by Eden Beck
Well, aside from the necessary ones.
“You should really stop obsessing over her, Dana. As both of your friends … I can honestly say that I don’t think Victoria is ever going to notice you. Not so long as she’s only got eyes for Astor.”
“Astor,” Dana grumbles, then she laughs. “Astor is an ass. He really is.”
“Tell me about it,” I mutter back. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t know if I’m getting bullied on a near daily basis … or if I’m just really, really unlucky. I mean …the showers can only go cold so many times when I’m the only one in there. Not to mention the whole new uniform I had to replace because just my laundry somehow accidentally got mixed in with bleach.
Dana props herself up and leans her head into her palm as she regards me seriously. “Listen, I know the holy trinity has been giving you hell since you started, but I really think you should watch out for them. I don’t trust them at all. Not Astor, Wills, or Blair. They’re trouble, and not the good kind of trouble. You be careful around them.”
I tell her I already am, but then my thoughts go a little further than I want them to. It’s true that I don’t trust the ‘holy trinity’, but there’s something about each one that’s such a draw for me; something deep in me that’s like a gravitational pull. It’s probably some poorly-repressed need for acceptance thanks to my fucked-up childhood. I wish it wasn’t there, but it’s undeniable.
One of the many courtesies of being an outsider my whole life.
All I can do is push it down and ignore it, and hope that none of them senses it, because Dana is right. That’s trouble I don’t need. I’m still trying to fit in around here, and I’m being careful about every step I take. If I let anyone too close, even Dana, I risk letting out my secret.
We finally have to head off to class for English Lit. All the pine trees around here have made my allergies flare up again, so as soon as I set my books on my desk I have to dart to the back of the room to grab a tissue.
Before I can turn around I hear that soft, sensuous voice in my ear. It’s Blair, and as usual, he’s standing much too close to me.
“Hey, Bunny,” he murmurs, and I feel his strong chest against my shoulder. I lose my breath completely for a moment and when I try to breathe in again, his faint cologne teases my senses and I have trouble surfacing.
“What do you want, Blair?” I ask, trying to sound irritated. It’s the first time we’ve really spoken since that first day. I’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding getting cornered by him, for just this reason. The moment he stands close to me, it’s like the rest of the world melts away. It’s just me and Blair.
“Mmmm … that’s a long, long list where you’re concerned. What if I start with something simple?” I hear the crooked smile in his voice rather than see it. “Come out with us tonight. We missed you last week. It’s Friday so we’re going to go have some fun. I want you there.”
Suddenly there are butterflies bouncing all over the walls of my stomach, and my heart begins to race in my chest so loud that I’m sure he can hear it. Part of me wants to say yes, and part of me wants to tell him hell no. I should know better. I should.
“I’m … busy tonight,” I say as nonchalantly as I can, hoping that he can’t hear my rapid breath.
“Blair Rashnikov, what are you doing in this room? You aren’t in this class,” our teacher, Mr. Davis, scolds him from the front of the room. We both turn to face Mr. Davis, and Blair wraps an arm around my shoulder.
“I was just coming to see a friend,” he answers with a naughty lilt. Then he turns and kisses my cheek softly, and I gasp as my eyes widen. Mr. Davis is furious.
“Mr. Rashnikov, we do not permit that kind of behavior in this school, and you know it. Detention, both of you, Monday.” The teacher’s stern expression hardens. “Now please leave, and I don’t want to see you in here again until you’re scheduled to be here.”
With a red face, I head to my desk and take my seat. I am equal parts mortified and enraged. Now I have detention because Blair decided to kiss my cheek, which he shouldn’t have done to begin with. Mr. Davis speaks out over the class as Astor, who is sitting immediately to my left, begins to snicker. I glance over at him and see that he’s laughing at me. Great. His friend gets me in trouble, and he thinks it’s funny.
