by Kate Brian
I stared at the computer. I knew someone who might know how to find her. Someone I'd been "talking" to nearly every day. Maybe it was finally time to broach the subject I had been avoiding for so long. Could I do it? And if I did and he helped me find her, would she be there for me? I hit the space bar, bringing the screen to life. "What are you doing?" Sabine asked. I typed in Dash's e-mail. "Calling in reinforcements." I composed a quick message, but the second I hit the send button, I wanted to call the e- mail back. My whole chest filled with dread. What was I thinking? I was not Noelle. I had made that abundantly clear over the past few weeks. I couldn't get someone expelled. Not even Cheyenne. I wasn't a schemer. I didn't have it in me. This was not me.
And on top of all that, what if Dash didn't write me back? We never mentioned Noelle or Josh in our e-mails. What if bringing her up now somehow tarnished our banter? Brought it into the realm of the real? Potentially, I had just screwed up beyond all repair. Lost Josh and Dash in one horrifying, heartbreaking day. I closed the computer with a click and tried to swallow against my suddenly dry throat. "Maybe we should talk about something else," I said, my voice hollow. Sabine laughed nervously. "Yes. Good idea." We had come dangerously close to the abyss. It was time to turn back.
FOUR HOURS
That night I lay in bed, unable to sleep, staring at the ceiling. The images kept coming over and over. Cheyenne's bare legs. Josh's chest. Cheyenne climbing on top of him. His hand on her neck. On her shoulder. His eyes as he took her in. Her hands slowly unbuttoning her shirt. Her bra. Her thong. His unzipped pants . .. I flipped over, face to pillow, and groaned. Tears squeezed their way out onto the pillowcase. How could he do this to me? How?
I couldn't breathe. I lifted my head and my heart stopped. Red and blue lights flashed against the windowpane. A million flashback images from last year flooded my mind. I jumped from my bed and shoved the curtains aside. There was an ambulance pulling past the girls' dormitory circle. I spotted it as it whizzed up the drive toward the end. Toward the econd circle. Toward the boys' dorms. No siren. No noise. Just the silent scream of the lights. I held my breath and clung to the curtains until it was out of sight. Then I opened the window and listened. Heard the distant pop of car doors closing. The sound of voices carrying through the clear night. And then, nothing. I looked at the clock. Four hours until breakfast. Four hours to wait and wonder what the hell was going on now.
SWEET LITTLE SABINE
The next morning I was itching to get out in the world and find out what had happened, but I had to wait for Sabine. Considering the night I'd had, I was in no shape to traverse campus and deal with all the wagging tongues and curious eyes on my own. She dressed as quickly as she could, and we were just walking out of our room when we heard Cheyenne screech. There were pounding footsteps, and two seconds later she was in the hall in her pink bathrobe, clutching what looked like the tattered, stained, and slashed remains of the tartlet outfit Sabine had worn the day before.
"What is this?" she shouted at Sabine, storming over to us. She shook the garments in her fists. "Oh, right. I tried to wash them since you were so kind as to let me borrow them, but the campus machine went crazy and just tore them all to shreds," Sabine said innocently. My jaw dropped. She didn't. She couldn't. Sweet little Sabine? "The washing machine did this," Cheyenne said facetiously. She unfurled the shirt and skirt. Each was cut into tiny little strips like fringe. And the stains on the shirt weren't just from juice and eggs. There were big black marks all over it, like the unfortunate person wearing it had been hit by a car. Sabine shrugged. "It's an old machine." "And I suppose it chewed my boots to pulp, too," Cheyenne said, glowering. "No," Sabine said. "That was the janitor's dog. He busted into the laundry room and just grabbed them. There's no stopping a dog once he gets his teeth into real leather. I'm so sorry. I'll pay you back, of course." I snorted a laugh. "I don't think that'll be necessary," I said, putting my arm over Sabine's shoulder. "I think the two of you are even now."
I turned Sabine around, and together we strolled for the door. "Thanks for that. I needed a laugh this morning," I said. "But I've gotta say, I didn't know you had it in you." "Neither did I," Sabine replied. "But I suppose she just brings it out in me."
