Dirty Fraud

by Eden Beck

  “Was it Astor?” I blurt, unable to keep the venom from my tongue. “Or one of the others? Was it Wills?”

  She doesn’t give me time to finish listing the many people who want to make my life miserable here.

  “No,” she says, pointing at the group of twelve-year-olds over my shoulder. “It was them.”

  So much for a distraction. My brief moments of respite from the drama of it all is ripped from my hands as I’m sent back down the hill to man the empty tables. Ms. Mason says it’s to keep an eye out for stragglers … but I saw the lists. No one else is coming.

  One word from Blair—not even Astor—and I can’t even be trusted to walk a bunch of kids around school grounds.

  There’s no point in going back really, but I’m so blinded by rage that I can’t think of anywhere else to go … and then I spot him.

  Blair is back at the tables, lingering around looking over something. Alone.

  He glances up a moment, and I know he spots me. But then he just looks back down, and something in me snaps.

  My broken heart gives way to anger that starts to bubble up, and I just can’t seem to hold it back. I don’t want to hold it back, and I go marching straight up to him.

  “What in the hell is your problem, Blair?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, without looking up at me. His voice is too loud. It’s for show. But it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t stop me.

  “Hit it and quit it, is that how it is for you?” I snap. I know there are others close enough to hear, but I don’t care. It’s not like I have a reputation to ruin anymore. He’s made sure of that. “Isn’t that enough? Do you have to start … start tormenting me too? Around everyone else?”

  He’s stopped scribbling in the little book. He waits a second and then, with a quick glance to the side to see no one else is looking, he grabs my arm and pulls me down the hill and into a small shack nestled into the trees. The insides are crammed full of landscaping equipment; mowers, weed-whackers, scythes … that sort of thing. He turns me to face him in the dim light and I can see agony in his eyes.

  He’s bitter and angry, and maybe even a little sad.

  “I had to do that! Okay? The others … they knew something was up. I could feel it.”

  “And that gives you the right to publicly humiliate me?” I ask. I shake his hand free of my arm and step back as much as I can in the cramped space.

  “It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” His trying to plead his case only infuriates me further.

  “It means something to me,” I say. I’ve started to shake all over. “I was so stupid. I see that now. You’re always going to take Astor’s side. No matter what. But there’s a problem with that.”

  “Yeah?” He isn’t angry. His face is blank, his hands balled into fists at his sides. I’ve never seen him stand so still.

  “The problem is … you’re not only betraying me, but you’re betraying yourself too. I think that might be even worse, because that means that neither one of us matters to you.” I am burning with anger at him. “You hurt me today, Blair. You really, truly hurt me today. I know that I did it all wrong last year, but this year I am one hundred percent genuine; no lies, no deceit, just all me, out there in front of everyone without my mask. You on the other hand, are full of lies and deceit this year, and you’re wearing two masks. One for each face.”

  Blair’s eyes tear up and he can’t be still any longer. He opens his balled-up fists and closes his palms on either side of my face, bringing me to him. He kisses me for a long moment, and I want it so much; I’ve been aching to feel him this close to me again. But this isn’t fair. This isn’t right. Did nothing I say just now mean anything to him?

  I have to stick to my resolve and show him that at least one of us respects me. I push him away and he shakes his head as he wrestles with himself inside.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Bunny. I had to do it. Or I thought I had to. Today when I saw you, you just looked so beautiful, and I was sure that Astor and Wills were going to see me looking at you like I want you. I couldn’t hide it … so I hurt you.” He begs me, staring into my eyes, and I get lost in the green sparkle of his teary gaze. “I’m so sorry, Bunny. Forgive me, please.”

  My heart is going to get me in so much trouble.

  His hands are in my hair and pressing into the side of my face. I can imagine them moving lower, getting frenzied, reaching to pull me in once more. It would be easy, to fall back into him.

  “Is it all over then?” I ask, barely daring to hope. “This whole stupid charade?”

  Blair looks at me in misery, and his hands drop away from my body. “No, Bunny. I can’t do that. This is the way things are, and it’s the way that things are just going to have to be. We’re … we’re just from two different worlds.”

  “Oh bull!” I snap bitterly at him, and all the tenderness in me is gone. “You just don’t have the guts to stand up to Astor! You’re such a coward!”

  My words have stunned him into silence. Never thought I’d see the day that Blair Rashnikov couldn’t think of the right thing to say.

  “You know what,” I say, turning back and throwing the door to the shed wide. “If you want him more than me, then go have him, and don’t you ever come to me like this again. Don’t touch me, don’t kiss me, and don’t even bother talking to me. If you can’t be genuine with me in public, then stay with your little clique. I hope you enjoy losing yourself to them.”

  I turn on my heel and stalk out onto the lawn. I’m done with him. It’s over.

  It has to be.

  For the sake of all of us.

  Chapter 7

  I’m determined the get the boys out of my mind, but they aren’t making it easy. After my little run-in with the tour, I hear back from several of the clubs I finally applied to join … and they’re all suddenly and suspiciously overbooked.

