by Lauren Kate
“Anyway, like I was saying,” Shelby continued, refilling Luce’s coffee from the bronze carafe on the table. “Bonfire, hedonism, blah blah blah. These things can be so tedious.” One side of Shelby’s mouth flinched to an almost-smile. “Especially, you know, when you’re not around.”
Luce’s heart unclenched just a little. Every once in a while, Shelby let in the tiniest ray of light. But then her roommate quickly shrugged, as if to say Don’t let it go to your head.
“No one else appreciates my Lilith impersonation. That’s all.” Shelby straightened her spine, heaved her chest forward, and made the right side of her top lip quiver disapprovingly.
Shelby’s Lilith impersonation had never failed to crack Luce up. But today all she could manage was a thin closed-mouth smile.
“Hmmm,” Shelby said. “Not that you’d care what you missed at the party. I noticed Daniel flying away over the beach last night. You two must have had a lot to catch up on.”
Shelby had seen Daniel? Why hadn’t she mentioned it sooner? Could anyone else have seen him?
“We didn’t even talk.”
“That’s hard to believe. He’s usually so full of orders to give you—”
“Shelby, Miles kissed me,” Luce interrupted. Her eyes were closed. For some reason, that made it easier to confess. “Last night. And Daniel saw everything. He took off before I could—”
“Yeah, that would do it.” Shelby let out a low whistle. “This is kind of huge.”
Luce’s face burned with shame. Her mind couldn’t shake the image of Daniel taking flight. It felt so final.
“So is it, you know, over between you and Daniel?”
“No. Never.” Luce couldn’t even hear that phrase without shuddering. “I just don’t know.”
She hadn’t told Shelby the rest of what she’d glimpsed in the Announcer, that Daniel and Cam were working together. Were secret pals, as far as she could tell. Shelby wouldn’t know who Cam was, anyway, and the history was way too complicated to explain. Besides, Luce wouldn’t be able to stand it if Shelby, with her oh-so-deliberately-controversial views about angels and demons, tried to make a case that a partnership between Daniel and Cam wasn’t that big a deal.
“You know Daniel’s gonna be all screwed up over it right now. Isn’t that Daniel’s big thing—the undying devotion you two share?”
Luce stiffened in her white iron chair.
“I wasn’t being sarcastic, Luce. So maybe, I don’t know, Daniel’s been involved with other people. It’s all pretty nebulous. The take-home message, like I said before, is that there was never a question in his mind that you were the only one that mattered.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“I don’t claim to be in the business of making you feel better, I’m just trying to illustrate a point. For all Daniel’s annoying aloofness—and there’s plenty of it—the guy’s clearly devoted. The real question here is: Are you? As far as Daniel knows, you could drop him as soon as someone else comes along. Miles has come along. And he’s obviously a great guy. A little sappy for my taste, but—”
“I would never drop Daniel,” Luce said aloud, desperately wanting to believe it.
She thought about the horror on his face the night they’d argued on the beach. She was stunned when he’d been so quick to ask: Are we breaking up? Like he suspected that was a possibility. Like she hadn’t swallowed whole his entire insane story about their endless love when he’d told her under the peach trees at Sword & Cross. She had swallowed it, in one single believing gulp, ingesting all its fissures, too—the jagged pieces that made no sense but begged her to believe them at the time. Now, every day, another of them gnawed at her insides. She could feel the biggest one rising up in her throat:
“Most of the time, I don’t even know why he likes me.”
“Come on,” Shelby groaned. “Do not be one of those girls. He’s too good for me, wah wah wah. I’ll have to punt you over to Dawn and Jasmine’s table. That’s their expertise, not mine.”
“I don’t mean it like that.” Luce leaned in and dropped her voice. “I mean, ages ago, when Daniel was, you know, up there, he chose me. Me, out of everyone else on earth—”
“Well, there were probably a lot fewer options back then—Ouch!” Luce had swatted her. “Just trying to lighten the mood!”
