“Rethink?” I repeated. This could not be happening. I could not be getting dumped by David Freaking Stark on a country road in the middle of nowhere.
But behind the disbelief was another emotion.
Anger. Lots of it.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, holding out one hand. “I made a call to keep you from having visions that would burn your brain up, and you dump me for it?”
David dropped his head to look at me, eyes slightly narrowed. “I didn’t say I was dumping you, I said—”
“No,” I interrupted. “That’s what ‘rethink stuff’ means, David. And it means you’re letting the Paladin/Oracle thing get all tangled up with everything else we are.”
David laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “It’s already all tangled up, Pres. It always has been, and it’s making both of us crazy.”
Now David’s arms were tight across his chest, too. “You can’t quit being my Paladin, and I can’t quit being an Oracle, but maybe until all this is sorted with the Peirasmos and Alexander and Bee—”
“What does Bee have to do with this?” I asked, shading my eyes against the sun. It was warm out here by the side of the road, and I could feel sweat on my forehead, behind my knees. My stomach ached, and my chest hurt. From the pained look on his face, I thought David might be feeling something similar.
“She’s wrapped up in this, too. Which, let me remind you, is another thing that I might have been able to see coming if you hadn’t screwed around with my powers. Maybe I could have looked for her, or we could’ve brought her back sooner.”
I stepped closer to him, wishing I could at least poke him in the chest or something. I’d have to settle for saying all the hostile stuff I wanted. “Are you suggesting that what happened to Bee was my fault?”
A car drove by, sending up a cloud of dust, and David glared at me. “You know I don’t think that.”
But I did. That was the problem. If I’d told Bee the truth from the beginning, if I’d been faster at Cotillion, if I’d tried to do something to keep her from even going to Cotillion.
If I hadn’t been so scared of my boyfriend turning into a monster that I’d kept him from using powers that maybe could’ve seen her.
Could’ve saved her.
“Harper,” David said, his voice quieter now. “Why can’t you admit that you can’t do everything?” He sounded so much like the David Stark I’d fought with for all those years that it was hard to believe I’d kissed him just yesterday. That I’d loved him.
“You can’t let go of anything, can you, Harper? You can’t admit that maybe some things are too much for you. You can’t be Homecoming Queen, and Paladin, and SGA president, and my girlfriend—”
I spun away from him, heading for the car. “Yeah, well, we can go ahead and strike one of those from the list, no problem.”
With an aggrieved sound, David caught my elbow, pulling me up short. “I don’t want to break up.”
I stepped back, shaking my head. “Too late.”
With that, I stomped back to the car, my throat tight, my eyes stinging.
David was still standing a few feet from the car, one hand at his waist, the other rubbing his mouth as he watched the traffic. Then, after a moment, I saw his shoulders rise and fall with a sigh, and he walked back to the car.
When he slid back in the driver’s side, he didn’t even look at me, starting the car and staring straight ahead.
I took a deep breath, wishing it hadn’t sounded so shuddery. So that was that. We were done. Less than six months as a couple, and now it was over.
Maybe David was right and it was for the best.
We didn’t say anything else until David pulled up in front of my house.
“Both your parents are home,” he said, the car still idling.
“Probably because the school called them, and I’m about to be grounded for the rest of my life, if not imprisoned.”
“Right,” David said on a sigh, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Do you want me to go in with you, try to explain?”
I was going to cry. I could feel it in my throat, which suddenly seemed so swollen and painful I was surprised I could breathe. And the last person I wanted to see me cry right now was the boy sitting next to me.
“No,” I said. “I need to deal with this on my own.”
“Pres,” he said softly. In the dim light of the car, I could make out the freckles across the bridge of his nose, see the slight wobble of his chin, and I fumbled with the door handle as tears filled my vision.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said, getting out of the car as quickly as I could and slamming the door behind me.
I didn’t look back.
Chapter 18
“WOULD IT HELP if I apologized again?”
I was sitting between my parents in Headmaster Dunn’s office on Monday morning, the leather of the chair sticking to my thighs underneath the white linen skirt I was wearing. I was all in white today, down to the thin ribbon headband in my hair, hoping to project an air of innocence, but so far, it didn’t seem to be working.
Headmaster Dunn still had an angry purple bruise on his right cheek, and the top of his bald head was red with anger, a vein pulsing steadily there. I’d never seen Headmaster Dunn angry before. God knows I’d never given him any reason to be before today, and for the first time, I got that—as a principal—he was pretty scary.
“Martin, you know this was very unusual behavior for Harper,” my dad said, resting his ankle on his knee. “And we don’t understand it any more than you do.”
“I panicked!” I insisted, wondering if going all wide-eyed would be taking the innocence thing too far. “There was a fire alarm, and—”
“And your boyfriend was trapped in the newspaper room,” Headmaster Dunn said on a sigh, and I startled.
“What?”
Reaching for a pen, Headmaster Dunn looked at me over the top of his half-moon glasses and said, “David Stark came to see me this morning, saying that you’d saved his life on Friday.”
