by Alexis Bass
Six Months Later
I glance up at the tall windows above the awning across the street and see Mrs. Mahoney, Jasper, and Theo. They’re standing at the windows, looking down at us. My father follows my gaze and looks up at them, too. I think they’ll back away from the window at first, now that we’re staring. But they don’t. And we don’t.
OCTOBER
Thirteen
If you listen carefully to what people say about Theo Mahoney, you’ll hear all kinds of different things. He’s a kind soul. He’s a great dresser. He’s charming. He’s friendly. He’s polite. He’s funny. He doesn’t beat around the bush. He’s a good student. He’s humble. A real team player. Someone reliable. Someone down-to-earth. Someone romantic—according to those who have dated him and those who want to. You’ll hear all kinds of things about Theo Mahoney, and all of it will be flattering.
But what I have on Theo Mahoney isn’t flattering.
It’s suspicious.
Today is Saturday, and we’re all at Viviana Prep in a town along the coast, but still a six-hour bus ride from Rutherford for away games and meets and matches. Ariel and Anastasia finished their swim meet early this morning. I played field hockey in the afternoon while Theo had a water polo match and Jasper played soccer. It’s evening now, and we’ve retreated back to the Cool Water Inn, a modern hotel that greets you with a floor-to-ceiling waterfall against a clear blue glass wall. It backs up to the ocean, and even though it’s chilly this time of year, there are raised wooden pathways leading to several decks—wouldn’t want us stepping on the sand like commoners. Each deck is made of a lavender-gray wood and has matching Adirondack chairs surrounding gas firepits in steel-colored tapered bowls with flames that rise out of blue rocks. I like sitting out here, being so close to the ocean.
We’ve all won today. Viviana Prep is known more for its theater program than its athletics, but we still bask in our victories. We drink the oolong tea they served in the lobby as though we earned it.
Stewart, Jasper, and Daiki walk the paths to a firepit a few decks over. Stewart locks eyes with Anastasia, and she smiles and waves at him. But they don’t join us.
“I’m surprised you and Stewart haven’t hooked up before,” I say. “Playing the”—I lower my voice—“game together all those years. I thought you guys would be closer.”
“Not the case,” Anastasia says. “It’s a game. Tradition. Obligation, sometimes. Plus, I’m typically unavailable. He’s probably been pining after me for years.”
Theo, Ariel, and I exchange glances.
My phone vibrates. I take it out of my coat pocket and see a text from Meghan and Cadence. They were my best friends before I left. The people I’d always felt the closest to. But last time I talked to them, they were dressing up for spirit week. I’d just finished an exam on the Bay of Pigs, and they were contemplating putting pompoms in their hair and brainstorming slogans to iron onto their T-shirts. Their text right now says they’re going to the movies. I’m sipping tea with an unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean. Our worlds seem a million miles apart.
“You don’t want to stay small-minded,” Rosie had said when she was convincing me that I should attend Rutherford. But she wasn’t referring to Meghan and Cadence. “Everyone is small-minded if they don’t put themselves up against the fence, push their limits, face unfamiliar challenges, get out of their comfort zones.” She spoke from a place of experience. Rosie had lived in six different countries by the time she was twenty-seven.
“If you went away to Rutherford, you’re not the only one who would get the chance to grow,” Rosie told me. And she was right. Mimi never got to have the kinds of adventures Rosie had. I was born when she was twenty-three. Mimi hadn’t done much traveling since. An occasional trip to wine country with her friends. Sometimes we’d go into Chicago to see a show. She left the extravagant vacations up to my dad. Mimi’s trips here and there weren’t the same as the explorations Rosie was having; even I could see that. It was also obvious that between the two of them, Mimi had to act like the bigger person always, no matter how illogically Rosie behaved. Mimi was the practical one. The responsible one who did take pride in being responsible, but still got the claustrophobic what-if itch when she saw Rosie’s photos on safari in Africa, having breakfast with a view of the Eiffel Tower, skiing in Japan, camping in Iceland, hiking in Colombia, surfing in Australia.
