Of course Lane was waiting for me in the hallway. He was actually pacing. And he looked furious.
“Sadie,” he said, the moment I opened the door.
“Need something?”
“You threw the assignment!” he accused. “On purpose!”
I wasn’t expecting that, or the way he seemed to mean it. He looked genuinely distraught that we hadn’t been the best in the class.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said.
“It is to me!” Lane fumed. “You may not care about your grades, but I do. I can’t believe you did that to me on my first day!”
“I thought yesterday was your first day,” I said.
Lane glared.
“You know what I mean. We failed that exercise, didn’t we?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said slowly, wondering why he still didn’t get it. “None of this is real. The teachers wouldn’t dare to give anyone less than an A. So you can stop worrying about your stupid grade, okay?”
And then I stomped away, toward the dining hall, putting enough distance between the two of us that we wouldn’t have to wait in line together, because I didn’t know if I could stand it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LANE
AS FAR AS first weeks go, I was pretty sure my first week at Latham contained a record-setting quantity of suck. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get it right.
Everyone else seemed to know exactly what they were doing and where they were going. Everyone else seemed to have mastered the art of blending in. Except for Sadie and Nick’s crowd, who made it their business to stick out.
I only had one class with them, so I began to watch for them in the dining hall and around campus. Nick lived on my hall, and Charlie was on the floor below, but I rarely saw either of them in the dorm. My only interaction with Charlie was the frantic ukulele strumming and angry falsetto that occasionally drifted out his window.
The four of them spent a lot of time in the woods, slinking off into the birch trees in a way that was almost secretive, with bags over their shoulders that seemed too full to be carrying textbooks. In the dining hall, they created small amounts of havoc with the nutritionist. One afternoon, when a plate of freshly baked cookies was set out, they ate them while waiting in line, before their trays could be checked.
Which isn’t to say that I was overly preoccupied with them. I wasn’t. I kept mostly to myself, studying in my room, or in the library, which was unexpectedly amazing; a holdover from when Latham was a real boarding school. The selection was largely classics, but the study alcoves were fantastic, and I never saw anyone using them.
Everyone else seemed to treat Latham like a vacation. The TV lounge was constantly crammed, and the DVD collection in the library was so heavily checked out that at first I’d thought it had been removed. Graphic novels, magazines, and popular books they didn’t carry in the outdated library were passed around like contraband in the dorms. Board game tournaments took over the common room, with Post-it note warnings stuck on top of in-progress games, saving them. The guys on my hall even turned showering into an extracurricular activity, spending so long in there every night that it was lights-out by the time a stall would open up, the water ice cold and the floor slippery.
But the thing about a vacation is that eventually, it has to end. And I wondered why I was the only one who seemed to realize that. While my hall mates played Monopoly in their pajamas, napped during the day, and marathoned TV shows in bed, I sat at my desk and worked.
I tried to approach my teachers about doing the AP work, but it was difficult to talk to them. They were rarely in the classroom, and when they were, they acted like they couldn’t wait to leave. I finally managed to corner my geology teacher about it, but she’d just blinked at me when I brought up working on my AP bio textbook instead and said that I should ask Dr. Barons at my next appointment. I didn’t tell my parents, though. I lied that it had been no problem and I was keeping up easily. I didn’t want them to worry about it, not when they already had so much else to stress about.
I woke up early to shower, and I stayed up late to study, and by the weekend, it had paid off. I’d done a week’s worth of the AP reading and assignments. Plus, I’d taken half of a practice SAT test, since I wanted at least a thirty-point boost when I retook the test.
On Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the library working on a practice SAT math section, even though I didn’t feel that great. I was exhausted, and had a slight fever, and my temples throbbed with a headache that wouldn’t go away. The hall nurse had given me an aspirin, which was about as helpful as a pat on the back.
I sighed and stared down at my workbook, trying to muster the energy to do another page when all I wanted to do was put my head down on the table and sleep until dinner.
Come on, I told myself, just five more. I’d worked through another two problems when the door to the library opened.
“Are you sure you have it?” a girl whispered.
“God, Sadie, for the last time, yes,” a boy whispered back.
It was the four of them. Charlie in his Doc Martens and enormous DJ headphones, Marina wearing a funny old dress with billowing sleeves, and Nick and Sadie, bickering. They’d brought their book bags, even though it was Friday, even though classes had ended hours ago. A strange, illicit energy passed between them.
I hadn’t run into them in the library before, and I watched as Nick went to the librarian’s desk to ask for an internet pass. There was a bank of old desktops in the back of the library, the one place at Latham where you could get online. You needed a pass, though. And even then, you could only use the internet for thirty minutes, once a week. According to the handbook, internet access was “stress-inducing and unnecessary.”
Nick chatted with the librarian, and instead of waiting for him, his friends split up, each of them sitting at a different table. That by itself was weird. Why go to the library with your friends if you’re just going to sit by yourself?