WASN'T ME
Every muscle in my body was tense as I walked to breakfast. Contrary to my plan, Sabine had bailed the moment we hit the front steps, needing to get some paperwork from her counselor, and I'd been left alone. Vulnerable. It was the first cool day of the year and I wasn't dressed for it. Hadn't even bothered to consider the weather. I shivered as a breeze rustled by, clinging to my bare arms. I looked around for distressed expressions, for whispering lips, for any indication of what had happened the night before. But all appeared normal. A sunny, happy Saturday at Easton Academy. "Reed!" Trey speed-walked over to me from the direction of Ketlar, his handsome face creased with concern. I stopped in my tracks. This could not be good.
"Are you all right? Have you heard from Josh?" he asked. "What do you mean?" He paused, confused. "Josh. They took him to the hospital last night. Didn't Gage call you?" "No." No, no, no. "What happened?" I blurted. "He had a seizure. I woke up out of nowhere and found him half falling out of his bed, shaking like crazy. I had to call 911," Trey said. "I'm sorry. Gage was supposed to--" He stopped midsentence as a black sedan--one of Easton's official cars, used to retrieve visiting students and alumni from the airport- slid up the drive and paused between dorms. The door opened, and Josh stepped out very slowly. Jeans frayed, hair messed, but otherwise perfectly intact. The relief that flooded through me at the very sight of him was quickly obliterated the second he looked at me. In that second I recalled the anguish of last night. And I didn't care. I didn't care if he was fine or not. I just had to get out of there. I turned on my heel and stormed toward the dining hall, leaving Trey behind me.
"Reed! Wait!" Josh shouted. I sped up."Reed! Please! I have to talk to you." His hand fell on my shoulder. I whipped around, batting it away with my forearm in one motion. "Ow! Dammit." He clung to his arm, slumped, like I'd just taken all the life out of him. "We are done talking," I said through my teeth. God, he looked pale. His eyes were all red and bloodshot. I wanted to hug him. Ask him what had happened. Had he been scared? I just wanted to kiss him and-- Smack him. No. Punch him. Right in the gut. "Reed, I had a seizure last night," Josh told me, his tone pleading. "And what? You want me to kiss you and make it all better?" I blurted, storming off again. "No! That's not what I meant!" Josh said. "Please, Reed. Please just stop. I can't. I can't keep up with you right now." There was something in his tone that stopped me. A pathetic quality that for some reason my heart couldn't ignore. When I looked at him again, he was sitting down on one of the stone benches. Slowly. Tenderly. As if every bone in his body hurt. "What's the matter with you?" I asked belligerently. "It's the seizure," he said. "All my muscles hurt. I think I just killed myself running to catch up with you." He gave me a grimace/smile that brought angry tears to my eyes. Why was he doing this? Was he really expecting to get a pity vote that would somehow erase what he'd done? "About last night," he said. "I don't want to talk about it," I said. "Well, I do," he snapped.
Snapped. At me. Like I was the one letting Cheyenne Martin crawl all over me. "I was drugged, Reed. I didn't even know what the hell I was doing," he said, the words coming out in a rush. "I was in the art cemetery and all of a sudden she was there and then you were there and ... I don't even remember half of it. I was completely out of it. You have to believe me. I would never do that to you. You know that. I don't even--" "Stop," I said. My eyes were welling. Every pack of people that passed us by on the quad stared at us. "Stop lying." "I'm not lying!" Josh shouted. "I'm telling you. Someone put something in my pillbox yesterday. I always set it up at the beginning of the week and sort the pills I need by day. Yesterday I dumped my pills into my hand and shoveled them into my mouth all at once. You've seen me do it a million times, right?" Why was I still standing there? Why?
"Right?"
he asked again. I managed to nod."Well, right before they hit my mouth I noticed something. This small white pill with blue dots all over it. It wasn't one of my pills. But it was too late," he said, his eyes pleading. "I told myself I'd just imagined it, but now I know I didn't. It had to be one of those date rape drugs or something. It's the only explanation." "Not the only one," I muttered. "Why else would I have had a seizure last night?" Josh demanded. "Those have been under control for years. The only time I ever have one anymore is if I take something extra or drink too much or whatever. If my body chemistry gets thrown off. It makes perfect sense. Whatever I took. . . that threw me off enough to give me a seizure." I stared down at him. At his hopeful green eyes. At his wan complexion. "Somebody did this to me, Reed. To us," he said. "I would never willingly hurt you. You're everything to me, don't you get that? Everything."
