The world screeched to a halt. My throat constricted.
“Are Sawyer and I what?”
Josh got up and the bed squealed in protest again. He put his hands over his face and groaned in frustration, way too loudly for my comfort.
“I can’t,” he whispered vehemently. “I can’t do this anymore, Reed. I don’t . . . I don’t love her. Not like I love you. It’ll never be like it is with us. It doesn’t matter what I do or . . . or how hard I try. She’ll never be . . . She’s not you.”
I stared up at him, my breath coming short and ragged. Hot tears filled my eyes as my heart exploded over and over again, releasing all the hope and longing it had been holding inside for so long.
“So please,” Josh said. “Please just tell me that you and Sawyer aren’t . . . that you’re not . . .”
He couldn’t even finish the sentence. I stood up. My room was so small that the very act put us within inches of each other. I took one step and our foreheads touched. His fingertips grazed my waist and my entire body trembled. Then Josh slipped one hand around the small of my back, the other over my cheek. My hands fluttered to his chest. I looked into his eyes.
“I love you, Reed,” he said.
I sighed three months’ worth of sighs. “I love you too.”
And then, shoving thoughts of Ivy and Sawyer and everything else in the world to the back of our minds, we finally, finally kissed.
The next morning, the guilt had settled hard and heavy in the pit of my gut. By the light of day, when I wasn’t wrapped up in the insane romance of the moment, I was nothing but a cheater and a back-stabber. It didn’t matter that I’d loved Josh first. It didn’t matter that we wanted to be together. We could have waited until he’d broken up with her. We could have tried to explain. But now it was too late. We’d kissed. A lot. With Ivy right next door.
I loathed myself.
Then, the moment I walked into the dining hall on Monday morning, Constance scurried up to me all bright smiles and long red braids, and I started to wonder if I hadn’t been better off stranded on that deserted island off St. Barths.
“Hey!” she said. “Listen, I know I’m not supposed to talk about it in public, but I thought, you know, we’d get our taps over the weekend. Are they coming today?”
The good news was the sisters of the BLS could keep a secret. The bad news was, I hadn’t thought about all the things that were probably going to change as of this very moment. I glanced past her at Lorna, her roommate whom she’d been walking with before running ahead to greet me. How were these two going to live together once Constance knew that Lorna was in and she was out? Lorna hovered in the aisle next to the two Billings tables for a moment. At the first, Noelle, Portia, Tiffany, Kiki, Astrid, and Amberly were chatting away. The second was occupied by London, Vienna, and Missy. Lorna decided to join them and as she sat, I realized that she and Vienna looked miserable and uncomfortable, while the other two were oblivious. What were they going to do when they learned the truth?
The solid rock of guilt in my gut doubled in size. There was no point in dragging this out. Constance deserved to know what was going on. They all did.
“Actually, Constance,” I said, keeping my voice low as a gaggle of freshmen gabbed their way by, “initiation already happened . . . last night.”
It took way too long for the meaning of this to dawn on Constance’s face. When it did, her eyes widened for a brief moment, as if she’d just heard a gunshot, and then everything crumbled.
“What!?” she shrieked.
The entire population of Easton turned around to stare. Gritting my teeth, I tugged her toward the back wall.
“Constance,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry, okay? I know you’re upset,
but three people had to be cut, and you had the lowest score on knowledge night and didn’t even show up for work night.”
“I told you! I had to talk to Whit that night! He needed me,” Constance cried.
“I know, but the book says—”
Tears spilled over onto Constance’s freckled cheek. “I don’t give a shit what the book says!” she blurted. Then her hand flew up to cover her mouth. Constance never cursed. Ever.
“How could you leave me out, Reed?” Constance whispered, her bottom lip trembling. “You’re my best friend.”
Okay, I was scum. Slutty, cheating, backstabbing scum. In that moment, none of it mattered. Not the book or the alumna who’d given it to me. Not the history or the legacy or the tradition. All that mattered was I’d broken my friend’s heart.
