by Eden Beck
Even if we did have something previously … something sweet and intimate …
I shake that off. That was then. This is now.
Heath knows this is over. And so long as he keeps putting me last, beneath his friends, beneath The Brotherhood, then that isn’t going to change.
This reminder makes me jab my chin out and nod at the dean. “What is it you’re really trying to say?” I ask, surprising myself with my boldness.
“What I’m trying to say,” he hisses, his eyes glued first to me and then moving to sweep across the boys again, “your little antics have everyone wondering what it really is that’s going on at Bleakwood. Soon this whole place is going to be crawling with people far more important than these investigators, so I can’t take any chances.”
He straightens back up and this time, he looks at the investigator before he delivers the final blow.
“So from this moment forward, if any one of you, any one, steps out of line … I will expel you from Bleakwood on the spot.”
Behind me, I hear a slight intake of breath. I don’t know who did it, but when I turn my head slightly to see, it’s Jasper’s face that looks the most startled.
“Surely you’re not—”
“Surely, I am,” Dean Withers says, drawing himself up to his full height. “So, let that be a warning to you. To all of you. I don’t want to hear a single peep out of any one of you for the rest of the semester.”
His bravado fades for a moment, and he lifts one hand up to drag down the bottom half of his face for a second. “Or at least until this competition. Please. Just don’t let me hear your names until then.”
Chapter Twenty
I burst into my dorm room ready to throw myself on the bed and rant to Rafael about what an epic disaster that was, only to be met with the shrieking face of Neville as he desperately scrambles to cover his nether regions with the towel he’d just whipped off to snap at an equally naked Rafael.
I only know Rafael is naked because he, unlike his new roommate, does not so much as blink twice when he registers it’s me in the doorway.
“Oh shit, Neville,” I squeal, throwing up my hands to cover my eyes even as I struggle to choke back a laugh. I’d be forcing back a gag if I actually saw anything other than the absolute horror on his face. “Sorry, I forgot for a second that this wasn’t my room anymore.”
Just for a second, I really did forget. It was last year again, and Rafael was the only confidant to my biggest secrets. All of them.
My head snaps up from where my gaze had started to settle on the ground. It doesn’t have to be that way anymore.
Neville freezes under the weight of my gaze, his face somehow reddening even more as he glances hurriedly between me and Rafael as he struggles to understand the look on my face.
“Hey Neville,” I say, bending over only for a second to grab a pair of trousers off the ground to toss in Rafael’s direction. “What do you think of bad cooking sherry?”
The air above the clock tower is colder than last time, somehow.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Neville stands, leaning almost as precariously as I am perched atop the railing. His face is a stark contrast between the pale of his skin and the high color marking his cheeks and the tip of his nose. His lip trembles, but I don’t know if it’s from cold or laughter.
“So you’re telling me that you’ve finally done it?” he says, laughing again after a glance in Rafael’s direction. “Someone had to bring The Brotherhood down, eventually.”
I blink at him in surprise, almost choking over a mouthful of sherry. “Wait, what?”
“You really don’t see?” Rafael says, his voice surprisingly low from where he leans under the eaves leading back inside.
I straighten up and take a second to consider what Neville just said.
“I really don’t get …”
“You think any member of The Brotherhood has been close to being expelled before? Even remotely?” Rafael asks, pushing himself up off the wall. “One word from you and you could …” He snaps his fingers. “Have The Brotherhood out of here for good.”
I stand in the cold, stricken for a moment. I’d led the three of us up here to commiserate my misfortune. Never did I think we might actually find a solution to my most recent problems.
Even more so, however, I didn’t expect the solution to make me feel so sick.
“Wait, you mean I should get them expelled on purpose?”
Jasper maybe, yes. But Heath and Beck? Do I actually want them to get expelled? What would Bleakwood even be without them?
I stop and consider that for a moment, my hands gripping the cold rail until my palms start to go numb.
“I … I hadn’t considered that before,” I say, my turn for my voice to quiet. “Would it even be worth it now? You know, this close to graduation?”
“Worth it?” Neville splutters. “Are you kidding me? You think you’re the only one those fuckers—pardon my language—have bullied? I’d love to see those three get what they deserve.”
My jaw snaps shut as I look at Neville a second time. I’ve never heard him so animated, never seen his eyes light up with passion over something. It almost makes him handsome.
But it’s hard for anyone else to stand against Jasper, Heath, and Beck. The Brotherhood.
A brotherhood that could be a thing of the past if I was willing to make that happen.
While Neville starts spluttering on about what it would mean for The Brotherhood to be expelled, Rafael steps up beside me and wordlessly offers me a cigarette. The motion of lifting it up to my lips and waiting for the flame to set it alight is like second nature now. Like my temper, it’s another bad habit that clings to me again thanks to Bleakwood.
This place is toxic, that’s for sure … a place poisoned by The Brotherhood more than anything.
I wanted to be rid of The Brotherhood, but I never considered that might mean being rid of the boys behind it.