My teeth clenched together so tightly, it sent my temple throbbing. "Then why did you text her?" I said quietly. Josh blinked. "What?" "Why did you text Cheyenne? You invited her there, Josh! You said you couldn't wait for her anymore. That you needed her!" I shouted. "If you were so taken advantage of, how the hell do you explain that? A few freshmen walking by stopped to stare. I didn't even care. Let them see what happened when you let yourself care about someone. Let me be a cautionary tale. Something good should come out of my crap-ass life. "Reed, I have no idea what you're talking about," Josh said.
"Stop lying!" I practically screamed. "I saw it on her phone! She showed it to me. It came from your cell. You invited her there!" "I didn't. I didn't," Josh rambled, shaking his head. Squinting his eyes. As if trying to remember. "We were at a committee meeting in Mitchell Hall for the Driscoll dinner thing. After it was over I went to the cemetery. She followed me in there. She followed me--" "Please stop," I said, tears spilling over onto my cheeks. "I can't stand here and listen to this anymore." I turned around, hugging myself, and walked away. He stood up, but winced and didn't move.
"Reed, please don't do this. It wasn't me. I didn't know what I was doing," he pleaded. "Have you! Reed! You know that I love you!" My heart tore down the middle. Today his words felt like a cruel joke. Like torture. He kept calling to me, but I didn't look back. I would never look back.
* * *
I sat up straight in bed when the front door of Billings slammed closed. The first thing I noticed was that Sabine was not in her bed. The second was the time on the clock: 1:04 a.m. Then I heard Mr. White's icy voice down in the lobby. Sound really carried in an old, creaky house like this one. Especially when no one was attempting to be quiet. "To bed," he said. "Now." "Crap," I said under my breath, flinging my sheets aside. Several footfalls on the stairs told me Sabine was not alone. When the door opened, Constance and Lorna were with her. Their heads were all bowed.
"What the hell-" I didn't get the chance to finish my sentence. "What the hell happened?" Cheyenne howled, tearing in wearing nothing but a short pink nightgown. She was followed by London, Vienna, Portia, Rose, Tiffany, Missy, and Astrid. I hadn't spoken to her all day, and part of me wanted to grab her and shove her right back out of my room. "No one invited you in here," I spat. No one even looked at me. 'We got caught," Constance told us as she shrugged out of her jacket. "What?" Cheyenne whisper-screeched. "Oh, this is just brill," Portia blurted, touching her diamond B. "I knew this was going to happen!" "Caught doing what?" I demanded, heart pounding. "They were supposed to be stealing a test," Portia explained. "Are you expelled?" Cheyenne demanded of the three of them. There was obvious hope behind her eyes. "No," Sabine said bitterly, knowing, as she did, that Cheyenne wanted her gone. "They caught us outside. Lorna said we were out for a midnight stroll, and they couldn't prove otherwise. We're only on probation."
"Quick thinking, Lorna," Tiffany said, rousing a rare but weak smile from Lorna. "Probation?" Rose asked. "Meaning what, exactly?" "Mr. White said if any of the three of us steps one more foot out of line, we're gone," Constance explained. She looked as if her life was flashing before her eyes. "Unbelievable," Cheyenne said, throwing up her hands. "Do you know that in the eighty-plus years that Billings House has been functioning not a single person has gotten caught on this task? It's a veritable cake walk!" Shut up, you backstabbing bitch. Shut up, shut up, shut up! "I would never have gotten caught," Missy sniffed. I stared at her. Every inch of my skin tingled. She stood in the middle of my room in a pair of silk pajama pants and a tank top. Astrid, too, was in boxer shorts. Kiki wasn't even there, probably still sleeping. But Constance, Sabine, and Lorna were dressed in head-to- toe black. "Why didn't you get caught?" I asked.