  Rather than admit defeat, however, I submit an application to anything I can get my hands on. By the end of my second week, the rejections are pouring in. Amidst the chaos I find two little beacons of hope; two clubs that, either by mistake or a headstrong desire to be outcast like myself, accept me into their fold. Drama and photography. They’re not really my thing, I’ve always considered myself a bit of a realist without much room for make-believe and shadow play, but it’s something.

  And now it’s more than just a chance to dive headfirst into something that will keep me busy. It’s a direct snub at those who tried to ice me out in the first place … and walking into the meeting rooms for the first time after class feels like a massive victory.

  Because it is.

  To top it all off, Dana gets in touch with her father and lays out the details of Ms. Martin’s abuse. He’s appropriately shocked and outraged—and promises he’ll look into it as soon as he can. These two triumphs carry me through the next couple weeks of school, even as Blair keeps trying to corner me at every possible opportunity. I just keep my head down and my mind focused on staying out of trouble as much as Astor and his goons will allow.

  I don’t forget them though. Every sight of them, the glorious holy trinity, still feels like a knife twisted in my stomach. I just learn to get used to it, to accept it as my sort of penance for last year’s lies. I keep telling myself that one day, and one day soon, I won’t have to see any one of them ever again. It’s simultaneously relieving and heartbreaking at the same time.

  Dana drags me down into the auditorium one weekend for a college fair. I’m a little reluctant to go, since I know they will be there too. I’ve made a point to eat at odd hours and shied away from any sort of social events where I might run into them … but I guess they can’t be avoided forever.

  Besides, Dana makes a compelling argument for why I should go. This is big for me. Like she and so many others have been happy to point out—I’m going to have to rely heavily on my life story to even be considered by most colleges. Back at my old school, I was jus
t another underprivileged kid, no different than the dozens, or even hundreds, in my classes. Here … I’m a novelty. An anomaly. I should capitalize on that, since my life could definitely use some direction right now.

  We’re not ten feet into the packed auditorium when I see the Columbia college table, and who should be in front of it, but Astor, Blair, and Wills. I watch them out of the corner of my eyes, trying my best to be subtle about it. They’re talking with the rep like they’re all old friends. Chances are, this is all just some formality. People like Astor, Wills, and Blair … they’re basically a shoe-in to schools like that. They probably got their acceptance letters pinned neatly to their birth certificates at the hospital the day they were born.

  Dana steers me well away from there, right past Victoria at the nearby table for Princeton. She’s going on and on about how her parents went there, yada-yada, but she keeps eyeing the table for Columbia and mentioning that she’s still ‘entertaining other options’.

  I can’t help but snort, and I think she hears me. She shoots a nasty look my way, and I try to pretend to bury my nose into the plastic brochure they handed out at the doorway. No point in giving her even more reason to make my life hell.

  I just can’t imagine Astor ever asking her to change colleges for him. Even if they are an item, and the thought makes me feel nauseous just for thinking it, I doubt he actually wants to carry on with her through college.

  Right?

  I feel a seed of jealousy sprout in me at the idea. She wants to be where Astor is too, and while I can understand it, because I’m feeling the same way, I don’t like it. So far I’ve tried not to read too much into their newfound closeness. At first, I just assumed it was another way to get back at me, something just for show. But now, as she leaves the table to go stand by Astor’s side—her hand reaching for his—I feel that wrenching in my stomach tighten.

  But Astor barely looks at her and then pulls his hand away, turning his attention back to the Columbia rep and his friends. A part of me, an embarrassingly large part of me, is pleased to see it. It’s plain as day that he’s still not into her. At least, not in the way he was into me.

  I take some solace in that thought, and return my distracted attention to Dana and the reps she’s hauling me around to.

  All of them basically tell me the same thing, without actually saying it. They bandy around with words that really don’t mean anything, but all get around to the same point—I don’t have the family legacy to get into a big college, and I certainly don’t have the grades.

  I could’ve told Dana that myself, but somehow, hearing it makes it all the worse. I try to keep a good face, but even I can only see that look of pity and disdain on so many faces before I just want to give up.

  Dana sees my dejection and pulls me aside.

  “What’s wrong?” She eyes me intently. “Something’s changed since you got here. Is it them?”

  She points at the holy trinity, and for once … that’s not it.

  I shrug. “I guess I’m kind of feeling like I don’t really belong here, you know? This is all a mistake. I don’t know what I was even thinking, coming here.”

  Determination flashes across Dana’s face. “That’s not it at all. Don’t say that. The students who graduate from this school have excellent chances of getting into the big colleges … regardless of how they got here in the first place.”

  “Really though?” I say. “I’m pretty sure a requirement to get in here in the first place is a certain caliber trust fund.”

  “Exactly,” she says, steering me back towards another table. “Play that to your advantage, and eventually you’ll find someone who sees that as the asset it is.”

  So far that hasn’t been the case, but I let her lead me to the last booth. It is, of course, Columbia.

