“Now?” I asked. I looked at Cheyenne, who sat primly on her bed, her knees together and her hands folded. “Let her get it herself.”
“Reed, it’s okay,” Sabine said through her teeth. She stepped closer to me and whispered. “I think she’s actually starting to accept me. She just gave me all this advice about Gage. She’s going to help me with him, but I have to keep playing her game.”
“Help you with him?” I was flabbergasted. From the way Gage had been acting, all Sabine had to do was put his hand on her butt and he was hers. For a day, anyway, which was probably about as long as his attention span would stretch for anyone. Other than Ivy, if those rumors were true.
“Reed, I know you don’t like him, but I do. I can’t help it.” Sabine sounded desperate. “Just let me go.”
I looked into her eyes and saw that she meant business. Cheyenne had played the unrequited love card, and she had her.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I told her. Even though I knew it would have no effect.
“I know,” she replied.
Then she shot me a look of thanks before she headed out. I stepped back into the doorway of Cheyenne’s room. She was folding clothes now, and she paused. We stared at each other across the wide expanse of her single. Her lips were twisted into a superior smirk.
“So. You’re going to ‘help’ her, huh?” I asked.
She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I am so over your attitude.”
“Why are you doing it, Cheyenne?” I demanded.
“I can see you’re not going to go away until I humor you, so fine,” she said, folding a sweater over her arm. “The girl has a crush, and you know I’m a sucker for love. Besides, I happen to know what Gage likes. Intimately.”
Good Lord. Was there anyone those two hadn’t been with?
“So, what? You’re going to dress her up like you and send her to the big bad wolf?” I asked.
“Why do you think everything I do has malicious intent?” Cheyenne asked. “Maybe I’m starting to see some potential in Sabine. Maybe I want to see her happy.”
Yeah, right. And maybe I’m America’s Next Top Model.
“You can go now,” she said with a sweet smile.
I eyed her for a long moment, trying to see her angle. Trying to get into her devious brain, think three steps ahead, and find the loophole, but there was nothing. My brain just didn’t work that way. There was nothing left for me to do but walk away and wait.
THE FIRST TIME
I waited behind the huge maple tree outside Ketlar the next morning until I saw Mr. Cross, the elderly Ketlar advisor, amble out the back door, whistling to himself. A couple of guys followed, and as soon as the door was closed, I slipped inside and ran up the stairs to the fourth floor. Josh’s floor.
I needed to see him. Now. Needed to kiss him and make sure everything between us was okay. Ever since I’d seen him with Cheyenne yesterday, I had felt this queasy uncertainty inside my chest. Couple that with the guilt over the Dash e-mails, and my legs went shaky. I couldn’t walk around Easton all queasy and shaky like this all year. It was not good for my nerves. I needed to be with Josh. Really be with him. Look him in the eye and tell him how I felt. Really felt. For the first time. That would make everything okay.
Trey was just coming out of their room as I approached, breathless. He took one look at me and smiled knowingly.
“He’s all yours,” he said, holding the door.
We all pretty much lived to break the rules around here. Like the one that would prevent me from being in a guy’s room. Even straight-as-an-arrow Trey.
“Thanks,” I whispered. I slipped inside and shut the door. Josh looked up at me, surprised. Not as surprised as me, however. He was standing near the window, still wet from the shower, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. His smooth chest was perfect and glistening, and the definition in his arms was far more distinct than I remembered. My mouth went completely dry.
“What are you doing here?” he asked with a smile.
“I . . . ”
Wait, what was I doing here again?
Didn’t matter. Because two seconds later his hands were in my hair and his lips were over mine and we were kissing and touching and stumbling and falling and things got very heavy, very fast.
“Wait!” I blurted, pulling away from him on his unmade bed.
He let go of me, his eyes at half mast. “What? Did I . . . Are you . . . What?”
My heart was pounding so hard, I thought it might bruise itself. I stood up, leaving my half-naked boyfriend confused, and probably very aroused, on his bed. Deep breath, Reed. Deep breath.
“I didn’t come here for this,” I said firmly, standing in the center of his room.
Josh sat up straight, legs over the side of the bed, and placed his arms over his lap in an awkward way. He looked up at me and tried to concentrate. “Okay. Why did you come here?”
