“She would never lie to you again, I know it. And besides, unlike AJ, whose whole personality is a lie, Allie is actually
a really good person. There’s no comparison between the two.”
Convincing your ex to date your ex-friend is definitely weird, but it’s easier than watching both of them keep messing everything
up.
“At least AJ is who she is,” Darwin sighed, flashing an angry look at Charlie. “I’m done hanging out with girls I can’t trust.”
Darwin’s comment stung worse than the time she’d mistaken a bottle of surfboard sealant for eye drops. She had never meant
to lie to him! They had vowed always to be honest with each other, but that was before Shira had forced her to trade her boyfriend
jeans in for a shiny pleated skirt, and her boyfriend in for a spot at the Academy.
“You’re making a mistake. Allie is a great girl. Even though she’s mad at me right now, I still consider her a friend.”
“Why is she mad at you?” he asked suspiciously. “What did you do?”
I’m a good person,
she wanted to shout.
I didn’t do anything!
“She thinks I turned on the cameras last night on purpose to get her in trouble. I guess she thinks I’m still into you… because
of why we broke up.”
The silence between them was suddenly thicker than Triple’s foot callouses. Charlie could feel Darwin’s eyes on her as she
stared hopelessly out at the ocean, willing him not to ask the next logical question.
“Wait. Why
did
we break up?”
Uh-oh.
Charlie had always told herself that if Darwin ever asked her directly what had happened, she would have to tell him the
truth. It was what she would have wanted from him if the situation were reversed. And, she reasoned, maybe it would help him
move on, or at least help him hate her less. Or…
She barely allowed the thought to flit across her conscious mind before shoving it back down into the portion of her brain
where pointless wishes belonged: Maybe it would mean they could be together again someday.
“You really want to know?” Charlie’s voice wavered, pinched with emotion.
“I deserve the truth,” Darwin said flatly, shifting in the sand so he was sitting between her and the ocean. “Don’t you think?”
Okay,
thought Charlie.
Fine.
But how was she supposed to put it?
I broke up with you to become an Alpha. So I could go to high school near you and not be shipped off to a boarding school.
So I could make something of myself. So I could finally show your mom that I deserve you.
“Your mom made me,” she cough-confessed, looking up at the robin’s egg–blue sky. It was as simple as that, sadly. Shira held
all the cards. Always had. Probably always would.
Charlie lowered her eyes back to Darwin and waited for a look of relief to wash over Darwin’s smooth, tanned face. She sat
up straight, all thoughts of Allie vanishing like a scarf up a magician’s sleeve. She held her breath, expecting Darwin to
reach out, to grab her and hold her tight, his voice in her hair saying how much he appreciated the sacrifice she had made
for him. She waited for awe, amazement, and maybe even renewed devotion. Maybe now he would be willing to wait with her for
her year at Alpha to be over, for Charlie to prove to Shira that she was worth his time.
But Darwin didn’t say any of that. Charlie watched as his face hardened, closing up like an oyster. Instead of bringing them
closer together, the truth was making things between them even worse.
“I. Can. Not. Believe. You.” Darwin’s nostrils flared as he slowly spit out the monosyllables. His ears blazed neon pink.
“She controls
everything
! Why did you have to let her control this, too?”
“But I did it for us—” Charlie’s spine sagged and she curled into herself, defeated, tears streaming down her face. “You don’t
know what it’s like not to have the world in the palm of your hand, Dar—”
“Don’t tell me what I know,” he spat, hurling his body up from the sand until he stood towering above her. “In fact, don’t
tell me anything. I went over and over this in my mind, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong, what could have possibly
pushed you away. And all the time—it was her?” His eyes wet with tears of his own, he backed away from her like she was a
grizzly bear about to attack—scary, potentially insane, and capable of ripping him to shreds.
“Wait!” she cried, jumping to her feet and staggering after him. “You don’t understand!” But he waved her off and began to
run back up the beach toward his house and the security of Shira’s constant surveillance, where Charlie wouldn’t dare go.
She watched him run through a screen of her tears, waves of shock rippling through her from the boulder he had thrown into
her emotional ocean. She’d finally gotten everything she thought she wanted—a place at Alpha, respect from Shira, and for
Darwin to know the truth.
