Second Thoughts

by Cara Bertrand

  She narrowed her eyes, patting the plant protectively. “Don’t insult Ferny!”

  “Ferny?”

  “Listen, Young, I’ve never had so much as a goldfish before now, so don’t kill my joy, okay? Ferny’s mine and I love him.”

  I laughed. “Okay. I love him, too. But where did you even get him?” Despite what she said, he was not a pretty plant. Amy wouldn’t have chosen him on her own.

  “One of my dad’s nurses thought his office needed more color. She couldn’t know that he kills, basically, every living thing besides patients. We have a landscaper for a reason. Anyway, she grew him this plant for, like, a year, from a baby plant cutting from her great-grandmother’s prize fern or something. So it wasn’t like he could keep it and let her watch him kill great-grandma’s fern progeny, so he gave it to me. Told her it was going to be my favorite Christmas present ever. Which was a lie, because my favorite present ever was totally my Acura, but I do love him. I want to take care of something. Ferny seems like a good place to start. Less commitment than a fish. And he could be a lifetime companion!” She looked at her plant again, stroking one of the stray fronds. “You’ll always listen and never leave me or cheat on me or want to watch just one more football game, right baby?”

  Ferny didn’t disagree.

  He received a pedestal of honor near the window, and the more I looked at him, the more I realized he was like a bulldog. Adorable for his ugliness. He was, in fact, a good listener, and never complained about Amy’s or my choice of music, and never blushed like I did whenever Amy asked him a personal question.

  And Ferny never would cheat on her. Amy’d been joking when she’d said that, but her fear was there, and the more I listened to her talk to her plant, the more I worried about just how off things were between her and Caleb. They were fighting more and more. They’d always fought, because that was Amy, and that was Caleb too, but the fights weren’t real. It was flirting, or foreplay.

  Lately though, they were real. And though I’d never have thought it possible a few months ago, the prospect of Caleb cheating was real too. I knew because I saw it.

  THEY WERE IN a great study corner of the library, one with a window and lots of privacy. It was a week after we’d gotten back from break. I wondered if he always did his tutoring there, or if it was only with Mandi Worthington. Usually I wouldn’t even go by there during work hours, but when I ran out of things to do early, the librarian sent me around to check for stray books. I didn’t have my cart, which always announced my presence, so they didn’t hear me coming. I had my music on, so I didn’t hear them either. But I saw them.

  When I saw how close they were, I ducked to the side of the study carrels and watched. They were studying, in that they had books spread on the table and pencils poised over notebooks, but it really looked more like organized flirting. Mandi leaned over to look at Caleb’s work, letting her shoulder brush his, her pretty blond hair falling on his arm until he laughed and brushed it away. She touched his arm and pointed to her own work, and his fingers seemed to glance against hers as he nudged his pencil across the page.

  Part of me wanted to cry, the other part to go kick Caleb right in the tutors, but I was frozen. When someone else stepped out of the elevator and drew their attention, I disappeared. I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t want them to know I’d been watching.

  I told Carter. I had to tell someone, do something, and Amy wasn’t the right choice. Plus, a check of my watch told me she was at Physics Club, and even though she’d definitely think this was an emergency, I wasn’t about to drag potential relationship problems out in front of all her science nerd friends. I loitered in the library pretending to do my homework until it was closing time at the bookstore.

  “It wasn’t him,” Carter said.

  I looked over in his direction. We were sitting in front of the fireplace with the store lights off. The flames threw alluring shadows across his features, but it didn’t look like he was joking. “It was him. I saw it, Carter. Contrary to what the song told you, that excuse doesn’t work. I know Caleb’s your friend and all, but the guy solidarity—”

  “No.” He squeezed my hand. “I mean, it wasn’t…it’s not him. It’s her. She’s doing it.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Well, maybe it’s a little him. He’s got to be attracted to her. But I swear, it’s her. A Siren…they can make you lose your mind. I tried to warn him, as much as I could.”

  I sighed. I hated to admit what I said next, but it was true. “Sometimes I think Amy makes him lose his mind.”