I don’t realize how long I’ve been standing silent until I feel a slight prickling at the ends of my fingers, and then a moment later Rafael is swearing loudly and swatting something out of my hand.
Even then, it’s still a split second later that I react, letting out a yelp of my own and stumbling back to stick my burnt fingertips in my mouth. I taste bitter ash and the sickening flavor of nicotine where I let the cigarette burn down to nothing in my hand.
“You need a minute?” Rafael asks me, one hand pressing momentarily to the spot between my shoulder blades. His dark eyes search mine as he nods to where Neville is scrambling back away from the edge of the railing with wide, concerned eyes. “I can take Neville back now.”
I just nod and stumble back past Neville to the railing, where I lean out and stare across the valley while his and Rafael’s whispered voices carry back to me. I hear a creak as the door opens and shuts with a dull thud, leaving me in snowy silence.
Here alone, the silence feels heavier somehow.
Even though I’ll be alone when I go back to my dorm—my very isolated dorm—this alone feels different.
I take a few minutes to appreciate the rare quiet here at Bleakwood. As I watch, the last of the dorm lights goes out from this side of the building. I’m left in a darkness broken only by the sliver of moon overhead and the snow reflecting its light.
The longer I stay up here, the more I can’t avoid the new question blossoming in my mind.
Because Neville wasn’t wrong.
I’ve been handed a way to be rid of The Brotherhood for good, but it means losing Jasper, Heath, and Beck too … and on top of that, there’s a chance I might be expelled along with them.
Dean Withers wasn’t clear about whether or not we would all be expelled together, but I wouldn’t put it past him to be rid of me at the first convenient moment, so long as he can finally wash his hands of me.
But then, if I can get rid of these bullies … is it my prerogative to do so? Isn’t there something wrong with me for hesi
tating in the first place?
I could stay up here lost alone in these spinning thoughts forever, but it seems Rafael, Neville, and I weren’t the only ones wandering around Bleakwood tonight.
I know, with the creak of the door opening behind me, that I’ve been found.
“You’re going to lose a finger if you stay up here much longer.”
I’d recognize Heath’s voice anywhere, no matter how quiet it is.
I let out a light laugh. “You sound like Beck. If you were him, I’d be worried that’s some kind of threat.”
“Oh, wait … no … I didn’t mean …” Heath starts to splutter, his shadow stumbling a bit where it falls over my shoulder from the light as the stairwell door closes behind him.
“Chill, Heath,” I say, holding out the remains of the sherry without turning to look at him.
There’s a slight pause, a second’s hesitation before I feel the bottle tugged from my fingers.
He says nothing, and I stand silently listening to the sound of him fumbling to uncork the bottle and swig from the sour contents. A swig that turns into a single, long gulp as he lifts the bottle back over his head and finishes the last of it off.
I do glance over at him now, one eyebrow shooting up. “Shit, Heath. What d’you need a drink that bad for?”
Heath takes the empty bottle from his lips as he forces down the last swallow. He considers the label for a second, his eyebrows knitting together in a look of concentration before he suddenly winds back and chucks the bottle as far as he can. The bottle hurls into the night, arcing high above the roof and down to the edge of the courtyard, where it shatters into a million glittering shards.
The sound is still echoing across the rooftop when Heath turns to me, his voice a deep, broken gravel as he says, “To get the courage to do this.”
Heath pulls me to him in a furious kiss, his lips pressing to mine with shocking hunger.
More shocking still is the way mine meet his the same.
There is no space between us. Any space that finds its way between our bodies is immediately filled as Heath tugs me back.
There’s a salt on his skin. Sweat or tears, it doesn’t matter. I snake my hands up to the back of his neck and he flinches away from the cold only to swoop back in and pull me tighter to him than ever.
Our lips part and give way to tongues, our mingled breath rising like steam between us. My breath grows shallow and fast as my heart does the same. A heady rush overtakes me as I draw my torso back just enough for Heath to take the opportunity to slip his hand up under my shirt.
His hand slides high enough to graze the band of my bra, his fingers slipping just up underneath the edge.
My breath hitches again and I feel my hips press harder into his as my back arches away, pulling our lips apart just long enough for Heath to make the mistake of looking up and into my eyes.
Our eyes lock for just one fraction of a second, but that’s all it takes.
My arms snap back up to my sides and form a wedge between myself and Heath. There’s a single moment when he still clings to me, his grip only growing tighter as it dawns on him that he’s lost me, and then I manage to break away from him and stumble back, towards the door.
Heath’s heavy breaths fill the space between us in the night.
My hands reach for the door, ready to flee. I would too, never to look back, if it wasn’t for the tone of Heath’s voice as soon as my fingers wrap around the doorknob.
“Alex …”
The sound of my name on his lips makes me freeze.
I should just leave him here. I should go, now.
But I don’t. I look back, and that is the next mistake.
Heath stands outlined by a sliver of silver light, his shoulders hunched up before the moon.
Shoulders that shake with tears.
Seeing Heath cry is like watching a beast break. Tears don’t stream from his eyes so much as they flood.