So how come she felt like she had nothing at all?
SHIRA’S OFFICE
THE WAITING AREA
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH
6:17 P.M.
Skye fidgeted in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair outside Shira’s office, staring at an enormous metal sign that read
BRAZILLE INDUSTRIES: EMPOWERING WOMEN EVERYWHERE in thick laser-cut letters. She crossed her legs and then uncrossed them,
leaning her weight on one butt cheek and then the other in a desperate attempt to relax. She wondered how many minutes she
had waited so far—five? Ten? Ten thousand? Time had lost all meaning in this elegant little room just a few feet from the
epicenter of all things Shira.
A laptop sat open on the unmanned reception desk, its Apple symbol pulsating like a sinister heartbeat. It reminded Skye of
an Edgar Allan Poe story she’d read in her seventh-grade English class. She was now living her own non-murderer’s version
of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and it was only a matter of time before her own paranoia caused her to accidentally confess, to
mess up and say something she would later regret. Even if Shira hadn’t summoned her here to expell her, Skye would probably
blurt out one of the many infractions she’d committed lately. Skye fretted and picked at her cuticles, doing her best to forget
all of her Alpha Academy crimes before Shira got her to spill. She decided the safest approach to an interrogation session
would be to list all the potential infractions Shira might accuse her of and counter each one with an excuse Shira would buy.
ACCUSATION:
Skye threw a party on the bubble train!
EXCUSE:
Skye was awakened in the Jackie O bedroom by a noise outside. Some girls stole the train and she jumped on to make sure no
one got hurt. She comes from a long line of Metro-North train conductors and thought she could help.
ACCUSATION:
Skye was a disaster in dance class today!
EXCUSE:
Skye had a high fever and stomach cramps. Possibly swine flu. She dragged herself out of bed and forced herself to dance
through it because that’s what a true professional would do. Shira should put her in quarantine, not make her leave school!
Swine flu at Alpha Academy would be a public relations nightmare, and Skye would hate it if someone leaked it to the press,
hint hint!
ACCUSATION:
Taz commandeered the
Joan of Ark
for Skye!
EXCUSE:
Joan of
who
? There’s a
lake
here?
ACCUSATION:
Skye had used her keys to the dance studio to throw a party there!
EXCUSE:
Shock and dismay! Skye would
never
violate a sacred dance space like that! Skye had gone to the studio at night, but only because she needed to practice her
routines. She was an Alpha and therefore she was determined to be the best. Wasn’t that why Mimi had given them the key? So
they could practice at all hours?
Just when Skye thought she couldn’t take another second, Shira’s office door slid open. Skye leapt to her feet, clearing her
throat and stretching her lips into what she hoped looked like the smile of an honest person with nothing to hide.
But her smile faded as quickly as it appeared, because instead of Shira or one of her many assistants, several of her classmates
began to shuffle out of the office, each one rolling a suitcase. Skye could practically smell the shame and disappointment
wafting out of their pores.
“We’re all going home,” Jojo, a ukulele prodigy, told her. Her slate-gray eyes were filled with tears, and her face looked
puffy, like she’d been crying for a long time. “Nice meeting you,” Jojo whispered. “Look me up on MySpace if you get kicked
out, too—I’m starting a former Alphas support network.”
Ohmuhgud!
Skye grabbed her hand for a secret supportive squeeze. Two Michelle Obamas, an Oprah, a Meg Whitman, and two Hillary Clintons
followed Jojo into the foyer.
“This is really all her fault,” hissed one of the Hillaries Skye couldn’t recall the name of (actually, wasn’t her name
Hillary
?). She pointed a French-manicured finger at Skye. “It was her stupid party.”
“Skye Hamilton! Enter!”
Skye’s heart began an intricate Savion Glover tap routine inside her ribs.
Gulp!
Skye pushed her way past the last of the expelled Alphas. Walking into the room, she noticed right away how silent it was.