I was studying near the computer bank, and I couldn’t help but watch as Nick sat down at one of the PCs. He opened his bag and took out a little box and some cables. An external hard drive, probably, which was smart. I tried to think if I still had my USB stick. But as Nick plugged it in, I realized it wasn’t a hard drive. It was a router.
And then I saw that girl Marina with her laptop open at one of the big tables. She was logging onto Facebook. I couldn’t believe it.
I got up and took a walk around the library, pretending to look for a book. Sure enough, Sadie had her computer out, too, with noise-canceling headphones clamped over her ears. And Charlie was on his tablet.
They had internet. All of them. Without using their passes. And I was beyond jealous.
I could feel the librarian watching me like she thought I was going to shove a copy of Moby Dick down my pants. So I grabbed a random book and brought it back to my table, pretending that was what I’d wanted.
I tried to turn my attention to my practice test, but it was no use. All I could think about was that router.
I’d never wanted to be part of a group the way I did in that moment. They were out of sync with Latham House, but not in the same way that I was. They acted like we were at any old boarding school, where you rolled your eyes at the rules and snuck off to do what you wanted. And it wasn’t just the internet. It was the way, out of everyone, they seemed the least defeated. The least likely to give up and spend the day in bed feeling sorry for themselves. They weren’t on vacation, they were off on an adventure.
I wished I knew how to talk to them, but every time I saw them together, they seemed so unapproachable. Sadie most of all. She’d seemed to hate me after I’d nearly impaled her with a cafeteria tray. I told myself that I didn’t care. I wasn’t at Latham to make friends, and I didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to need them. Besides, I had work to do. I didn’t have time for adventures.
After a few minutes, a loud group of guys came in, returning DVDs. There was som
e commotion with one of the cases having the wrong movie in it.
“It was like that when I got it,” a guy with a nasally voice complained. “Come on, let me check out another.”
“I’m sorry,” the librarian said, “but you’re at the limit. You need to return one before I can let you do that.”
“I am returning one!” the guy insisted.
“You need to return what you checked out,” said the librarian.
“That’s what I’m doing!” the guy said. “Do I look like I’d own a copy of Legally Blonde?”
His friends started laughing.
“Shut up!” he said. “Someone probably switched the cases. Help me look.”
The three of them sauntered over to the DVD section and started pulling out cases and opening them.
“Excuse me!” the librarian shrilled. “You can’t do that!”
I could hear her heels clicking against the wood floor as she cut a swath through the library.
And then it hit me: Sadie was sitting right near the DVD section. She wouldn’t hear the librarian coming. Not with those headphones on. The librarian was going to catch Sadie on the internet. She was going to discover the router.
I pushed back my chair and ran.
“Wait!” I called. “Mrs., um, Librarian?”
“Just a minute,” she snapped.
“It’s an emergency!” I said desperately.
She turned. And I had nothing. I tried to think fast.
“A really big emergency,” I repeated loudly.
I caught Sadie’s attention, and her eyes went wide as she snapped her laptop shut.
“Um . . .” I stalled. “There are ants all over the reference section. Someone spilled juice.”
It was a lousy excuse, but too late to make up another one. The librarian muttered something under her breath and rushed in the other direction.
I hurried back to my table to pack up, because I didn’t want to be there when she realized I’d lied.
I was putting my calculator into my bag when a shadow fell over the table.
It was Sadie. And she looked furious.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Fleeing the scene of a crime.” I shouldered my backpack. “Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the ants.”
“That’s not cute,” Sadie said, following me out of the library. “Just in case you were wondering.”
I held the door open for her, and she shot me a look.
“I didn’t need your help.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“It looked like you did,” I told her.
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Whatever.”
I started to head back toward the dorms, but Sadie followed me.
“You’re not going to tell anyone about the router, are you?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I said.
The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. But it had clearly occurred to Sadie. I waited for her to thank me, or to say that I could join them next time they pulled an internet heist, but she did neither of those things. And I was tired of her acting like I was this terrible person who needed to be taught a lesson.
“What is it?” I asked. “Why do you have a problem with me?”
Sadie laughed a little, like it was so obvious that she couldn’t even believe I was asking.
“Think back to summer camp,” she prompted.
“I didn’t even know you.”
“Then why did you ask me to the freaking dance?”
She said it with such force, and such anger, that I took a step back. Her eyes were dark, and her jaw jutted stubbornly, and I knew that whatever she was talking about was the real reason she’d been so awful to me ever since we’d run into each other at the tray return.
“I never asked you to any dance,” I said.
“Yes, you did!” Sadie accused. “You wrote me a note, and you gave me your sunglasses!”
“My sunglasses?” I tried to think back, and then I realized: they’d been stolen, along with my headphones. These two guys in my cabin had gotten kicked out for it, too. They’d taken iPods, watches, even cash.
“I waited forever for you to pick me up for the dance,” Sadie went on. “And then a girl came with that note saying you’d changed your mind.”
