by M. F. Lorson
“I got one!” said Rachel, absentmindedly running a brush through her long blonde hair. “How about complaining about how the jocks get a free ride here, and the rest of us have to foot the bill?”
“You mean like how Christopher got invited to Shelfbrooke? I think I’ll pass on insulting the guy I’m trying to impress.”
“Touché,” said Rachel, realizing her mistake. “Forget about Cassius Society for a bit. We have actual work to do tonight.
“Such as?”
“Such as convincing Christopher you aren’t a terrible shrew.”
“Challenging. On account of my very real shrewyness.”
“You said it not I,” said Rachel. “Now get out of that uniform and into something sexy. We’re leaving this dorm room.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know that is against the rules.”
“Actually,” said Rachel. “It is only against the rules if you get caught. And since we aren’t going to get caught, you could make the argument that we aren’t doing anything wrong.”
If my eyes got any wider, they were going to pop out of my head. “How are we not going to get caught walking around campus when everyone else is in uniform? That doesn’t bode well for blending in.”
Rachel made a psssh sound with her mouth. “The other students aren’t going to rat us out. All we have to do is avoid the hall monitor.”
I grimaced. Our hall monitor was not my favorite person. I could ignore Rachel’s peer pressure and tag along in uniform, but Christopher was going to be there, and this seemed as good a way as any to show him I was willing to take a risk. I was midway through squeezing into my favorite jeans when a stellar idea popped into my head. I ran over to the desk, picked up my pencil, and scribbled down goal number two: abolish the after-hours dress code. Curious, Rachel walked over to see what had me so excited.
She tilted her head to the side, looking deep in thought. “Now that is a worthy goal,” said Rachel.
“Maybe,” I said, the idea tumbling around in my head. Lydia and Co. would love it. The student body would love it. The faculty, though? That was hard to say.
I slapped my notebook shut and turned to Rachel. “Where are we going that requires rule breaking?” I could just see the torches of mischief lighting behind her dark eyes.
“A secret location.”
I rolled my eyes. “You expect me to blindly follow you and risk getting in trouble at the same time? This better be worth it. Are you sure Christopher will be there?”
“Many people will be there,” said Rachel, making her voice all coy and secretive like a fortune teller.
“This feels very get-in-troubley,” I warned.
Rachel smiled. “Live a little. I heard Christopher is into that sorta thing.”
I glanced over at the time in the corner of her computer screen. 8:00 p.m. It was a school night, which meant curfew was in precisely one hour. One hour didn’t seem like nearly enough time for whatever Rachel had planned, but there was no going back now.
“Put on a jacket,” said Rachel, looking me up and down from my Ravenclaw Vans to my Harvard sweater.
“Why?” I asked. “It’s not like we are going outside.”
Rachel grinned.
“Seriously! Outside? It’s January!”
“Do you want to live your life with regrets?” asked Rachel.
I was getting sick of her ominous responses, but I threw on a jacket before replacing my shoes with a pair of snow boots anyway.
Like a pair of characters on the cover of a Nancy Drew book, Rachel and I poked our heads out of our dorm room to make sure the coast was clear. Two doors down, Ashley did the same. The three of us moved quickly down the hall, avoiding the questioning looks from girls with their doors open as we went. When we reached the hall monitor’s room, I felt my pulse go from turtle to rabbit speed. But then I saw her, propped at her computer desk with her headphones plugged into her laptop and her ponytail bobbing to the rhythm of her music. I stifled a giggle as we snuck down the long stairwell to the common room where students lounged in various states of dishevel.
All day long, we were bound by neatly tucked dress shirts and itchy navy tights. By evening, the ties came loose, the tights came off, and the shirts went largely untucked. It was hardly a show of school pride. Maybe the staff would be more receptive to the idea of no dress code after school after all.
Sprawled in an overstuffed chair by the fire was Lily and her new boyfriend, Sebastian. Last year, she would have been with us. This year we hardly saw her. Still, we didn’t have to worry she would rat us out. She may have moved on from our circle, but she was no traitor.