“Oh” was all I could manage. I’d been punched and kicked and attacked with knives, but I wasn’t sure any of those things hurt as much as hearing David’s name. When I’d gotten in on Friday afternoon, I’d had my parents’ complete and total freak-out to distract me from the fact that David and I were no longer together. The school had called, of course, and told them about both the punching and the running off, so I’d had to spin a story and fast. It was the same one I’d told Headmaster Dunn during this meeting—freaked out, had a panic attack, acted in a Wildly Inappropriate and Uncharacteristic Manner—and while I was still grounded for the time being, at least they’d stopped yelling.
But later that night, lying in my bed, all I’d been able to think about was David’s face, the way his voice had cracked when he’d said, “Pres?” And then on top of that, there was the worry. Breaking up sucked no matter what. Breaking up with a person who you had a mystical and lifelong bond with? Yeah. I’d been awake most of the night wondering what this would mean for us on the Paladin/Oracle side of things. And would this have any effect on the trials? It wasn’t like I could quit being David’s Paladin, or quit going through with the Peirasmos, but at the moment, I didn’t even want to see David, much less go through more crap like what had happened Friday.
“Harper?”
I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed Headmaster Dunn talking to me.
“Yes, sir?” I asked, sitting forward in my chair a little bit.
He heaved another one of those sighs, his watery green eyes flicking between me and my parents. “I could have had you arrested, you know.” He tapped the end of the pen up and down on the desk. “Charged you with assault.”
My stomach dropped, and I clenched my suddenly sweaty fingers in my lap. “Yes, sir,” I said, as meekly as I could manage.
“At the very least I could have you expelled.” The pen was tapping faster now, and next to me, I heard both of
my parents suck in a breath. When I looked over at Mom, she had her legs tightly crossed, fingers linked over her knees. Like me, she was mostly in white, although her pants were houndstooth.
Headmaster Dunn sat back in his chair. “But since this was extremely uncharacteristic of you, and you were doing it in the service of helping your fellow students, I’m not going to do either of those things.”
I let out such a deep breath that I’m surprised I didn’t sag in my chair. “Ohmygoshthankyou,” I said in a rush and then stood up, reaching across the desk to shake his hand.
Headmaster Dunn flinched back, and Mom tugged at the hem of my skirt. “Sit down, sweetie.”
As I did exactly that, Headmaster Dunn added, “You’re not getting off scot-free, though, young lady. I expect you to dedicate at least a hundred service hours to the school before the end of the year.” His gaze flicked past me and toward the door; he was no doubt picturing the English hall. It was still standing, but the smoke and water damage were bad enough that classes had been moved into the cafeteria for the time being. “Lord knows we’ll have plenty for you to do,” he said on a sigh, and I stood up again, this time not reaching for him.
“Thank you,” I said again. “I promise, nothing like this will happen again, and I’m going to do a totally great job helping out.”
Headmaster Dunn gave a snort and went back to tapping his pen. “We’ll see about that.”
Once we were back in the main office, I turned to both my parents, giving them my best smile. “See? It all worked out.”
Dad shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. He had this way of looking at me where he sort of tucked his chin down and raised his eyes. He’d looked at Leigh-Anne like that, too, and it was always a sign that we were in trouble.
That was clearly still the case now, since his voice was firm when he said, “Just because you managed to avoid expulsion doesn’t mean you’re in the clear with us, young lady.”
Mom reached out, setting her hands on my shoulders. “We’re still worried, sweetheart. You have not been yourself for . . .” She looked up toward the ceiling. “Months, it seems like. And if you’re having panic attacks so severe you assault your principal—”
“It wasn’t assault,” I said quickly. “It was an instinctive reaction so that I could help people.”
Mom was still watching me, a deep crease between her brows, and I gave her my best “I’ve totally got this” smile.
I could tell she wasn’t buying it, though—that crease only got deeper—so I hurried on, adding, “So I should get to class, and I promise we can talk more about this after school. Or after I get back from the pageant sign-ups.”
Mom frowned at that. “Pageant sign-ups?” she repeated, and I nodded.
“Miss Pine Grove. Bee wanted to do it. Anyway, we can talk later, love you!” I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, did the same to my dad, and then skedaddled out of that office as quickly as I could, leaving my parents’ shocked expressions and the smell of burned coffee behind me.
• • •
The rest of the day was kind of a blur. The fire had everything all discombobulated, so classes were meeting in different locations. I had English in the gym, and Mrs. Laurent had sent all of us an e-mail that newspaper would now meet in the computer lab near the math hall. I hadn’t seen David all day, and assumed he was avoiding me. That was . . . good. I wasn’t ready to face him, not yet.
But when I got to the temporary newspaper lab and realized he wasn’t there, I got worried. Even if David was lying low between classes and at lunch, he’d never miss newspaper.
Chie and Michael were working on computers in the back, and I tried to keep my voice as casual as I could. “Have either of you seen David?”
Chie shook her head, dark hair swinging around her jaw. “He’s not in school today.” She looked over her shoulder at me, the light from the computer monitor glowing in her eyes. “Did it take you this long to notice your boyfriend’s missing?”
Okay, so David hadn’t told his friends we’d broken up. I hadn’t told mine either, except Bee.
