Honor Code

by Kiersi Burkhart

  “Sorry about all that,” I finally say.

  “It’s okay. But that’s why we both act weird.”

  Used to be best friends. I know what that’s like.

  We talk more about other stuff—water polo, school, Mr. Jordan. He apparently has a super-hot Icelandic wife, and I’m not surprised by this at all.

  “I should get you home,” Scully says after a while, as if I live at a house with my parents and a dog, and not the dorm next to his. “We’ve both got class tomorrow.”

  He’s so responsible. It’s kind of . . . sexy.

  As we exit the Roast, Scully takes my hand.

  Third time, I note to myself. Not counting the Mixer. But I don’t count that in the story of Scully and Sam.

  The sun has set, but now the moon is out and full, suspended in the sky like an enormous silver coin. The edges of the maple trees are coated and shimmering, and the face of the clock tower is a perfect reflection of the moon.

  A few hundred yards from the front door of Isabel House, Scully stops. We stand under a tree that vines and moss have completely taken over.

  “Thanks for going out,” Scully says.

  “It was my complete pleasure.”

  He still hasn’t let go of my hand. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.

  No one has ever asked me before. I was kissed one time. Okay, a few times, but we were nine and it was stupid.

  “Yes?” I say.

  And he kisses me.

  This is definitely not kissing in a plastic playhouse. It doesn’t last long, but it feels like cool droplets of glittering magic on my lips that burn all the way to my ankles.

  I want a hundred more.

  “Wow,” I say, once we pull apart. I feel unsteady on my feet. “Thanks.”

  He laughs, and the crinkles around his eyes are adorable. “No one has ever said ‘thanks’ before. You’re welcome?”

  I laugh, too, but it cracks. “I had a great time,” I manage to say.

  “Me, too,” he says.

  This was definitely a date-date.

  Chapter Nine

  My elation over the date dies a quick death the next day when Mr. Jordan hands out prep packets for finals, which we’ll take as soon as we get back from winter break. And the packets are twenty pages thick.

  “Read it over now so you can ask questions before break,” Mr. Jordan says, “because you’ll be on your own for three weeks during Christmas break, and then it’s test time.” Even though he says it in his usual mild, kind way, it sounds like a threat.

  The prep sheets give me a small heart attack. The amount of material our teachers expect us to know from memory is . . . astonishing. Pages of definitions. Dates and names. Formulas I thought we’d be provided, but now realize I’ll have to memorize.

  No calculators.

  It doesn’t help that I’m in mostly Second Year classes, so my classmates have already been through the wringer once, and have very little sympathy for me. Though one girl in my government class did recognize me as “the girl who was with Scully the other night at the Roast.”

  “Ohmigod! You must be pretty smart if you’re a First Year in this class. And if Scully is interested in you.” What’s unspoken: You must be smart if Scully’s dating you, because you’re certainly nothing to look at. “You just have to come to our study group. We need more smart people.”

  I could kiss her shoes.

  The group meets on Wednesday evenings. And while it’s incredibly helpful—since I only need to do a fraction of the work to pull together everything we need for the test—getting all the work done and turning things in on time is still a game of time, time, time.

  Scully and I haven’t gone out again since our date, but a lot of people saw us at the Roast together. People I don’t know have suddenly started speaking to me in the buffet line, or asking my opinion on whether the cubed ham in the salad bar is a health hazard. Scully’s friend, Cal, and his girlfriend, Sloane, even sit next to me at a polo game.

  So school is killing me, and my roommate is floating off in space, but at least I have a life. If I can survive exams.

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  Dec. 6, 2017

  I don’t know how to keep this up. I’m turning things in late, trying to keep on top of school, Drawing Club, polo games, while not dropping out of tennis. Sometimes I don’t eat because I’m too busy finishing my reading. I get half my food in my mouth before lunch is over and I have to dump the rest out.

  Even though we have the whole break to study, study time won’t make up for missed assignments. It will be a miracle if I pass.