“He chose me, Shelby, over some big role in Heaven, over some elevated position. That’s pretty major, don’t you think?” Shelby nodded. “There had to be more to it than just him thinking I was cute.”
“But … you don’t know what it was?”
“I’ve asked, but he’s never told me what happened. When I brought it up, it was almost like Daniel couldn’t remember. And that’s crazy, because it means we’re both just going through the motions. Based on thousands of years of some fairy tale neither one of us can even back up.”
Shelby rubbed her jaw. “What else is Daniel keeping from you?”
“That’s what I plan on finding out.”
Around the terrace, time had marched on; most of the students were heading to class. The scholarship waiters were hurrying to bus the plates. At a table closest to the ocean, Steven was drinking coffee alone. His glasses were folded up and resting on the table. His eyes found Luce’s, and he held her gaze for a long time, so long that—even after she stood up to go to class—his intense, watchful expression stuck with her. Which was probably his point.
After the longest, most mind-numbing PBS special on cell division ever seen, Luce walked out of her biology class, down the stairs of the main school building, and outside, where she was surprised to see the parking lot completely packed. Parents, older siblings, and more than a few chauffeurs formed one long line of vehicles the likes of which Luce hadn’t seen since the car-pool lane at her middle school in Georgia.
Around her, students hurried out of class and zigzagged toward the cars, wheeling suitcases in their wake. Dawn and Jasmine hugged goodbye before Jasmine got into a town car and Dawn’s brothers made room for her in the back of an SUV. The two of them were only splitting up for a few hours.
Luce ducked back into the building and slipped out the rarely used rear door to trek across the grounds to her dorm. She definitely could not deal with goodbyes right now.
Walking under the gray sky, Luce was still a guilty wreck, but her conversation with Shelby had left her feeling a bit more in control. It was screwed up, she knew it, but having kissed someone else made her feel like she finally had a say in her relationship with Daniel. Maybe she’d get a reaction out of him, for a change. She could apologize. He could apologize. They could make lemonade or whatever. Break through all this crap and really start talking.
Just then, her phone buzzed. A text from Mr. Cole:
Everything’s taken care of.
So Mr. Cole had passed on the news that Luce wasn’t coming home. But he’d conveniently left out of his text whether or not her parents were still speaking to her. She hadn’t heard from them in days.
It was a no-win situation: If they wrote to her, she felt guilty about not writing them back. If they didn’t write to her, she felt responsible for being the reason they couldn’t reach out. She still hadn’t figured out what to do about Callie.
She thumped up the stairs of the empty dorm. Each step echoed hollowly in the cavernous building. No one was around.
When she made it to her room, she expected to find Shelby already gone—or at least, to see her suitcase packed and waiting by the door.
Shelby wasn’t there, but her clothes were still strewn all over her side of the room. Her puffy red vest was still on its peg, and her yoga gear was still stacked in the corner. Maybe she wasn’t leaving until tomorrow morning.
Before Luce had even fully closed the door behind her, someone knocked on the other side. She stuck her head into the hallway.
Miles.
Her palms grew damp and she could feel her heartbeat pick up. She wondered what her hair looked like, whe
ther she’d remembered to make her bed this morning, and how long he’d been walking behind her. Whether he’d seen her dodge the caravan of Thanksgiving farewells, or seen the pained look on her face when she’d checked her text messages.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Hi.”
Miles had on a thick brown sweater over a collared white shirt. He was wearing those jeans with the hole in the knee, the ones that always made Dawn jump up to follow him so she and Jasmine could swoon from behind him.
Miles’s mouth twitched into a nervous smile. “Wanna do something?”
His thumbs were tucked under the straps of his navy blue backpack and his voice echoed off the wood walls. It crossed Luce’s mind that she and Miles might be the only two people in the entire building. The thought was both thrilling and nerve-wracking.
“I’m grounded for eternity, remember?”
“That’s why I brought the fun to you.”