Mr. Davis announces that our Shakespeare essays are due, and I dutifully open my folder only to see that it’s empty. I stare down in disbelief that quickly turns to horror. I wrote the essay. I spent the last two weeks working on that essay and now it’s not there. Panic floods through me and I can hear blood rushing in my ears.
“Lose something, Sadie?” Astor grins as he eyes me with a wicked glint in his eyes.
I turn to look at him and I realize what’s happened. Astor must have gotten into my folder and taken my paper while Blair was distracting me at the back of class.
I wait for Mr. Davis to start pulling up attendance on his computer to lean in to Astor.
“Give it back,” I demand. He only laughs at me and reaches into his own folder to pull his out and pass it forward.
“You’re going to have to take your work in this school seriously, Sadie, or you’re going to wind up asking people if they’d like fries with their meal.”
He laughs, and I want to punch him again, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m not about to make things worse by calling out Astor Hawthorne in front of the whole class.
Mr. Davis flips through the papers and then eyes me in concern. “Miss White, I don’t see your essay here. Do you have it?”
I didn’t expect to be the one called out in front of class, and I’m lost for words.
“I … I must have left it in my room. I’m sorry. I can turn it in on Monday.” My mind is blazing, and I think to myself that maybe I could rewrite it all tonight. I still have all my notes and my rough draft in my room where they can’t be stolen, thankfully. Hawthorne makes us hand-write all our papers because they think it helps decrease plagiarism but it also means I can’t just slip away and print another copy like I would have literally anywhere else.
Dana, who is sitting in front of me, turns in her chair and gives me a worried look. “Where is it? You worked so hard on that!”
I can only shake my head at her and try not to look at Astor still chuckling to my other side. If I tell her now, she’ll never let me hear the end of it.
Mr. Davis warns me I’ll have to take a fifty-percent deduction in my grade, but there’s nothing I can do but accept.
There’s so much emotion rushing through me. Most of it is anger and frustration directed at Astor, the beautiful jerk sitting next to me still laughing under his breath. Dana was right earlier. I’m going to have to be very careful around the holy trinity; her snide nickname for Wills, Blair, and Astor.
I can barely take in the rest of the class, and when the bell rings, I shoot out of the door. I keep to myself the rest of the morning until lunch when Victoria and her Barbie doll twins, Alisha and Laura, sit next to me. She’s as perky as ever, but today it grates on my nerves more than usual.
“There you are! I was looking for you earlier. You have to come out with us tonight. We’re going out for some fun!” She positively bubbles excitement.
Where me … I’m just miserable. I tell her about my missing paper I have to re-write … though don’t tell her why.
“Write it tomorrow night. You have the whole weekend, come on! Everyone who is anyone is going. You have to come.” Victoria presses me about it. “You haven’t been out for a proper Hawthorne excursion yet. You don’t want to miss out on your first one.”
She eyes me seriously. “I’d be amiss if I didn’t make you go.”
I sigh.
She’s right. I haven’t been out since I started school, and I realize that she’s insinuating that if I don’t finally go this time, it might hurt me socially. I’m trying my best to balance school work and this new world of a real social life. It seems so stupid sometimes, but this is wha
t I’m here for … right? I sigh and nod.
“Okay. I’ll come.” I really don’t want to, but I feel like I don’t really have a choice.
“Great! It’ll cheer you up. Meet us out by the boathouse at the lake after dinner. Oh, and dress warm.” She winks at me and turns to Alisha and Laura to talk about Astor.
I’m headed down the hallway later that afternoon when Mr. Davis walks out of his classroom and sees me.
“Miss White!” he calls to me. I don’t want to face him, but I can’t ignore a teacher like I do the boys.
“Yes, Mr. Davis?” I ask, walking toward him hesitantly.
“I’m glad that you found your paper and turned it in. You’ll get a full grade for it.” He looks at me sternly, “Just make sure that you’re better prepared next time, or else I’ll have to make a deduction. I don’t like drama in my classroom.”