So now Mimi is traveling the world with Rosie, and I’m not speaking to either of them, not keeping tabs on them, and they’re not keeping tabs on me while I’m here at Rutherford. And it doesn’t matter that I didn’t know why at first. When I think about what Rosie told me before I left, it all makes sense.
“We’re all about to be exactly where we’re supposed to be, and everything is going to be fine. I’ll look out for Mimi while you look out for your dad,” she had said, kissing my forehead as I got into my dad’s car to leave for Cashmere.
“Who’s the text from? Sebastian?” Ariel asks.
Immediately, with no time for me to play it cool, my cheeks get hot. Full-on blushing.
“No,” I say, looking away. “From my friends from back home.”
“Oh, I’ve got some of those,” Ariel says as though we’re talking about a pair of Wellingtons and not actual people.
“Do you miss them?”
She shrugs.
“I’m not homesick, but I do miss my friends sometimes.”
I glance to Ariel and Theo to see if they have anything to add. But they stay quiet. They’re looking at each other and at Anastasia. A kind of understanding between the three of them. I don’t know if they’re judging me for having this weakness of missing people; if they’re thinking I haven’t been away long enough to know what it’s like; if they think they know something I don’t about how friends from home can’t compete with the world of Rutherford.
Sometimes when the three of us are laughing so hard I can barely breathe, or when Theo takes my arm in the hall and walks with me to class, or when Anastasia leans in close as she whispers details about random gossip she’s learned, or when Ariel randomly comes to my defense on some inconsequential topic that Anastasia has adamantly disagreed with me about—like wearing white after Labor Day—I forget that they all have this other side to them. Something that I’m not a part of because they haven’t known me for that long. They could decide to ice me out if they wanted. The game is a Rutherford tradition, and it’s an honor they asked me to play. But it’s not a sign that they’ve truly accepted me the way they’ve embraced each other.
I have to remember this. Every time I feel relaxed and happy with them and think it might be an option to ask Anastasia about the dirt I have on Theo, I have to remember how they’re looking at each other now, cool stares over a steady flame. Proof I could be met with malice instead of information. It would risk them seeing me as the threat that I am. And then I’ll never know the truth about Theo.
Fourteen
Sebastian walks up to our group and salutes a greeting. His eyes fix on mine.
“Want to go for a walk, Collins Pruitt?” he asks.
“Okay, sure.” The words come out in this embarrassingly squeaky tone. Anastasia doesn’t bother holding back her laughter.
He reaches out to help me up from my chair, and I take his hand.
“Bring her back in one piece,” Theo calls as we walk off.
We follow the wooden paths to the edge and step onto the sand. It’s a still night, and the sun is nearly down. Candles wrapped in birchwood are protruding from the sand, giving enough light that I can see Sebastian’s every expression. The ocean roars, and the air smells sweet.
“So, Collins Pruitt.” He says my name, and a wide smile spreads on his face. I glance around to see if anyone is looking at us. Everyone on the decks can see us, if they bother to look. Jasper turns in our direction briefly, though I’m not sure if he noticed me standing here with Sebastian.
Sebastian waits for me to return the smile before he continues. “
Do you have a boyfriend?” he asks. “Or a girlfriend? Or both? Or is it one of those ‘it’s complicated’ situations, even if you’re technically single?”
I’m single, technically, yes. Here specifically for the education, to learn what Theo is hiding, and make Jasper fall in love with me. “It’s complicated.”
His face lights up, his brown eyes shining, his smile leaping off his face. “Is it someone from back home? It’s always someone from back home. Or someone in college? You know you can’t date someone in college while you’re here, right? It never works out.”
“It’s none of the above.”
He scratches his head. He’s as animated as ever.
It’s amazing, actually. His charm doesn’t seem manipulative. It seems genuine. He talks like he doesn’t think before he speaks, but in his case, it does him nothing but favors, pumping spontaneity into his every word. “What do you think of Rutherford, Collins Pruitt? You never did answer me about that. And I haven’t forgotten.”