At first Luce thought Miles was referring to himself, but then he slid his backpack off one shoulder and unzipped the main compartment. Inside was a treasure trove of board games: Boggle. Connect Four. Parcheesi. The High School Musical game. Even travel Scrabble. It was so nice, and so not awkward, Luce thought she might cry.
“I figured you were going home today,” she said. “Everyone else is leaving.”
Miles shrugged. “My parents said it was cool if I stayed. I’ll be home again in a couple of weeks, and besides, we have different opinions on the perfect vacation. Theirs is anything worthy of a write-up in the New York Times Styles section.”
Luce laughed. “And yours?”
Miles dug a little deeper into his bag, pulling out two packets of instant apple cider, a box of microwave popcorn, and a DVD of the Woody Allen movie Hannah and Her Sisters. “Pretty humble, but you’re looking at it.” He smiled. “I asked you to spend Thanksgiving with me, Luce. Just because we’re changing venues doesn’t mean we have to change our plans.”
She felt a grin spread across her face, and held open the door for Miles to come in. His shoulder brushed hers when he passed, and they locked eyes for a moment. She felt Miles almost sway on his heels, as if he was going to double back and kiss her. She tensed up, waiting.
But he just smiled, dropped his backpack in the middle of the floor, and started to unload Thanksgiving.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, waving a packet of popcorn.
Luce winced. “I am really bad at making popcorn.”
She was thinking of the time she and Callie nearly burned down their dorm at Dover. She couldn’t help it. It made her miss her best friend all over again.
Miles opened the door of the microwave. He held up a finger. “I can press any button with this finger, and microwave most anything. You’re lucky I’m so good at it.”
It was weird that earlier she’d been torn up over kissing Miles. Now she realized he was the only thing making her feel better. If he hadn’t come over, she’d be spiraling into another guilty black abyss. Even though she couldn’t imagine kissing him again—not because she didn’t want to, necessarily, but because she knew it wasn’t right, that she couldn’t do that to Daniel … that she didn’t want to do that to Daniel—Miles’s presence was extremely comforting.
They played Boggle until Luce finally understood the rules, Scrabble until they realized the set was missing half its letters, and Parcheesi until the sun went down outside the window and it was too dim to see the board without turning on a light. Then Miles stood up and lit the fire, and slid Hannah and Her Sisters into the DVD player on Luce’s computer. The only place to sit and watch the movie was on the bed.
Suddenly, Luce felt nervous. Before, they’d just been two friends playing board games on a weekday afternoon. Now the stars were out, the dorm was empty, the fire was crackling, and—what did that make them?
They sat next to each other on Luce’s bed, and she couldn’t stop thinking about where her hands were, whether they looked unnatural if she kept them pinned across her lap, whether they’d brush against Miles’s fingertips if she rested them at her sides. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his chest moving when he breathed. She could hear him scratch the back of his neck. He’d taken his baseball cap off, and she could smell the citrusy shampoo in his fine brown hair.
Hannah and Her Sisters was one of the few Woody Allen movies she’d never seen, but she could not make herself pay attention. She’d crossed and uncrossed her legs three times before the opening titles rolled.
The door swung open. Shelby barreled into the room, took one look at Luce’s computer monitor, and blurted, “Best Thanksgiving movie ever! Can I watch with—” Then she looked at Luce and Miles, sitting in the dark on the bed. “Oh.”
Luce bolted up off the bed. “Of course you can! I didn’t know when you were leaving to go home—”
“Never.” Shelby flung herself on the top bunk, sending a small earthquake down to Luce and Miles on the bottom bunk. “My mom and I got in a fight. Don’t ask, it was utterly boring. Besides, I’d much rather hang out with you guys, anyway.”
“But Shelby—” Luce couldn’t imagine getting in a fight so big it kept her from going home on Thanksgiving.
“Let’s just enjoy the genius of Woody in silence,” Shelby commanded.
Miles and Luce shot each other a conspiratorial look. “You got it,” Miles called up to Shelby, giving Luce a grin.
