“I don’t know. It makes sense,” I said, pushing my juice glass around in the circle of condensation beneath it. “Of course they’re all going to hang out together.”
“Yeah, but now they have followers,” Noelle said, spreading some butter onto her bagel while keeping an eye on the rejects. “And also, they know where we meet.”
I saw Kiki, Astrid, and Vienna enter the food line. London spotted them too and said something obviously mocking that made everyone at her table crack up laughing. Was it possible that the BLS had actually managed to come between the Twin Cities? That seemed like a crime against nature. I’d never told anyone that we couldn’t be friends with the people who didn’t make the cut. And London and Vienna were the closest friends I’d ever known. The idea that I’d been instrumental in splitting them up was beyond depressing.
Maybe this whole thing was a mistake. Maybe I should just disband the BLS and let everyone get on with their lives. Just like Noelle had said that first morning back. But when I looked at her across the table, I bristled at the very thought of telling her she’d been right all along.
“How do you figure that?” I asked, taking a tentative bite of my cereal. My stomach clenched and I put the spoon down.
“Come on, Reed,” Noelle said, rolling her eyes. “You took them all up to the chapel. They’re not stupid. One of them has to have figured out that we were cleaning that place up for a reason.”
I glanced over at the table again. I couldn’t imagine Constance or London putting two and-two together on that score, and Shelby was far too involved with her own little world to think much about why she’d spent a couple of hours doing nothing in a chapel in the woods. But Missy . . . Missy definitely might have figured it out.
“I bet one of them told the Billings alumni and that’s how they found us there last night,” Noelle said.
“What? Come on. They wouldn’t report us, would they? They all know Hathaway would expel us,” I said. “They can’t hate us enough to get us thrown out of school.”
“They didn’t tell Hathaway. They told Billings,” Noelle said, taking a bite of her bagel. “I can just imagine Missy calling up Paige and whining all over her.”
“Wait. Missy knows Paige?” I asked.
Noelle looked at me like I’d just taken out a razor and shaved half my hair off. “They’re cousins. Like second or third or once removed or something, but still.”
“What?” I blurted. “I never knew that.”
“Oh, come on. Someone must’ve mentioned it at some point.”
This was insane. Missy was the biggest show-off at Easton, and Paige was, like, Billings royalty. My mind reeled, but it almost felt good. It was nice to be focusing on something other than how horrible I was.
Across the room, a skinny freshman dropped his tray and the entire room applauded at the clatter.
“I wouldn’t put it past Missy,” I said finally. “She’s hated me since before I was ever in Billings.”
“Yeah, and her family would
not
be pleased about the BLS,” Noelle said, sipping her coffee.
“What do you mean?” I asked. Amberly, Lorna, and Rose had joined the other BLS sisters on the food line, which was starting to swell as the people who got up at a normal hour trickled in.
Noelle glanced at me, swallowed, and touched her napkin to her lips. “Nothing. They’re just . . . all about propriety. They wouldn’t like the idea that we’ve turned the revered Billings House into a group of girls hiding out in the woods.”
I watched her carefully, feeling as if there was something more. Something else about Missy that she wasn’t saying.
“Anyway, now that we’ve been outed, we definitely need to find a new meeting space, and I have a couple of ideas,” Noelle said. As she started going on about the Art Cemetery and a little-known private study area of the library, I felt this eerie sense of déjà vu. It felt exactly like the time I’d been trying to plan a party in the city for a Billings fund-raiser and Noelle had swooped in to change the venue at the last minute. She was trying to take charge again. Trying to elbow me out. And I wasn’t going to let it happen.
Even if I did, on some level, agree with her.
“No,” I said, cutting her off midsentence.
“No?” she replied, flummoxed.
“The chapel is where the original BLS met, and that’s where we’re going to stay,” I told her.
Noelle looked at me for a moment, incredulous, then dropped her bagel and smacked her hands together, as if she was wiping her hands of me.
“Fine. If that’s the way you want it, then fine,” she said.
“So, what? Are you going to quit now?” I asked.
