by Eden Beck
“Guess we’ll have to get all your clothes straight into the dryer,” he tells me.
I sigh. “Well. I can wear some of my old clothes until then.”
We trudge up the front porch. Unburdened by a sopping wet suitcase, I reach the front door before Caleb does. I can already hear the sounds of my family’s loud voices raised above the sounds of something sizzling on the stove and the noise of the TV.
I throw open the door. Immediately the smell of Mom’s cooking hits me full in the face and my stomach rumbles. Dad turns from his seat on the couch and smiles broadly at me. Beside him, I see the back of Spencer’s head, his arm around a girl sitting next to him.
“Alex!” cries my mom as I enter the house, stomping my feet on the mat to get the mud off my shoes.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
She rushes over to me and hugs me tightly. I hug her back, closing my eyes, letting myself become a little girl again.
It’s nice for a moment, and then it’s almost just as immediately stifling.
I’m hardly a little girl anymore. Heath and Beck made sure of that.
“Your hair’s been growing out,” she says affectionately as she leans away from me. We shuffle to the side to make room for Caleb, who shuts the door behind him. “You look more girly than I remember.”
I smile weakly. “Well, y’know, they know I’m a girl now, so …”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Mom hugs me again; she releases me quickly, though, and gasps, “The stove!” before rushing back into the kitchen.
I smile as I take my shoes off. Dad, Spencer, and new girl—Spencer’s girlfriend, I guess—get off the couch and approach me on my way through the living room with my suitcase.
“Welcome home, honey,” Dad says, reaching out to pat my head.
“Nice to be home, Dad.” I smile.
Spencer clears his throat. Caleb’s right, he’s already acting differently, and he looks different, too. He’s put more effort into his appearance.
“Alex, this is Valerie. Valerie, this is my sister, Alex.”
“Lovely to meet you,” the girl says with a smile. She’s pretty; not sure why she’s with Spencer, but to each their own.
I mean, I suppose Heath and Beck are with me when they could be with a girl who, you know, actually looks like a girl.
Valerie is wearing a Christmas sweater and jeans, and her blonde hair is tied up in a ponytail. I wonder briefly what I would look like that way—dressed in form-fitting clothes, my hair done, makeup on. Beck and Heath probably only like me now because I’m the only thing girl-shaped at school.
Should I be dressing like that? Should I be doing my hair?
I try to shake off my thoughts as I politely introduce myself, forcing myself not to acknowledge Valerie’s manicured nails when I shake her hand. I make an excuse so I can scoot off to the laundry room with my suitcase.
Caleb’s already there, folding a pile of clothes. He smiles at me.
“Met Valerie yet?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “She’s pretty.”
He shrugs. “I guess. Makes you wonder why she’s with Spencer.”
Or why anyone like Beck and Heath would want to be with someone who looks like me, I think. That’s not what I say, though, of course.
“Sure does,” is what I say.
After a few moments of companionable silence tossing my soaked laundry into the washer, during which we only hear the sounds of clothing rustling and muffled yelling coming from the living room, Caleb says in a low, serious voice, “So … how’s school going?”
He fixes me with a look. “And none of that bull you’re going to tell everyone else,” he says. “This is me you’re talking to, remember.”
I bite my lip. “Things are … complicated.”
I generally only tell my family the bare minimum about Bleakwood; the less they know, the better. Caleb is the one exception.
So, even though I know telling him isn’t going to actually change anything, I tell him anyway.
“They’re threatening to shut down the school. All because of me.”
Caleb snorts. “It’s not your fault they’ve mismanaged everything.”
“Maybe.” I shrug as I slam the dryer’s door shut. “But if it closes, that’s how a bunch of people—the kind of important people and colleges that I need to like me—are gonna see it.”
“Ah. I get your point.” He abandons his clothes and leans against the dryer as I fiddle with the dial. “You doing okay? Those boys still bullying you?”