Truthfully, Luce was relieved. When she settled back into her seat, her fingers did brush against Miles’s, and he gave them a squeeze. It was only for a moment, but it was long enough to let Luce know that, at least as far as Thanksgiving weekend was concerned, things were going to be okay.
SEVENTEEN
TWO DAYS
Luce woke to the scrape of a hanger dragging across the bar in her closet.
Before she could see who was responsible for the noise, a mound of clothes bombarded her. She sat up in bed, pushing her way out from under the pile of jeans, T-shirts, and sweaters. She plucked an argyle sock off her forehead.
“Arriane?”
“Do you like the red one? Or the black?” Arriane was holding two of Luce’s dresses up against her tiny frame, swaying as she modeled each one.
Arriane’s arms were bare of the awful tracking wristband she’d had to wear at Sword & Cross. Luce hadn’t noticed until now, and she shuddered to remember the cruel voltage sent coursing through Arriane whenever she stepped out of line. Every day in California, Luce’s memories of Sword & Cross grew hazier, until a moment like this one jolted her back into the turmoil of her stay there.
“Elizabeth Taylor says only certain women can wear red,” Arriane continued. “It’s all about cleavage and coloring. Luckily, you’ve got both.” She freed the red dress from its hanger and tossed it on the pile.
“What are you doing here?” Luce asked.
Arriane put her tiny hands on her hips. “Helping you pack, silly. You’re going home.”
“Wh-What home? What do you mean?” Luce stammered.
Arriane laughed, stepping forward to take one of Luce’s hands and tug her out of bed. “Georgia, my peach.” She patted Luce’s cheek. “With good old Harry and Doreen. And apparently some friend of yours is also flying in.”
Callie. She was actually going to get to see Callie? And her parents? Luce wobbled where she stood, suddenly speechless.
“Don’t you want to spend Thanksgiving with your fam?”
Luce was waiting for the catch. “What about—”
“Don’t worry.” Arriane tweaked Luce’s nose. “It was Mr. Cole’s idea. We’ve got to keep up the ruse that you’re still just down the road from your parents. This seemed the simplest and most fun way to go about it.”
“But when he texted me yesterday, all he said was—”
“He didn’t want to get your hopes up until he had every little thing taken care of, including”—Arriane curtseyed—“the perfect escort. One of them, anyway. Roland should be here any second.”
&n
bsp; A knock on the door.
“He’s so good.” Arriane pointed to the red dress still in Luce’s hand. “Throw that baby on.”
Luce quickly shimmied into the dress, then ducked into the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair. Arriane had presented her with one of those rare Jump!—How high? situations. You didn’t bother with questions. You just leaped.
She emerged from the bathroom, expecting to see Roland and Arriane doing something Roland-and-Arriane-esque, like one of them standing on top of her suitcase while the other tried to zip it up.
But it wasn’t Roland who had knocked.
It was Steven and Francesca.
Shit.
The words I can explain formed on the tip of Luce’s tongue. Only, she had no idea how to talk herself out of this situation. She looked to Arriane for help. Arriane was still tossing Luce’s sneakers into the suitcase. Didn’t she know the kind of major trouble they were about to be in?
When Francesca stepped forward, Luce braced herself. But then the wide bell sleeves of Francesca’s crimson turtleneck engulfed Luce in an unexpected hug. “We came to wish you well.”
“Of course, we’ll miss you tomorrow at what we with tongue in cheek refer to as the Dinner for the Displaced,” Steven said, taking Francesca’s hand and prying her away from Luce. “But it’s always best for a student to be with family.”
“I don’t understand,” Luce said. “You knew about this? I thought I was grounded until further notice.”
“We spoke with Mr. Cole this morning,” Francesca said.
“And you weren’t grounded as punishment, Luce,” Steven explained. “It was the only way we could ensure you’d be safe under our charge. But you’re in good hands with Arriane.”
Never one to overstay her welcome, Francesca was already steering Steven toward the door. “We hear your parents are anxious to see you. Something about your mother filling up a freezer with pies.” She winked at Luce, and both she and Steven waved, and then they were gone.
