Second Thoughts

by Cara Bertrand

  But breakfast was over, and when we stopped inside the glass doors to watch a light snow that had started to fall, Brooke gave me a helpful push back into the rapids. “Hey, speaking of wants…I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of, um, the Mandi issue.”

  I pictured her smirking at me last night. I was supremely glad lower school students weren’t allowed to attend the Ball or no doubt she and her smirk would have been there. “Any idea what she’s up to? I mean, is it more than the obvious?”

  Brooke spoke in undertones, with a look of concentration on her face I recognized. It was similar to the one I wore when I tried to explain a vision, to put into words the impossible things our gifts could let us know and feel in our minds.

  “It’s…confusing.” No doubt it was. “I think she’s confused. But, I don’t know, maybe it was Mandi I sensed earlier in the year. I mean, sometimes she just wants, like, a candy bar—I wish reading people was always as easy as those simple things. But when it’s not, well, you know. For Mandi, it’s like she’s got some crusade going, something about family. She wants Lex to win, whatever that means, and she wants to help. She wants recognition for helping. And it’s like, wanting Lex to win, she wants you to lose. It’s like that’s the same thing. And maybe it was for the Winter Queen, but…it feels bigger than that. I’m not sure I can explain it right.”

  “No, I think I get it.” Another student rushed through the door to try to catch the end of breakfast and we went through it into fluttering crystal flakes. It was nice snow, the kind that wasn’t too cold and made you want to go play in it, though tonight it would probably freeze and make for a slippery walk to class in the morning. There was a chance it could be the last snow of the year.

  When we were outside, Brooke continued, “I know you don’t have to believe this, but I don’t think Lex put Mandi up to whatever she’s doing. Lex isn’t stopping her, but I don’t think she’s responsible. This is Mandi’s own thing, for whatever reason.”

  “Actually, I do believe it. And thank you, for trying to figure this out.”

  Brooke nodded. “For what it’s worth, I told her to leave Caleb alone, and it seems like maybe she has? I kind of think she does like him, but obviously she was messing with him and Amy on purpose too. I still think it’s more about you. What’d you do to her, anyway? Something terrible, like steal her flatiron?”

  LATER, AT THE library making up my work hours from the day before, naturally I saw her. I wasn’t sure why I had such trouble believing in fate when every time I spoke of the devil he—or she—always appeared. Mandi waltzed through the main floor, toward the elevator, just as I finished loading my cart. I don’t know why, maybe to see what would happen, maybe to torture myself, but instead of hanging back, I pushed a little faster to make the elevator with her.

  “Hey, Mandi,” I said as the doors closed behind me. “How are you?” Whatever was really going on with her and my friends, I was still her dorm rep.

  “How’s Amy?” is how she answered. “Heard she got caught.”

  Taken aback, I stared at her for a moment. I shouldn’t have been surprised at the blatant antagonism, but for some reason it always caught me off guard. She played with a strand of blond hair while looking innocent and bored. “Did you have something to do with that?” I asked and she shrugged.

  “Not this time, but, I mean, she was breaking the rules.”

  Not this time. Another time then? Was she the reason Amy got caught on the grounds after curfew? At this point, I wasn’t sure it mattered. Amy’d set herself up plenty for getting caught all on her own.

  “She was, you’re right.” I leaned on my cart, pushing it toward Mandi and forcing her closer to the wall. I’d followed her into the notoriously slow elevator and I was blocking her exit. “You wouldn’t know anything about rule-breaking, would you?” I asked.

  The elevator dinged and the doors behind us started to slide open. “This is my floor,” Mandi said. She tried to squeeze past, but the cars were tiny.

  “Oh, sorry.” I gave a halfhearted tug on the cart before the doors started to close again. “I guess you’ll have to ride up with me.” She glared her best glare, and I was tired of playing nice. “Why were you chasing Caleb Sullivan so hard?”

  “Why do you think I’m chasing him?”

