From the pulsing static of Saundra’s words, two broke through.
“… breaking up.”
“Huh?” I said.
“Marcela Armagnac told me that Bram and Lux are on the verge of breaking up,” Saundra repeated.
“But you just called him heroic for … basically sitting next to her at lunch.”
“Exactly,” Saundra said. “The rumor is that he doesn’t want to be with her anymore, but he can’t break up with her now because it’d make him look like an asshole, or like he didn’t want to be with her because she has an ugly scar on the back of her head.”
Lux hadn’t parted from her ski caps yet and there was rampant speculation that it was because her scar was unsightly. I wanted to groan but it would have been the loudest groan in the world and I really didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
“I hear Lux is still really shook and she just wants to move on from everything, including maybe Bram, and now she’s desperate to see other people and maybe so is he, but they want to wait until after the ski trip.”
The ski trip. I’d first heard about it from Thayer a few weeks before, and the closer we got to it, the more it was brought up. It wasn’t a school-sanctioned trip, but it was tradition. The juniors and seniors organized it themselves, and headed up to Hunter Mountain for a day of skiing and a night of cabin debauchery. According to Saundra, it was the “highlight of the winter season.”
“And you believe all this?” I asked. I was never convinced of Bram’s feelings for Lux, but I knew that Lux held on to her relationship with Bram with an iron fist. She wouldn’t let anything come between them.
“Oh definitely. Have you noticed how they don’t laugh together anymore?”
Anymore? I’d never seen Lux crack a smile, let alone laugh. And the only time Bram let out a chuckle was when he was doing something bad.
“Once you stop laughing with your partner, your relationship takes a nosedive. It’s irreversibly damaged.” Saundra may have never been in a relationship, but she had stored away enough online relationship-quiz wisdom to date an army. “The boy is obviously just biding his time until it’s socially acceptable for him to leave.”
“I think he cares about her,” I said, careful not to use the word “love.” I didn’t know why I was defending Bram, but Saundra’s gossiping was getting to me.
“How would you know?”
“I know him better than you do.”
Saundra stopped eating and I did too, horrified that I had let the words slip out.
“How would you know him better than I do?”
I thought quickly. “We’re working on a paper together, remember?”
It was due in a couple of days, and the club being over (or on hiatus) didn’t mean our grades had to suffer. Plus, it gave me an excuse to finally confront him.
I stood up. “In fact, be right back.”
I left the table, leaving my ramen to grow cold. Saundra called my name, but once she saw that I was heading toward the definitive center of the room, she stopped.
When I reached their table, it was Lux who looked up at me first.
“Can I help you with something?” she said in a tone that was the farthest thing from helpful.
“We need to talk,” I said to Bram, ignoring her.
No matter what Saundra thought, Bram definitely wasn’t the laughing type. The way he was looking at me made me forget whether he’d ever laughed before.
“What do you want with Bram?” Lux said.
“I need to talk to him about our project.”
He pushed away from the table and stood up, towering over me. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Lux.
“Bram,” Lux said. “Seriously?”
But Bram was already walking away and I was following him. I didn’t not notice the tension between him and Lux. Maybe there was something to those breakup rumors.
We didn’t stop walking until we were in front of his locker, which he proceeded to unlock. “Bold of you. Coming up to me in the caf.”
“You’re not untouchable, Bram. And I really do need to ask you about the paper.”
Bram pulled a stapled report out of his locker and handed it to me, the words MARY SHELLEY AND HER MONSTER in bold on the cover page. Below it were both of our names.
“We were supposed to write it together.”
“You can read it to make sure it’s to your liking. I’m sure it will be.” He shut his locker and started to walk, but I called out after him, “What did you mean on the roof?”
Bram turned back to me. “What?”
“When you said Freddie takes things too far. What did you mean by that?”
Bram hesitated, as if he could see that I was willing to hear him, but what he said next was still tinged with skepticism. “You can’t see Freddie for who he really is because you’re blinded by love.”
A sputtering laugh came out of me, and the sound ricocheted too loudly in the locker bay. “I’m not in love with him.”
“You’re in something,” Bram said.“He was the only one upstairs. The obvious answer is usually the right one.”
“You’re the only one in the club who thinks he did it,” I said.
Bram checked his watch, bored, ready to go. “Is it really so hard to believe that someone who takes this game too seriously—who is desperate to win it—would do something crazy to sabotage it?”
“Love isn’t the only thing that blinds you,” I said. “Fear makes you blind, too. I don’t know why, but something about me scares you. Has since I joined the club.”
I knew I was right, but something in Bram’s expression made me doubt myself. He started to walk away again. “Good talk.”
* * *
I read the term paper that night, lingering on the last few lines.
Mary Shelley writes of two men. One, an intellectual capable of creating life from death. The other, a grotesque creature made of human body parts and covered in scars. But it isn’t the obvious monster that we have to be afraid of. It’s the one that looks like us and acts like us.
Mary Shelley’s message was clear: Real monsters aren’t the ones created by man. The real monster is man himself.
36
SAUNDRA CONVINCED ME to go on the ski trip.
