by Eva Chase
When I put my back into it, I could shift it a couple of inches at a time. Perfect. When there was less chance of being interrupted, I’d sneak down here, move the dryer far enough out to squeeze behind it, and chip away at the concrete where no one would see the growing hole once I’d shoved it back into place.
Listening carefully for anyone coming down the stairs, I pushed the machine back and slid my tools right under it so they’d be totally out of sight. It’d be safer leaving them here than constantly secreting them to and from my dorm.
As I straightened up, footsteps rasped against the steps. I brushed myself off and hurried out of the laundry room, an excuse ready on my tongue. Easy enough to say I couldn’t find some piece of clothing and had come down to see if it’d been left in one of the machines.
The footsteps belonged to Jenson, ducking his head instinctively as he came out of the stairwell into the hall, although the ceiling was a good foot over his considerable height. My stance relaxed some, if not completely. It was still hard to be sure of exactly where I stood with him.
He raised his eyebrows as he glanced at me and then the space around me. “What are you up to down here, Trixie?”
The nickname brought back a tickle of memory—of him using it sometime in the past, me swatting him in annoyance. I still didn’t like it, but it was hard to be too irritated with the playful affection in his voice.
“It’s Trix,” I corrected without much rancor. “Are you following me around or something now?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “Will you believe that I was just in the cafeteria and thought I saw you heading this way?”
He had to make it a question to give a somewhat straight answer. I let out my breath in a huff. “Okay. But I think it’s better if you’re not involved in any plans I’ve got down here.” The staff might not be able to pick up on my odd activities, but they should still be able to sense if he went somewhere they wouldn’t expect him to be.
“You’re set on being the lone wolf, huh?” he said with a lift of his eyebrows.
“Some things I’ve got to do on my own if I want to be sure they’ll actually get done,” I replied.
I regretted the off-the-cuff response in an instant at the tightening of his expression. He recovered almost immediately with a casual shrug, but my dismissal must have hurt him more than I’d have expected it to.
Why wouldn’t it have? He was extending a hand the only way he could, and I’d basically smacked it away. After laying into him for giving me a hard time before, I was brushing off his attempts to do the opposite.
“I didn’t mean—it’s more about this place than it is about how I think about you,” I said quickly.
“Don’t worry about my ego,” Jenson said in his careless way. “I’m made of steel—impervious.”
I’d have known that was a lie even if I hadn’t been aware of his situation. Something about the claim and the way his bright blue eyes lingered on me brought me back to that moment just a few days ago when he’d sung his heart out in the music room for me. Almost literally—from the way he’d toppled when the professors had caught him, they might as well have been crushing his chest.
Every statement he said to me might be a lie, but the things he’d done hadn’t been. The things he’d done for me. What the hell had I done in those times I only recalled slivers of to earn that kind of devotion—from not just him but Ryo and to some extent Elias too?
How selfish was I that I wanted to indulge in all of it?
But maybe it wasn’t selfish if a little indulgence let me show my appreciation and cover the tracks of my larger plan at the same time. If it was weird to want three guys at once, who the fuck cared? It’d be about the least weird thing about this psychotic place.
I held out my hand, ignoring the uncertain thump of my pulse. “You could give me an excuse for why I’ve been down here.”
“How can I refuse an offer like that?” Jenson said, a pleased gleam coming into his eyes. He took my hand and let me tug him into the laundry room.
I leaned against the folding table and pulled him into a kiss. Jenson met me with equal enthusiasm. There were no lies in the way his mouth caught mine, in the heat that formed between our bodies, in the caress of his hand down my side. When I let my teeth graze his lower lip teasingly, he let out a hum that was almost a groan and gripped my waist to tug me even closer.
I didn’t intend to take the encounter much farther than this. Not far enough that it’d seem like a promise rather than just fooling around. But for a few very enjoyable moments, I managed to convince myself a little making out was all for the greater good.
Chapter Nine
Elias
I couldn’t say I ever felt all that comfortable in Roseborne’s cafeteria, especially now that I wasn’t required to attend most of the school’s classes. The majority of the students currently in residence had much more experience with me as their math teacher than as a classmate. Even the guys I shared my dorm bedroom with got a little quieter when I was around.
None of them matter one bit, my grandfather would have said. You move forward and make your name for yourself, and let the weaklings grouse all they want behind your back. Soon enough they’ll be fawning to your face to try to benefit from your success.
Not much chance of that here. What was I going to be successful at—teaching the most pointless class in existence? Surviving long enough to see everyone who’d been here when I arrived on campus waste away?
Negative thinking is the loser’s route.
Right. How would Grandpa DeLeon have handled this place, I’d like to know.
In the moment, all I could do was eat as quickly as possible at the corner of the table I’d picked out, staying out of everyone else’s way so they wouldn’t feel the need to clam up. It wasn’t as if our dinner offered much to relish anyway.