I blink at him as my brain comes to a stop.
“Turned … turned it in?” I ask in total confusion. He just keeps going, reminding me of my detention on Monday. Like I could forget. It’s not my first time, but it is the first time I didn’t actually do anything to deserve it.
“I know you’re new here, but it’s important you learn. We do not tolerate public displays of affection between students on campus. You and your boyfriend will have to remember that in the future.”
I gasp. “He’s not my boyfriend.” It’s tough for me to temper my frustration again.
“Whatever he is, keep it PG,” he admonishes me, then shakes his head. “These millennials and their labels.”
I’m pretty sure he isn’t using that right, but I’m not going to disagree. I want to get out of here before he changes his mind about my grade or tries to turn one day’s detention into two.
“Yes, sir,” I answer, and turn to head off to my next class, still astounded that my paper got turned in after all. I know Astor is behind it, and while I’m relieved that I don’t have to write the paper again I’m so angry that he put me through it all to begin with. All of that just to embarrass me? Really?
He’s the biggest jerk I’ve ever met.
After dinner I head to the dorm room and I start changing into warmer clothes. Despite my earlier promise to myself, I’ve had no choice but to put a few things on ‘mom and dad’s account’.
There’s just been no getting out of it. I was able to get away with basically nothing in foster care, but here … people notice. I tell myself I’ll find a way to pay them back eventually. This new life will afford me that, at least.
Dana looks up from her book and frowns at me slightly. “Are you getting dressed to go out?” she asks, sitting up in her bed.
“Yeah, I guess I am. Victoria and the others are doing something tonight. It might be nice to blow off a little steam.” I consider inviting her too … but then think better of it. I know Victoria wouldn’t like it. She hasn’t said as much, but I’ve seen the way she looks at Dana when she thinks neither of us are looking.
I feel a little guilty, but there’s no way around it.
Dana groans and pouts. “It’s a cruel irony. You barely care about Victoria and she invites you to go out, when here I am desperately in love with her and she doesn’t even acknowledge my existence.”
I offer her a sympathetic smile, but don’t know what to say to that. She picks her book back up and puts her nose in it. I want to tell her the boys might be there too, or at least Blair, but I know she’ll start lecturing me about how I should stay away from them … so I don’t.
Better for her to be jealous than worried, I think as I head out.
I can see a group of people by the boathouse as I come closer to it. They’re talking and laughing, and I can hear familiar voices. Victoria appears from the darkness and comes toward me with a bottle of wine in her hand, a big smile on her face.
“There you are! I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to come!” she chastises me gently, hugs my shoulders, and then hands the bottle to me. “Have a drink. You need one.”
I shake my head. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I need to have my wits about me tonight. “No thanks, it will give me a headache.”
Victoria shrugs her shoulders and takes a big swig off of the bottle. “Okay. More for me, then!”
She walks me toward the group and as I draw near to them, I see Alisha and Laura first. Alisha is draped over a boy I’ve never seen before … but the others standing behind them in the darkness are impossible not to recognize. The holy trinity. Astor and Wills both give me cold looks, but Blair grins as he strolls lazily toward me and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pushing Victoria off of me in the move. She laughs and saunters over toward Astor, offering him the bottle of wine, and whatever else he might like to taste. I notice that once again he’s not watching her. He’s watching me.
He needs to stop that, and soon, or Victoria isn’t going to like it.
“There’s my girl.” Blair murmurs in my ear, brushing his lips against it as he speaks. A shiver runs down my neck and I draw in a deep breath. I hate that he has any kind of effect on me at all.
“I’m not your girl,” I tell him earnestly and try to pull away from him. He closes his hand tighter around my shoulder, stopping me.
“You are if I want you to be, and I want you to be, at least for tonight.” He laughs softly and nuzzles me again. I twist away from him and cross my arms over my chest.
“I want to win the lottery, but that’s not going to happen tonight either.” I smart off to him.