  Thank you to my two readers who sent me notes on my last post. I think you’re the only people in the whole world who read this, so I appreciate that you keep coming back. I’ve read your notes over and over. Especially the one that said, “Definitely get tutoring from the hot dude.”

  Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll put myself in His hands.

  I’m going to make an appointment tomorrow and see what He can do for me, if anything. Or maybe I’m too far gone to help? At the very least, it’ll give me a chance to see Him again.

  Hold my hand, dear readers. Digitally, of course.

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  “Come to my room tomorrow at eight p.m. sharp,” Scully’s email says. “I’ll meet you downstairs at check-in. Clearly you need an emergency tutoring session.”

  I’m glad I sent that email slightly exaggerating how badly I’m doing in Trig. An emergency tutoring session to help me pass a test? I have never felt more important.

  Inside Thomas House I find Scully perched on the check-in desk, waiting for me.

  “Hey hey hey!” he says, climbing down. His House Dad, Barry, a white-haired guy in his mid-fifties who I was assigned to for a Family Dinner a few weeks back, pulls out a clipboard.

  “This your tutoring student?” he asks.

  “Big test coming up, Barry. Probably needs an hour-long session, but the tutoring building is closed this late.”

  “Okay,” the House Dad says easily. He turns to me. “Sign in here, please. You have to leave before nine.”

  I sign in and we head upstairs. Just like in Isabel House, the Head Prefect’s room lies at the very end of the hall. As soon as we’re inside, Scully turns and closes the door behind us—with a surprisingly enthusiastic slam!

  A stone sinks in my gut. We’re not supposed to have the door closed. Surely his House Dad will walk by and we’ll both be in big trouble.

  But Scully seems unconcerned as he flips on a small lamp instead of the overhead light. I think he means it not to blind me, but it makes the rest of the room outside the reach of the lamplight look dark.

  We’re going to be alone in his room together. At night. For a whole hour.

  The door really should be open.

  “Take a seat,” Scully says, gesturing to the couch against the wall. I can’t believe he has a couch in his room. I guess that’s the benefit of being a prefect—you get a double room all to yourself to do with as you please.

  “Tea?” he asks.

  “Oh, sure.” How do you make tea in a dorm room?

  I sink into the soft cushions and take off my coat while he plugs in a silver kettle. Flipping the switch and leaving it to heat up, Scully plops down next to me.

  “I’m glad you came to me when you needed help,” he says. “It makes me feel . . . good, I guess. That you trust me.”

  “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It’s okay.” His hand lands on my thigh. “It happens to everyone. No shame in asking for help.”

  There it is again—that electricity between us. But the closed door stares accusingly at me.

  He’s right. Everyone needs to lean on something sometimes.

  “In fact, I’m proud of you for admitting it,” he goes on. “And I’m flattered I’m the person you thought of.”

  “You help everyone,” I say.

  H
e smiles. “You always see the good in people. I like that about you.”

  He likes me? It’s as if my veins are filled with light, silver bubbles. Then he leans forward . . . and kisses me.

  Keep calm. Don’t get too excited. Don’t freak out and freak him out. But oh my god, we’re kissing again.

  His tongue teases my lips, so I let them open. He slips it into my mouth and I respond with mine and it fills me with lava. I’ve never kissed like this before—full-scale making out. His hand squeezes my thigh and I tangle my hand in his hair as the kiss deepens. It’s like math: this goes here, then there, in this order.

  Then his hand grasps my right breast. My eyes fly open, but his are still closed. He kneads my chest through the fabric of my shirt the way a cat might knead you through a blanket. I think it’s supposed to feel good, but the flesh of my breast gets trapped by the underwire of my bra.

  Scully’s other hand travels up my thigh, under my skirt, to the waistband of my leggings. My body goes stiff, and reflexively, I pull my leg back. He loses his grip.