Maybe I could have gone to Trix for company, if that wouldn’t paint an even larger target on her. But when I’d come in, she’d already been sitting at a full table with Ryo beside her, naturally. The guy might not put a whole lot of effort into his own life, but he seemed determined to be as much a part of Trix’s as he could manage.
Why are you letting him? asked my grandfather’s voice in my head. Who is he that she’d want to spend her time with him and not you? Act like the DeLeon you are and show her how much better she could have it—or forget about her and focus on more important things.
What could be more important? I wanted to demand of him. She could be our key to getting out of this place. She’d already been the key to my starting to accept just how deeply my grandfather had warped my perspective. He wouldn’t have appreciated that development, though.
As I picked through the last of my boiled vegetables, Trix and Ryo got up together. Walking to the front table where we left our dirty dishes, Ryo made a comment that brought a smile to Trix’s lips. They set down their plates, and he rested his hand on the small of her back as they headed out. An affectionate gesture, sure, but also one you could see as possessive.
Why should he take the leading role here? I could offer her a hell of a lot more than just about anyone in this school. My fingers tightened around my fork. As soon as I’d eaten, I’d find them and step in, and—
I caught myself with a grimace. What was I really going to offer her while we were trapped in here? Nothing I’d built out in the real world mattered now. Frankly, a lot of it hadn’t mattered even at the time. All the deals and awards had been just one more way to puff myself up, to prove to my grandfather I was following in his footsteps, that he’d been right to invest as much as he had in me.
Building and building and not caring who around me got crushed under the weight of those plans.
That time when Trix and I had ended up connecting, when we’d gotten so close that my chest ached with the memory—how much had I offered her then? Could I honestly say I’d given her more than she’d given me?
I could change that, though. I wanted her—I wanted to
be the man she’d pick if it came to the point when she needed to. No, I wanted her to pick me even if there wasn’t any need to narrow down her options. If we ever got out of here, I didn’t intend to just walk away.
She’d talked about cozying up to the professors. I’d already planned on trying out that tactic myself. After all, I acted like part of the teaching staff most of the time. Seeing Ryo hovering over her only made me more determined.
Trix needed to know she wasn’t alone in this quest—and that I could do more than talk about how much I supported her.
Dean Wainhouse kept office hours for a little while after dinner most weekdays. After I’d gulped down the last of my dinner, I strode down the hall to his door. I didn’t feel as though I wielded any real influence within the school, but people tended to have more confidence in you if you showed confidence in yourself.
The dean answered my knock with a somewhat weary look that wasn’t promising. “Mr. DeLeon. What can I do for you?”
I forged ahead as if I had no reason to doubt how my suggestion would be received. “I was hoping to discuss my role in the school and how I might expand on it, to everyone’s benefit.”
His gaze sharpened slightly, skimming over me in evaluation. “Why don’t you come in and tell me what you’re thinking, then?”
It’d been a while since I was last in the dean’s office, but the room had a vibe that’d been familiar from the very first time: the unmistakable but undeniable whiff of long-standing authority. He might as well have been a CEO over a century-old company as the dictator over this college.
Traditionally-minded leaders could be budged. You just had to find the right angle. They needed respect, even adulation—as far as they were concerned, the best judge of a person’s character was whether that person recognized the leader’s worth.
I stationed myself in front of the dean’s desk with my hands folded in front of me and a deferential dip of my head that I didn’t let irk me. “In the last year or so, since my focus has been on teaching my own class, I’ve had a lot of time to observe the overall running of the college. And I have to say I’ve been impressed. The discipline you exact from the students, the efficiency with which you deal with those who step out of line—it all comes together perfectly smoothly.”
I couldn’t tell if my praise had affected the dean at all. He eyed me with a moderate expression from behind his desk. “I appreciate the recognition. Where are you going with this, Mr. DeLeon?”
“Well, as I pointed out, I’ve been mainly on the teaching side of things for quite a while now. I’d like to commit even more to making this school function as well as it can. I know I’m not on the same level as yourself and the established professors, but I was hoping that I could become more involved with your planning and general strategy. Any way that I can adjust my approach so that it provides additional support to your goals, I’d be happy to contribute.”
They’d just have to tell me what those goals were in the first place.
Dean Wainhouse was silent for a long moment. I didn’t think anyone would have noticed my association with Trix, which would have marked me as a potential problem to the staff. We’d been careful to keep our less professional interactions outside the school building, and now I was glad for that. The one time we’d really connected, we’d spent most of our time together wandering along the boundaries of campus and rambling through in the woods.
Finally, the dean rested his hands on the top of his desk. “I appreciate the offer,” he said. “But I’m afraid I have trouble taking it at face value when I know you’re a sharp and practical young man. You’ve been here quite some time. You may be looking for advantages to benefit yourself, which we can’t count on continuing to benefit Roseborne.”
Shit. I forced my mouth into a smile, more apologetic than enthusiastic. “I’m sorry if I’ve come across that way. I honestly think my contributions—”
“No thank you, Mr. DeLeon. I’m sure you can find your own ways to make a mark without riding on our coattails.” He motioned toward the door.
