by Eva Chase
Knowing that the powers that ran this school had used the space to hide some of their secrets made the library feel even more eerie than usual. The thump of the heavy door behind me shut out all sound from the hall, and I always thought I caught a hint of rot under the normally comforting smell of the old books. And that wasn’t even getting into the emotions the room tended to stir up, which I suspected was what Trix had been thinking of when she’d mentioned preferring Composition.
My last assignment had been pretty on the nose—a scene where a belligerently drunken man had berated his wife to the point of tears. Not hard to figure out what associations Professor Carmichael had hoped I’d make there. Maybe this one would be a little tamer. As long as it didn’t have anything to do with addiction or substance abuse, I’d be happy.
I found the book and leaned against the shelf opposite while I flipped through to the assigned chapter. The first line made me take back that last thought.
The tires screeched as the car veered into the opposing lane.
My stomach lurched; I jerked the book toward me, pressing it against my chest as if hiding the words would will them away. Would stop them from echoing through my head with the all-too-vivid sensation of a massive structure of steel spinning out of my control, the honks and the laughter turning into shrieks, the thunderous crunch when the vehicle rammed into its final obstacle…
The taste of blood trickled through my mouth as though I’d bitten my tongue. Only a memory, but so freaking real. I wet my lips and swiped my hand over my face, finding the sheen of sweat that had broken out on my forehead.
Fuck Carmichael for stirring that horrible moment up again. Fuck him for assigning me to say anything at all about it.
And fuck me for bringing it about in the first place. That was the point of all this, wasn’t it? To keep rubbing our shit in our faces until we admitted how much we stunk.
I gritted my teeth, squared my shoulders, and forced myself to look at the book again. Line by line, page by page, I took in the scene. Not like mine so much. A country road rather than a freeway. Smacking into a tree rather than colliding with another car. The passenger injured but whisked to the hospital in time, not… not…
Even with the differences, the images from my memory flooded up alongside the pictures drawn by the text. By the time I reached the end of the chapter, my breath was coming rough. My fingers clenched over the last page.
I wasn’t going to need to read this again. The narrative was burned into my mind with all the force of the parallel one the professor had intended to provoke. So it wouldn’t hurt if I did this.
I wrenched out one page and then another, wincing at the grating sound of each tear. The memories kept stewing in my head, but my hands knew how to work without much conscious direction. They ripped and folded, twisted and ripped again.
When the haze behind my eyes cleared enough for me to pay attention, I’d formed two paper dolls, complete with protruding hair and noses and separate clothes folded tight around their bodies. Their tiny hands interlocked in a way I had to say looked defiant.
Looking at them steadied me again. I was making up for the past. I was making things, period, instead of leaving only wreckage behind me.
I tucked the figures into the torn section of the book, like a counterpoint to the message the words printed on them had given me. Then I shoved the book back onto the shelf and walked out, my legs only a little wobbly under me.
The satisfaction I’d gotten from that minor act of creation and rebellion only carried me for a short while. Trix didn’t come out of the kitchen during lunch hour other than to bring out the platters. I guessed she ate in there while getting a head start on the clean-up. After I finished, I wandered around the school until I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t accomplishing anything other than hoping I’d cross paths with her so I’d have something happier to focus on.
Enough of that, Shibata, I told myself sternly… and ended up wandering around outside instead. The air was still damper than usual after yesterday’s rain, the ground lightly soggy beneath my feet, the grass squeaking with the pressure of my sneakers. Trix’s garden remained bare earth, but I didn’t have a clue how to convince anything in it to grow anyway. Looking at the rosebush along the wall with its scattered blooms only made my stomach clench up.
When I meandered toward the carriage house, I discovered that a few students had gathered on the patchy badminton court. The nets sagged between the rusted posts, most of the fabric disintegrated, but it looked like the two guys and two girls had found some old rackets and a couple of birdies somewhere. And when I said “old,” I didn’t mean fine antiques. Several of the intertwined strings were snapped, and the wooden frames looked battered, at least a couple of them cracked in places.
The two duos were determined to get at least a little entertainment out of the things, though. I leaned against the side of the carriage house to watch as they faced off on either side of the desolate net. I’d never played badminton except when forced to in high school gym class a few times, and from the way this bunch held the rackets, I was going to guess that was about the extent of their experience too.
They had dedication—I’d give them that. They gamely batted the first birdie back and forth, stopping with minimal grumbling when it got stuck in a gap in one racket or when another racket started to bend a bit too much and its holder paused to fiddle with the frame. But there was really only so much they could do.
After several back-and-forths, the birdie snapped apart with a puff of dust, and no amount of tweaking and glowering could force it to reassemble. Just a couple of exchanges into their attempt with the second birdie, the frame on one of the cracked rackets split completely, leaving it wobbling beyond the point of usefulness.
The girl holding it swore and flung it on the ground, and the group fell into a murmured discussion that I guessed was about whether there was any point in continuing their game. As if Roseborne would have allowed us even that minor enjoyment. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the place had conjured up the equipment for someone to find specifically so it could frustrate them.