  I’m about to say, Shit, I’m sorry, when the kettle chirps. Why did I pull back like that? Scully gets up to turn it off and I feel . . . relieved.

  I think about saying something—but what, I don’t know. Something to get him to cool off on feeling me up.

  Scully and I, kissing, alone, in a room with a closed door should be my dream moment. Except I feel like I could vomit.

  He takes out two mugs, pours the hot water into them, and drops a tea bag into each mug. He carries them to a dresser next to the couch, spilling a little boiling water. The droplets steam as they hit the wood.

  He sits back down on the love seat and says, “Now, where were we?”

  “Tutoring,” I say, my voice coming out weak and high-pitched.

  He arches one eyebrow. “We’re still using code words?”

  Of course I had hoped to spend time alone with him. But I didn’t think . . . We got so far so fast.

  “Your House Dad said one hour, right?” I ask. Even though it has, according to the clock, only been fifteen minutes. My chest hurts where the underwire pinched me.

  “It’s fine even if we go a little over,” he says with a laugh. “Barry trusts me.”

  Before I can reply, he presses his mouth against mine. His tongue darts between my lips, prying them apart while his hand grabs my upper thigh again. It snakes up to the hem of my leggings.

  Kissing is about the farthest my imagination ever got in my fantasies. I haven’t freshened up down there. I haven’t put on any of that vanilla-scented lotion the girls in my study group use when they know they’re headed to Cath to hook up. I haven’t shaved or trimmed or anything.

  I gently push his hand away, imagining how repulsed he’d be when he found all that hair and weird, fishy vagina smell people joke about—but the hand goes right back again, while the other one returns to kneading my chest.

  A rush of cold runs down my arms. I pull away, pressing myself into the squishy arm of the couch.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to keep my voice low in case anyone in the next room can hear. “I’m not really prepared—”

  “What?” Scully says. “Didn’t you want to make out?” He smiles, lips peeled back over perfect, white teeth. “So here we are. Making out.”

  “I know, but—”

  He kisses me again, hard, silencing me. But I’m not ready for this, I want to say. He presses me against the sofa and his hands are all over me, hot and scratchy. One peels down the waistband of my leggings, then wedges itself between my hip and the elastic band of my underwear. The other pinches my nipple through my bra. A dog bite.

  “Ouch!” I pull my arm away to cover myself, to put it between my sensitive body and his hand. But he is immobile. Steel. “Scully—” My blood is so hot, I feel like I’m suffocating. I want to worm out of my own body, leave it there for him to squeeze and scratch while the rest of me walks away.

  His hand on my hip won’t let go. “Hold on,” I say, my voice cracking and breaking, “I’m not—”

  “You’re not what, Sammy?” That name again, like nails on a chalkboard. “Come on. We both know this is what you’ve wanted since you drew that picture of me.”

  My head buzzes. I’m not ready. This isn’t what—

  He grunts. Yanks down my leggings and underwear at once. I cross my legs to keep them on, but I’m revealed. Exposed. The fabric tears, staying bunched around my thighs.

  “But I—”

  “Shh,” he says into my hair. “It’s no problem.”

  Everything smells sour and sharp, like bleach.

  He buries his hand in my leggings again. Pulls. Tugs. My legs pinwheel trying to keep them on. I get one elbow into his chest and push. Nothing.

  A scream builds inside me—but if I let it out, Barry finds us with my underwear around my thighs. We’re suspended, maybe expelled.

  The leggings and skirt stop at my knees. A voice in the back of my head is shouting, Run, run, RUN! But he’s so heavy.

  “Please,” I gasp. It’s as if I haven’t spoken. I am a doll being undressed, posed, flexed. Everything that is me is also fear.

  Somewhere up above me floats his invisible face. He shoves me down with one arm, unzips himself with the other. Zzzzzt.

  He yanks his pants down just to the thigh, exposing his hairy skin. Tears rushing down my cheeks, I shove him again. But he is stone. Then he grabs some of my flesh and some of my shirt like it’s all the same slab of meat.