I gazed into his clear blue eyes. His chest heaved as he got his breathing under control. But he was focused on me. On my face. Waiting patiently. I could do this. I could. Because I meant it. And because I trusted him. And it didn’t matter what happened next. I just wanted him to know. My fists uncurled. I breathed in. And when I let the air out again, I said it.
“Josh, I love you.”
His whole face lit up. He stood, looking into my eyes with this wondrous expression, like I’d just given him the most incredible gift he’d ever received. Then he kissed me, slowly this time. Slowly, softly, deeply, and when he pulled back, he was clinging to me like he’d never let go.
“I love you, too.”
Relief. Even though I had known he would say it—that he’d wanted to say it all those months ago when I’d almost left Easton for good—part of me had been afraid. That he’d changed his mind. That he’d never felt it in the first place. But he did. He still did.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been biting my tongue to keep from saying that to you,” he half whispered. “After that day when you stopped me—”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I told him. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. Now you can say it as much as you want.”
Josh took a step back, eyebrows raised adorably. “Really? You mean I can say I love you? I love you, I love you, I love you?”
I cracked up laughing.
“I like the way it sounds, just coming off my tongue,” he said,
gesturing with his hands. He yanked a T-shirt out of the closet and pulled it on over his head. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. Huh. Cool.”
“Okay. Let’s not wear it out on the first day,” I said, so giddy inside, it was almost too much.
“Yeah, yeah. You and your rules.”
He took a pair of boxer briefs out of his drawer and pulled them on under the towel, then did the same with a pair of cords, and shed the towel completely. Then he jammed his feet into his suede sneakers and grabbed his messenger bag.
“Breakfast, my love?” he asked, opening the door for me.
“Why, yes, my love,” I joked back.
He kissed me again on my way through the door and we swung our entwined fingers between us as we walked to the cafeteria. It no longer mattered whether Cheyenne wanted him or not. Josh was mine. No one was ever going to come between us.
HAPPINESS
“Where’s Sabine?” Trey asked me at breakfast.
Her chair, across from mine, was conspicuously empty. The sun pouring through the skylight overhead sent a bright shaft of light right across it like it were trying to spotlight the fact that she wasn’t there.
“She was still in the shower when I left,” I told him.
Josh took my hand under the table and squeezed. My heart felt like it was playing on the uneven bars. He leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“Hey, have I told you I love you?”
Shivers everywhere. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
Happiness. This was what happiness felt like.
Gage strolled by with his tray, his aviator sunglasses covering his eyes, and the sight of him didn’t even irritate me. Happiness. Then Cheyenne pushed herself up from the next table and slithered over to him. Didn’t care. Not one bit. Happiness.
“Ga-age! I have a surprise for you!” Cheyenne sang.
He looked her up and down. “Been there, done that.”
She managed to laugh as if she wasn’t offended. “Not me. Just stand there for one . . . more . . . second.”
As if on cue, Sabine emerged from the breakfast line, carrying a tray full of food. But she didn’t look anything like the island girl I knew. She looked like a New England tartlet. Plaid mini. Bare knees. High-heeled boots. Tight, white, button-front shirt. Sleek, slicked-back ponytail. As she came around the first table, her feet wobbled slightly, unaccustomed as she was to heels, but she recovered nicely. Gage didn’t seem to notice at all, of course. His tongue was practically hanging out.
So this was Cheyenne’s plan to help Sabine. Turn her into a Pussycat Doll and let her loose on society. I loathed her.
“Martinique goes naughty Catholic schoolgirl,” Gage said in awe. “I like.”
Sabine smirked—a look that was an eerie mirror of one of Cheyenne’s favorite expressions—and opened her mouth to say something Cheyenne had undoubtedly coached her to say. And then, suddenly, it all went wrong.
Her already unsteady foot hit a puddle of water and slipped out from under her. Her eyes went wide. There was an ever-so-brief moment when I thought she might have recovered, but it was only an illusion. Sabine flew off her feet and slammed into the ground, butt and back first. White underwear for all the world to see. Her tray went airborne and rained cereal and eggs all over her pristine white shirt. Orange juice splashed in her face. For a long moment, no one moved.
And then, laughter.