I respond with a shrug again because this method of replying with a noncommittal response could intrigue him. But suddenly, I say, “I miss my friends from home.”
He takes the smallest step toward me, looking at me like he’s waiting to hear more. Like he wants to know all about it.
“I don’t want to go home or anything. It’s just the first time I’m not perfectly in sync with them, and it’s—I don’t know—”
“It’s jarring is what it is,” Sebastian says. “It’s like you fall out of step with your old life and you’re perfectly happy at Rutherford, but your former life is going on even without you there, and that feels like you’re both being left behind and like you’re leaving something behind.”
“Yeah.” I nod, surprised he knows precisely what I mean. “That’s what it’s like. Exactly.”
“And it doesn’t stop with your friends; it’s almost worse with family, you know? You feel you’re missing out on things you didn’t even know you cared about. Cousins’ birthdays and your sister’s choir performances—things that were ordinary and sometimes boring before they stopped being part of your life. Do you feel it yet—that weird ache for ordinary and at the same time the agitation of having to readjust to it all when you go back?”
But I don’t want to think about them. My family. I don’t want to think about what’s different, about everything I had no choice but to leave behind; about the position I was put in and the secrets I’m still keeping from my dad. How I’m protecting him—I have to protect him.
I glance toward Jasper. He’s not looking at us. He’s laughing, his head tipped back, no book in his hand. It’s a rare sight. And now I’m not thinking of Rosie and Mimi and my father. I’m thinking of him, wondering what made him laugh like that.
“It’s cold this close to the water,” I tell Sebastian, and we start to walk toward the decks.
“Will you have dinner with me?” he says. “Back at Rutherford. One night. Come on. You have permission to go off campus, right? Let’s take the bus and go to the Shrimp Shack in the square. Let’s go. Have dinner with me. I swear it will be fun. Please?”
I want to say yes, I really do. But I think about how I felt when he told me about leaving his old life with his friends. How he has the potential to understand me perfectly. I think about being here without having to wonder what Jasper Mahoney was laughing at, or getting close to Theo. If I could use all the tricks Rosie taught me on Sebastian. It would be easy to see the good in him. It would be easy to reflect it back, to show him I believe in him.
“Look—okay,” Sebastian says. “I know I’m a lot. I’ve been told I come on a little strong. But I think life is too short to beat around the bush. Don’t you?”
He reaches for my hand, helping me step up onto the wooden pathway leading back to the deck.
In that instant, I remember that he formerly dated Ariel—Ariel, who is easily feared, but not easily moved. And even though she’s made it clear that she’s done with him and has no desire to be with him again and couldn’t care less if I wanted to date him, I also remember the way he touched Joyce over Labor Day weekend.
“Why do you want to have dinner with me?” I say as we walk.
Without missing a beat, he answers, “Because we’re trapped at Rutherford, where it’s half prison, half paradise, and you’re new and I don’t know anything about you except your name, and that you’re single, even if it’s complicated.” He’s smooth in his bluntness; irritatingly so. “Well, all that, and I’ve got the strangest feeling we’d get along really well, and I’d be sorry if I never tried to get to know you.”
This might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me. How do you say no to that? The answer is, you don’t.
“I don’t like shrimp,” I say.
His eyebrows raise. “Is that a no? Because there are other things on the menu. But also, who doesn’t like shrimp, delicious shrimp?”
I laugh, and he smiles that smile of his.
“It’s not a no.”
“Noted.” I think Sebastian actually never gets nervous, and this causes me to want to make him nervous. “So dinner? Just us?”
“Oh, why not?” Except I know all the reasons why not.
His smile grows so large, I can’t help but smile, too.
“Can’t wait, Collins Pruitt,” he says, dropping me off right where he’d picked me up, with Theo and Anastasia and Ariel, with Jasper two fires over, not even looking my way.
“I’m going to sit with Stewart,” Anastasia says. She’s only looking at me. “Do you want to come?”