  “Isn’t this what you wanted?” He leans down so his face hovers over my shoulder, his lips just behind my ear. “Isn’t this what you wanted all along?”

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  Dec. 8, 2017

  No.

  That was never what I wanted, not like that. Who would want that?

  I knew what was coming next. Doesn’t change what it felt like.

  I could’ve screamed. And then every boy in his dorm would have come running to see that their Head Prefect brought up some lucky Firstie girl, pretending to tutor her. Some making out became feeling up became something else, and now she’s screaming.

  I’m only halfway through my first year.

  I stayed quiet and still, thinking that would help. He moaned. It was the most disgusting sound I’ve ever heard.

  I thought if I didn’t fight, it would hurt less. I was wrong.

  He walked through me. He took off my skin and wore it, back and forth, a seesaw with no face.

  The second he let me go, I grabbed everything and ran. Put back on what I could in a bathroom stall. Someone checked me in at my dorm, but I can’t remember who—just long hair and long nails. Could have been any prefect. My roommate wasn’t there when I got back, thank fuck.

  I crawled into my bed and curled up as small and tight as possible. Because every part of me ached and stung and when you curl up real, real tight, when you press your knees to your chest and wrap your arms around them, somehow this compression dulls the pain just a little. Just enough.

  I didn’t cry. I couldn’t, really—there wasn’t anything left in me that could.

  I was still in my clothes. They hurt. My shirt was torn where he had pressed me down and a seam caught on the love seat.

  Treat your fellow students as you would want to be treated.

  So much for the honor code.

  Expect the best, and your compatriots will deliver.

  No, they wouldn’t. Because it’s all a lie. Everybody obeys the honor code—until they don’t want to anymore. Until they’re after a cigarette or whiskey or sex.

  I couldn’t sleep, but I pretended when my roommate eventually got back.

  I could hear his zipper coming down, over and over again.

  Zzzzzt.

  Zzzzzt.

  Zzzzzzzzzzzt.

  Chapter Ten

  I lie scattered in a hundred thousand pieces under my blanket the whole night. My face is covered
in cracks, splitting, breaking, like an old porcelain doll. You could have seen me from across a football field and known, that girl has gone rotten. That girl has had her insides scooped out. That girl is no more a girl than a bucket of metal scraps bound together with flesh tape.

  Give me one million years on this Earth and I will never, ever be whole again.

  Gracie looks at me funny the next morning while we wait for Jean to stop by for inspection. There are bags under her eyes, too. She must have been at the library with a study group late last night.

  Does she know where I was?

  I can’t tell her. She said it herself: Trying to get with a guy like Scully will ruin you.

  She knew this would happen. She was always saying it—how Edwards was fake, how it would betray you as soon as it got the chance—and I never listened. She knew how high the price was.

  But I am an Edwards student. I should be happy that the hottest, smartest, coolest guy possible picked me. I could tell anyone we did it last night, and I’d suddenly be Scully’s Girlfriend.

  I’d be in the club.

  My insides churn as we wait for Jean to come and inspect our room. It feels like some of my organs have switched places.

  I want my entrance fee back.

  Maybe Gracie’s right that I was in the wrong at the Mixer. And maybe wrong follows you around.

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  Dec. 9, 2017

  Boarding school looks like:

  Knowing there are a lot of fucked-up things hiding under the surface of your school. But not realizing just how fucked up exactly until it’s too late.

  To everyone who sent me a message after my post yesterday, all three of you:

  If I did tell someone that he raped me, the first thing they’d do is tell me to go to the police. (Police don’t care. Police don’t want to help.)

  Tell your parents. (They’d freak once they learned who it was.)

  Tattle to House Mom. (Great, then the whole school finds out, and my life here is basically over.)

  But I’m the one who was too stupid to notice the monster underneath his skin. I was the one who walked up there late at night and let him close the door. I was the one who wanted him to kiss me so bad.