The Pawn: A Reverse Harem Bully Revenge Romance (Coleridge Academy Elites Book 1)
Page 24
It shouldn't be.
But it is.
I wake up in a fog the Monday after the Hallow's Eve Festival, uncertain what my life is going to be like post-fallout. Though I cut up the credit card and returned it to Holly's desk, and wrote her about a dozen text messages apologizing and promising to pay her back even if it takes me years, she's been radio silent since that night. Presumably she's with Cole, being comforted after my betrayal.
She doesn't know yet who he truly is. The post is set to publish in a few hours, before Visual Arts class but after lunch. I have no idea how she'll react to the information in it, but I have the feeling that whatever is left of their relationship will be over.
Some part of me wants to delay the publication of the post just to spare her. But the dead deserve justice, including the teenage girl who was in the trunk of that car when it crashed. Maybe if it all goes public, law enforcement will have to solve the crime once and for all.
I go through my classes in a daze. Blake doesn't even look at me in Calculus I; it's like I don't exist as far as he's concerned. Then I have English lit, but thankfully today we're working on solo projects, so I don't have to talk to Lukas. He waves at me as class starts, and I just duck my head and try to keep to myself, thinking about that tattoo over and over again.
It can't be him. But there's no other explanation. And given that I swore to take down all four of the Elites and fix my brother's reputation, this is an opportunity I can't pass up. I have to post about the video on Legacies. Especially if it means justice for Mariana.
I'm so busy thinking about the pending post and the video I received that I almost forget about Chrissy and Tanner. It's not until I'm walking towards lunch that I remember what I saw the night of the party. I haven't seen her in Rosalind Hall since, mostly because I've barely been able to drag myself to eat, and I'm just waiting to be called into Mrs. Reynolds office to be fired from the Rosalinds and assigned a new room.
It's all too much to think about right now, so after I grab my food, I find an empty table in the back corner of the dining hall, far away from the other students. Head down, I eat my food as quickly as I can before ducking out and heading across campus towards the library.
The post will be live now. I've got twenty minutes before I need to make it to my next class, so I might as well login to Legacies and check to see how this news about Cole is going down. It won't have spread far yet, but I'm sure it's gotten a few reactions, especially given that the Governor of New York State is involved.
Settling into a seat in the library, I open my laptop, glad I'll get to be completely alone for a short break.
What I don't expect is to hear Holly's voice from a few rows down, her volume low but her tone distinctly upset—and Cole's angry, unfiltered response.
"You can't actually think I'm a murderer, can you?"
Chapter 41
I freeze, uncertain which way to go in order to escape their notice. They're the last two people I want to see right now—though Blake, Chrissy, Tanner, and Lukas are also on that list, giving me a good half dozen people I have zero interest in running into today.
Their conversation is impossible not to eavesdrop on, though.
"I know you were in that car crash." Holly's voice is calm and measured, but I can hear the anger underlying her every word. "You nearly died in the hospital. I never got any real answers from you About what happened, either. Michael's story kept changing, and I figured it was just because he was drunk, too. But you never said anything about a body in the trunk."
"Can we talk about this later?" Cole pitches his voice low. "There's an explanation."
"How can there be an explanation for something that serious?"
"There is. I swear, Holly, I had nothing to do with it. Any of it. You have to believe me." I've never heard Cole Masterson sound so weak or beg so hard. "By the time I woke up, the cover up was already done. And as for the rest, I didn't know about it until I saw the same post as you. I swear it on my life."
"I don't believe you."
A pause. I sink down into my chair, heart in my throat. The last thing I want is for either one of them to walk over in my direction and see me basically eavesdropping on them, intentional or not.
Cole asks, "Where does this leave us? What about our relationship?"
"You and me are over, Cole. I'm not going to be with someone who pulls that kind of shit."
"Holly..."
"We're done."
Footsteps leaving—that must be Holly. It's just Cole now. Maybe if I walk very quietly, I can get out of the library through the back entrance without being seen.
Before I can, I hear the distinctive sound of a low, pained sob.
Shuddering, insatiably curious, I get up and tiptoe over to the bookshelf between me and Cole. Peering over the top of the books, I carefully observe him. He's on the opposite side of the aisle, leaning up against the shelves, hand covering his face.
His shoulders are trembling, his breath coming fast and hard. As I watch, he reaches up to wipe his eyes.
He's crying. Full-out sobbing, with heaving, snot, and everything by the looks of it.
My stomach does a weird little somersault. I don't know how to feel about the fact that I'm the one who did this to him. It seems like I should be jubilant, triumphant, celebratory even, but all I feel is tired and sad. Watching him is too confusing to bear, so I turn away from the books and head towards the back exit, my taste for revenge turned to ashes in my mouth.
Once, I thought I knew what I wanted: to see them destroyed. Now I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. What I thought was justice feels more like just another tangled web of questions without answers.
Maybe publishing the exposé on what really happened the night Mariana Marks was raped will finally make me feel better. It's what I came here to do, and it feels like the end of everything.
