I was doing just that when a beefy hand slipped into mine and the courtyard gate locked behind us. I looked up, startled and slightly tipsy, to find Whittaker hovering over me.
“Whit!” I said with a smile. “Where have you been?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you,” he said a bit petulantly. “I barely saw you all night.”
Behind me, Noelle, Ariana, and Taylor giggled, snorting their laughter through their noses.
“I know. I’m sorry,” I said, laying a hand on his chest. “I was celebrating with my girls.”
“Celebrating what?” he asked.
Noelle came up and threw her arm around Whittaker’s large shoulders. “Girl stuff, baby. Girl. Stuff,” she said, slapping his face on the last two words.
That sent her into drunken hysterics and I had to laugh along. Maybe I was a bit tipsier than I realized.
“Come on, you guys,” Josh announced, trying to get the rabble in order. “We’re going to miss the last train.”
We followed after him, an unsteady mess of high heels and silk, unbuttoned shirts and lost jackets. Whittaker, who seemed mightily sober, kept his arm wrapped around me and I was grateful both for the warmth and the added stability. I could hear the girls’ uneven footsteps behind me and knew it would be a miracle if no one broke an ankle.
“Did you at least have a good time?” he asked.
“Oh! The best!” I announced. “Thank you so much for letting me be your plus-one.”
“You’re quite welcome,” he said, squeezing me a bit closer to him. “So, I was thinking, perhaps when the cold weather comes, we might take a trip out to my family’s house in Tahoe. I’m sure my parents would love to meet you.”
I tripped on a seam in the sidewalk and grabbed onto him to steady myself.
Parents. Meeting. Meeting the parents. No. Wrong. For a moment the world spun, but then it all clicked back into place. I pushed away from Whittaker slightly, standing on my own two feet, and tipped my head back to look at him.
“Whit? Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked. “Alone.”
“Of course,” he said. He looked at the others. “You can go ahead. We’ll be right behind you.”
Noelle shot me a knowing look, then walked off with the others in tow. I took a deep breath. Even in my tipsy state I knew what I had to do. This had gone on long enough. Whittaker deserved to know the truth.
“Whittaker, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
“Excuse me?” Whittaker said.
“I’m sorry. I really like you. You’re a great guy,” I said. “But the truth is . . . I’m just not attracted to you.”
“Oh,” Whittaker said, looking at his shoes. “Well. That was blunt.”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it to be,” I said, my eyes swimming. “I just thought you’d appreciate the truth.”
Whittaker took a deep breath and nodded. “I do,” he said gamely. “I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I’m glad you were honest.”
I tilted my head. “Aw, Whit. You are so gonna make some girl very happy one day.”
Whittaker laughed. “I hope so,” he said.
I teetered on my heels and he slipped his arm around my shoulders. I’d just broken up with him and he was still looking out for me, steadying me. It made me think of Constance and how she’d taken my hand during services that morning when they’d announced Thomas’s disappearance. Suddenly, sadly, I hoped more than anything that those two would somehow get together. They were completely perfect for one another.
“You will!” I told him, my words slurring together. “In fact, I know someone. You know her, too. You just have to go out with her once and you’ll totally fall in love with her.”
Whittaker smiled wistfully. “Maybe we should talk about this on the train,” he said, starting to walk and taking me along.
“Okay,” I said, my eyes half-closing as we moved down the street.
The train, a soft seat, maybe a nap, sounded like a fabulous idea. But even as I looked forward to it, I couldn’t believe that it was over. The Legacy, my “relationship” with Whit, my first trip to
NYC—it was all done. And it had all passed in a blur, with no sign of Thomas.
In the end, he had never shown. In the end, I hadn’t even needed to be there. I took a deep breath and sighed grimly. Suddenly all I could think about was getting back to Easton and putting it all behind me.
I rested my temple on the cool glass of the train’s window and watched the world come to life as the sun slowly rose above autumn-colored trees. The hum of the train had long since swept most of my classmates off to slumber, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off the view. It was too incredibly beautiful. Beautiful and blurred and ripe with possibility. I didn’t want to miss anything.