“Constance—”
I reached for her arm, but she yanked it away. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me, Reed. I’m the only one who’s always been your friend no matter what,” she whispered, her eyes so fierce I was startled. “When you ditched us last year to go live in Billings, I was still there. When everyone else voted to kick you out, I was one of
three people
who took your side. But you . . . you don’t care about me at all, do you? All you care about is your elitist Billings Girls. Well, guess what? I wouldn’t even join your stupid secret society if you paid me!”
My lungs felt as if they were full of mucky water. I couldn’t breathe through all the guilt. She turned around and ran for the table, where
she leaned over and whispered in Missy’s ear before grabbing her stuff and storming out.
Missy whirled around, her thick French braid flying, and leveled me with a glare that could have taken out the entire US Army. As she got up, I saw London starting to realize something was amiss. Vienna pulled her aside to explain. This was a disaster.
“Well, thanks, Reed,” Missy said, crossing her arms as she stood in front of me. “You’ve finally proved what I’ve always known about you—you
are
a liar.”
“Excuse me?” I said, shocked.
“Weren’t you the one who was always talking about including everyone? Opening up Billings to different classes, different backgrounds, different everything?” Missy whispered, narrowing her eyes. “Then the second you get the slightest bit of power, you’re ostracizing the people you claim are your friends.”
“It’s not my fault,” I said. “There could only be eleven—”
“Oh, please!” Missy said with a sneer. “What did you think was going to happen if you let all of us in? Do you think Elizabeth Williams and Theresa Billings are going to rise from their graves and stalk you down? Give me a break. You’re just pissed about what happened last semester and you’re trying to put all of us in our places, show everyone who’s in charge. Well, good for you, Reed.”
We both glanced behind her as London burst into tears and headed for the bathroom, Vienna at her heels.
Missy raised her palms and let them slap down at her sides. “You walk around this school like you’re so perfect, like you’re everyone’s
friend, but you just proved one thing: You have
no
idea what it means to be a friend.”
Then Missy turned on her heel and walked out through the same door through which Constance had exited moments ago. I stood there for a long moment, my stomach quivering, and tried to catch my breath. The nine girls left at the Billings tables watched me with a mixture of sympathy and concern. I was about to push myself away from the wall when Josh emerged from the food line, a pile of doughnuts on his tray. He was a good thirty yards away, but directly across from me, and we both stopped in our tracks. My body reacted to the sight of him in a way that was totally incongruous with my current state of shame.
Then Ivy came through the far door and spotted him instantly. She rushed over and planted a huge kiss right on Josh’s lips.
“I thought you were dead!” she scolded him, giving him a whack on the shoulder before dragging him over to their usual table.
Right. That was it. No breakfast for me. I hightailed it out of there as fast as I could, one awful thought repeating itself over and over in my mind.
Missy, of all people, was right. I was a liar. A hypocrite. And I had no idea what it meant to be a friend.
That night, as my new sisters and I settled in among the piles of pillows and blankets we’d squirreled up to the old chapel for our first official meeting, I tried to put all the negative thoughts and emotions of the last eighteen hours out of my mind. All day I’d been enduring betrayed glares from Constance, Missy, and London, the three of whom were suddenly inseparable. Everywhere I went, there they were in a tight knot—during morning services, at lunch, in the library. At dinner, they’d sat at a separate table and Shelby had actually joined them, making the circle of Reed-haters complete. By the time I tossed out my uneaten meal, I was wondering what the hell I’d been thinking, agreeing to keep the BLS down to eleven members. Would four more members really have been such a big deal? Who was to say that Elizabeth Williams hadn’t picked the number eleven simply because the love of her life was born in November? Or because she had eleven pairs of shoes? It could have
been a totally arbitrary thing, and now I’d made myself and four of my friends miserable over it.
It was too late to change it. Even if I somehow convinced Ivy we were wrong, I didn’t think any of the four ousted Billings Girls were going to want to join us now. And as if all of the Billings insanity wasn’t bad enough, all day I’d also avoided Sawyer as much as possible, afraid he might try to hold my hand or solidify a date or, worst of all, kiss me again. And then there was Ivy. I hadn’t talked to her once today, certain that if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye.
