It Had to Be You

by Lizzy Charles

  “Should we be down here?” I’m forced to jog every few steps to keep up with his athletic pace.

  “Absolutely not,” he says over his shoulder. “That’s part of the fun though, isn’t it?” His dimple pops again when he laughs, his step picking up a bounce. He’s loving every moment of this, and here I am fearing expulsion with each step. We run twenty more feet before he pauses at a thin, wooden door. He touches a finger to his lips then he pushes it open a crack. I peer in at a sea of students surrounding linen-covered tables.

  “How well do you handle pressure?” he whispers.

  “Umm.”

  His eyebrow lifts as he assesses me. I must have done something right, because eventually he nods. “You’ll be fine. Just stay quiet.” He gives my hand a squeeze before stepping into the dining hall, pulling me behind him before I can bolt back down the corridor.

  Tap, tap. The headmistress touches the microphone at the podium, unaware of our presence a few feet behind her. “Welcome to another year at Brockmore Academy. Your success starts now!” She says the school slogan with such gusto, pumping her fist into the air and receiving nothing more than a few claps from teachers at the back table.

  Everyone else is staring at us.

  We are so screwed. What was I thinking following a random guy in this way? This is going to get me in way more trouble than arriving a few minutes late. I should have walked in late and cashed in my new kid get-out-of-jail-free card. Now all those teachers probably think I’m trouble.

  A few teachers lift their eyebrows, but this guy only has to hold up one finger and give a gentle shrug to get them to return their attention to the podium.

  With a gentle pull, he directs me toward the long buffet table along the right wall, sliding the pizza box underneath and following it.

  My heart crashes into my ribs as I duck under the tablecloth.

  Headmistress Creighton continues. “This will be another exciting year. We’ve added more collegiate prep classes and requirements. Our technology building received another upgrade, and we’re welcoming a new football coach, Mr. Davvy, a retired player from the Green Bay Packers.”

  The room roars, and the speed crawler in front of me stops to join in the noise.

  “Seriously? Are you trying to get caught?” I whisper harshly while the noise still echoes off the wall.

  “Are you?” For a flickering second, his eyes tighten into a glare. Then his expression smooths into a lopsided smile.

  “Would you like to say a few words, Mr. Davvy?”

  “Yes, thank you, headmistress,” Mr. Davvy says. “I’m honored to be your new head coach. We’re going to work long and hard to bring you a Bears’ victory!” The room erupts into cheers.

  My challenger doesn’t miss a beat, sliding the pizza box underneath another buffet table a few feet away and tugging me along with him. We crawl to the next buffet while everyone’s attention is turned toward the podium. A few students seated nearby snicker.

  “Quicker,” he says.

  “I’m doing my best.” My knees burn as they speed over the short-cut carpet. “This is ridiculous, isn’t it? My God. I’ll never get elected to the student council if we’re caught like this.”

  He pauses, whipping his head around. “Student council? You’re joking, right? I’d have pegged you for a cheerleader.”

  “I don’t jump.” My words carry the emphasis of bricks. My hands wouldn’t feel right holding a pair of pom-poms.

  He laughs. “You could try. You’d look cute in the uniform.”

  “Hell, no.” I narrow my eyes. Back off, dude.

  He doesn’t notice. Instead, he presses his cheek to the ground to glance under the tablecloth as he listens to the speech. He holds up three fingers, counting down until the room erupts in cheers, then darts out from under the tablecloth.

  The applause ends right as he disappears.

  Total abandonment. If I go now, I’m caught. Shit!

  Well, at least I’ll have something both funny and horrible to tell my parents. I bet I’m the only kid in this school whose parents care more about living life than they do a 4.0.

  I push my back up against the wall and pull up my knees so my toes can’t be seen. Hopefully this speech doesn’t take an hour.

  Headmistress Creighton’s voice rambles on about the importance of academic pursuit and academic honesty when suddenly a cheesy jazz song cuts into her speech.

  Why is there elevator music?

