“Okay.”
We sat on the cold bench. My butt froze instantly. I shifted and crossed my legs so only one cheek was resting fully on the frigid surface. Josh kept his grip on my hand and looked at his lap.
“The thing with Graham is . . . I used to go out with his twin sister, Jen,” Josh said.
My throat closed over. Didn’t I know someone else who had once dated Jen Hathaway? Oh yeah. Upton Giles. The
last
guy I’d kissed. I guess Sawyer had been right that morning at Shutters—Jen and I did have a lot in common. Including our taste in men.
“You know about Jen?” Josh asked, looking me in the eye. “You know how she . . .”
“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t know she and Graham were twins, but . . . Sawyer told me how she died.”
On the island. He’d told me about how his sister had committed suicide over the summer. How she hadn’t left a note. How I reminded him of her. How we both should have steered clear of Upton.
Just like that my brain was off on a whole new tangent. Should I tell Josh about Upton? The two of us were still texting and e-mailing, but we were just friends now. Did it matter that a few weeks ago we were more than that?
“We were together for a few months my sophomore year,” Josh was saying, toying with my fingers. “But things did not end well.”
He let out a rueful scoff that begged a thousand questions, but my brain was too crowded to ask them.
“Anyway, Graham blamed me and I think that now that Jen’s gone it’s even harder for him,” Josh continued. “I don’t know if he’s pissed at her or pissed at the world in general, but. . .”
“That sucks,” I said finally, recrossing my legs so my right butt cheek could defrost. “I mean, I guess I get it, but it still sucks. I really like Graham. When he’s not, you know, beating up on my man.”
Josh let out a short laugh. “I do too,” he said, staring off in the direction in which the Hathaway boys had disappeared. “Or I did. We used to be pretty good friends.”
“How long had it been since you talked to Jen?” I asked. “I mean, did you ever talk before she—”
The sound of jaunty whistling distracted me and I stopped midsentence. Good thing, because coming down the path was Jen’s father, Headmaster Hathaway, his hands in his pockets as he strolled along. When he saw me sitting there, he started to smile his
headmastery smile, but then he saw who I was with and he just kept walking. Just like that. No “hello.” No “good morning.” No attempt at playing the BFF headmaster. Josh averted his eyes as Double H passed us by, and my stomach turned.
It was a clean sweep. I had officially lost all three Hathaway men as friends and allies. I looked at Josh and we both smiled tentatively. It was an awkward situation, no doubt—our headmaster being the father of the boys who hated us.
But at least we were in it together.
I waited outside the chapel on Wednesday night, freezing under my wool coat, my feet jittery inside my snow boots, though that was more from nerves than the cold. Kiki and Astrid were the first to arrive, followed by Amberly and Lorna. Tiffany and Rose emerged from the trees together, blankets folded over their arms. Portia and Vienna toted a bag full of clinking bottles. I was going to have to talk to them about this. We couldn’t have champagne at every meeting or the Billings Girls were going to start flunking out of school.
Soon everyone was safely tucked inside except Noelle and Ivy. I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes past the meeting time. I took a breath and tipped my head back, watching the cloud of steam billow against the bare branches overhead. I would give them five more minutes. Then I was cutting my losses.
I heard a crunch and my head snapped down again. Noelle was walking purposefully toward me, carrying a white bakery box by its strings.
“I heard about what happened with Ivy,” she said, lifting the box. “Figured a Fat Phoebe party was in order.”
I smiled. It was the first moment since we’d returned from the islands that things felt absolutely normal between me and Noelle. Had I been wrong all along about the source of her attitude shift? Maybe it wasn’t that some Billings alumna had chosen to share the book with me and not her. Maybe she was simply jealous of my friendship with Ivy. It made sense. Because now here we were, smiling and comfortable—now that it seemed my relationship with Ivy was kaput.
I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that. I was glad Noelle was offering an olive branch, but why did it have to come at the expense of my friendship with Ivy? “Thanks,” I said finally.
“So, I guess she’s not coming, huh?” Noelle said, turning to look out at the trees.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“I wouldn’t count me out just yet.”