  Carter didn’t even hesitate. “It’s part of why he loves her,” he said. And he was right.

  “But it’s getting worse. You’ve seen it. Don’t you think this is part of it? They’re just…off, and now I see him with Mandi and I don’t know. I never thought he’d do this to Amy.”

  “He’s not. Lane, I swear. She’s doing it.” Softly, he added, “She got sent here from Webber not to be closer to Alexis but because there was some kind of issue there.”

  I was half surprised and half nodding like I’d expected him to say something like that. I knew she was trouble, and I wasn’t surprised she’d been in trouble, whatever it was. I only wished they’d told me; as her dorm representative, it would have been nice to know. Which made me wonder how Carter did. “Did your uncle tell you that or something?”

  “No.” He looked away, probably to cover his guilty expression. “Her cousin did.”

  Wow. Apparently it was boyfriend-screw-up night. I extracted my fingers from his and folded my arms across my chest. “So she really does need physics help every Wednesday night, huh? I thought I was joking about that. Just how much time do you spend talking with her?” I was being that girlfriend I hated to be, but it was Alexis. He knew better. He should have known better.

  He ran his now-free hand through his caramel waves. “Fuck, Lane. Now I’m under suspicion too?”

  Oh, it was on. “Should you be?”

  “Christ. No. I help her with physics. In the bookstore lounge, in front of everyone, all of whom can see that nothing is or ever will be going on between us because, in case you haven’t noticed, I am a thousand lifetimes in love with you. Sometimes she talks to me like a friend, because her other friends are shitty. The end.” He was standing by the time he got to those last words.

  Just like that, my anger rushed out of me. I felt like the one who was shitty. What the hell was wrong with me? With us. Everything felt so unstable. First Caleb and Amy, and now I was picking fights with Carter.

  I dropped my head, hair falling over my shoulders to cover my warm cheeks, and apologized. “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed and sat back down, brushing away those tendrils so he could see my face. “No, I am. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry. I…I probably shouldn’t help her, talk to her at all, but, I don’t know. She’s not perfect, but maybe everyone deserves a chance to make up for it.”

  And then it all made sense. He empathized with Alexis. Sometimes I felt like Carter trusted everyone and I trusted no one and I wasn’t even sure how we got that way. I could never tell if he was blind to the bad or chose to focus on the good in people. And when had I become so suspicious? Maybe because I’d spent so much of my childhood by myself. It was a self-reliance thing. Carter wanted not to be alone in things, and I wasn’t sure anyone but myself could get things done.

  But Carter and I needed to be in this together.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Did you mean all those other things you said?”

  He put his arm around me, pulling me closer and adding a kiss to my forehead. “Yes. Most of Alex’s other friends are shitty.”

  I laughed and our fight was over. “Except Brooke.”

  “Except Brooke,” he agreed. “And,” he added, voice lowered and lips close to my ear, “I am that in love with you. Don’t forget it.”

  THE NEXT DAY I practically sprinted from class after last bell and managed to
catch Brooke just as she was leaving the Arts building. We walked together to volleyball. As co-captain, I still dutifully attended every practice, cheering from the sidelines or helping retrieve errant balls. I was allowed to run, so I ran with them. But it wasn’t volleyball advice I needed from her today.

  Exactly like I hoped, no one joined us on the way to the gym. Besides some of the team, we had basically zero friends in common, being as we were technically on opposite sides of Northbrook’s great divide—Alexis Morrow. But Brooke was cool. She didn’t hold it against me that I was Alex’s enemy, and I didn’t hold it against her that she was Alex’s long-time friend, so we got along great. When we saw each other.

  “God, it feels like I never get to talk to you this year,” she lamented as we started up the hill from mid-campus. It was a clear day, but cold, and everyone was hurrying from place to place. Several inches of new snow had fallen in the last few days and frozen solid, forcing everyone to traverse the acres of campus only on the cleared walkways.

  “I know,” I replied. “We need to start our breakfast dates again, now that swimming and Push are over.”

  “Ugh, Push. I’m so not looking forward to it next year.”

  “I’m pretty sure they make it so bad on purpose, so we know what it feels like when we get to college.”