  I shift down, peering out from under the tablecloth. Nothing seems amiss, but every student is laughing, staring at the television screens that pepper the dining room.

  Headmistress Creighton’s face is red. She taps the podium, eyes raised at the guy behind the computer in the back of the room. “Shall we continue?”

  The television responds, flashing a grassland scene where two prairie dogs are mating.

  The headmistress waves to the teachers in the back of the crowd. “Turn off the screens,” she shouts over the sleazy music.

  One teacher, a petite older woman, rises and leans over the dude behind the laptop. She crosses her arms, studying the screen with a grin. “Someone intercepted our server and created a remote access and control point,” she shouts back to the headmistress. “Brilliantly done, I might add.”

  The headmistress tosses her hands in the air and leaves the stage.

  This is my chance! I duck out from under the table, searching the crowd for my roommate, Tuti.

  “Edel!” her voice rings out, and finally I see her, sitting only a few tables away from me. She’s changed out of the little blue dress she was wearing when I first met her, accidently interrupting the makeup tutorial shoot for her YouTube channel. First Day of School Look, I think she said? Either way, now she’s got on a cute pair of skinny jeans and a flowy top, with remarkably less makeup.

  “What are you thinking?” She pats the empty chair next to her.

  “I have a better question.” The redhead across the table raises her eyebrows. “What are you doing with James Parson?”

  “That’s James Parson?” My lips part. Colonel Parson’s son. Why didn’t he tell me? He had to know who I was!

  “You know him?” Her eyes grow wide.

  “I know of him,” I say. “Anyway, I’m Edel.”

  “Charlotte,” she says firmly. The jazz music returns, as do the mating prairie dogs.

  “I’m sorry, what’s happening?”

  A girl with a sharply cut dark-brown bob giggles next to Charlotte, peeking up from behind her cell phone. “That’s also James,” she says with a sneaky smile. “And I’m Ainsley.”

  “He’s doing this?” I glance over at his table. All the guys around him howl with laughter while he sits serene, sipping his water. “How?”

  “No one knows how he does it, but we all know it’s him. He must be a programming genius or something,” Charlotte says.

  Ainsley rolls her eyes and returns to her phone.

  My skin prickles, watching her break one of the biggest rules they emphasized at orientation this morning. No phones in classes or during assemblies. I’d assume Headmistress Creighton would not be okay with her phone being out right now.

  “How do you know James?” Tuti asks.

  “I don’t. Our fathers know each other. We’d never met. Hell, I’d never even seen his picture.” Trust me. If I had, I would have been far too nervous to come to this school. For some reason, I’d pictured James as some wiry kid who liked to look at issues of old engineering magazines in the library, not the type of guy whose muscles might outnumber his brain cells.

  I sigh, pushing aside the jock stereotype that he clearly doesn’t fit, and probably no one does, for that matter. On the ride over from the hotel this morning, Mom told me James will likely be going to West Point, and last year one of his short stories was published in a literary magazine.

  “None of that matters. All she needs to know is to stay away from James Parson: every girl’s first rule of survival at Brockmor
e.” Charlotte raises her eyebrows, glancing over at James.

  “Is he mean?” None of this fits the picture my parents painted about this guy.

  “No, but his girlfriend is wicked. Emma has some major issues.”

  “She’s not his girlfriend.” Ainsley doesn’t even look up from her phone while she interjects.

  “Technically, they are undefined,” Charlotte clarifies.

  “They’re the definition of ‘it’s complicated.’” Tuti nods two tables over to a leggy blonde with long, beachy curls. She’s the only one in the room not smiling. Her gaze shifts, zeroing in on me.

  “You’re doomed.” Charlotte pops a piece of gum in her mouth. “Bad luck, babe.”

  I glance back at Emma. She narrows her eyes briefly, then she tosses her hair over her shoulder while turning her back toward me.