  “Because I know Caleb. And I know you.”

  “You don’t know me,” she huffed. “That’s one of your problems.”

  She was right, too. I didn’t know her that well. She wouldn’t let me and, also, I didn’t really want to. “Fine. I know you enough. But Caleb is my friend, and he’s not a prize or some game you can win, okay?” The elevator was chugging to a halt, so I had only a little time left to say what needed to be said. “Hurting him, and hurting Amy, won’t help you. Or Alexis. Leave them alone. Please.”

  Her eyes widened a little and then narrowed. “You don’t know anything, Lainey. You really don’t. Want to know your other problem?”

  The elevator finally dinged and the door slid open behind me. I wondered when I started losing this confrontation. Maybe since I’d manufactured it, I’d lost before it even began. I couldn’t believe Mandi’s gall, but despite a perverse curiosity to hear what she’d say, I refused to take her bait. I backed out of the elevator without response, but she told me anyway.

  “You know that phrase some general said, ‘Lead, follow, or get out of the way?’ Your problem is you don’t really want to do any of them.” She leaned forward and put her hand on the door to keep it from closing. “You like being the center of attention too much to choose.”

  With a toss of her hair and a dare in her eyes that seemed way too old for an eighth grader, Mandi let the door close between us while I stood gaping.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Honor Board convened on Monday after final hour. We had regular monthly meetings and situational meetings. Today’s was the latter, and for the first time, I was part of the situation.

  I wasn’t exactly on the block, but I was an accessory. And even if I hadn’t been, I wasn’t impartial in the proceedings, so I couldn’t vote. I wasn’t even supposed to be part of the discussion, and I felt very impotent sitting there, a spectator unless spoken to.

  The best part of Honor Board was the meeting space, a richly appointed dining-turned-conference room in the Administration building, with floor-to-ceiling windows, damask draperies, and a huge solid oak table surrounded by—my favorite part—a completely mismatched set of antique swivel chairs. Northbrook was my kind of place in more ways than one. Even if I hadn’t ended up Sententia, I’d have loved it here.

  Ms. Kim was our faculty advisor. With her subtle gift for questions—if she asked, people wanted to answer—she was a natural choice for the position; there were no prohibitions against teachers using their Sententia abilities, so students under review were a little less reluctant in their responses. And if Dr. Stewart was attending, we were assured we were hearing the truth.

  I’d learned pretty quickly about Northbrook—probably all schools—that student groups divided naturally down expected lines. Honor Board, however, being a faculty-nominated group not voted on by other students, had an interesting mix of representatives. There were thirteen of us, because, if anything, Northbrook embraced superstitions, and at least one student from every grade but seventh.

  We had one eighth and ninth grader, two sophomores, and the rest were juniors and seniors. The only thing we had in common is that we were, of course, all Sententia. Three faculty members were always in attendance, Ms. Kim and a rotating group of others. Dr. Stewart had ultimate veto power but she’d never used it. If there was ever some kind of tie, she solved that too.

  Our youngest member was actually our toughest. If Amy’s punishment were up to her, I knew she’d be expelled. That was a scary word. Northbrook’s conduct standards were tough and expulsion was an actual possibility. Three strikes and you could be out. I didn’t think it would come to that, though.

  The good news for Amy
was her strikes weren’t that bad. Breaking a few curfews and skipping classes wasn’t a huge deal when you were still academically performing at the top of your class. And she was popular. A lot of kids at the school and sitting around our table liked her. The bad news was Alexis Morrow was also popular and she had a long and well-known history of not liking my roommate.

  Amy sat at the front of the room looking pale, tired, and resigned. Usually I’d try to smile or encourage her in some way, but I wasn’t feeling especially charitable and, also, I really couldn’t help her. Caleb could have been made to attend, being an accessory like myself, but he wasn’t back yet. I wondered if he would have been, if he already had warnings too from Amy’s previous infractions. Somehow I doubted it though. More likely was that he didn’t know about Amy’s warnings either. He was least likely of all of us to jeopardize his time at North-brook, because he couldn’t afford it. Literally. The sad truth was that money lessened problems, even here.