Nodding, I gave a little shrug and backed up from them. “Sure, but I thought he might still show up for this class.”
Neither Chie nor Michael replied, and I went over to one of the empty desks, sitting down with my bag. I had no idea what to do here without David. I usually worked with him, going over articles, suggesting layouts, throwing away any unflattering pictures—yearbooks are forever, and no one deserves to have certain shots preserved for eternity—but without him I felt sort of . . . lost.
And still worried.
Mrs. Laurent was nowhere to be seen, so I pulled out my cell phone and moved to the very back corner of the room. It smelled like dry-erase marker back there, and weird as it seemed, I kind of missed the hot ink smell of the old newspaper lab.
Ducking my head down, I dialed David’s number quickly, and when he picked up after the third ring, I turned to face the wall.
“Pres,” he said, and I closed my eyes for a second, willing myself not to sound all shaky and teary.
“Hi,” I said as brightly as I could manage. “Skipping school today?”
On the other end of the phone, I could hear him blow out a long breath. “Thought it was a good idea, yeah,” he replied. “And I’ve been meaning to spend some extra time with Saylor’s books.”
Frowning, I tried to decide how I felt about that. On the one hand, I was glad he was getting some research done. Saylor had tons of old books, and we’d barely scratched the surface of Oracle/Paladin knowledge. On the other, there was something about the image of him in that house, going through Saylor’s things, that twisted my heart.
“Have you found anything?” I asked, and he sighed again. I pictured him with his phone jammed between his shoulder and his ear, an enormous tome spread out before him. I could hear the rattle of pages, and figured my mental image wasn’t too far off.
“A few things,” he said. “Not much, but at this point, I guess anything is better than nothing.”
“Right,” I agreed, and then, before I could stop myself, added, “You could bring some of the books by my house later if you wanted. We should, um, make sure we’re both prepared for whatever comes next. Especially since that first trial was so intense.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, but only for a few heartbeats.
“Sure,” he said at last. “After school?”
I glanced around. Chie was still facing her computer, but she wasn’t typing anymore, and I got the feeling she was trying to listen.
Lowering my voice, I said, “I have pageant sign-ups, but after that, yeah. If my parents aren’t home, you can use the extra key to let yourself in. It’s—”
“I remember where it is,” he said, and in the ensuing pause, I imagined him tugging at his hair.
Could we do this? Still act as Oracle and Paladin and pretend our hearts weren’t breaking every time we talked? Sitting there in the computer lab, surrounded by people who were David’s friends, I wanted to wish we’d never even tried to be together. That we’d made a mature decision that things were too complicated as it was, and that dating would make it worse.
But that would mean wishing he’d never kissed me the night of Cotillion. Wishing we’d never laughed together and held hands and all the other things that I already missed.
I wondered if David was thinking that, too, but in the end, he murmured, “See you then,” and hung up.
Chapter 19
THE AUDITORIUM at the rec center smelled like floor polish, upholstery cleaner, and that indefinable old-building smell. In this case, I thought the smell might be the bitter tinge of humiliation. So many major events in town happened at the Community Center, and I wondered how many lives had been ruined on that stage? In Leigh-Anne’s grade, there had been a girl named Sydney Linnet who’d puked during her eighth-grade graduation. And at least one kindergartner wet his or her pants every year during the Christ
mas pageant. I’d suffered the sting of defeat on that stage in sixth grade when David had beaten me in the spelling bee.
And now I was about to be humiliated all over again.
“You know we’re not walking to a guillotine,” Bee said, linking her arm with mine. “Besides, you like being in front of people.”
“I like talking in front of people,” I said, bumping her hip with mine. “Being in charge, directing things, not . . . performing.”
“Fair enough,” she said, glancing around the auditorium. “Is that the only thing making you look like you missed being valedictorian by a half a point?”
I tried to smile at her, but I know it didn’t look right. “I was just thinking.”
Bee puckered her lips briefly, brows drawing together. “About David?”
Sighing, I nodded, and Bee gave me a quick squeeze. “Look, I get that breakups suck, but . . . I mean, doesn’t this make things a little easier? Now it’s more like you’re coworkers.”
“Coworkers who are magically bound to each other. Forever,” I reminded her, and Bee’s big brown eyes blinked. “And, not to mention,” I added, “my other ex is also a Magically Bound Coworker. I’m permanently tied to two guys I used to kiss.”
Bee blew out a long breath. “Yeah, okay, that does make it tougher than a regular breakup. But . . . what were you going to do for the rest of your lives, anyway? Were you assuming that you’d always be a thing, and, I don’t know, get married, have little future-telling babies?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I said, meaning David’s Oracle powers, but Bee nodded and said, “Exactly. Look at me and Brandon and you and Ryan, and Mary Beth and Ryan . . . your parents may have met in high school, Harper, but for most people, it doesn’t work like that. You and David were probably going to break up at some point.”
“I guess I could always ask him,” I tried to joke. “See if he knew this was coming.”
There was no way to explain to Bee how fast everything had been, how complicated. For people dealing with a guy who could see the future, we sure hadn’t spent much time thinking about it. We’d always been focused on the present, on getting through one day, and then the next . . .
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