Once outside, I followed Ashley and Rachel through the grounds, keeping close to the buildings so that no one who happened to be peeking out a window would spot us moving around.
“Where are we going?” I whispered, not enjoying being the only one out of the loop.
“The potting shed in the kissing garden,” answered Rachel. Again with the kissing in gardens. I thought she was joking earlier. Apparently, I needed to pay closer attention to where Rachel was sneaking off to when we weren’t together. Either I was a terrible friend or Rachel did a lot of secret kissing.
We soon passed the dormitories and Kellylynch Hall, heading directly toward the woods behind our school. The closer we got to the treeline, the more worried I became that we were venturing off school grounds. Relief hit me when I spotted the gates of a little garden I had forgotten all about. There were several beautiful flower and greenery gardens on campus. I had spent plenty of time strolling through them deep in thought, but this one was not a popular student hangout. The only people who used it were the kids in the agricultural program. They came each spring to clean up the winter wreckage and prepare for the annual seed-to-supper event. Now, however, everything lay dormant, covered in the hard crunch of snow two days old and too cold to melt.
In the back of the plot, a thin sliver of light shined under the doorway of a small potting shed. From inside, I heard the familiar tinkling of laughter muffled by the wind. Rachel reached out and knocked on the door, her knuckles wrapping with intention. Three knocks with a closed fist and two taps with a flat palm.
Christopher opened the door, and my stomach started doing somersaults. His hair was still damp from the snow falling on the way over, and his cheeks and nose were pink from the little space heater that had the shed feeling a toasty seventy-five degrees. His smile faded when he saw me, replaced by a more serious expression. One that I couldn't read.
The two of us made eye contact for just long enough for me to wonder what he was thinking before Ashley pushed me into the shed. Christopher was not alone. In the back sat Lydia and that guy from the lacrosse team that wore shorts to orientation. The two of them were seated around the space heater. There was a large, green, tarp spread out over the ground to keep their uniforms clean. Uniforms. I glared at Rachel. We were the only ones not in uniform. The only ones who felt it was necessary to violate the dress code for this gathering. And consequently, the only ones who stood a chance of getting in trouble.
I questioned why Rachel thought it was so important to change clothes until I noticed the way Lacrosse Boy’s eyes lit up when he saw her, and the way a small smile played across her lips despite her attempt to stay under the radar. So this was the boy who had Rachel rambling about walks in pretty gardens.
“Have a seat,” said Ashley. Rachel grabbed a spot next to her mysterious friend, leaving me to choose between sitting next to Rachel and squeezing into the space between Lydia and Christopher. I kind of wanted to sit there, just to keep the two of them from getting unnecessarily close but the big fat chicken in me plopped down next to Rachel.
“Bon appétit!” cried Ashley, dumping the contents of her backpack in the center of the tarp. I giggled as single-serve dining hall puddings came pouring out in mass.
Lacrosse Boy scooped one up immediately. “How did you get this great loot?” he asked, amazement coloring his terribly han
dsome face.
“I have a friend in the business, Charles,” said Ashley, clearly much better at remembering names than me.
“The business being the lunch line,” said Lydia with a snicker.
“This feels a little silly,” I admitted. “We could eat pudding in the common room.”
“We could,” said Rachel wrinkling up her nose “But what would be the fun in that? Besides, we can’t do this in the common room,” she whispered, slowly retrieving something from her bag. For a minute, I was terrified that she was about to pull drugs or some other restricted item out of there. Now that I knew she had a secret crush, I questioned whether or not she had other secrets as well. Instead, she pulled out a bottle of Coke. I burst out laughing, thinking soda is not as contraband as she has made it out to be, but then she sat the bottle in the middle of our makeshift circle, and it dawned on me that no one was going to be drinking that soda.