Noelle sighed and looked at me, her wrists resting on the edge of the table. “No, my dear fearless leader. I will follow you into the pits of hell if that’s what you want me to do,” she said with a facetious smile. “Just like all your other little minions.”
I wasn’t sure, exactly, what her sarcasm was supposed to be getting at, but I decided to just take her words at face value.
“Good,” I said, taking a bite of my toast. “That’s what I like to hear.”
As the other BLS sisters started to settle in around us, I kept one eye on the reject table and one eye on the door, waiting for Josh or Ivy to arrive. What did it mean that the first enemy I’d made at Easton—Missy Thurber—was related to the woman who had tried to murder me—Clarissa Ryan? Or was it just a coincidence?
Only one thing was certain: If Missy was working against me and the BLS, I was going to find out.
Ever since returning from St. Barths, I’d been trying not to think about it. Trying not to relive that night. But somehow my conversation with Noelle at breakfast had sparked the memories and now I couldn’t keep them at bay. As I sat in Spanish class, waiting for Mr. Shreeber to arrive, I kept seeing Mrs. Ryan’s dressing room. The perfume bottle on her nightstand. The sweatshirt hanging in her closet—the one she’d worn when she pushed me off her boat on the night after Christmas. Mrs. Ryan returning to the room with that tray full of food. How her smile had turned wild and sinister as soon as she realized I knew.
When she’d attacked me, I’d been too weak to really fight back. Too dehydrated and starved and spent. I’d thought I was truly going to die. That the fifth time she tried to kill me was going to be the charm.
But then Sawyer had rushed into the room and saved me. Without even the merest thought for himself, he’d saved my life. For a second time.
“Reed.”
I turned around, startled, to find Sawyer standing there in the flesh. One hand clutched the strap of his navy blue backpack. The other, the one with the woven bracelets around the wrist, pressed into my desk.
“Hey, Sawyer!” I said with a smile, even as my nerves sizzled at the memory of our kiss and his expectations of relationship. “What’s up?”
“I heard about you and Josh,” he said. “Is it true?”
I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him blankly, my mouth yawning open like a cave.
“I heard you guys hooked up on Sunday night,” Sawyer said, keeping his voice low. “Is it true?” he repeated.
“Sawyer—”
“It is.” He looked down at his feet and his face grew mottled with red. “I’m such an idiot.”
“No. You’re not,” I said, feeling that now familiar guilt rise up in my chest. “I am. I’m the idiot.”
The chairs around us were starting to fill up. I caught a few curious glances and sighed. I’d been at the center of more than a few scenes in the last couple of days and I didn’t like it.
“Who told you? Ivy?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Graham.”
I blinked, surprised. “How did
Graham
know?”
“Does it matter?” He paused and placed his hand in his pocket, then seemed to gather his courage before he looked up at me. “I thought that you . . . I mean, I thought that we . . .”
I gulped back my guilt and misery as Mr. Shreeber walked into the room. “I’m sorry, Sawyer. But . . . we’re friends. I think that’s all we’re going to be.”
Sawyer’s mouth flattened in to a grim line.
“We
are
friends, right?” I asked tentatively.
“Good morning, class! Let’s take our seats,” Mr. Shreeber called out, clapping his hands together once. “We have a lot to cover today!”
With that, Sawyer turned around and walked to his desk in the back of the room. For the rest of the class period, he didn’t look away from the board once, and when the bell rang, he was out of there faster than you can say “heartbreaker.”
I stood up from my chair shakily, feeling dejected and suddenly exhausted. I was losing friends at a record pace, even for me. All thanks to the BLS and Josh. As I made my way out of the room to the continued curious glances of my classmates, all I could do was hope that both would prove to be worth it.
That evening, studying alone in my room, I decided to call another meeting of the Billings Literary Society for Wednesday night. Between Noelle’s sarcasm, my fight with Ivy, the growing crowd at the anti-Billings table, and our encounter with the Billings alumnae, my brand-new secret society was already on seriously shaky ground. I needed to know that everyone was still with me. That Noelle wasn’t going to bail. That the others weren’t going to get skittish.