To be fair, I gave in pretty easily. My friends weren’t talking to me, my nightmares were fiercer and more frequent, my grades were in the crapper, and I didn’t have Freddie. I would endure a day on the bunny slopes if it was a distraction from my life.
Saundra even managed to find a spot for me in Lawrence Pinsky’s uncle’s cabin. According to Saundra, Lawrence Pinsky’s uncle had gotten rich after suing the city when a cop car ran over his foot. He’d bought the place near Hunter Mountain with part of the settlement money and let Lawrence borrow it for the trip. Saundra and I paused at the door, listening to the sounds of way too many people already inside. It took a minute for Lawrence to open the door, and when he did, he looked none too pleased to see me.
“I don’t know you,” he said, his eyes roaming from my blue-and-orange Islanders ski cap down to my lace-up boots.
“Lawrence, this is the friend I told you about. Rachel Chavez.”
“I don’t remember you telling me about a friend.”
Saundra rolled her eyes but kept smiling like this was a typical exchange of pleasantries. “Omigawd I legit told you about Rachel.”
Lawrence pulled out his phone, making quick work of producing the text Saundra had sent him the previous night in which she had very clearly written: Thanks for letting me crash! Can’t wait to see you! This trip is going to be awesome!—in which she very clearly neglected to mention me.
The duffel bag in my arms was starting to get heavy, and my Doc Martens, which were apparently not equipped to handle the mountain snow, were getting soggy. I stood there wondering if I’d have to catch a bus back home and how Saundra, who liked to talk so much, could be so bad at communicating.
“Oh,” Saundra said. “Okay, my bad,
but Rachel has nowhere to go. You have to let her stay.”
“Can’t she go to one of the other cabins?”
“No, of course not, she doesn’t know anyone at the other cabins.”
Lawrence looked me over again. “You go to our school?”
Sometimes being the mysterious new girl really bit me in the ass.
“Forget about it.” I fumbled with my duffel as I looked for my phone. “I’ll just text someone else and see if they—”
“Lawrence, don’t be a dick,” Saundra said. “I mean, I’m joking—I’m not calling you a dick—but seriously, don’t be a dick.”
“Fine. But you’ll have to share a bed,” Lawrence said. “We’re swamped in here.”
“No worries!” Saundra said.
Finally Lawrence stepped aside to let us through. Someone called his name and he disappeared deep into the house.
“This place is huge!” Saundra spread her arms wide, her overnight bag swinging on its strap and bouncing against her hip.
She was right. This mansion in the woods was big enough to get lost in. Maybe Lawrence really was being a dick. We were only a foot inside but the vastness of it was something I had forgotten existed, living in the city. The living room was actually split into three spaces all separated by sectioned-off couches and coffee tables. I could’ve fit my whole 650-square-foot apartment in the living room. And the ceiling went beyond the main staircase, up to a second floor, opening up to a skylight. A fire was already roaring in the fireplace, and people lounged on the long couches and the fuzzy rugs on the floor.
Freddie was one of them. We locked eyes at the same time, but I was the first to look away.
“Nothing is going to beat this trip,” Saundra said.
“Totally,” I said, and hoped I sounded convincing. So much for a distraction.
* * *
All it took was a quick circle around the room for me to realize what kind of people were mooching off Lawrence Pinsky. The misfits. The kids who didn’t really belong to any cliques, either by circumstance or design. Which explained Saundra. And Freddie, too. When even Lawrence Pinsky—infamous for sobbing in class every single time he got a grade lower than a B—couldn’t recognize you, you knew you were a nobody.
I sat on one of the couches, waiting for Saundra to get back from the kitchen, and scrolled through my phone. Or pretended to. I couldn’t get any service here, but staring at my screen beat trying to make conversation with the people around me. As much as the Mary Shelley Club had helped buff the edges of my social anxiety, that discomfort still thrived within me. Plus, I was doing my best to avoid talking to Freddie. My feelings for him jumbled into something I couldn’t make sense of. Bram’s words had gotten under my skin, but I still missed him. He was the only one I wanted to talk all this stuff through with.
But when I glanced up, I spotted Freddie looking at me. He had a drink in hand, and I thought for a moment that he’d come over and say something. But after a beat that stretched too long, he headed in the direction of his Film Club friends, who were sitting on the floor, hunched over a board game called 13 Dead End Drive.
Saundra plopped down beside me on the couch and handed me a beer.
“So what’s the deal with you two?” Saundra took a long sip from her Solo cup.
“What?”
“I was just in the kitchen with Freddie. He was asking about you.”
I sat up straighter. “What did he say?”
“He was surprised to see you here. He seems sad. And you seem kind of sad. So, naturally, I assume something must be up with you two.”
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing’s up.” I hadn’t expected the pang of guilt that bloomed in my chest. I’d thought it’d get easier to lie to Saundra, but it was only getting harder.
“You sure?” She looked at me suspiciously. “Sometimes I think you’re an open book, but then sometimes … like when I see you exchanging super-loaded looks with Freddie Martinez, or when you suddenly walk up to Bram out of the blue in the lunchroom, I don’t know. You’re hiding something.”