Tomblike,
Skye thought, vowing to push any more Poe references to the back of her mind for now. The carpet was thicker here in Shira’s
office, the walls lined in a more expensive, shinier kind of wood. Skye took a deep breath and smelled Shira’s perfume; she
was wearing Money, the first of several perfume lines launched by X-Chromosome. Skye remembered the ad campaign, which featured
Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick rolling around in piles of cold hard cash.
Skye waded through the ultra-plush carpet and approached Shira’s enormous Australia-shaped desk. Light streamed in from the
windows behind the mogul, causing her to look like a silhouette.
“G’day, Skye.” Shira’s voice wasn’t quaking with anger. She sounded strangely friendly, actually. But Shira loved to catch
people in verbal traps on her talk show, and Skye wasn’t naive enough to take her friendliness at face value.
Deny, deny, deny!
Skye pinched the inside of her wrist with the fingers of her other hand so as not to blurt out a hasty apology before Shira
even accused her.
“Sit, please,” Shira said. Skye sat. Skye’s heart abandoned its tap routine and went into hyperdrive, like it was trying to
win an episode of
So You Think You Can Dance.
She wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack at age fourteen. She pictured her mother’s face crumpling into sobs
when she got the news of Skye’s death. Her parents might have to close down Body Alive Dance Studio out of grief. Without
the added income, they would have to move out of Westchester and into some horrible place like Yonkers or Riverdale. Maybe
someplace even worse!
While Skye’s thoughts spiraled into the South Bronx, Shira leaned forward in her chair and tapped a bloodred fingernail into
the air in front of her. Skye’s jaw dropped as a gold book the size of a sheet of paper suddenly materialized on an invisible
screen. The holo-book floated above Shira’s desk, shimmering like a magic coin. “Open. Saturday,” Shira said, sounding bored
and tired.
The holo-book turned into a see-through list of appointments, and Skye tried to read the backward writing.
“Conference with Michelle postponed to seven fifteen,” Shira said, raising her auburn eyebrows at Skye.
Michelle Obama?
The backward writing dissolved for a moment, then instantaneously appeared with the new appointment highlighted in green toward
the bottom. Satisfied, Shira flicked the page with her index finger and sent it flying off the invisible screen.
Finally, Shira’s dark lenses faced Skye.
“I brought you here, Skye, because I saw something interesting on the cameras earlier today.”
Today?
Skye retraced her steps from the day and couldn’t think of anything she’d done that was the least bit interesting or unusual,
except for telling Syd she wasn’t into him. . . . Had the cameras heard her?
“I saw Sydney give you some flowers. And a book…”
“It’s not what it looks like! We aren’t—”
“Calm down,” Shira said shortly. “I was
pleased
with what I saw.”
Huh?
Skye was lost. “Oh.”
“Sydney is a very sensitive boy. And lately, I’ve noticed a change in him. He’s been happy. Happier than I’ve seen him in
years. I couldn’t figure out why until I saw his face today on the surveillance system.
You
have been making him happy, Skye. And I’m all for the two of you dating. Or, hanging out? Isn’t that what you kids call it?”
“But…,” Skye sputtered. She winced as she heard Syd’s condescending tone, when he’d called her parties stupid, echo in her
ears. A shudder passed through her body as she imagined enduring his holier-than-thou speeches about nurturing her passion.
The last thing she wanted was to be ordered to hang out with Syd!
“Forget about the rules. My son has never been this happy, and I’d like it to stay that way. Mirror!” An opaque square popped
up where Shira’s appointment book had appeared before, and Shira opened a desk drawer and pulled out a tube of X-Chromosome
Queen of Hearts lipstick. She stared at the square briefly as she expertly whisked the color around her mouth, then flicked
the mirror square away and pursed her newly matte red lips at Skye. “Just don’t break his heart!”
But I already broke his heart!
Skye had no idea what to do. You couldn’t order a girl to like someone she hated…
could you
?
“One more thing,” Shira added as she blotted on a piece of
SHIRA BRAZILLE, AMERICA’S ALPHA
stationery. “About your weak performance
in dance class lately.”
Skye’s body involuntarily tightened up again before she remembered that if she had just been ordered to date Syd, she wasn’t
going anywhere.