After that, I'll surely feel at rest, and the fire inside me will go out. Then I can finally go home and forget all about Coleridge—and the four terrible boys who prowl its hallways.
Everyone on campus is talking about Cole now. It's in the murmurs and whispers. The Legacies blog has gotten so many hits that the server temporarily crashed until the previous admin let me know they'd upped the server space to account for all the hits. My tweets about the DUI have gone viral, and there are murmurs going through the political sphere about the governor's actions in a possible cover up. Multiple journalists have reached out to me via the Legacies social media, wanting to know more—including my source, and whether or not I can put them in touch with them.
It's all overwhelming. Especially now that I'm in a precarious position at the school. My joint meeting with Mrs. Reynolds and Holly is after class today, and I have no idea what the outcome will be. For all I know, I'll wind up packing my bags by the end of the day.
At least now I have a video that proves my brother's innocence. It's the most valuable thing I've gotten here.
I'm not sure at first if I should go to my Visual Arts class, but I decide it would look odd if I skipped. And I need a distraction from everything going on in my life. Art is about the only thing I'm good at anymore since I fucked up all my friendships—or in Chrissy's case, I guess, discovered the truth about someone I thought was a good person.
We're doing recreations today. Rainbow brought in various prints of master painters' sketches, showing the process before the final piece, and we're meant to copy them. Once we've done a few sketches from reference, the assignment is to do a few in the style of the master we've chosen, but with our own subjects.
Five minutes into class, Cole hasn't shown up yet.
Fifteen minutes in, he's officially marked absent as the teacher moves around the tent taking roll.
I should feel relieved, but instead the pit in my stomach has just grown, like a tumor deep inside me. I feel like I'm going to be swallowed whole by the darkness growing beneath my skin.
Just a few more days. I'll get through a few more day
s, double check all the information I got from Mariana, see if I can pull any public info about the assault, and make my last post. Whether I do it from here or back home in Wayborne after inevitably getting expelled, it'll be done, and I can finally sleep easy again.
"So, Ms. Schneider, I'll be interested to know why you called this meeting." Mrs. Reynolds peers over her glasses at us. "It's atypical for two Rosalinds to have a roommate dispute."
I'm tapping my finger on my thigh, my knees squeezed tight beneath my blue tartan Coleridge skirt. It's the first time I've seen Holly in person since the night of the festival, not including eavesdropping on her breakup with Cole. Though we're here to speak to Mrs. Reynolds about our living situation—no doubt she wants a new roommate—I can't stop looking to the left of me, observing Holly.
She looks tired and withdrawn, especially compared to her normally outgoing, confident self. That's to be expected, given that she just broke up with her longtime boyfriend, but I can't help wondering if I had something to do with it, too.
I wish I could make up for the things I've done.
But she's made it very clear that's not going to happen, so I'll just have to accept—and suffer—the consequences instead.
"I don't want you to worry," Holly says to Mrs. Reynolds. "I just think it would be best if I found a new room to stay in."
I blink at her, shocked. "You want to move rooms?"
Holly's hands tighten on the armrests to either side of her. She doesn't quite look at me as she answers, "It's the simplest way to take care of things. We don't get along well, it turns out, and I have no cause to kick you out. So I'll move, and this will all be done with quickly."
I'm gobsmacked. I thought for sure she scheduled this meeting so she could tell Mrs. Reynolds to fire and expel me. The last thing I imagined was that she would volunteer to up and leave her room, the best one in the dorms.
It's too generous. And not fair, of course. This is the exact opposite of me facing the consequences of my actions. I can't let her do it.
"Actually, Mrs. Reynolds," I say, thinking fast, "one of the reasons why we decided we shouldn't live together anymore is... I'm just not cut out for the Rosalinds."
"Really?" She raises two dark, well-plucked eyebrows. "But this year's events have been some of the best we've ever had."
"That's because of Holly," I say, which is true. Even though I've had my own share of fun with the Rosalinds, and the last thing I want is to leave, the group has always been Holly's responsibility. "I just don't think I can pass my classes and stay committed to the group at the same time. So I'm the one who should move out. It wouldn't be fair to Holly for her to try to run the dorms from some other location."
Mrs. Rosalind faces Holly. "Is this amenable to you?"
For the first time since the meeting began, Holly looks over at me. It squeezes my heart tight to meet her green eyes, after everything that's happened to past few days, but I'm glad I least that she doesn't look at me with complete disdain.
"I was going to move off campus, but... it would be harder to run the Rosalinds if I don't live here anymore. I guess Brenna can move to the room underneath the stairs," she says, making me feel like I'm in some kind of Charles Dickens novel. "It's that or the Coleridge Center rooms, and those are basically a health hazard at this point."
Taking us both in, Mrs. Reynolds nods her head decisively. "Very well. Brenna, you'll be in room 200. It's beneath the stairs, as Holly said, but it's more than enough space for one girl."
"Thank you."
It's going to be very unpleasant to live underneath the stairs, with girls constantly going up and down them, but it's more than I deserve. I shoot Holly a grateful glance, but she isn't even looking my way anymore, and doesn't acknowledge me.
This is the fallout of what I've done.