  “This is ridiculous.” I slide my chair out to go talk with her. What a silly misunderstanding. If they’d just act like adults, they’d see how trivial they’re being. Communication is everything. As a daughter of a diplomat, I can’t bear letting this spin out of hand because I let assumptions lead the way.

  “What are you doing?” Tuti grabs my arm.

  “This all has an easy fix.” My chair squeaks as I stand, and I swear Charlotte hisses at me.

  “Sit down if you want to live,” she says.

  Really? My God, this place is dramatic. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

  The girl sitting across from Emma points to me as I walk toward her. Emma turns her head over her shoulder, glaring. For a second, I reconsider, as there’s almost a death-defying fire in her eyes that makes me want to run. The knot inside the joint of my thumb begs me to pop it. Then one of Mom’s cliché phrases rings through my mind, the one she always said when I used to be nervous about meeting new people. We all have common ground. We just have to discover it.

  The thought carries me the next five feet, and I reach out my hand. “Hi, I’m Edel. I’m new here.”

  “Yes, my room is a few doors down from yours. I saw you with your parents on the tour.” She lifts her eyebrows at my extended hand, pausing a moment before she takes it. Her shake is so weak it’s almost like she’s afraid of me. Or maybe she’s afraid I’ll get pizza sauce on her.

  “Since we’re neighbors, I thought it’d be nice to introduce myself.”

  “Okay.” She opens her chair to face me more, a universal invitation for conversation.

  I bend down next to her chair so only she can hear. I don’t want to embarrass her in front of her friends. “Listen, Charlotte and Tuti explained how you and James have a thing.”

  “A thing?” Her lips part, and she shifts back.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend you. I’m just here to tell you that nothing happened between us. He ran into me with his motorbike and box of pizza, which is why we were late.”

  “I see.” She turns to the girl next to her and whispers. “Well.” Her voice lightens when she addresses me. “James does love the pizza in town. He probably was sneaking it in to surprise me with at midnight in my bedroom.”

  My fingers twinge. Pretty sure during orientation this morning they repeated at least ten times that if a guy or girl gets caught in each other’s dorm rooms they will be expelled, and we had to sign a document stating we understood.

  She smiles, her teeth brilliantly white and in a perfect line. I run my tongue over my own teeth, wishing I’d done a better job of wearing my retainer at night. She squeezes my hand. “Thank you for confiding in me.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot with a neighbor.”

  “We’re classmates. We should be friends.” She sips her water, her smile steady and never faltering.

  “Thanks again for understanding.”

  “My pleasure.”

  When I return to the table, Tuti has me recite the entire conversation while she passes the breadbasket a server dropped off. “That doesn’t sound like Emma,” she says.

  I curl my legs around the front legs of my chair. “Perhaps you misunderstand her. Speaking directly cleared everything up for me.”

  “Be careful with her.” Tuti picks at a dinner roll. “You’ve been here less than a day and already you’re walking a minefield.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve traveled the entire world and managed not to piss anyone off.” I feel a little awkward using my world experience as credentials, but it’s all I’ve got to stand on. It’s absurd they think this little event is significant. Now, no access to clean water or education? That’s a big deal.

  Charlotte looks up from behind the four-inch stack she’s made out of pats of butter. “Let’s hope there’s not another Emma in the world, shall we?”

  Tuti lifts her glass. “Amen to that!”

  I smile politely, not wanting to get swept up in the conversation. It seems too petty to break a sweat over, especially when I have to remember where the math building is to meet with the teacher for my exam. My first real exam.

  Chapter Two

  James

  The television screen goes live once more, and the mere sight of the prairie dog’s face has the freshman boys rolling off their chairs in laughter. My heart pumps as a sweet, almost intoxicating feeling swirls through me while I listen to them howl. No one will forget this. Last year I fumbled with the opening prank. Paying off the assistant chef to hide plastic severed fingers in the tray of sliced roast beef sounded like a good gag but ended up pretty disgusting. Roast beef may never be palatable again.