That was what we were here for: to be ineffective and reminded of our wrongs until the powers that be had sucked all the hope out of us.
In that moment, my current attitude descended on me like a cloud, and a sour taste filled my mouth. Was this who I really wanted to be? Some fatalistic loser who stood around just waiting for the dreadful inevitable, not wanting to let myself hope for anything more? How many people had I spread that gloom to, just by drifting along and assuming that nothing could be changed, over the last few years?
I’d been willing to accept that Trix might make some kind of a difference. Why wouldn’t I believe—expect—the same thing from myself? Even if I never left the college, it’d be a hell of a lot better to waste away here knowing I’d brought some brightness to as many of the lives around me as possible. Helping Trix didn’t absolve me of all my sins.
The other students were just trudging out of the court, their posture defeated. My gaze fell on the broken racket, and an itch spread through my fingers.
“Hold on,” I called to them. “I might be able to fix it up. Let me check out the other ones too.”
They gave me skeptical looks, but the girl went back to retrieve the broken racket, and they all tramped after me into the carriage house, which I’d found was the more promising source of materials on campus. I sifted through the grooming equipment and pieces of tack until I found a roll of steel wire at the back of a shelf. That would do.
My sometime-classmates watched with increasing avidness as I clipped off sections of wire and twisted them around the cracked areas on the racket frames. I added a similar length to the other side of the oval to balance out the weight, and curved the ends into little curlicues because I could. Might as well add a little flare while I was working. Then, with the clippers and waxed thread I’d discovered in the back room before, I trimmed the frayed areas of the strings and
rewove them.
With each motion of my hands, a sense of purposefulness came over me. Maybe this wasn’t exactly the work I’d imagined doing before meth had taken over my mind, but it had the same essence. I was restoring objects so other people could still find worth in them. As jobs went, that wasn’t a half bad one.
If Trix could thumb her nose at the school with her garden and her other schemes, if Jenson could tell off Professor Roth to his face, I’d be an ass if I didn’t let myself stage my own minor revolution.
“That’s awesome,” one of the guys said when I handed him a repaired racket. He turned it, examining my efforts, and shot me the kind of grin I didn’t see around campus very often. “Nice work, man. Thanks.”
The others murmured their own expressions of gratitude and headed back to the court with more spring in their steps. I watched them go with a smile of my own. I didn’t think this glow would fade anywhere near as quickly as the one from my hasty paper dolls would.
What else was there around here that I could fix? I took in the stalls with a more considering eye, ready to take on my next project.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Trix
My thoughts kept swinging back and forth as I made my familiar midnight trek through the woods. I had to settle things with Cade once and for all, make sure the full truth of my fuckups was out in the open, and take whatever the fallout was. He deserved to know—that was why I’d told him in the first place. The rest didn’t matter compared to the fact that I was responsible for him ending up here.
I should have to own up to someone. Maybe I didn’t owe a confession to the other guys after the short time they’d been in my life, but I definitely owed it to Cade.
A pinch of fear drove another line of thinking along. I’d tried to tell him once already. He might already know. If he didn’t, wouldn’t I just be causing him even more pain after I’d rejected him and made him feel he didn’t mean as much to me as I did to him?
It would be so much easier to let that sleeping dog lie. To focus on rebuilding our connection however I could.
I still hadn’t completely convinced myself one way or the other when I reached our usual meeting spot, right on time. At the sight of the empty, moonlit grove, my heart stuttered with the thought that Cade might be hanging back again. But a moment later he stepped out of the darkness, with a crooked smile so like his usual self that I choked up just seeing it.
“We really got ourselves into a mess, didn’t we, Trix?” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve been an ass about—about a lot of it. I guess this place has screwed with my head more than I realized.”
The regret in his voice brought me straight to him. I hugged him like I’d tried to the night before, and this time he welcomed the embrace, squeezing me tight. The tart copper smell of him filled my nose, and the muscles in his arms flexed against my back, holding me and sheltering me at once like he always had.
The words spilled out without any thought at all. “It was mostly my fault. My head hasn’t really been on straight either. I never wanted to argue with you at all. We should be standing up to Roseborne together.”
“We will. We’ll show them, yeah? All of those pricks.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed thickly, my grip on him tightening. The decision didn’t feel so difficult now. “Cade, before any of that, I really need to tell you, about Sylvie—”
“Hey.” He stroked his hand over my hair. “We’ve both made our mistakes. It was a shitty thing, but I know you did it because of how much you care about me. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done something similar if I felt like I was losing you. I know you didn’t want to hurt me. So there’s nothing to talk about. Okay?”
He already knew. He knew and he wasn’t holding it against me, and so much gratitude welled up inside me that it burned at the back of my eyes. I tipped my head against his shoulder and just soaked in his presence for a little longer.