"Excuse me?" Missy snapped. "Why weren't you out there with them?" I asked, then looked at Cheyenne. It took some effort to do that without retching, but I forced myself. "If every Billings Girl has passed this task since the beginning of time, why weren't Missy and Astrid and Kiki out trying to pass it?" Cheyenne scoffed. "I couldn't exactly send six girls out at once to tromp around campus, could I?" she said, tugging on her hair. "The others were going to go out tomorrow night. Not that they can now," she added, casting a disgusted look at the three in black. "Nice to ruin it for everyone." Sabine, Lorna, and Constance looked at their feet, like kindergartners who'd just gotten caught raiding the cookie jar. This was so degrading. So humiliating. And they so did not deserve it.
You have the high road, I thought, hearing Dash's voice in my head. "All right. That's it," I said. "Cheyenne. Outside." There was no getting around it. We lived in the same house. She was systematically torturing my friends. I was going to have to deal with her. But if I was going to have to deal with her, it would be on my terms. "What?" she snapped. "You, me, let's go." "No way. Not if you're going to go all Million Dollar Baby on me again," she said, paling. "I won't touch you. I swear," I said, standing at the doorway. "We're just going to have a little chat." She looked at her friends as if to make sure they'd have her back if I threw down, then swooped by me out the door. I cringed at her close proximity as images of her and Josh assaulted me again. Taking a deep breath, I pushed them aside and closed the door. I tucked my clenched fists under my arms and turned to face off with Cheyenne. She took an instinctive step back in the hallway, toward her room. It was all I could do to keep from laughing at her tremulousness.
"This ends now," I said. She laughed. Loudly. Probably relieved that I wasn't right-hooking her jaw. "You're out of your mind.""No, I think I'm actually in my right mind for the first time all year," I told her. "You are going to back off those girls starting right now, or I'm going to the headmaster to tell him that you're orchestrating all of this. That this is all part of the sorority thing you've created around here that he hates so much." She laughed again, until she saw the fire in my eyes. "You wouldn't." "Wouldn't I?" I asked. "After everything you've done to me, do you really think I would hesitate a second to carry through on that threat?" Cheyenne studied me. I could practically hear the gears in her head creaking.
"I'd tell everyone it was you," she said, lifting her chin. "Everyone in Billings would know that you went against your own." "Somehow, after last night, I don't think they would blame me." "Oh, they would. These girls are remarkably self-centered, if you haven't noticed. They'll start wondering about you. If you can back- stab me, then who's next?" Cheyenne theorized. "Do those losers really matter more to you than Billings does?" "No," I told her firmly. "But they do matter more to me than you." Her jaw dropped slightly and her cheeks turned crimson. How she could be surprised at this, I had no idea, but I stepped even closer to her, sensing I had her just where I wanted her. "I'll deal with the rest of the house if and when the time comes. But I'm sure the headmaster would much rather pull one lonely troublemaker out of Billings than have to close down the whole dorm and explain that to the prestigious Billings alumnae, don't you think?" Her eyes were wide. I had never seen Cheyenne speechless before. "I know how much you love this place," I said. "I know how much it would kill you to have to go live in Pemberly with the commoners." "You can't." "Oh, I can." I felt strong as I st
ared her down. Certain. I had the high road. I was in charge. "Don't test me, Cheyenne. I learned from the best."With that, I turned around and went back into my room, slamming the door in her face. Finally, I had gotten the last word.
ADEQUATE
Between my bio lab and chem class I received a text from Rose telling me to come straight back to Billings after soccer practice for a meeting. I spent the entire time on the field missing passes, shooting wide, and falling all over myself, my mind on other things. On Josh. On Cheyenne. On their gut-crushing betrayal. And on this meeting. What could it possibly be about? I couldn't even begin to hazard a guess, but considering my current frame of mind, I knew it couldn't be good.
"How're you holding up?" Astrid asked me as we tromped down the hill back toward the school buildings. Her question made my fists clench. She was, after all, friends with the enemy. Why was she asking? So she could report back to Cheyenne? "I'm fine," I said flatly. "Reed, I'm not on her side," Astrid said, stopping in her tracks. It took me a few more steps to pause. I held my breath as I looked at her, but I had no idea what to say. "I think that she's a complete cow for what she did," Astrid told me, tucking her soccer ball under her arm. "We never were proper friends, just people who knew each other through our families, and at this point I feel quite sure we never will be." My heart felt squishy and warm and distrustful at the same time. "I don't know what to say."