  “Seriously. I think Lex didn’t sleep all week, right?”

  “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about…”

  She gave her delightful laugh that I envied so badly. “About sleeping with Lex, or not sleeping with her? Because I think that honor is reserved for a kid from Hotchkiss right now.”

  You’d think Alexis would’ve been the kind of girl who always had a boyfriend, but she didn’t. She had boyfriends, a rotating collection of expensive ones who’d drive up to visit from Manhattan or schools like Andover and Choate with their luxury cars and shiny hair. The closest she’d had to a relationship since I’d known her had been the few weeks after last year’s disastrous Winter Ball when she’d kept up her fling with a senior I’d sort of dated before Carter. That had ended as horribly (for him) as I’d worried it would. I realized now she was still holding out for my boyfriend.

  “Um, no. No no no,” I said, laughing too, before I dropped my voice and got to the point. “Actually, it’s about her cousin, Mandi. Do you spend much time with her?”

  Brooke made a noise that wasn’t nearly as pretty as her laugh. “What was it you just said, ‘Um, no, no no no?’ ‘Cause that’s about what I think of Mandi. She’s insufferable. I mean, I feel bad for her, but I can’t stand her.”

  I nodded. I knew what she meant. There were days I thought it was hard being a teenager, and I couldn’t imagine being a teenager while trying to control a gift that basically made your hormones, and everyone’s around you, go crazy. But still. “I think she’s worse than Alex.”

  Brooke agreed. “Times ten. I know Lex can be a bitch, but she’s really not all bad. Mandi’s just…off in the head or something. It’s not all because of the gift. But, so, what was it you wanted to ask about her? I might not know, but ask anyway.”

  We were almost to the gym, just passing the Chapel, so even though it was freezing out, I pulled her around the side of building. “Okay, I hate to ask, but…do you think you could, um, eavesdrop on her?”

  Brooke looked curious. She knew what I meant. “This is serious, huh? I mean, I don’t really like to know what a Siren’s wanting basically ever, right? But for you, okay. What’s she up to?”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know, exactly. But remember what you said to me after the SATs?”

  “You think it’s her?”

  “Maybe. She’s, well, she’s flirting with Caleb Sullivan. Hard.”

  “Oh yeah.” She nodded. “I know. Her little confrontation with Amy didn’t help either.”

  I grimaced. “I know. I guess I want to know why. Why him? It’s more than that though she—”

  But I never finished that sentence because that’s about when I heard Mandi’s laugh. Speak of the devil. Brooke and I both turned in that direction. My cheeks flushed, more even than from the cold, and I’m sure I looked exactly like I’d just been talking about her. Mandi came around from the back of the building and paused when she saw us huddled by the wall in the snow. She looked happy to see us.

  “Wow. Hey, Brooke! And Lainey. Are you guys waiting for a turn in the Cove? It’s empty…now.” She giggled again and flounced past us before I could even say anything. I looked over at Brooke and just caught her eyes flashing as Mandi went by. Before she could tell me what she learned, a second person emerged from behind the building.

  Caleb appeared next, head down and walking toward the gym. He didn’t see us.

  “Holy shit,” Brooke said.

  I was almost too pissed for words, but I managed one.

  “Caleb!” I shouted and he froze. He turned to look at me and his expression shifted through a number of things—surprise, confusion, anger. But also, guilt.

  Beside me, Brooke muttered, “Yeah, I’ll let coach know you’re going to be late.” Before she took off, she gave my elbow a light squeeze and whispered, “I’m not sure it’s what it looks like. She wanted someone to see this.”

  For Caleb’s sake, I hoped she was right. In my rage, it crossed my mind that I might kill him. And unfortunately for him, I had the power. I was glad I was wearing gloves.

  I stormed over, shouting whatever words decided to come from my lips. “You’re kidding me, right? Out here, in the middle of the day? How could you? And she’s in eighth grade!” I didn’t know why her age was a big deal, but in my head apparently it was. Mandi was still a kid to me, though I was pretty sure she was less innocent than I was. I should have been concerned that people were probably watching, but I wasn’t thinking about that. All I could think about was Amy.