But we didn’t have much time. I couldn’t let my relief overwhelm everything else. I eased back so I could look at him. “I think I’ve been getting somewhere. I’ve found out some things about the school and the staff, and I’ve been working on ways to get more info, maybe totally cut off the staff’s source of power.”
“That’s amazing, Trix.” Cade beamed at me. “And I bet they figured you didn’t stand a chance.”
“I haven’t been able to work everything out,” I added quickly. “But we’ve put quite a few pieces together. It seems like the professors and the dean are—”
My voice faltered at the stiffening of Cade’s expression. He cocked his head, his hand coming up to rest against the side of my face. “We?”
“Well, I— You know a few of the other students have been helping me. They’ve been here longer—they’ve seen more than I have.”
His gaze searched mine, a shadow darkening his gray eyes. “They haven’t been just helping you, have they.” It wasn’t a question.
My face heated despite my best efforts to control my reaction. “What do you mean?”
He grimaced. “It’s my fault. I didn’t handle things well, I wasn’t patient enough with you, so of course you were tempted. I’m not going to blame you for ignoring your instincts. And they’ve been stuck here all this time, like you said—why wouldn’t they want to get off with the new girl?”
It was true that my first instinct had been to keep my distance from all three of the guys—to be wary of their motives. But— “I don’t think it’s like that.”
“Oh, Baby Bea. Most of the time you’re tough as nails, but every now and then you’re too sweet for your own good. Don’t you think that’s exactly why they swooped in on you? They could tell you have your issues, that you’re not the girlfriend type, and they wanted to prove they could score with you anyway. They probably even figured it’d be easier with the way this place has jerked you around. And I had to go playing into that.” He let out a frustrated huff.
I didn’t know what to say. “They haven’t done anything to hurt me,” I started, but even as the words came out, I knew that wasn’t entirely true. Jenson had taken plenty of jabs at me before. Elias had tried to freeze me out.
Cade spoke into my hesitation. “You know it’s true. You’re smart enough. So they misled you—you’ve just got to get those shields up now. They don’t really know you, not all of you, not even most of you. They’d never get who you’ve had to be, the things you let happen, the things you’ve done. What do you really think would happen if you tried to have some kind of honest relationship with them?”
The question echoed all the doubts that had been creeping through me since I’d started letting the other guys in. Cade should know, shouldn’t he? He’d seen the worst of me—he knew just how bad it was. And out there in the real world, no other guy had ever wanted to deal with my damaged history. Why would these three be any different?
I’d given them an escape, something to distract themselves, maybe even a little hope, just like they’d given me. It wasn’t going to last. I had known that all along, hadn’t I?
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I wasn’t letting myself really think about it. I just wanted— It was stupid, and kind of selfish too.”
“You’re allowed to be selfish,” Cade said. “I love that part of you as much as every other. It just kills me thinking about you spending all that time with them, letting them think they’ve won, when I’m stuck out here like a fucking animal. It kills me even more seeing it.” His hands dropped to his sides, clenching.
Shit. When had he seen me with any of the guys? We had mostly spent time together outside the school—Elias and I had been kissing at the edge of these woods just a few days ago. For all I knew Cade had ventured as far as the other side of campus when I’d hooked up with Jenson and Ryo.
My cheeks flared even hotter than before. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I should have stopped it sooner anyway.” The really stupid thing was how I’d let myself be fooled into buying into the theoretical romance of it, whe
n I’d known all along how much I was holding back. “I think I’ve almost finished what I need to do anyway.” The work I’d done on my basement passage tonight—pausing between every few taps of the hammer to listen for approaching staff—had gotten me so deep into the wall I had to be no more than a day or two away from breaking through.
“Don’t change anything on my account,” Cade said. “I just want to know you’re looking after yourself. I can’t protect you when I—”
He flinched, a tremor shaking his body. I grabbed his hand before he could pull away like he did every time the transformation came over him.
“You’re protecting me right now by making me face up to what’s really going on,” I said. “That matters a lot.”
He gave me a pained smile. “I know you’ll do the right thing, Trix.” Another shiver wracked his body, and he stumbled backward. “I’ll be looking out for you as well as I can.”
I watched his form fade into the thicker shadows, my stomach twisting into a knot. I had to look out for myself too, and that meant no more giving into delusional fantasies about who would really think I was worth the time of day.
I told myself it would be simple. A clean break, with no one really hurt—the best outcome for all of us.
Apparently I’d gotten better at lying to myself than even Cade had guessed.
As I picked up a plate with a runny omelet at the front of the cafeteria, Ryo ambled over to join me. My heart immediately flipflopped at the affection in his bright eyes.
I steeled myself. Remember that he’d never look at you that way if he really knew you, Trix. And why should he? I didn’t need to put myself through that disappointment. I didn’t need to see how disappointed he’d be. I was sparing both of us.
“They’ve really outdone themselves this time,” he said in an amused tone, picking up a plate of his own. “Where should we grab a seat?”
There is no “we.” There never really was.