The parting remark stung more than I’d been prepared for. My grandfather had said something like that too, when I’d been just a kid and excited about the idea of joining the company he’d built from the ground up in the decades since his family immigrated from Mexico.
I hadn’t really wanted to help Roseborne’s staff. The whole point of extending this offer had been to undermine them through my own means—to make a mark for Trix’s sake and everyone else’s too. The comment shouldn’t have rankled at all.
But it did. Enough that I found myself marching back past the cafeteria to the kitchen the second I’d left the dean’s office. There was another tactic I’d decided to experiment with since Trix had returned. Maybe I could still make a difference that way.
The students on kitchen duty were only just starting to bring in the dinner dishes for washing. I stepped in, ignoring their puzzled stares, and started scraping the remains of food left on the plates into a mixing bowl. It didn’t take long before I had an unpleasant-smelling mess of peas, carrots, fusilli noodles, and alfredo sauce filling the bowl to the brim. I carried it out of the school and made straight for the outer wall.
The truth was, I didn’t know much of anything about gardening. I couldn’t remember my grandparents keeping even a potted plant in the penthouse apartment my sister and I had grown up in. But there were some basics that it was hard not to absorb somewhere along the way.
Plants grew better when fertilized. Decaying organic material became compost—that was fertilizer. In the absence of a compost bin, I was just skipping that step and spreading the scraps straight at the source.
The rosebush that clung to the campus wall was actually multiple plants that had grown tangled with each other. You couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began other than by the spots at the base where a bit of stem dug into the earth. At each of those spots, I spooned some of my mixture of leftovers. A couple of days ago, I’d treated the left side of the gate. Tonight I tackled the right.
The gloop didn’t look like anything that would help the flowers bloom better or longer, but it wasn’t as if the staff were going to provide us with actual fertilizer or anything else that would encourage growth. They wanted to see us fade and fail alongside the blossoms. Maybe this gesture was completely pointless—I’d told Trix before that we couldn’t change the health of the flowers by normal means—but I’d be damned if I didn’t at least make an effort where I could.
I emptied out the bowl before I reached my own rose. No need to check on that one—no point in dwelling on its current state. If the flowers near my composting perked up more than those farther along, then I’d be able to tell my efforts had accomplished something.
Night was only just falling, the daylight dimming around me with the sinking of the sun behind the clouds. Normally I’d have wandered around campus for hours longer to pass the time until exhaustion dragged me up to the dorms. I set the bowl and spoon by the gate and meandered off past the carriage house, but a balking sensation swelled inside me. My steps turned heavier as the minutes slipped by.
What would I find Trix doing if I ran into her out here? Who would I find her doing it with?
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes as if I could shove away the images those questions provoked. They kept niggling at me all the same. Eventually, I went back inside, even though the other students were just heading up to the dorms themselves.
It only took a few minutes after I’d crawled into bed before I knew for sure turning in early had been a mistake. I closed my eyes, lying straight on my back under the covers, and the voices echoed through my head ten times as clear as the comments I imagined my grandfather tossing out during my waking hours.
His came first. Don’t be such a goddamned pussy, Elias! When you see something you want, you don’t give a damn who else wants it too. You get right in there and make it yours.
My grandmother, with the audible Spanish accent
she hadn’t managed to erase the way my grandfather had his. He only wants what’s best for you. Can’t you just listen to him? That’s the least we can ask after everything we’ve done for you and your sister.
Your mother would be ashamed to see you like this. It’s a good thing she didn’t have to live long enough for that.
A childish voice with a faint lisp. Eli, you’re going to look after me, aren’t you? Isn’t that what big brothers do?
Like always, the questions and accusations came one after another in quick succession, no time to catch my breath in between. Partly memories, partly jabs that must have been inspired by whatever the school could sense was on my mind, all of it searing through my head.
I can do better, I found myself thinking, like I hadn’t in years. I’ll prove to you I deserved all the chances I got. I’ll prove to her that I’m the only one—
A tremor ran through my limbs. Somewhere out along the wall, had my rose just shriveled a tiny bit more?
I gritted my teeth and pressed my face into my pillow. Before, I’d stopped wanting anything, and there’d been less for my curse to latch onto. Now I wanted too much. And that was exactly what Roseborne could use to wear down my defenses—and consume me for good.
Chapter Ten
Trix
I resisted the urge to squirm in the hard-backed chair I’d drawn up beside Professor Hubert’s desk. The clock mounted on the wall was ticking loudly enough that I couldn’t tune it out, and my face was getting stiff from the smiles I kept having to produce to convince her I was actually enthusiastic about the information she was giving me.
My commitment had paid off, though. When I’d shown up after seeing today’s Composition class leaving the room, I’d managed to convince the professor to show me a list of the recent topics she’d had the students write about. Some of the ones at the bottom of the list stirred vague memories from times past. I could guess what I’d written about for those.