There were two sides to me—one that was desperate to confess all to Saundra, and another that needed to keep things under wraps, afraid that if I told one secret, they’d all come spilling out. Both sides were playing tug-of-war, pulling so tight I might snap in half.
I hadn’t really told Saundra anything about me and Freddie, trying to keep my Mary Shelley Club life apart from my regular life. But now I wondered why. I needed someone to talk to, and even if I couldn’t tell Saundra everything, I could still tell her something. “Freddie and I kinda had a thing…” Reacting to her scandalized look, I quickly amended the statement. “For like a minute. Really, barely worth mentioning. And now—” I shrugged, waved my hand vaguely. “I dunno. Things are weird.”
Saundra pushed out her bottom lip in full sympathy. “Why weird?”
“I just don’t know if he’s the guy I thought he was. Someone told me I couldn’t trust him.”
Saundra snuggled in next to me until we were both perfectly ensconced in the corner of the couch. I didn’t know what she was drinking, but it must’ve been good because she looked relaxed and peaceful and like she didn’t want to be anywhere but here. Weirdly, I began to relax, too.
Maybe it was the warmth of the fireplace, or the negligible traces of cheap booze coursing through me. But Saundra’s head on my shoulder actually felt kind of natural. Her being this close—it was the tangible feeling of real, pure friendship.
“As the resident gossip maven of Manchester Prep, I’m better at dispensing advice on the contents of someone’s character than some random person who wants to keep you and Freddie apart. So here’s my two cents, for free: Is Freddie an outsider at our school? Def. Is he a criminal who makes quick cash by cheating for the highest bidder? Absolutely. Does that make him a bad person, though? Not necessarily. From what I know about the guy, he seems nice. And I know you like nice guys.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” she said. “You’re smart and pretty and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’d never go for the asshole.”
I smiled, partly because of what she’d said about Freddie, but mostly because I’d finally told her something real about my life, and it felt good.
“Speaking of nice guys…” Saundra looked across the room and I followed her gaze. I thought she was searching for Freddie, but she was zeroing in on a guy named Aldie Something. He was talking a mile a minute with two other guys, also talking a mile a minute.
“He’s cute, right?” Saundra sighed and laid her head on my shoulder. Tentatively, I laid my cheek against her head, her hair soft against my skin. She didn’t make a move to shake me off and so there we stayed; two buzzed, lazy, warm girls, giggling over a boy across the room. It felt nice having a best friend.
So, was Aldie cute? He was tall. And big. And he seemed to like talking, so that was a plus as far as Saundra was concerned. Not my type, but, “Yeah, he’s cute.”
“I should hook up with him tonight.”
“That’s bold.”
“We’re unsupervised in the woods. It’s a bold kind of night.”
My phone buzzed in my back pocket and I fished it out.
A group text from Bram to all of us in the Mary Shelley Club.
My turn, it said simply, followed by instructions on where to meet. I felt a chill run down my spine and couldn’t tell if it was from fear or excitement.
Two guys thundered down the main stairway suddenly, and I snapped my head up from my phone. They jumped over coffee tables and bumped into unsuspecting people, hooting and hollering. And they wore white masks.
LED facial masks that they’d probably stolen from some girls’ suitcases, but it was obvious what they were doing.
My heartbeat quickened as I watched them blaze through the cabin and everyone exploded in a mixed chorus of laughter and complaint.
“It’s the Masked Man!” someone shouted gleefully. “The Masked Men!”
>
Saundra seemed to enjoy it, sitting up with an open-mouthed grin on her face. I turned toward Freddie. Our eyes locked and he looked as unamused as I felt.
37
I DIDN’T WAIT for Freddie, even though it would’ve been easier to find this place together. But I didn’t want the awkwardness between us inside the cabin to follow us out here. Thankfully there was the occasional streetlight along the road or I might have accidentally trekked into the woods by now.
The snow crunched under my boots. I didn’t like this. Normally I’d be pumped on the eve of a Fear Test, but something about this felt all wrong. I didn’t even know what Bram had planned yet, but the fact that he was just springing this on us, in an unfamiliar setting, when the club was this fractured, set off all my alarm bells.
Now, with the darkness pressing all around me, I knew that I wasn’t excited—I was nervous. And as I walked, every shape around me seemed to take on the form of a masked man.
But a noise stopped me. It came from behind. I turned around but saw no one. I started walking again. There was only the sound the snow made as it flattened beneath the soles of my now completely drenched Docs, but I couldn’t shake the sense of someone else being behind me. It stuck to me like a shadow.
I spun around, shining my phone’s flashlight through the space around me. The beam shone on a pair of black boots. I gasped, jumping back, and raised the light, my fingers trembling. Felicity’s face stared back at me. She put her arm up to block the glare like a vampire caught in daylight.
“What the—!” I took a moment to catch the bit of breath she’d managed to snatch out of me. “Why were you following me!”
“Because I was trying to scare you,” Felicity said as though it was obvious. “Scaring people is what we do.”
Ugh, Felicity. As much as I didn’t want to talk to her right now, she seemed confident of the direction we were going, so I walked in step.
The Mary Shelley Club Page 20