to it as ‘commandeered by unwanted responsibility.’”
“Yeah, that,” I said, nudging her in the side.
“Well, things have changed.”
“How so?” I asked, deadly curious.
“A little birdie told me there is new blood on the lacrosse team,”
“Ha! I should have known.” Rachel had an infamous weakness for boys in jerseys. In the time I’d known her, she’d had four significant boyfriends, and each of them wore a varsity letter.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” interrupted Will. “We had our first meet and greet yesterday, and you are looking at one mediocre midfielder and a scholarship kid with alleged talent. You’d be better off picking from the current Knights. We’ve all been vetted, after all,” he said waggling his eyebrows in my direction. I fought off the urge to scoop up a ball of snow, pack it between my palms until it was hard as stone, and land it right between his eyes.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Rachel with a sweet smile. She was far better at putting up with Will than I was. Then again, she’d never been stupid enough to date him.
We filled a classroom on the second floor of Kellylynch Hall and waited for Ms. Bingley to instruct us. Her student aide handed us each a black folder with the academy emblem embossed on the front.
“In front of each of you is the Shelfbrooke socials calendar. Tomorrow I will pair you off with a new student. Your first job will be to show them how the calendar works. Show them the importance of joining clubs. Urge them to attend the first day social. Whatever activities you participated in to meet the friends you have now, are likely to be the same ones that will help them find their place.” I looked down at my social calendar, cringing at the little ice cream sundae icon covering Monday evening. The beginning of the term ice cream social always took place in the library. I hadn’t attended since my first year when I accepted Will’s invitation to be his date and spent the whole thing dodging his attempts to grope me between the stacks. After a summer of perfect kissing with Christopher, making out with Will felt like having my mouth pried open by a slug.
Rachel pointed to the club sign-ups. “Aren’t you glad we don’t have to do this anymore?” I laughed; glad was an understatement. Last year we’d signed up for everything even remotely appealing on a college application. This year we hadn’t darkened the doors of a single club meeting. It was nice having no obligations after class. I’d managed to binge watch all of Supernatural, and Rachel was two-thirds of the way through her goal to read all twenty-five of the classics on her Great American Reads list.
“And after the calendar?” I asked, already growing bored with the training.
“After the calendar, we will take a walking tour of the campus, enjoy lunch together in the dining hall, and end with a Q and A session on student life.”
“Riveting,” grumbled Will.
“You’re just disappointed that you can’t hit on the new girl,” laughed Rachel. “Rest easy. She’s trapped in the same dorm as you all year.”
Will gave her a funny look but kept his mouth shut as Ms. Bingley continued explaining the details of tomorrow's orientation. By the time we had all been thoroughly lectured on how to be a good example of Shelfbrooke’s ideal student body, my stomach was rumbling like a Garth Brooks song.
Unfortunately, all of lunch was spent listening to Will ramble about lacrosse and the complete and utter injustice of having to take on new players.
“So a couple of guys got bad grades,” he whined. “Big deal, it’s not like colleges call you back after senior year and make you prove you kept your grade point average. The whole academic probation policy should be not applicable once you hit senior year.”
I nodded in agreement, my mouth glued shut by a spoonful of mashed potatoes. In truth, I couldn’t care less about what happened to his team, not that I dared to say so. Then he’d really never shut up. Rachel, on the other hand, listened intently. I’m sure he thought she was interested in what he had to say, but I knew better. Rachel was interested in one thing, the new guys. Specifically, what year they were and whether or not they had a girlfriend back home. She was actually killer at manipulation.
By the time we made our way back across campus and up to our dorm room, Rachel knew that the scholarship kid had brought his kid sister along, was a pain in Will’s butt, and didn’t have a girlfriend. The other he didn’t know much about. My guess was that he wasn’t direct competition. Will didn’t waste his time worrying about anyone he considered of no consequence.
After an exhausting afternoon, all I really wanted to do was bury my head in my pillow and let sleep have its way with me. I was seconds away from achieving that goal when Rachel let out a loud gasp.
“Oh snap!” she cried. “This you have to see.” I drug myself off the bed and meandered across the room where I could get a closer look.
At the top of the Knight Watch news feed, front and center was a two-paragraph rant from Will. “Will isn’t exactly playing nice with his new teammate,” remarked Rachel, eyes big with wonder. I skimmed the post. This sort of thing from Will wasn’t unexpected. So he was upset that he had to share the captain duties with a scholarship kid. Since when was that exciting?
“That’s hardly revelatory news,” I said, reaching up to cover my yawn.
“Not that!” shooed Rachel, shaking her head. “Below his post.” Rachel scrolled further down the page.
“There,” she said, pointing to a reply posted just moments ago. “The new guy wrote back. Pretty bold for day one,” she said, her cursor hovering over the little circle where the poster's picture sat. My breath caught in my throat. It had been three years, but you didn’t forget eyes like that.
Chapter Two
Somewhere on campus Christopher Wentworth was breathing the same air as me. Did he know it? Would he remember the name of the school the girl he kinda sorta dated three years ago went to? I should have felt sick. This guy who had kissed me a hundred times or more didn’t care enough about me to even write a letter. But hurt and anger weren’t what I was feeling.
Instead, everything inside of me was sparking to life. Three years felt like three seconds. The stale air of our dorm room was suddenly tinged with salt as I remembered countless afternoons standing on the wharf, waiting for Christopher. Doing my best not to draw Rachel’s attention, I slid open my
sock drawer and pushed away its contents. There sat the now faded strip of photos. I’d given up on ever hearing from him, but that didn’t mean I had forgotten. I pulled his Knight Watch profile up on my phone and lay it beside the photo strip in my drawer. I needed to compare the boy in the new photo to the boy in my memory.
He was older now, the babyish nature of his face hardened into crisp lines, a strong jaw, and defined cheekbones- but his eyes were the same: deep, warm, and inescapable. I pushed the drawer shut to keep from staring.
Rachel was now curled up with a blanket, the cover of her most recent book splayed open in front of her face. I was supposed to tell her now. Friends like she and I were supposed to tell each other everything. But I wasn’t ready to share. If I didn’t say anything, if I didn’t acknowledge it to anyone, I didn’t have to think about whether or not he actually wanted to see me. I would tell her, I promised myself, just as soon as I knew what to say.
For now, I had to move. Every second I stood there made our room feel smaller. Rachel hardly noticed as I laced up my running shoes and tugged a fleece-lined jacket over my head. She was used to my spontaneous need for air in the same way I knew not to interrupt her when she was locked into a good book. I hit the cold hard pavement outside of Stratford Hall at a soft jog, my breath threatening to turn to icicles in front of me.
I’d tried cross country when I first got here, but the boarding school competition was a lot stiffer than it had been back in Chicago. It didn’t take long for me to quit. Running competitively sucked all the fun out of it anyway. I didn’t run because I was good at it. I ran because it was good for me.
As I wound my way through the cobblestoned paths of campus, I took note of how quiet it was. The students that crowded the walk all fall had traded in their scarves and hats for the warmth of the common room fire. I didn’t blame them. The snow was a novelty in November, but by January it felt like a relative who had outstayed their welcome. My shoes crunched through the top layer of hardened snow in steady rhythm as I thought about what Christopher at Shelfbrooke meant for me.