The voice startled both of us so much that Noelle and I grabbed each other’s arms. Ivy emerged from the trees in a long black coat and black wool hat, her hands in her pockets. She hadn’t brought a thing with her—not a bag, a pillow, or anything—and the lack of bulk made her seem even slimmer than usual. Her pale skin practically glowed against the black sky, her high cheekbones severe with her hair pulled back from her face
“Ivy! Hey,” I said tentatively. My pulse raced with nervous anticipation as she paused in front of us. Was she here to hear me out or tear me to shreds? Her expression was so impassive it was impossible to tell.
“I’ll be inside,” Noelle said, slipping away without so much as a nod in Ivy’s direction.
Ivy didn’t seem to notice, however. Her gaze was fixed on me.
“Ivy, I’m so—”
She held up a black-gloved hand. “Don’t. I feel bad enough as it is.”
I almost fell over. “
You
feel bad?”
“I overreacted,” Ivy said, taking a step closer. Her slick black boots slid under the upper layer of hard snow, her toes disappearing beneath the surface. “The truth is . . . things with Josh weren’t right. I was trying too hard, you know? I should have broken up with him weeks ago, but I just . . . I didn’t want to be alone. Not yet.”
I swallowed hard. She didn’t want to be alone after the shooting. That was the implied meaning. Again, it all came back to being my fault.
“And I guess I also didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t in love with me,” she said. “He was still in love with you.”
I looked down at my feet, my toes hovering off the edge of the crumbling redbrick steps. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay. It’s fine,” Ivy said. “It was fun while it lasted, but I’ve never really been a long-term relationship person anyway.”
I couldn’t have dreamed up a more serendipitous direction for this conversation if I tried. Ivy didn’t hate me. She had come to apologize to
me.
If I was dreaming, I just hoped I wouldn’t get pinched any time soon.
“So . . . we’re okay?” I asked, finally looking up again.
Ivy lifted a shoulder. “I don’t love the way you went behind my back, but I think I can get past it. Eventually.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Are you coming in, then?”
Ivy glanced past me at the chapel. I could sense her hesitation and wondered what was causing it. If she was okay with me, why wouldn’t she be okay with our sisters?
“Yeah. Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
She gave me a tight smile as she walked past me up the steps. I felt like I should try to hug her or pat her on the back or something, but everything I thought of felt awkward, so I just let her go. As she got to the doorway, a stiff wind blew the skirt of her coat up and out around her and for a moment my heart stopped. Her dark silhouette against the white wall of the church was like something out of a gothic novel. Or a horror movie.
I took a breath and the moment passed. I knew I was just feeling antsy about the tentativeness of our relationship. About the inkling that someone might be out there watching us. That at any moment the Billings alumni might storm from the woods and try to shut us down again.
But then we were inside, enveloped in the warmth of a hundred candles and greeted by the smiles and hollers of our friends. And I knew then that everything was going to be okay.
“All right everyone, our first order of business is the new Billings Literary Society crest,” I said, closing the book on the floor in front of me. “Kiki? Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Kiki had slicked all her hair back from her face and outlined her eyes in dark kohl pencil, making them appear so huge she almost looked like an anime character. Which, considering her obsession with the Japanese art form, might have been the point. She reached into her black messenger bag and pulled out a large sketchbook, which she laid flat on the floor in the center of the circle. With the flick of one finger she opened it up to a center page. Everyone gasped and leaned forward, balancing on knees and fingertips to get a better look.
“Kiki! That’s so cool!” Amberly said, looking up with awe. Preppy, darling little Amberly had always regarded our resident creative punk Kiki with fear and awe, but this was different. She was impressed. We all were.
The crest was similar to the original, but sharper at the edges, the points taller, thinner, and more severe. Instead of dozens of entwined roses at the center, the crest was filled by one, extraordinarily intricate rose, the letters
BLS
were entwined in its details. So entwined that, unless you were looking for them, you might not see them. It was perfect. Headmaster Hathaway would be on the lookout for anything he could connect back to Billings, but he wouldn’t be able to parse the letters here.