“I’ve never written you a note in my life!” I said, which was the truth. “Someone was messing with you, but it wasn’t me!”
Sadie narrowed her eyes at me, like she wasn’t sure what was true, and then she shook her head.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Do you remember the note? The writing?” I asked.
She nodded.
I pulled out my notebook with a flourish.
“Well?” I demanded.
One of the things about having a mom who taught third grade was that she’d drilled me on perfect penmanship. She’d made me practice in composition books after school, sitting next to her while she graded papers. I’d hated it, but it had resulted in what Hannah called “Lane Sans Serif.”
Sadie stared down at my notebook, her cheeks flushing an even brighter shade of pink.
“I have to go,” she mumbled. “Thanks for the, uh, diversion.”
I REALLY WASN’T feeling that great, so I spent the rest of that night in bed. I told myself it was just a migraine, but I suppose on some level I knew the truth. I’d been overdoing it. Too much studying, not enough food, too little sleep.
I’d managed it well enough at home, but that was before. Before my lungs turned traitor, and walking laps around the sports field in Wellness made me so exhausted that I plonked facedown on my mattress after it was over.
I felt gross when I woke up the next morning. I was running a fever, which wasn’t high enough to bother a nurse over but still made getting out of bed feel like an ordeal. I lay there feeling sorry for myself until I barely had enough time to throw on a pair of shorts and make it to breakfast. Genevieve and John and their friend Angela were trying to sell me on their prayer group again, but I couldn’t pay attention.
My head throbbed, and my arms felt so rubbery that it was a miracle I hadn’t dropped my tray in line. I felt like I’d pulled an all-nighter, even though I’d gone to sleep around one.
“Well?” Genevieve asked, leaning toward me. “What do you think?”
I hadn’t been listening. At all. Instead, I’d been watching Tim cut his pancake into tiny pieces and drop them into his cereal, which was so weird that at first I thought I must be imagining it.
“About what?” I asked.
Angela sighed.
And then I started coughing. I scrambled for my handkerchief. But I hadn’t brought it, or that stupid biohazard baggie we were supposed to carry it in, so I grabbed a napkin instead.
When I took it away from my mouth, it was stained with blood.
My mouth tasted disgusting, and the whole table was staring at me uneasily.
The blood thing freaked me out. It had happened twice before, right when I’d gotten sick, but not for weeks now.
“Shit,” I said, balling up the napkin. “Sorry.”
“Hey, everyone has bad days,” John offered. “It’s no big deal if you can’t make it to prayer group later.”
“Wow, thanks, I was really worried about that,” I said. I knew I was being a dick, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t sit there and eat my breakfast while they stared at me with these worried looks on their faces, like my med sensor was about to start beeping.
“I’m not hungry,” I said, picking up my tray. And then I went back to the dorm, where, for the first time that wasn’t six in the morning, both showers were free.
I stood there for a long time in the lukewarm water, hoping it would bring down my fever, and trying not to panic over the indisputable evidence that I wasn’t getting better at all; that, if anything, I was getting worse.
HANNAH CALLED ME that evening. I could hear the excitement in her voice as she asked if I’d gott
en her email, and I told her I hadn’t checked yet.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because the librarian hates me.”
“What did you do, study too loudly?”
Hannah giggled like it was inconceivable that I could do anything to jeopardize my permanent status as teacher’s pet. I sighed, not wanting to get into it.
“I’m not going back there,” I insisted. “I’ll just give up the internet. I’ll go outside or something. I heard there’s this thing called the sun.”
“Overrated,” Hannah said. “Now, go read my essay and call me back, please.”
So I went. Thankfully, the librarian gave me an internet pass without even bothering to look up.
I logged on, not knowing what to do first. Because it turns out, when time is precious, there isn’t much of a point in reading webcomics or listicles. I didn’t have anything important in my in-box apart from Hannah’s essay, which I loaded onto my stick to read later.
I had a couple of Facebook messages, mostly of the “how are things” and “get better soon” variety, from classmates I’d barely ever talked to. And one glance at my wall was enough to thoroughly depress me. Everyone wanted me to know that I was in their thoughts and prayers, except for this kid from math class who was promoting his band’s new EP. I loved that, how there was one guy who just wanted me to buy some music, who either didn’t know or didn’t care what was going on in my life.
For the rest of the time, I clicked through my Facebook photos, trying to see what my life would look like to a total stranger. Most of the pictures were grainy cell phone things, other people’s uploads from the Model UN conferences, featuring everyone in the van, in our suits around a conference table, wearing sweatshirts in an Applebee’s at one in the morning somewhere near San Diego. I had my arm around Hannah in most of them. There were pictures from junior prom, too. Of Hannah and me in our formal wear, our smiles ridiculously fake as we posed with the Paris-themed backdrop. From the pictures, you’d almost think I had a life beyond making the honor roll.
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