And as soon as he sees me looking, he turns away in embarrassment. One hand reaches up to stem the flow of tears, his eyes refusing to meet mine as he tries to drag the tears back.
“Please tell me I’m wrong.”
Part of me aches to reach out to him, but even as I start to lean toward him, I feel my grip tighten on the door anchoring me back. My voice barely comes out as a breath.
“Wrong about what?”
It takes Heath a second to gather himself together. Still, he doesn’t look at me. He fixates on a spot on the roof instead, leaving his glowing silhouette to speak for him.
“Tell me that this feeling in me is wrong,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each scratching breath. “Tell me that you’re not slipping away. Tell me … tell me …” Here he fixes me with his steady, red-rimmed gaze. “Tell me that wasn’t the last time I get to kiss you.”
I have never felt my heart break the way it breaks when the next words drop from my lips.
“I can’t promise you that, Heath.”
My breath hitches at the change in his expression. It does not screw up in further tears.
It just … it … empties. And that is so, so much worse.
I should go to him. I should give this up. Give up my pride. Give in.
And I almost do.
For one, brief second, I feel my grip on the door handle loosen. I feel myself lean towards Heath, my hand twitching up from my side to start to reach for him.
It would be so easy just to stop fighting.
So much easier to just move on.
But I can’t do that. Not without losing the last bit of myself that remains.
So though every foot carrying me away from him makes my heart feel like it is breaking a second time, I don’t go to Heath. Instead, I run even further from him.
I run even further from The Brotherhood.
I can’t let myself get closer to Heath, to Beck, to Jasper even … to any of them, not now. Not when their future here at Bleakwood is up to me.
And certainly not when I know the right thing to do directly conflicts with what my selfish heart wants me to do. Because I know what Bleakwood would be without them here, and it’s not the kind of place I want to be.
Chapter Twenty-One
Just after I promised myself I was finished with keeping things from Rafael, I finally find it.
The thing I can’t tell him. Really can’t tell him.
I can’t admit to him that the reason I can’t get The Brotherhood expelled is because I couldn’t stay here at Bleakwood without them. Not when every hallway, every classroom, every stairwell and painting that hangs on the wall is a constant reminder of them.
Not that he doesn’t suspect it.
He doesn’t say as much, but I’m too quick to brush off the subject and move on to another conversation the next time Neville brings it up. I catch Rafael looking at me a little too closely, and rather than risk him bringing it up, I just make myself scarce.
It’s not exactly a hard thing to do when you’re already tucked up in a different part of the school than everyone else. It makes it even easier when I find out I can sneak early pre-wrapped lunches if I just complain loudly about cramps to the head chef who already struggles with English enough as it is.
Between the two, I manage to avoid having to face Rafael privately all the way up to my next scheduled practice with The Brotherhood. That, unfortunately, is something I can’t avoid.
Not unless I want to be the one expelled while The Brotherhood still remains. Of all my given options, that is the only one that I know for sure isn’t what I want.
This time, I make sure to arrive a full half-hour before our practice is due to start. I find my way back to the gymnasium by way of one of the lesser-used hallways, pausing for a second to consider whether or not I could take a smoke break beforehand.
I decide against it, just in case Jasper or the others had the same idea to get to the session early. I just need an extra moment to settle in before they arrive and … unsettle me.
Th
ankfully, the gym is empty when I get there. The same single set of bleachers has been pulled away from the wall, so I go to the far end and sit down on the bottom row, waiting for everyone else to arrive. I must be sitting very still because even after the coach arrives—this time accompanied by two investigators at his obviously annoyed side—no one seems to notice me right away. I look on silently as they set up several folding card tables, their voices echoing just enough in the space for me to not be able to make out most of what they’re saying.
It doesn’t bother me until the doors burst open and Beck storms in, followed closely behind by Jasper and Heath at his heels. Both of them appear to be saying something animatedly to Beck, but from the look on Beck’s face, he doesn’t like it.
They cross halfway to where I’m sitting in the gym before their voices carry over to me.
“ … which I think any one of us is willing to agree would be a mistake.”
Jasper’s hissed words bring Beck to a whirling stop. “Mistake?” he snaps back. “You think so? You’re big, intellectual brain came up with that, did it?”
Even though I’m seated behind him, I think he’s gearing up to say something else when suddenly Heath’s eyes land on me from across the gym, and suddenly all three of them fall silent. I look away before the other two can make eye contact with me, but not before I see the shift on Beck’s expression.
He’s crossed the space between us and come to stand directly in front of me before I even have time to process it.
“So it looks like we’re actually all here this time,” he says, as if he wasn’t the one missing last time in the first place. His eyes stay locked on mine even as the coach spots us all gathering and starts hurrying over. “At least today’s promising to get interesting.”
Despite myself, I feel a blush rising to my cheeks.
Damn Beck.
I make a point of turning my attention to the coach as he starts explaining how the competition is going to run this year.
Since the three events are going to be held over the course of three back-to-back weekends with guests in attendance, there have been some slight adjustments. There will be three challenges as usual, but the final winners of will be announced at the end of a schoolwide commemorative ball.