  A flash of blond catches my eye. Edel sweeps her long, straight blond hair so it’s only hanging over one shoulder while she sits up in a nearly perfect posture. Impressive. I doubt I could have pulled off an entrance that way and rocked my image like that if those were my first steps into Brockmore. And it’s impossible to ignore how her posture only accentuates the curves God gave her.

  Dad never mentioned that about Edelweiss Lee.

  I glance down at my phone, reading Dad’s last text. Ambassador Lee said you weren’t on campus. Where were you? You promised to show Edelweiss and her family the campus.

  Well, technically I just showed Edelweiss the secret passageway in Brockmore Hall. I’d say that more than makes up for a campus tour. Hell, I even helped her out so Creighton didn’t zero in on her on the first day.

  We’ve met. I text back. Don’t worry. I gave her a good tour.

  A wad of napkin hits me between the eyes. “How are you doing this?” Jordan, a junior, asks from the neighboring table.

  “Doing what?” My little shrug with a smirk gives him all the info he needs. Of course I’m behind the prairie-dog stunt. I am behind every prank in this school.

  But this is my last hurrah. Well, until the senior prank, but that’ll have to be harmless like this video. With it being my senior year, it’s too close to graduation to pull anything worthy of expulsion, especially after Dad laid into me this summer.

  I gaze down at my phone and tap the screen, sending off a message for the prairie dog to go live again in twenty-eight seconds. The delay is key in not getting caught. I tuck my hands behind my head and glance at Creighton.

  Her eyes narrow, studying every move I make. Even my grin won’t soften her, a true rarity considering our unique relationship. I open my eyes wide. Seriously, Creighton? It’s only a pair of prairie dogs.

  That shitty jazz music fills the banquet hall again, resulting in a cacophony of giggles from the nearby table of girls. This prank is golden. I laugh and give Mason a firm slap on the shoulder for good measure.

  “Come on, James.” Mason’s face is so red from laughing he looks like a fire engine. “How’d you pull this one off? First sneaking in with the hot new girl and then this?”

  “You’re the king, man.” Jordan raises his glass. “To James!”

  My phone buzzes while I shrug. “Fate brought me the girl, and this?” I nod to the now-dark screens. “This is out of my hands.”

  Proctor narrows his eyes at my cell, wh
ich is buzzing in my palm. “Who are you texting?”

  “My sister.”

  “I thought it was just you and your dad.”

  “Nope. There’s another person out there running rampant with a linked genetic code.”

  “God save us,” Proctor groans. “Older or younger?”

  “Do you honestly think I’d let you date my sister?” Never in a million years would that pairing work out. She’d rip his head off, and I can’t lose my starting quarterback.

  “Whatever. Anyway, Creighton better pull herself together soon and finish this speech so we can eat. Smells like tacos. Hey, I didn’t see your dad this afternoon. Who did you come back to school with?”

  “He couldn’t leave base. Not a big deal. We’ve had hundreds of good-byes before.” My fingers fly over the phone to request a prairie-dog activation in forty-eight seconds.

  “Dude, if it wasn’t for your dad’s photo as the background on your phone, I’m pretty sure I’d suspect you were making him up.”

  “It’s the life of a colonel. Touring my dorm room again and saying good-bye here on campus wouldn’t be any different than the three other times we’ve done it.”

  “You wouldn’t want to see him?” Mason asks.

  What a stupid question. Of course I’d like to see him. He’s my father. “I can’t, so why whine about it? Plus, I don’t feel the need to torture him into watching me make my bed and attending that dull parent meeting. A Skype call is much easier.”

  “Well, is he coming to senior night?” Mason leans back, his chair creaking a protest under his weight.

  “Nope.” I press my palm flat on the table, trying to cover the void his intricate schedule has made in my gut. School drop-off—he can miss that. But being the only football player without family in the end zone during the ceremony will suck balls.

  At least I won’t have to field the team’s teasing over the difference in our skin color. Proctor still doesn’t believe that I’m the biological son of my white, freckled, redheaded father.