  Ms. Kim started the meeting and laid out the facts. It was exactly how every meeting started, except that additionally, as happened from time to time, she recused herself from voting because of her close relationship with the student as her dorm attendant. I’d have been expected to do the same if I weren’t already part of the violation. The “case” was pretty straightforward, the kind where it would take us longer to get everyone together and called to order than to go through the process. Amy answered a handful of questions dully, without resisting or arguing.

  “And so you knew about this?” That was directed at me, from our plucky little eighth grader. I wanted to sigh, but also, I hoped she went to law school someday.

  “Yes,” I admitted, though it wasn’t much of an admission. It was already established.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “I tried.”

  At the front, Amy did sigh. “She strongly discouraged me from breaking curfew,” she vouched. Dr. Stewart was at the back of the room, so everyone knew this was a true statement.

  “But,” the eighth grade esquire continued, “you didn’t report her either.”

  “For serious?” one of the juniors said and we all tried not to laugh, most of us succeeding.

  “Miss Young isn’t really our concern today,” came from the trigonometry teacher.

  “She should at least get a warning though.”

  It was true, and everyone agreed, myself included. I was duly warned.

  “Caleb, too.”

  Amy called out, “He thought I had permission!” But he was duly warned, too, in absentia. As discouragement for future incidents. Amy blanched. She might have been resigned to what happened to her, but I don’t think she’d considered how it could affect Caleb.

  Commentary bubbled up around the table.

  “Harsh.”

  “No offense, Indira, but I’m glad I’m not your roommate.”

  “Or your boyfriend.”

  “Shut up, Sean!”

  “Order, please.” That was Ms. Kim.

  The question then was what to do with Amy. There were plenty of options, all of which were brought up. Indira did indeed remind us the rules allowed for expulsion. With three warnings in just one semester, it was even warranted.

  Groans flew from all over the table, and I even saw, out of the corner of my eye, Dr. Stewart’s lips twitch with a hint amusement. I knew probably better than anyone at the table how she wasn’t quite as heartless as she seemed. She liked the students, and she enjoyed the Honor Board process of our debating appropriate punishments for our peers.

  Commensurate punishments, she called them. What fit the incident as well as the student. It was why there were few set guidelines for what would happen if you broke a rule. One of the perks, or downsides, of private school, depending on what side of the table you were on. And because of that, there was serious talk of stripping Amy’s academic honors.

  One of the most brutal parts of the Honor Board process was that you actually stayed while your punishment was determined. Amy was doing her best to be still and blank, but her anguish was apparent to me. This wouldn’t ruin her future or anything, but it would hurt. A lot. Short of kicking her out, it was probably the worst we could do. It wasn’t an inappropriate punishment either, not really.

  “It’s conduct unbecoming. If this was basketball, I’d lose team captain.”

  “You’re not team captain.”

  “It’s a metaphor.”

  “She’s right.”

  Alexis had been surprisingly quiet through the whole meeting. I assumed she was relishing the slow torture of her longtime nemesis, so it was with great shock to basically the entire table when she finally said, “Oh, come on. Are we really considering this?”

  Amy’s head shot up to look at her, and even Alexis seemed a little surprised at herself. She wasn’t looking at Amy, though. She glanced, instead, at me. We usually sat next to each other—keep your enemies close—but I was at the end of the table near the headmaster today, out of the way. At least they hadn’t made me sit at a desk of shame as well.

  “What do you propose as an alternative?” Ms. Kim prompted.

  Alex fussed with her hair and cleared her throat. She usually loved being the center of attention, unless it was for unexpectedly defending a girl we all assumed she’d happily let roast. “Listen, I get your arguments, but seriously? She broke curfew. It was the Ball. And we’re supposed to discourage it from happening again. So give her probation—strict probation—and let’s go to rehearsal or whatever the rest of you are supposed to be doing right now. Okay?”