“Spin the bottle?” asked Lydia, her snow-white face screwed up in a judgemental expression, like she was far too mature for our little kid game.
“You don’t have to participate,” said Rachel in a sing-song voice.
Lydia looked to me, then back to Rachel again. I could just imagine what she was thinking. If she did participate, she had a one-in-three chance at a kiss with Christopher. If she didn’t participate, I had a one-in-two chance.
“Fine,” she said, obviously not a fan of those odds. She uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “If you guys want to play kiddie games, we can play kiddie games.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve got a 50/50 shot of kissing my brother. I’m gonna pass.” I wanted to bow out too, but I was in the same boat as Lydia. Either I kissed Christopher or watched as he kissed someone else. The thought was far too soul-crushing not to throw my hat in the ring.
“Me first,” said Lydia, her eyes wandering longingly in Christopher’s direction. She gave the bottle a hefty spin.
“Ouch,” cried Rachel as it ricocheted off her knee and back into the center of the group. I had to channel my inner actress to keep from giggling when it landed squarely on Charles.
“Charles,” said Christopher. I tried to read his voice to determine if he was disappointed or relieved, but his tight smile gave nothing away.
Charles and Lydia stood up, both far more confident than if it were me in their place. The rest of us counted down from ten like their kiss was a rocket launch, and we were all waiting for blast off. The kiss was quick and passionless on both ends, but I could still tell that Rachel didn’t like it.
Christopher went next. I held my breath as he spun the bottle. My mind was racing all over the place as the plastic figure eight swirled from person to person. Did I want it to land on me? Or was I terrified it would land on me? When the bottle finally stopped, the cap pointed directly toward my lap. There was no middle ground, no measuring who it was closest to and no one, not even Lydia, dared to argue otherwise. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Ashley grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
I stood to meet Christopher in the middle of the tarp, making a big deal of brushing the dirt off my pants as if that extra thirty seconds could stop time long enough for me to bail. Bailing was exactly what a girl with no guts would do, and I wasn’t supposed to be that kind of girl, especially not in a room where the object of his affection had just kissed a stranger without batting an eye.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss him. I wanted to kiss him from sunup to sundown. The problem was I was afraid I would like it too much. What if it just reminded me that Christopher was a thing I wanted but couldn’t have?
Just like with Lydia and Charles, the group began to count down from ten. It was dark in the shed, with only one kerosene lamp in the corner to illuminate us, but I could still make out the shape of Christopher's eyes. They reminded me of bold watercolor paintings, a dark outer rim giving way to a brilliant blue center. Tonight they had a wild look about them. Like he was both nervous and excited all in one.
I wet my lips a little in preparation. Would he still taste like cinnamon gum, spicy and sweet? He inched closer, and my hands began to tremble with anticipation. I reached up to encircle his neck. I thought the trembling would give me away, and he would know in an instant that I was not the brave girl I kept pretending to be, but the moment my skin made contact with his that nervous feeling in my stomach went away. Muscle memory took over, and suddenly, my hands and lips knew just what to do because I remembered exactly what it was like to kiss Christopher Wentworth. I lifted onto my tiptoes, and he pulled me in by the waist. The countdown reached one, and the potting shed became eerily silent.
Our kiss should have been short and curt like Lydia and Charles. But instead, our lips crashed into one another with urgency. We kissed like there were no guarantees. Like it was the only kiss we’d ever get. My fingers curled in his hair, as his lips slid over mine in a rhythm as steady and familiar as his heartbeat against my chest.
We may never have stopped if it weren’t for a loud ‘ahem’ from Ashley reminding us that this wasn’t some secluded hallway at Fort Warren where no one would find us.
Christopher disentangled himself from my arms, looking dazed and more than a little bit guilty.
“I hate to break up the party,” said Rachel, interrupting the awkward silence that had taken over the shed. “But if we don’t want to get busted for breaking curfew, we needed to get moving like five minutes ago.”