  I’ve avoided it thus far for obvious reasons. The holy trinity still lingers there, with Victoria hovering as close to Astor as he will tolerate her. She shoots daggers at me with her eyes when I approach, but I just turn my attention to the rep. He seems grateful for a break from those four, and I don’t blame him. Unlike some of the other college reps, he has a genuine smile that draws me in right away. He doesn’t immediately balk at my credentials, but rather starts pulling out brochures he thinks might be helpful for me.

  “You know,” he says, as he’s diving under the cloth-covered table to hunt for something in his supplies, “It’s about time that Hawthorne Academy started a scholarship program. This kind of diversity is exactly what this school needs.”

  Before I can correct him myself, Victoria’s sharp tongue lashes out between us.

  “Actually,” she snaps, “Teddy isn’t here on scholarship. Go ahead. Ask her how she got in … and then you might change your mind about things.”

  The rep pauses, and looks between us, obviously confused. “Sorry, and you were … again?”

  Victoria turns pink with rage. “I just … we just …”

  He squints up at her again. “Oh, right, I remember now. At a certain point, you all just start to look the same.” He’s smiling at me again. “It’s good to see some fresh faces. However you ended up here, I say it’s a good thing.”

  “Oh, I can assure you … it’s not.” Victoria’s voice is shrill, near hysterical. She might have ignored me up until now, but there’s no way her hurt pride is going to let that slide. She steps up, one finger pointed accusatorially at me like I somehow brought this on. She’s about to unleash her full fury when, astonishingly, Astor puts out a hand and stops her.

  He doesn’t look at me. He just stares straight ahead and nods at the rep.

  “I think we’ve taken up enough of your time.” He thanks them and spins on his heel. Victoria stands shocked for a moment, but runs after him along with the others.

  I’m left standing baffled beside Dana and the rep … who seems a little off-put, but completely unaware of how important that moment just was.

  I have to excuse myself. I shove the pamphlets into my bag and run out of the auditorium as fast as my legs will carry me through the crowd. At some point I lose Dana, but I can’t stop to look for her. I need to get out of here. I need to think.

  To anyone else, what just happened means nothing.

  But to me … it means everything.

  I don’t stop when I get to the quad with its big, old, towering trees, but rather head out to the lake. A chill breeze leaves the dock beside the boathouse vacant—and I find myself gravitating towards it.

  The biting air helps my thoughts clear, or maybe it’s the history this place holds. I stand and look through the window, unsure of whether to go inside. This is the last place I was with Astor, Blair, and Wills before everything changed.

  Here, in this building, tangled up in the sails and rigging, I felt whole for the first, and only, time in my life. It was more than the romance of it all, it was more than who they were … it was what they meant to me. I let them close in a way I’d never let anyone before … and in turn, they did the same.

  I can’t bring myself to go inside. It’s too much; too many memories laced with emotion.

  Even though I settle outside, those emotions start wheedling their way back in anyway.

  This thing that I shared with them, it was more than just lust. It was more than just … us. I saw how it changed each of them. It made Blair more sincere, Wills a dreamer, and Astor … it made him human.

  Astor.

  I close my eyes and picture him here, with me. Inside the auditorium, just now, is the first time Astor has acknowledged my existence in the slightest since our falling out...and I can’t get it out of my head.

  He stopped Victoria.

  He protected me.

  And all my determination to stay away, to accept the wedge between us … it melts with the sound of his voice carrying over the water. When I open my eyes, I spot them lingering down by the shore some distance away.

  They can’t see me from here, but their voices carry across the lake so I can catch sni
ppets of their conversation. I watch them wistfully, able for once to really stare at them without being judged or stopped, and most importantly, without them knowing.

  They’re laughing and talking, and I remember when it would be the four of us doing that together. What I wouldn’t give to have that back.

  And then it hits me.

  All the effort, the clubs, the college plans—it’s all been a distraction from the real thing. I’m not going to stop … but I’m also not going to stop there.

  I would give anything, do anything, to have them back … and Astor’s actions today gives me the tiniest smidgeon of hope that it might actually be possible.

  A surge of determination swells up in me, and I know that if I am going to be happy at all this year, I am going to have to do whatever it takes to win the boys back; my boys, my friends. I’m not going to give up on them, even if they’ve given up on me.

  I will show them just how much they mean to me. I’ll talk to them. I’ll make sure they understand it, and I know that as much as they cared for me last year, they won’t be able to deny what’s between us all. They were all mine once before, and I am going to move heaven and earth to make sure that they will all be mine once again.

  And I won’t hide in the shadows to do it.

  Chapter 8

  I think I have a plan … but I can’t share it with Dana just yet.

  I write off my behavior earlier as being overwhelmed by everything, and though I think she knows it has more to do with Astor and the others, she doesn’t pry. I spread out the brochures on my desk and announce I’ve figured out what I need to do to increase my chances of getting into college.

  I’m going to join a team.

  Any team.

  It doesn’t matter so much which one … so long as Wills is in it.

  There’s only so long that they can go on ignoring me. So far I’ve let them...but those days are done. I’ll make them acknowledge me, and then I’m going to make them get to know me. The real me.