I freeze for a moment, then twist the dial and press the button to start the dryer. It rumbles to life as I work out the words to use next.
“Uh—no, actually. There are these investigators everywhere all around. Everyone’s being watched, basically.”
“Good.” Caleb nods solemnly.
I feel a bit guilty, but how am I supposed to tell my brother that I’ve started dating two of them?
Two of the three boys who spent the last year bullying and humiliating me.
I find myself looking for anywhere to look that isn’t at Caleb. Thankfully, I’m saved from having to explain any further as loud voices carry over to us from back in the living room.
Caleb grins. “Sounds like Mason and Blake are home.”
I laugh and slip out of the laundry room, grateful to leave the conversation behind with the laundry tumbling in the dryer. Sure enough, Mason and Blake have strewn chaos all over the house, leaving behind trails of muddy footprints and balled-up candy wrappers. Mom’s little dog—a mutt named Taco she got for Christmas last year—runs after them, yapping, as they hurtle toward the living room to heckle Spencer.
“Hey guys,” I pipe up.
Blake whirls around, one hand wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle.
“Alex! You’re home!”
“No shit,” Mason chimes in, throwing himself over the back of the couch, his upper body slumping over Spencer’s shoulder. “We saw Caleb’s truck out front.”
Blake heads for me. He places his beer down on the counter and reaches out. “No!” I cry out, dodging, but Caleb grabs my arms and pins them to my sides. Blake swoops in a moment later and scoops me up to toss me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Put me down!” I yell, banging my fists onto the small of his back, but he barely feels it; he starts to spin in circles as fast as he can.
“Blake, stop it, you’re going to bang her head into something!” Mom yells.
“I’m being careful!” he yells back.
Taco loudly and nips at the ends of my hair. I can’t help laughing; as stupid and ridiculous as my family is, I missed their special brand of chaos.
The doorbell rings, which is unusual, but Blake doesn’t stop spinning. I catch brief glimpses of the room around me; Mom heading toward the door, Spencer wrestling Mason off him on the couch, Taco bouncing excitedly, Caleb heading toward us with outstretched arms, laughing—
And then a voice cuts through everything and my eyes glaze over.
“Is this the Trevellian residence?”
Blake stops abruptly and I try to wriggle out of his grasp until Caleb starts to help me. He sets me on my feet even as I stumble dizzily, the room still spinning as though I never stopped.
Standing in the doorway in pressed khaki slacks and a white turtleneck, is the last person I expected to see back here in Ohio.
Headmistress Robin meets my gaze, her hand outstretched in greeting.
“Hello Alex.”
I, in turn, just stare back at her in horror.
Chapter Fourteen
Suddenly, my surroundings feel more foreign than Bleakwood ever has.
“Headmistress Robin,” I say, fighting to keep the room in focus, let alone decide how to address her. I swallow, hard. “What … what are you doing here?”
My question is ignored.
Mom shuts the door behind the headmistress as she steps into my house, her eyes
sliding over the room. My brothers have frozen in their places. Mom hangs nervously near the doorway in her apron. Dad stands silently near the Christmas tree. The TV blares a commercial for toothpaste into the quiet room.
We’re not the sort of family that has guests over often. We know the chaos that we are, and so don’t force others to be subjected to it unless absolutely necessary.
“Headmistress Robin, is it?” Mom asks uncertainly after a moment, reaching out to shake the hand that I’ve left hanging awkwardly in the space between us.
“We’re hardly back at school—just Robin is fine.” The headmistress gives my mother a kind smile that only barely veils her annoyance. “You’re Mrs. Trevellian, then?”
“Yes. You’re from Bleakwood?”
“I operate the girls’ school next door,” Headmistress Robin’s smile falters, but only just a bit. “I just happened to be visiting nearby and thought I might pop in to speak to Alex.”
Just happened to be nearby? Caleb was talking about bullshit earlier, and this is bullshit if I ever heard it.