“Yeah,” I say, and as we walk over to them, she says, “So what’s with Sebastian?” and I wonder if this wasn’t really about Stewart at all; it was only a ploy to get me alone to ask me about Sebastian without Ariel’s cynicism around.
“He wants to have dinner sometime.”
“Of course he does.” She waggles her eyebrows as we join Stewart and Jasper’s group, taking the two seats next to Stewart. I’m across the fire from Jasper and unfortunately right next to Daiki. But as I sit in that circle, trying not to stare at the way the glow from the fire does wonderful things to Daiki’s face, and waiting to learn what made Jasper laugh the way he did, I think, my friendship with Anastasia and the pursuit of nudging her toward Stewart is putting me closer to all of them. It’s like Rosie said—I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Fifteen
My favorite thing about Rutherford is that there is so much to do, you don’t have time to think of anything else. Distractions have to take a back seat. Sebastian will have to wait. Dinner plans aren’t real plans; they’re an idea and a fantasy, and looking forward to them is like a fire burning on a distant shore, the promise of warmth once the destination is eventually reached. The purposefulness of my being here drives me. Even when I’m hanging out with friends, I’m there for a reason. I have a problem to solve. A secret to dig up and use to my advantage and threaten to expose.
It’s unlikely that I’ll get close enough to Jasper that he’ll feel comfortable enough to tell me what Theo’s hiding, the way he easily told me about Rob. But maybe I can pry it from Anastasia, since she thought I was close enough to them to bring me into their Rutherford tradition.
“We should go to the soccer game this weekend,” I say the following week as we eat lunch in the courtyard, wearing sweaters and sunglasses because that’s the kind of day it is. “We could eat at the square after.” Since I don’t have a field hockey game on Saturday, it would be a good time to go out with Stewart, Jasper, and Daiki, as our day passes for weekends will allow.
“Eh, let’s not and say we did,” Anastasia says.
“Sometimes you don’t make any sense,” Theo teases her.
“Wait—why not?” I say. “It’s going to be a big game.” I have no idea if this is true, but it sounds like something that might convince people to go to a sporting event. “Don’t you want to see Stewart play?”
“I’m not really into Stewart anymor
e,” Anastasia says.
“Since when?” Ariel says. This is my thought exactly.
“Oh?” I say. Don’t panic. “Did something happen?” Just yesterday, Anastasia was sitting next to Stewart at dinner, with her whole body turned toward his, lingering on his every word and talking a mile a minute, something she does when she’s really invested in holding someone’s attention. I sat next to Jasper for five minutes, where he complained about the new library sign-in sheets and laughed at a joke I didn’t understand. Still. Progress.
“She realized he wasn’t her type,” Theo says.
“But … why not?”
“Theo has not painted a flattering picture of him. Ergo, I’m not interested.”
Theo’s quick to support this accusation. “You all haven’t been forced to spend as much time with him as I have. He’s my brother’s best friend; I’ve seen more than enough of him throughout the years. He comes on vacation with us every summer. Our Anastasia deserves someone less entitled. Less boring. Less obtuse. He claims to speak several languages, but have you ever heard him say anything except very good or not good when he casually, but purposefully, slips another language into conversation? He’d be a complete waste of her time.”
“Stewart is not entitled,” Ariel says. “Not compared to anyone else Anastasia has dated.”
“Excuse me,” Anastasia says.
Theo turns to Ariel. “If you think Stewart is so great, you should date him.”
“I don’t have chemistry with Stewart like Anastasia does.”
“In Theo’s defense, I have great chemistry with a lot of people.”
“And Stewart is also not obtuse. Come on,” Ariel says. “A little vanilla, sure. And the not good thing is a little annoying. But don’t make up awful things about him just because you don’t want Anastasia dating one of your brother’s friends, which is really what this is about.”
I’m quick to get on Ariel’s side. “For what it’s worth,” I say to Anastasia, “I did think you had amazing chemistry with Stewart, and he’s in my contemporary writing class and doesn’t seem obtuse at all.”