  Caleb’s eyes grew wider the closer I got. “Whoa, Lane, what do you think I did?”

  “What did you do?” I shot back.

  He ran his hand through his hair, another habit he picked up from Carter. Or maybe all boys did that and I’d just never spent enough concentrated time with them to notice before. Whatever it was, it meant he was uncomfortable. “Obviously you know I just canceled on Amy.”

  “So you could visit the Cove with fucking Mandi Worthington?!”

  “What?” He looked stricken by my accusation, but there was still…something. We were just about the same height, so he had to look me in the eyes. And I saw that flickering of guilt. “I…no. Why would you even think that?”

  I laughed a truly humorless laugh. “Why would I think that? Because I just saw you come out from behind the Chapel together! And Mandi practically told me as much.”

  “Lainey, I swear I didn’t. I have no idea what she said, but I was walking from Marquise up the back path and Mandi caught up with me. We walked together for a little ways. She went ahead when I stopped to find my phone.” His phone was in his hand and he waved it at me. “And two sophomores from the debate team just snuck out of there when I passed.”

  I stared at him. Was he lying? Caleb didn’t have a lot of guile in him, while I knew Mandi did. She hadn’t said they’d just been the ones to vacate the Cove. Canceling something with Amy was bad, but not bad enough for the expression on his face when I called his name. Like he’d been caught at something. “Then why do you look so guilty? Tell me the truth.”

  He dropped his head. “Because I thought about it, okay? We were walking and almost to the back of the Chapel and I thought about what it would be like. I’m sorry. Amy’s being crazy and, God, Mandi’s pretty and when I’m with her, sometimes things I swear I’d never think otherwise seem like a really good idea.” He looked at me again. “I’m sorry. I love Amy, you know I love Amy, but sometimes…I don’t know.”

  No, he didn’t know. But I knew. I wanted to cry, like this was all my fault. Like I was protecting Sententia secrets when I should have been protecting my friends. Sententia or not, one of my
dorm girls or not, I should have warned him. “Oh, Caleb.” I touched the back of his hand that was gripping his phone too tightly. “Listen to me. I should have said this before now, but you have to be careful of Mandi. She’s…got history.”

  “I know all about it,” he said, nodding, but I knew that couldn’t possibly be true. “I feel bad for her.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he held up his hand. “I know Amy wants me to stop working with her, and maybe she’d be less crazy but…” He shrugged. “I guess I like it. She actually tries to do the work. And then when she says how much she likes working with me because I don’t try to flirt with her, I guess I feel bad handing her off to someone else. Which might be kind of pathetic, considering what I just admitted I was thinking.”

  I wondered just what kind of story Mandi had told Caleb about her past, but then, I didn’t know the whole story either. “Maybe you should think about letting them reassign her anyway,” I suggested. “Maybe to a girl. Just think about it, okay? Working with her might be good for her, but it doesn’t seem to be good for you.”

  “Yeah, I…yeah.” He leaned his shoulders against the wall of the Chapel and looked dejected. The tip of his nose was red from the cold. I knew I should have been shivering by now, too, but I was too worked up to feel it. “First Amy, now you too. Jesus, Lane, this is frustrating. I didn’t think I was the kind of guy who’d think…things about a girl who wasn’t Amy. But then she started to treat me like I was, and now I guess she’s right. Will you tell her?”

  I leaned up on the wall next to him and let my shoulder touch his. “I don’t think so,” I said. “But maybe you should. Maybe you should really talk about this.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And for the record, I don’t think you’re the kind of guy you’re starting to think you are. That’s what I’m going to tell Amy. Just…don’t let Mandi get under your skin either. She’s not as sweet as she seems. Trust me on that. Try to think of her as your little sister.”

  He made a noise that was some sad combination of a laugh and a sigh. “Carter said sort of the same thing to me a while ago. Except, you know, I don’t have a little sister.” With another tug of his hair he said, “I wish I hadn’t thought that, earlier. Or I could scrub it out of my memory or something. But it’s too late, right? How do you kill a memory once it’s already there?”