“What do you think, Reed?” Kiki asked, her eyes wide, ready and willing to be critiqued.
“I love it,” I replied, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. “You did an incredible job.”
Kiki beamed, toying with the open men’s tie she wore slung around the collar of her white shirt. “I thought it came out kind of rad.”
“We can definitely use this,” I said, pulling the sketchbook toward me.
“Use it? For what?” Noelle asked. “Are we all going to sew patches on all our clothes or something?”
Everyone chuckled, but a few of them looked at me nervously.
“No. I’m not going to make you trash your couture,” I said, earning a relieved brow-wipe from Portia. Everyone laughed. “I was thinking we could use it as a subtle way to let the school know we’re out there. Like, we could post it around campus or something. What do you guys think?”
Noelle sat forward and raised a hand. “Uh, I think it’s an idiotic idea.”
My face stung like she’d just thrown a vat of boiling water at me.
Ivy scoffed and shook her head. “Do you ever think Reed’s ideas are good?”
“Yeah. When they’re actually good,” Noelle replied, glancing across her right shoulder at Ivy. Then she looked back at me, her chin tucked. “Reed, I thought the whole point of this secret-society thing was to remain a secret. Now you want to broadcast Kiki’s—admittedly cool—logo all over campus? Why? Do you want to lead Double H directly to our doors?”
“No. Of course not. But this is what secret societies do,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “If we post this in a few spots around campus, it’ll get people wondering, get them talking. Give us some cache.”
“I thought you didn’t care about cache anymore,” Noelle replied, mimicking my pose. “I thought this was all about friendship and sisterhood.”
“It is, but—”
“I think it’s a fab idea,” Vienna said. “I
love
when I know stuff other people don’t.”
“We could post it on the announcement board, but bury it a little, so people will think it was there for a while,” Lorna suggested.
“And maybe we can chalk it on the side of Hell Hall or something. Then when it rains or snows it’ll get all drippy and abstract and spooky . . .” Tiffany said, leaning back on her hands with a grin.
Everyone started talking at once, throwing out ideas for places to plant the logo. Noelle grew increasingly tense.
“See? They like it,” I said to Noelle.
“You guys,” Noelle said loudly. There was no response. If anything, the chatter grew louder. She shoved herself to her feet, stepping on Amberly’s pinky in the process. Amberly snatched her hand away and sucked on her flattened finger, shooting a pained look up at Noelle. “Ladies!” Noelle shouted.
They fell silent. Everyone looked at me first, then at Noelle, tipping their chins back to see her.
“Look, I’m all for having a little fun. You know that. But haven’t we been warned enough already?” she said. “Do you really want to risk getting caught? They already bulldozed our house. Who knows what else they’ll do to teach us a lesson?”
I stood up to face her. “Since when are you scared of anything?”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. “I’m not scared. But I have been arrested once already, booted out of school, and left back a year . . . all in the process of saving
your
ass, so maybe my perspective is just a
tad
different than yours.”
“Saving my ass?” I blurted, stepping forward. Kiki whipped her sketchbook with the precious crest in it out from under my feet. “We already went over this, Noelle. You were arrested because you assaulted my boyfriend!”
“Yeah, which no one would have ever known about if I hadn’t been forced to go up to the roof and save you from that freak show Ariana!” Noelle countered, earning a few gasps from around the circle. “What were you thinking going up to the roof anyway? Were you high?”
“I was
trying
to make a phone call,” I replied, my voice growing louder. “When you find out that your four best friends are total
sadistic psychos who tied the love of your life to a pole and left him for dead, you kind of want to talk it out with someone!”
“Wait. I thought Josh was the love of your life,” Ivy piped up.
My face burned with humiliation as I looked down at her. “He . . . he is. He just . . . I mean, Thomas was my
first
love. I—”
She lifted a hand as if to wave me off. “Just wanted to be clear.”
“Oh, so now I’m a sadistic psycho?” Noelle blurted, ignoring the interjection. She took a step toward me, getting right in my face. “Who do you think you—”