But now there she was, lowering herself onto a huge purple pillow directly across the circle from me. Had she spoken to Josh? Had he said anything to her about last night? I had to believe he hadn’t, or she’d currently be either pulling my hair out or not here at all. But if he hadn’t said anything to her, what did that mean? Was he going to stay with her, still? He had for this long. Why should I believe that last night had changed anything?
“Reed? Could you scooch over? I need some leg room.”
I blinked up at Tiffany as she tried to settle in next to me with her cushion and blanket.
“Oh. Sure.” I slid my own pillow aside to give her more room, internally vowing to put all thoughts of Josh and Ivy out of my mind. For now.
We’d pushed aside the moveable benches in the choir area behind the pulpit and surrounded the space with candles. It was far more cozy and sisterly than arranging ourselves in the pews. The book was open on the floor in front of me so I could reference it if I needed to during the course of the meeting. Everyone else had brought snacks
and drinks, but all of it was tucked away for now, until the opening ritual was completed.
Noelle was the last to arrive. She let the door of the chapel slam as she walked in.
“Should we really be meeting here again?” she said loudly, her voice bouncing off the high ceiling. “Double H isn’t stupid. If we keep coming to the same place every other night, he’s going to figure it out.”
“Shhhh!” I scolded her. “We haven’t started the meeting yet.”
Noelle dropped her black Kate Spade bag on the floor and whipped off her jacket. “Sorry,” she said sarcastically. She dropped a puffy pillow on the floor between Amberly and Tiffany and sat down, crossing her legs at the ankle in the center of the circle. “So, all-fabulous BLS guru, what do we do first? Because I, for one, am starved.” She turned and rustled around in her bag, coming out with a box of gourmet chocolates, a sleeve of crackers, and a wedge of wrapped cheese. “Shall we?”
A few of the girls clapped and reached for the food. I gritted my teeth.
“I have to officially open the meeting first,” I said.
Noelle crunched into a cracker. “Why? Does it say anything in there about not speaking with your mouth full?” she asked, nodding at the book.
I rolled my eyes. “No. It doesn’t, but—”
“How about not getting caught?” Noelle asked. “Because, seriously, we’re like sitting ducks up here and I—”
“Noelle,” I said loudly.
Everyone froze. Astrid withdrew her hand, which had been reaching across the circle for the cheese, back behind her.
Noelle raised her eyebrows at me. She licked a bit of cracker from her bottom lip and waited. “Yes?” she said finally.
“This chapel is where the original Billings Literary Society met, and it is where we will meet until
I
decide it’s unsafe and initiate a vote on the matter,” I said succinctly. “Now, as for the food, I would appreciate it if you’d have some respect for the society’s rituals and put it aside until I’ve called the meeting to order.”
My heart pounded with nerves. Putting Noelle in her place was not an easy thing to do. What if she just got up and walked out? Would the others follow? Although I supposed that would be a good way to figure out whether anyone truly saw me as an authority figure around here.
Noelle took a breath and made a big show of gathering up her food and piling it up behind her.
“Better?” she asked.
My heart breathed a sigh of relief.
“Much,” I replied.
I turned and handed out the handwritten copies I’d made of the Billings Literary Society’s creed.
“We will recite this at the beginning of each meeting,” I said. “This first time, you can read from the page, but we’ll spend some of our time here tonight memorizing it so we can burn these copies. I don’t want there to be any chance that these will be found.”
A few of the girls nodded. Kiki was already reciting the creed under her breath, committing the words to memory.
“All right then. Let’s begin.”
Together, we read the creed aloud.
“We, the sisters of the Billings Literary Society, do hereby pledge our hearts and minds to the purposes of the Society.”
As our voices melded together in the night, a chill went through me. This was it. This was what I’d been working toward for the past two weeks. I’d brought the Billings Literary Society back from the forgotten annals of history.
“We promise to be loyal, steadfast, and true to all who join our circle. We vow never to reveal the secrets of our society, but to uphold its values and standards in the face of all tyranny.”