  From behind me, Dr. Stewart interjected, “Very reasonable, Miss Morrow.” She rarely said anything during the meetings, so when she did, we listened.

  Amy was placed on strict—strict—probation and that was that. Meeting adjourned.

  I followed Alexis out of the room and just before we turned in different directions I said softly, “Thanks.”

  She nodded and we went our own ways, one kindness repaid with another.

  DAYS TICKED AWAY too fast. At times the pace seemed glacial—like when my roommate and I were alone together—but in barely more than a blink, I found myself weeks closer to graduation and more unmoored than ever.

  Things for Amy, in a word, sucked. And that meant the rest of us were feeling it too. I wished we could just talk about it, but we weren’t talking. Not really. I was no longer sure who needed to say sorry more, but I hadn’t forgotten why we needed to say it, and I still didn’t want to do it. Neither did she. Even worse, her relationship with Caleb was deteriorating at a rapid pace, more rapid than before winter break.

  “Aaron wants me to come visit for my birthday, for the whole weekend,” Caleb said as he sat at our lunch table about halfway through the hour. He was grinning like he’d just hung up the phone with him—Caleb loved his older brother, his whole family actually. I admired them.

  Amy speared a carrot and looked at it, not him. “Good for you.”

  I watched them both as I pushed my salad around my plate. Caleb was trying, really trying. His fingers tightened on his fork. But he took a deep breath and said, “So why don’t we see if you can come with me.”

  “Which word don’t you understand, strict or probation?” Amy bit off half her carrot and put the rest down.

  Caleb, too, put his fork down. It clattered against his tray like a warning and I wished Amy would heed it. “Do you not want to go?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “So why don’t we ask your parents? They can’t force you to stay here if your parents are letting you leave.”

  Amy shoved her tray away. “You actually think my parents are going to let me go with you to a college campus for a weekend?”

  Caleb rubbed his eyes. “It’s worth asking, isn’t it?”

  “Not when I know the answer.”

  Before long, everyone else at the table had—smartly—taken off, and I was the only other one left. I didn’t even know why I stayed, except to torture myself
with the rest of their argument. It was painful to watch on so many different levels but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all partially, maybe mostly, my fault. But I didn’t know how to fix it either. Carter had told me I couldn’t and he was probably right.

  “Okay, fine,” Caleb said. Angry red splotches were developing on his usually adorable baby cheeks. “I’ll ask them, if you want. Or don’t even try. Whatever.”

  Amy flicked her fingers. “Just go, if that’s what you want. Have fun with your brother. You know where to find me if you want to hang out with me.”

  “Hasn’t this whole conversation said I do want to hang out with you? You’re the one—God, whatever. I’ll let him know you can’t make it.”

  She looked down at her still-full plate. “So you’re going.”

  “Yeah. I’m going.”

  “Great. Happy birthday.” She twirled her finger in a sarcastic woo-hoo circle and that was when Caleb gave up.

  He grabbed his tray and stood. “Thanks. I’m done. Later.”

  “Wait!” Amy reached for his hand, but seriously, she should have done that a long time ago. Caleb let her take it but he didn’t really hold hers back. “Are you coming to the bookstore later?” The bookstore being the only place Amy could go that felt the least bit like having fun.

  “I have tutoring,” he said and walked away.

  She made a fist with her hand that he’d just dropped. “UGH!” she ground out, but I honestly thought she was more mad at herself, which seemed valid to me. She glanced at me, the silent witness on the other side of the table. “Are you going to be there?”

  I shook my head. “I have therapy. Sorry,” I added, and I picked up my tray and left too.

  In the weeks since the vision returned, instead of focusing on a number of important things I was running out of time to do, like make necessary decisions about the future, or work harder to solve the still-hanging mystery of Mark Penrose, or reconcile with my best friend, I’d thrown myself into physical therapy and killing things.