“Right,” I said, anxious to do anything other than stand there looking at Christopher. “Absolutely, we should go now.” I knew it wasn’t necessary to say or do anything, but I felt compelled to keep my hands busy, and my eyes away from Lydia. As the others headed out into the cold, I knelt to help Ashley stuff what was left of the pudding cups back into her bag. I could tell she wanted to say something to me but wasn't sure just what.
In silence, the two of us followed the rest of the group through the snow and back to Stratford Hall.
Back in the common room, I could barely look at Lydia. I shouldn’t have felt guilty. I had known Christopher longer than her. We had a history, and most importantly, he didn't belong to her. But I did feel guilty because it wasn't her fault that she liked him any more than it was mine.
That night when my head hit the pillow, I knew that I shouldn’t think about that kiss, but as I drifted off to sleep, the only thing I could think was that I had to find a way to make it happen again.
Chapter Eleven
I dreamt about the ferry. A boy stood at the bow of the boat, his back to me. I knew the shape of him. It was ingrained in my memory. Even in the hazy confusion of a dream, there was no mistaking Christopher.
I tried to go to him, but the closer I got, the longer the deck seemed to grow. And when I finally did reach him, the blaring of the ferry horn stole the words from his lips.
Only it wasn't a horn at all. It was my alarm buzzing its way off my nightstand and onto the floor. Despite a full night’s rest, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. Grumbling to myself, I moved around the room like a toddler who had missed their naptime. I may or may not have walked bleary-eyed into a wall.
“Kissing really takes it out of you, eh?” asked Rachel, who was sitting in front of her vanity, applying a perfect cat eye. My mouth curved into a smile as I ran a comb through the tangled mess on my head.
That kiss was just what I needed to remind me that our summer together was so much more than a fling. Even if Christopher didn't want to admit it, not even sleep deprivation could take away that feeling.
By Senior Leadership though, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. When Mr. Croft announced that our next assignment was to create posters for the first winter term assembly, I crossed my fingers and hoped that Christopher would be assigned as my partner. Instead, I had to swallow a groan as he read off the names, Will Brooke and Anne Bennet.
Will smirked at Christopher on his way over to my desk. He probably thought he was making Christopher jealou
s. He loved getting under people's skin that way.
I stole a glance at Christopher, wanting to see his reaction. Was it my imagination or was his face just a little redder than usual?
Maybe it did bother him that we were partners. Maybe it bothered him that we were partners as much as it bothered me that Lydia was currently standing with her arm looped through his. Since when had they gotten all touchy-feely?
The two of them stood in front of the craft closet trying to decide what color poster board to go with while Mr. Croft droned on and on about how important school spirit was. Part of being a leader is having pride in your organization, blah, blah, etc. etc. He was really laying it on thick today.
I turned to Will and asked if he had any suggestions for our project. Usually, I liked this sort of thing, but my brain was still too fuzzy from lack of sleep to generate any good ideas. Predictably, Will wanted to do a poster in support of the lacrosse team. Even more predictably, he wanted the design to be a cut-out of a jersey with the captain’s number on the back.
“Don’t you mean captains?” I asked. “As in plural? Seeing as how there are two of you now?”
Will grimaced, glaring across the room at Christopher. “Yup, that is exactly what I meant.”
His obvious anguish at having to share the captain duties brought me immense joy. I wondered how many more subtle jabs I could work into our conversation before he realized I was picking on him.
Shelfbrooke colors were black and silver, so I grabbed a black poster board and silver glitter glue from the closet. I had to brush past Lydia and Christopher to do so, so I snuck a look at their project on my way back. The two of them were making a Cassius Society poster. No shock value there. Will and Lydia would have made perfect partners with their matching egos. Too bad Mr. Croft preferred to pull names out of a hat rather than match students by personality type.
Back at our shared workspace, I craned to listen in on Lydia and Christopher’s conversation. It was no easy task considering Will never shut up long enough for me to make out anything other than a small disagreement about the poster’s central symbol.