I’m still dizzy, but it’s definitely not from Blake’s spinning any longer. I reach out to grasp the chair in front of me while my mother glances over her shoulder at me, her expression uncertain.
“And … how do you know Alex, exactly?” she asks faintly. “Sorry if I seem frazzled, we just … we weren’t expecting any guests.”
She narrows her eyes at me a bit as if accusing me of forgetting to mention this little drop in. All I can think is that she’s forgotten what my panic face looks like, because it should be pretty obvious to anyone who knows me that I was not expecting this.
“When Bleakwood was going over the applications of scholarship students, I chose and advocated for Alex’s,” Headmistress Robin says with a smile. “I’m terribly sorry for intruding—it’s just that I was in the area for a conference over the holiday, and I thought—”
At hearing that Robin “advocated for” me, Mom immediately perks up. She ushers Headmistress Robin toward the dining room while exclaiming just how nice it is that we’re going to be having company for dinner.
It is not nice, not in my opinion anyway. But it’s too late. I can’t just go and turn her away now, not without arousing suspicion. And if she came all the way out here to speak with me, I suppose I might as well find out why.
I meet Headmistress Robin’s eyes as Mom begins to berate my brothers for not helping her with dinner.
This is absolutely surreal. I know she’s here for some alternative reason. There’s no way there’s some conference nearby. She flew here from Switzerland just to talk to me.
Whatever it is, it has to be important.
“Alex, go upstairs and get cleaned up,” Mom calls over the din my brothers are making in the kitchen. Tearing my eyes away from the headmistress’, I run upstairs and do as I’m told, heart beating out of my chest.
I don’t want Headmistress Robin alone with my family for one second longer than she needs to be.
Back downstairs after a brief shower and change of clothes, Headmistress Robin sits across from my father at the dinner table. Dad’s shoulders raise uncomfortably to his ears as Mom and my brothers make several trips to bring dishes from the kitchen into the dining room. Headmistress Robin meanwhile, seems perfectly at ease, sitting still and straight in her chair with her hands folded in her lap.
I guess she’s just used to intruding. Used to making people uncomfortable. She’s certainly made a habit of it with me.
“Alex,” Dad says in relief when he notices me drift into the room. He gestures to the seat next to him. “Sit.”
I move gratefully to the chair next to him, but before I can do as he says, Mom swoops in and tugs me away.
“Sit over here, Alex,” she says, steering me to the place beside Headmistress Robin before I can protest. “Dinner’s ready!”
I lower myself awkwardly into the chair as the rest of my family gathers around the table. Someone has turned the TV off, evaporating the background noise that usually permeates through the house. Taco the little mutt isn’t even barking; when I look around for him, I see him curled up on his bed, fast asleep.
Betrayal. I could have used the distraction of him running around between all our feet.
“So, Robin,” my mom says cheerfully as we all settle in for dinner. “Were you surprised when you found out our Alex was a girl?”
I balk at her, but my mother just glances up and smiles innocently.
Caleb takes the seat beside me, punching Blake in the arm to get to it. Spencer makes cutesy googly eyes at Valerie. Can this night get any weirder?
Headmistress Robin smiles one of her fake warm smiles, but I have a feeling I’m the only one here who knows just how fake it is.
“I had my suspicions when I first read her application, actually,” she says, scooping some mashed potatoes onto her plate. “When I met her, I simply knew. And she confided in me a little.”
I bristle. That’s a very generous way of describing it. I wouldn’t exactly call it “confiding”. I’d say she blackmailed me. Which she did. And probably still is.
My stomach sours. After all, that’s what she’s got to be here for, right?
“So, what is it you’re doing at Bleakwood now?” Dad asks.
I glance up at him in surprise. Dad’s never been a big talker; that’s always been Mom’s realm of expertise. But he’s got his eyes set on the headmistress, and I wonder for the first time if I’m actually not the only one wondering about her intentions here tonight.