He chuckles and plants his hand flat on his chest. “Oh heartbreaker! We’ll just have to see what this night has in store for us.” There’s something almost sinister in his voice, and it makes my blood run a little hotter. Somehow I think he knows it, because he’s laughing as he watches me; so sure of himself, so cocky, so teasing and mysterious. I know exactly what he’s thinking, really thinking, and it leaves me wary about him.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with remover to remove, oh no. It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken,” Astor recites Shakespeare’s sonnet perfectly as he walks toward me. There’s a smirk on his smug face, and I want to slap it off.
He stops in front of me and takes a long pull off of Victoria’s bottle. “Did you get your paper turned in on time?” he asks, taunting me coldly.
I narrow my eyes at him and remind myself that I need to be channeling Sadie, and not acting as myself. Teddy wants to shove him down onto the rocks. I have to find a healthy compromise that doesn’t crush my soul.
“Did you fill your daily quota of being a complete jerk?” I snap back at him. His eyes narrow and he presses his lips into a thin line.
“Just welcoming you to the school.” He shrugs indifferently. Then he raises his voice so that everyone in the group can hear. “In fact, I think we need to really make it official.” He laughs icily, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rise.
Wills and Blair come to stand beside him.
“The lighthouse?” Wills asks with a chuckle.
“Oh yeah. Definitely the lighthouse,” Astor answers as he laughs and takes another swig of wine.
As if on cue, the old building swims into sight through the thick fog. Its light catches on the boys’ backs for a second, illuminating their silhouettes and leaving their faces cast in shadow.
If ever there were an omen, this is it.
The light passes, and I look back up at the tower in the distance. Whatever is about to happen, it isn’t going to be good.
Chapter 9
I’m too afraid to ask them what they have in store.
Astor, who obviously loves being the center of attention, is positively shining in the limelight. He continues to speak loud enough that everyone can hear him clearly.
“We’re all going, and when we get there, we’re going to have a little party. An … induction into Hawthorne Academy, b
y yours truly, no less.” Here, he turns to me. “Now, you should know that being inducted into the Hawthorne Academy by a genuine Hawthorne is an honor. You should be grateful.” He eyes me intensely.
“Oh, I’m so grateful.”
“You won’t be sarcastic for long.” He laughs again. “Shall we get going?”
He calls out to the group, and we all begin to head down past the beach and out onto the rocks along the lake. As we leave the lights of the school behind us, I look over my shoulder at the dorm room on the corner. The light is still on. I imagine Dana is up there reading and probably pining over Victoria. I wish that I was with her instead of down here about to get into some kind of inevitable trouble.
A long, cold walk later, and the group of us are standing a brief distance from the lighthouse. It stands sentry upon a rock overlooking the crashing water. From the way the water stirs here, sending white spray up over our shivering forms, it might as well be a sea.
On any other night, I would have thought that this was beautiful, but tonight there is nothing but dread in me. I have no idea what the group, or more specifically, Astor, is up to, and my instincts tell me I should not be here. I’m shivering and my teeth are nearly chattering as I hug myself to try to keep warm.
Astor walks up beside me and stands very close. He gazes down at me and that perfect wave of carefully combed hair ruffles in the sea wind.
“Here we are, Sadie. It’s your moment of truth. Are you going to meet the challenge? Or are you going to run and fall into the ranks of the lowly at the academy?”
It’s a bit melodramatic, but it doesn’t make it any less real. I know he means it.
Victoria practically appears at my side. “Oh, she’ll do it. She’s one of us,” she assures him, and then she looks directly into my eyes. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”
“Do what?” I ask, not at all sure that I want to know.
Astor drapes his arm over my shoulder and leans a little closer to me. He smells incredible, and I still want to punch him. Speaking in a low voice into my ear, he points his finger, as the rest of his hand is still wrapped around the wine bottle, at the lighthouse.