All around me people snoozed and snored. Noelle had passed out with her head on Dash’s shoulder, her tiara askew. His jacket had been pulled up to half cover his face and his arm rested around Noelle’s back, his fingers curled around her elbow in a loving, gentle way. Every so often I glanced back at them and smiled. It was the most at peace they had ever been in my presence.
Somewhere in the back of the car, Ariana and Taylor whispered. Kiran was dead to the world, laid across a three-seater with her fur under her head on Gage’s lap and Whittaker’s jacket over her. Whit had attempted to get Gage to give her his coat, to which Gage had replied, “Yeah, right. I get cold, too, you know.” So
Whittaker had immediately taken off his own jacket and spread it over Kiran’s prone form. Now Whit dozed at the front of the car, hugging himself, snoring louder than anyone.
I heard a sigh and glanced left. Natasha sat up straight in the far window seat, her knee up, her elbow resting on it, holding her fingers to her mouth. She stared out at the world, pensive and sad, and I wondered what our relationship was going to be like now. She had shared her biggest secret with me, though admittedly not by choice. Would we be friends now? Remain enemies? I hoped it was the former. Now that I knew she wasn’t an actual blackmailer, I had a feeling she might be interesting to get to know.
Someone stepped into my line of vision and I blinked out of a trance I hadn’t realized I was in. I looked up slowly into Josh’s face and my heart thumped. That was the second time tonight. What, exactly, was my heart up to?
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey. Mind if I . . . ?” He gestured at the empty seat.
“No. Go ahead.”
Josh sat down and blew out a sigh, pressing his palms into his thighs and settling back. Of all the guys on the train, he was the least disheveled. Shirt still tucked in, tie only slightly loosened, all but one button done. It didn’t escape me that this meant he most likely had kept his hands to himself all night. Somehow, the realization of this made me happy.
“So. Interesting night, huh?” he said.
“Definitely. I would definitely say that,” I replied.
“But . . . no Thomas.”
The train hit a turn and squealed like mad. I caught my breath and pressed my fingers into the seat back in front of me. Josh chuckled and touched my arm.
“It’s okay. Just a turn,” he said.
“No. I know,” I said.
What had freaked me out more was that I hadn’t thought about Thomas once since I’d seen Leanne and Natasha together. I had forgotten all about him.
And maybe that was a good thing.
“I’m sure he’s okay,” I said. Mostly just to have something to say.
The truth was, at that very moment, I no longer cared. He had left me. He had bailed without the courtesy of a good-bye and left me there to fend for myself with the Billings Girls and Whittaker and the police. Clearly he didn’t care about me. I had done everything I could, even dated a guy I wasn’t remotely attracted to, in order to solidify my invite to the Legacy and the possibility of seeing him, but he hadn’t even cared enough to show up. He had to have known there was a good chance I would be there, but he had stayed away.
No. As of that moment, I was over Thomas Pearson. As of that moment, I was moving on.
“Yeah. I’m sure he is,” Josh said, sounding none too convinced.
“You know what? I don’t want to talk about Thomas anymore,”
I said. “I mean, I want him to be okay and everything, but to tell you the truth, I’m over him. He’s off having his life, and that’s fine. But it also means that I get to have mine.”
Josh glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“Really,” I replied with a nod.
“That’s very healthy of you,” he said.
“I think so.”
With that, I yawned hugely, feeling as if about a liter of my adrenaline had been drained right out of my body. My eyes drooped and I leaned over to rest my head on Josh’s shoulder.
“Tired?” he asked.
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Here.”
He lifted his arm and let me cuddle into him. My pulse raced at the intimacy of this gesture, but it also felt perfectly normal. Natural. If nothing else, Josh had been a good friend to me over the past few weeks, and now I found I was totally comfortable with him. More comfortable than I’d ever been with Whit. Certainly more comfortable than I’d ever been with Thomas, who constantly kept a girl guessing, both in good ways and bad.
I lasted about two seconds before my neck developed a strain. I moved my head around, trying to find a comfortable spot, and Josh lifted his arm again and nudged me, directing me down until my head was resting on his thigh.