Headmistress Robin looks across the table at him. “I’m watching over the school and assisting with integrating Bleakwood with the girls’ school.”
Mom’s eyebrows shoot up and she looks over at me. “You didn’t tell me the schools were integrating. That’s great news!”
“It is,” I agree. “It’s more complicated than that, though. I’m still the only girl at Bleakwood, and there are investigators all over the school—”
“Getting things ready and suitable for integration,” Headmistress Robin interrupts me. “A few investigators seem ready to shut the school down entirely, but it would be much better for all the students—including my girls—if we could just make Bleakwood co-ed.”
I look over at her in surprise. Is she actually trying to mix the schools instead of just shutting Bleakwood down altogether? This is not what she told me at the end of last year.
But then again, I can’t trust a single word coming out of her mouth. I know she’ll say anything, do anything, to get what she wants.
“Well, that’d be best for our Alex,” Mom says cheerfully. “We’re so proud of her. Bleakwood is such a good school.”
I dip my head. Good school is an understatement; Bleakwood is incredibly prestigious, quite possibly the only school of its kind. Having its name on my college applications is basically guaranteed acceptance.
Or it would have been … not too long ago.
Everything about coming home has shifted my perspective. I kick myself inwardly for the first time in weeks. I really should have just sent out as many applications as I could, not just the early acceptance application to the same school as Heath and Beck.
If Headmistress Robin is here, it can mean only one thing—she needs to remind me of her mission and my role in it. If I think I’m kicking myself now, if she gets what she wants, then I’m really going to regret it.
Thankfully, the conversation doesn’t stay focused on me and Bleakwood forever. Mom shifts her attention to Valerie and starts interrogating her and Spencer so Headmistress Robin and I fall out of focus.
I don’t engage her in conversation at all, leaving her awkwardly stammering to get one of my brothers to stop shoveling food into their mouths for long enough to string together a few coherent words. I keep stubbornly silent as I shovel food into my own mouth, my mother’s good cooking tainted by Headmistress Robin being here at all.
Where does she get off barging in on my family Christmas?
/>
As soon as dinner is finished, I stand up and look purposefully down at Headmistress Robin, who gazes up at me from her chair.
“I have some clothes in the dryer that I need to get out,” I say to her, deciding now is as good a time as any to find out what she’s really here for. “Do you want to come with me so that you and I can talk privately?”
I’m doing my best not to shake or clench my teeth; I don’t know whether to be scared or angry.
Right now, I’m just a bad mixture of both.
She nods and stands up so quickly, the chair almost falls to the floor behind her. “Of course.”
I force a smile and beckon for her to follow me. I lead her into the laundry room, shut the door behind us, and whirl on her, doing my best not to shake.
“What are you actually doing here?” I ask, hissing between my teeth. “This is my family. This crosses a line.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I can’t drop by on a student?”
“I’m not your student, and this is hardly dropping by.”
Robin folds her arms and looks away, her expression uncomfortable but angry. “I wanted to check on you.”
“Why?”
“Make sure you’re doing all right. All the school investigators are focusing in on you. It must be getting to you, surely.”
I narrow my eyes. It seems awfully altruistic of her. She has to have her own motives. I know better by now.
Behind me, the dryer buzzes. For want of something to do, I turn and start pulling my dry clothes out. The gears in my head are turning. I don’t like my worlds colliding like this; school is supposed to stay at Bleakwood, not barge into my Christmastime at home.
Especially wrapped up neatly in the form of this blackmailing bitch.
“Well,” I say finally, since Headmistress Robin doesn’t seem to be willing to break the silence, “I’m glad you’ve changed your mind.”
“Changed my mind?” she echoes, sounding confused.
“About integrating,” I say, grabbing a baggy T-shirt and starting to fold it haphazardly. “At dinner, you said you wanted to integrate; before, you were hellbent on getting Bleakwood shut down.”