And I wanted to talk to Ivy. All day I’d only seen her from afar. She always seemed to be in a rush to get wherever she was going, her cell phone, permanently attached to her ear. Even though I was sending her telepathic messages to talk to me, to look at me, to feel me watching her, she never glanced at me once. It was as if I’d become invisible.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand. I had done something awful. Something that was maybe even unforgivable. But at least I’d owned
up to it. I’d never done that with Noelle after my five minutes of debauchery with Dash. Although that had been slightly different, since technically they were broken up at the time and technically we’d both been drugged. Josh and I had known exactly what we were doing, and he and Ivy were definitely together when we were doing it.
Yeah. She was never going to forgive me.
Still, her name was on the e-mail that went out to all the sisters of the BLS, asking them to meet at the chapel at 11 p.m. on Wednesday night. I had to know if she would come. If the society mattered more to her than my stupid actions did.
The moment I clicked “send” there was a knock on my door. I jumped to answer it. Josh slipped inside, his hair glistening with snow. My heart instantly slammed into overdrive. He looked . . . excited. It was amazing how his very presence made me forget all about my guilt, my regret, my hope for winning Ivy back.
“You have to stop coming here after hours. You’re going to get me in trouble,” I said with a grin, not meaning a word.
“Ivy and I broke up,” he whispered.
“Really? Oh.” I took a breath, trying to edit the four thousand questions and comments fighting for the tip of my tongue. I glanced in the direction of her room.
“She’s not here,” he said, reading my thoughts. “She’s at the solarium.”
“Okay.” I crossed my arms over my stomach, trying not to think of how Ivy must have felt at that moment. “I guess you know I told her.”
“Yeah. She wasn’t happy.” He slipped his coat off and dropped it
on the back of my chair. I suddenly realized the “sent” list was still up from my BLS e-mail and I casually closed my laptop. As much as I loved Josh and wanted to share everything with him, the Billings Literary Society was going to remain a secret, even from him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, kneading my palm between my thumb and forefinger. “But if I were in her position, I would have wanted to know.”
“I get it,” Josh said, running his hands through his hair. He sat down on my bed and looked up through his curls. “Honestly, I was kind of glad I didn’t have to break it to her. I mean, I would have. I know I should have, but . . .” He hung his head. “Does that make me a wuss?” he asked sheepishly.
“Kind of, yeah,” I joked.
Josh reached up, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me onto his lap. My heart swooped over and over like a paper airplane tumbling through the sky.
“Care to kiss a wuss?” he asked.
“Eh, why not?” I replied.
And then he kissed me. And kissed me and kissed me and kissed me until I forgot where we were, forgot to wonder what it might mean, forgot about who we might hurt.
He kissed me until all that mattered was us.
Josh was waiting for me outside Pemberly the next morning. The sky was a perfect bright blue and the air was still. I paused when I saw him there, looking freshly showered and adorable, his green wool turtleneck grazing his chin above the collar of his coat. He reached for my hand. I took it. Nothing had ever felt so amazing as his warm, rough fingers closing around mine.
“So, we’re doing this?” I said, my heart pounding erratically.
“We’re doing this,” he replied firmly.
I grinned. “All right then.”
We turned up the path toward the dining hall and I had to concentrate to keep from skipping. No one in the world was happier than me at that moment. I wished I could float in the feeling for days. Josh squeezed my hand and smiled and I knew he felt the same. This was the way it was supposed to be. Josh and Reed. Together.
Then Graham and Sawyer walked out the back door of Ketlar. The
bottom of my stomach dropped out. They were about to turn toward the dining hall as well, but as soon as Sawyer saw us—saw my fingers entwined with Josh’s—he turned on his heel and stormed off in the opposite direction, taking the path that ran along the dorms. Graham looked furious as he followed after his brother. I knew why Sawyer was mad, but for the ten millionth time, I had to wonder about Graham.
“Josh, can you please just tell me what happened between you and Graham Hathaway?” I asked. “Why does he get all clenched every time he sees you?”
We had come across one of the many stone benches that dotted the campus. Josh blew out a sigh and checked his watch. “Let’s sit.”
Whoa. I needed to sit down to hear this?