Gage doubled over. Cheyenne convulsed. The entire cafeteria filled with cackling cacophony. As I stood to help Sabine, she sat up and looked around, her face filling with anguish. She yanked her skirt down over her underwear, clinging to the hem. I had never seen anyone look so small.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cheyenne draw her hand across Portia’s palm. It was an infinitesimal movement. If I’d blinked, I would have missed it. But I didn’t. I saw it. And I knew. She had spilled that water in the center aisle. She had lent Sabine, who owned only flat sandals and flip-flops, her highest heels. She had orchestrated it all. And my rage was beyond compare.
“You did this,” I said to her, shaking.
“Oh, get off your high horse already, Reed,” Cheyenne said. “The thin air up there is affecting your brain.”
Sabine finally got up off the floor and ran, awkwardly in her heels, for the door.
“You are so going to regret the fact that you ever met me,” I told her.
“You’re forgetting something, Reed,” she replied. “You started this. You drew the line that night at the vote. Whatever happens next, it’s all your fault.”
I wanted to smack her in the face. Wanted to take her feet out from under her and show her how it felt. But this was not the place, and I had no time. I had to go after Sabine.
“This is not over, Cheyenne,” I promised her. “Not even close.”
PARALYZED
Sabine spent the entire day in the infirmary. When I went to check on her, they wouldn’t even let me see her. Said she wanted to be alone. After dinner, which she had skipped, she had come back to the room, grabbed her books, and left again, ignoring my attempts to talk to her. Just ducked her head and disappeared.
Now it was 10:17 and still, she wasn’t back. The library had closed seventeen minutes ago. Where the hell was she?
Please, just don’t let her drop out. Don’t let her give Cheyenne the satisfaction.
I took a deep breath and glanced at my cell phone. Josh was also MIA. I hated being one of those girls who sat around waiting for her phone to ring, but that’s what I was doing. I needed to talk to him. Needed to vent about what had happened and hear his levelheaded take on where Sabine might be. Josh always called me at ten. Every night before bed. But tonight, nothing. Even after the most perfect
morning of our relationship. Those kisses that still gave me warm shivers every time I thought about them. Nothing.
The clock clicked over to 10:18. Something had to be wrong. I was just reaching for the phone when the door to my room burst open.
“Reed!”
“Oh my God! You scared the crap out of me!” I said, laughing. I turned to look at Constance and Sabine, and even though I was happy to see that Sabine was all right, my heart instantly dropped to the floor. They looked as if they’d both just witnessed a car wreck. “What’s wrong?”
They glanced at each other with trepidation. My heart thumped extra hard.
“What is it?” I asked, my throat closing.
“It’s Josh,” Constance was so apologetic, I wondered for a second if she’d done something to him somehow.
“What about Josh?” I was on my feet.
“You have to come,” Sabine said, reaching for my arm. “Just come.”
Fear expanded inside me, filling up my every pore. I couldn’t move. “Come where?”
“Reed—”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on,” I said firmly. “Tell me. Right now.”
Another grim look passed between them. “We saw him, Reed,” Sabine said finally. “With Cheyenne.”
DIGNITY
I ran.
I ran so fast, my lungs burned and my vision blurred. I ran so fast, I couldn’t hear a thing save for the wind in my ears. I ran so fast, I tripped over one of the lights lining the pathway and was sent sprawling, tearing up my knee, my hand, my cheek, then got up and just kept running.
He loves me. This isn’t happening. He loves me. He loves me.
Sabine was at my side when I arrived at the tall windows of the art cemetery. Constance was miles behind.
“Reed, take a breath first,” Sabine said. “Calm down.”
“No. No!” I shouted.
I didn’t care if anyone heard. Didn’t care if I got expelled. I just wanted to see. I needed to see. I crept through the bushes to the windowpane. The blinds were cracked so that one could easily see through the slats. I closed my eyes. Said a prayer. Gripped the cold stone cornice with my fingertips. And looked.
Something frigid and slimy slithered down my spine. The edges of my vision went hazy and gray. Inside the warm glow of the art cemetery, our sanctuary, the place Josh and I had shared many stolen moments, stolen kisses, stolen whispers, he was now lying back on the love seat as Cheyenne climbed on top of him.