Ah, yeah. That was comfort.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“Not at all,” he replied.
As I started to drift off, listening to the hushed sounds of my friends’ whispers, the lulling rhythm of the train, I could have sworn I felt Josh’s fingertips slowly, gently, brushing my hair back behind my ear.
And I smiled.
By the time we got everyone off the train and trudged our way back through the streets of Easton proper, the last traces of dawn were fading away, leaving a nice, thick mist in their wake. High heels sank through the dewy grass into the soft earth, making it difficult to walk. Finally I just pulled them off, causing my feet to sigh in relief. I hooked the shoes over my fingers and wiggled my toes as I walked. The relief lasted about ten seconds. After that my feet were frigid blocks of ice.
“Are you okay?” Josh asked, bumping me lightly with his arm.
“Fine. Just can’t wait to get home.”
Home. Easton was home. Billings was home. It was the first time I’d realized that.
Eventually we arrived at the fence that surrounded Easton’s grounds. We felt our way along the iron bars until we reached the craggy opening, hidden by evergreen bushes. Each of us ducked through, one by one, holding skirts to keep them from getting snagged, whispering directions so that no one bumped their
heads. Now that we’d had the night of our lives, no one had bothered to change back into jeans and sweaters. If we got caught now, it would make no difference what we were wearing, and everyone had been too tired to change.
Once on the other side of the fence, I stuck close to Josh’s side, not wanting to lose him in the fog. As we ascended the hill, I could hear the voices of the others but couldn’t quite make them out.
“Eerie, huh?” Josh said.
I shivered and hugged my bare arms. “Yeah. But at least it might keep us from getting spotted.”
If this party happened every year, if thirty kids traipsed back to school drunk and in party clothes every year at dawn, how they never got caught was a mystery. The closer we got to the classroom and dorm buildings, the more my teeth chattered and my bones shook. If we got caught, I was dead. If we got caught it would all have been all for nothing.
We cut across the soccer field and ducked along the tree line that would bring us up behind Billings and the other upperclassmen dorms. We paused en masse to catch our breath. There was no sound except the sound of our breathing. The fog muted everything.
“Everyone ready?” Dash whispered.
A few people nodded. I could hardly breathe. This was it. A few more moments and we’d be safe.
“Go!”
Everyone ducked and ran. Josh clutched my hand and a few
people laughed as we crossed the last few yards of open space between the tree line and the west wall of Dayton House, one of the girls’ dorms. Once there, we all gathered against the cold, wet brick, gasping for air and counting our blessings. The mist was not so heavy here among the campus buildings. I was about to break away from Josh and head for Billings, when I looked around at my friends and realized that all of their faces were flashing red, then blue, then red, then blue.
“What
is
that?” someone said.
“Hang on.”
Josh disentangled his hand from mine and crept to the corner of the building. At first he simply peeked his head around, but then his shoulders slumped and he stepped right out into the open.
“Oh, my God,” he said.
All the air whooshed out of me. “What?”
Not even the fear of being caught could have stopped us from satisfying our curiosity. We all moved carefully to the corner and gathered around Josh. What I saw made me want to sink to my knees and turn and run all at once.
Police cars. Everywhere. On the grass between the dorms. In the quad. Every student in school was outside their dorms in various stages of dress, whispering and looking around as cops in uniforms circled among them, talking in low tones or shouting orders.
“We are so dead,” someone behind me said.
I had to agree. Clearly every police officer within a hundred-mile radius had been called to the scene. And why not? Thirty students missing? Thirty of the most precious and overprivileged sons and daughters in the country? Of course the authorities would respond in droves.
“No. It’s not for us,” Josh said. “Look at them.”
So I did. And he was right. Some of the students sat on the benches, wide-eyed and open mouthed. Others cried. Three girls hugged one another over near the back entrance of Bradwell. Somewhere nearby someone was clearly sobbing.
“What the hell is going on?” Dash said.
“Let’s go.”
With that, Dash, Gage, Josh, and Whittaker, along with a few other guys, jogged ahead. The rest of us were rooted to the spot. There was only one word in my mind.