I should be grateful it isn't worse, but instead I find myself worried that this is just the beginning of my downfall. There's so much further I can fall from here.
Chapter 42
He's gone. That's what everyone is saying when I go to dinner in Rosalind's dining hall, after moving all my things into the cramped room beneath the stairs, with its low ceiling and creaky floorboards.
Cole Masterson has left Coleridge. To live off campus, take a break, or drop out for good, no one knows. But somehow, despite the fact that it's only been a few hours since I overheard Holly breakup with him, he's just... vanished without a trace. His stuff is gone from Hadley Hall, and no one is saying for how long—especially the Elites.
Chrissy is in the dining hall, sitting at a table with Tricia and Sasha. They glance up at me as I grab a tray of food and stand nearby, hovering and uncertain.
Sasha asks, "Is it true? You quit the Rosalinds and moved out of your swanky room?"
I wait for her to mention what happened with the credit card, then just nod. "Yeah, it's true." Because no one has objected yet, I take a seat at the table. My stomach cramps as I stare down at my plates full of food; I've barely eaten the past two days, mostly resorting to scarfing down snacks in my room so I don't have to face anyone. "I'm going to live in the little room under the stairs."
"The broom closet?" Tricia's eyebrows raise. "I mean, technically that's not what it is, but..."
"It's not that bad." Grabbing a forkful of meatloaf off my tray, I take a bite and watch Chrissy surreptitiously. She's tearing her napkin into tiny little pieces in front of her, eyes cast down. "I actually think it might be nice to live alone. I mean, as long as it's not too uncomfortable in there. You can't really jump up and down on the bed without getting a concussion."
It's weird to say so much without Chrissy jumping in with one of her own thoughts, or a bit of gossip. Normally she can't talk enough. I don't know which of us is more mortifying—seeing her with Tanner, or hearing what she said about Cole's deaf little sister and discovering that I was wrong about her all along. Maybe there's an explanation, but she sounded like the bully, the way she talked.
"So." Tricia glances back and forth between me and Chrissy, while Sasha seems oblivious, as new to being folded into our stray group as she is. "The, uh, haunted house went really well. Everyone had fun."
"Mmm."
"But uh, at the end..." I feel panic rise up in my throat. This is it, this is the moment when they tell me that they know I'm a thief and imposter, and I'll lose what few friendships I have here. "I heard you and Holly had some kind of fight. And now she's broken up with Cole and everything."
Tricia clears her throat awkwardly; the other two aren't talking, so I guess she's the one elected to confront me about my misdeeds. "Brenna, did you... steal Cole from Holly or something?"
My eyebrows jump at her words. "What? No—no, god no. That's... not what happened."
"Then what happened?"
I'm at a loss to explain. It's so terrible I don't even know what to say. And if Holly didn't spill to everybody exactly what I did, then that means I have to explain. To do otherwise, to lie, would just dig my grave deeper.
The only thing is, I don't know how to face this. I came to Coleridge prepared to dive down in the mud and reveal people's sins. I just never expected that I would be the one to come back dirty and lost inside.
"I did something bad." Suddenly my appetite is gone again, and I find myself pushing my food around on my plate. "I uh..."
Sasha suddenly says, "Holly told me that you took her student ID and used it to buy books at the bookstore."
I freeze, uncertain what to do. I should be coming clean right now, telling them that I'm an identity thief and a liar. But if Holly gave another story, then I'm not sure I can contradict it.
What a hypocrite I am. I turned the Elites into social pariahs, but I'm not prepared to be one myself. Holding my tongue, I nod in confirmation of Sasha's story, which is close to the truth yet so far away from it at the same time.
"Oh, Brenna." Chrissy sighs, words bursting out of her all at once. "I guess we all make mistakes, huh?"
"Yeah."
Sasha quickly adds, "Yeah, just because you're not one of the Rosalinds anymore doesn't mean we can't be friends. You're the only one who really likes to listen to me talk about knife sharpening techniques."
Sasha is an odd one in ways I wasn't expecting, I'll give her that, but there's something nice about the unexpected among these pampered, privileged girls. "Thanks. Because of you, I'll never put a chef's knife through a dishwasher. And I know just exactly the type of switchblade that's legal for me to carry in the state of Connecticut."
She beams at me, patting the back of my hand. Tricia also adds her own promise that she won't abandon me in my time of need.
"After all," she murmurs, "it was just books. It's not like they give you scholarship kids much of a stipend. Though if you ever need anything like that again, just let me know. My dad will pay for basically anything I need as long as it's below four figures."
I smile and thank her, even as internally I twist at adding yet another lie to my ledger full of sins.
It's all just part of surviving at Coleridge, I'm realizing now. No one here is exactly what they seem. If they were, they wouldn't make it to graduation day.
When I get back to my tiny closet beneath the stairs, I start working on my final Legacies post, the one that will make everything I've been through all semester worth it. This is finally the chance to clear my brother's name, to lay his soul to rest, and to let go of the fire that burns inside me.
I don't want to believe that Lukas is the boy who assaulted Mariana Marks.