“Those assholes,” I had said, poring over the Tennessee Star. The paper had reported the rumor that Mom didn’t attend the Tennessee anniversary celebration because she was having a nervous breakdown. “Why are they saying these things?”
“They think rich people don’t have problems,” Jenna had replied, “And because we’re rich, we shouldn’t be allowed to complain. Money changes a lot of stuff, yeah, but not everything. We’re allowed to feel shitty.”
I can always trust my sister to tell it exactly like it is. For instance, just this past summer, Jenna mentioned she’s worried my parents are arguing about money more. I’d noticed the same thing. I didn’t voice it aloud though.
Ever since Aunt Virginia died, Mom and Dad have had philosophical differences about wealth. Mom thinks that life is short, and since we have the money, we should be living it up, staying in fancier hotels on trips. Hell, she thinks we should be going on more trips in general. To experience the world.
And Dad is still Dad.
I shut Mom’s bedroom door with a click, letting out a sigh of relief. For a second, I was worried I’d have to talk to her. She’s been snapping at me, which is uncharacteristic for her. Normally, she floats around graciously like Duchess Kate.
I continue up the stairs. My parents’ room is on the second floor, and Oliver, Jenna, and I are on the third. When we’re all home for holidays and school breaks, it’s always rowdy and loud up there. Oliver loves blasting rap music—for some reason, the boy lives for clubbing—and Jenna is always screaming at him to turn the music down so she can read “a hot sex scene.” Jenna loves historical romance novels.
Today, it’s quiet and lonely.
Chewing on a cracker, I change into athletic shorts, a sports bra, and a T-shirt. Then I take a long run up and down the rolling roads of Franklin. With each step, I feel the tension bleeding out of my muscles, but the moment I get home, I’m alone with my thoughts again, and my shoulders clench back up.
Dinner? I sit at the long empty table with only a buzzing phone to keep me company. Texts from my friends, telling me everything I’m missing, wanting to know if I’m okay. St. Andrew’s is about two hours from Franklin, up on Monteagle Mountain, but students can’t leave without advance permission from their parents and the school, so I probably won’t be seeing my friends anytime soon. Sure, kids sneak off campus sometimes, but it has to be worth risking a week of detention.
Mom joins me for dinner way after I’ve finished my salmon and salad. I’d been staring out the window, pissed off at Ben—and glad he’s not around—yet missing him all the same. It’s complicated.
“Taylor, I’d appreciate it if you’d dress for dinner. Your outfit”—she pauses, scrunching her nose at my running gear—“is inappropriate for the dining room.”
“I’ll try to dress more like Jenna in the future,” I say dryly, but Mom’s too busy scrolling on her iPad and forking lettuce into her mouth like a robot to notice my attitude. When Dad’s away, she might as well be married to that iPad.
The loneliness gives me an idea. “Mom? Can I get a dog?”
She looks up from her screen. “Why?”
“For company. I miss Oscar—”
“Who is Oscar?”
“The dog at Card House. Can I please get one?”
“It would mess up the carpets.”
Spoken like a person who has never had a dog and doesn’t understand the happiness they bring to your life.
Mom adds, “Besides, you should be thinking about what you did wrong.”
How could I forget?
My phone buzzes, and I sigh when I see his name flash across the screen. Right before I left campus for the last time, I broke up with him by text, but he won’t stop calling.
“Who’s that?” Mom asks, staring at my phone.
“Ben,” I mumble.
“That boy is not good enough for you,” she says.
It’s true. He’s not good enough for me, but not for the reasons my parents think. Mom never approved of Ben because he’s a scholarship kid. Dad didn’t mind that my ex-boyfriend isn’t well off, but ever since Ben asked about internship opportunities in my father’s Chattanooga office, he hasn’t been a fan. Dad thought Ben was using me to get ahead.
I don’t approve because I tried to help him—and he abandoned me when shit hit the fan.
Mom goes back to scrolling on her iPad. My phone buzzes again. I turn it to silent so I don’t have to listen to more texts coming in. Madison complaining that soccer practice sucked this afternoon without me on offense. Steph telling me how Madison has changed her clothes four times since classes ended today, trying to figure out what to wear when she hangs out tonight with Chris, this guy she likes. Every other text is about how angry they are St. Andrew’s kicked me out. I miss my friends…
Ben’s texts are always the same: Tee, please call me back. Please.
I told him it was over, and now he wants to explain. To work things out.
Well, fuck that.
I text him back: We were over the minute you didn’t help me like I helped you!!
He does not respond. Which is heartbreaking, but not surprising. If he admits the truth, he’ll get kicked out of school and he’d lose his scholarship and probably his future along with it. Getting admitted to St. Andrew’s was his big break in life. His chance to rise above his poor upbringing.
But what about me? I could turn him in, but I don’t betray the people I love. Loved? Love. Ugh. Like I said, it’s complicated.
I pick up my dinner plate to take it to the sink to rinse. At Card House, we all took turns doing the dishes. I’ve always enjoyed it, to tell you the truth. Swipe left, swipe right, round and round and round. The repetitive motion, like running, helps me let go of my worries and relax.
After I’m finished, I’m not sure how to spend the rest of my night. Write an essay for Yale about why they should be thrilled to admit a liar to walk their hallowed halls?
With a sigh, I go to my room and lie down on my bed. It’s cold and empty without Oscar’s warm body curled up against my side. The dog must be wondering where I went. Will he eventually forget I was ever there?
I gaze around the room at the stylish yellow and gray walls with pink accents. I haven’t unpacked my boxes from St. Andrew’s yet. I have no pictures of friends. I haven’t yet displayed the artwork and knickknacks I picked up at museums all over the world. Other than some dirty clothes scattered on the floor, it’s like I’m in a guest room at a B&B.
It’s like I’m a guest in somebody else’s life.
• • •
Before day two at my new school, my phone lights up as I’m sitting at my vanity, drying my long, amber-colored hair.
I set down my hair dryer and answer it. “What’s up?”
“Thought I’d check in before I head to class in a few,” Oliver replies.
“You actually go to class?” I tease. My brother would never skip. He’s dedicated to his schoolwork, just like me.
“How’d school go yesterday?” he asks.
“Honestly? I can’t even remember it. I went to class, but I don’t know what I heard.”
I fill my brother in on my talk with Dad and how he won’t give me a reference for Yale. This doesn’t surprise Oliver. He doesn’t bother trying to make me feel better, saying “Dad’ll come around,” because he won’t. Once Dad makes a decision, there’s no changing it.
“I need to beef up my résumé,” I say. My freshman through junior years are covered, but I need activities for my senior year—and fast. I have an interview with the Yale admissions office scheduled for early October. Without a reference, all I have to stand on is my résumé. Jenna told me that a world-famous youth cellist attends Yale. Another guy who was nominated for a best supporting Oscar at age twelve for his role in an artsy film about apartheid in South Africa is in J
enna’s philosophy class. I don’t feel special at all.
“What’s happening with soccer?” Oliver asks. “Any chance you can get on the Hundred Oaks team?”
“I’m gonna talk to the coach today. See if there’s room for me.”
“Of course there’s room for you,” my brother says with a laugh. “Doesn’t Hundred Oaks suck?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. St. Andrew’s has played Hundred Oaks in the past, and we slaughtered them every time. Last year, I scored four goals against them in one game. And now I have to go see the coach and grovel to play for them.
“Did you meet anybody nice yesterday?” Oliver asks.
I slump in my vanity chair. “I didn’t talk to anyone.”
“Why not? That’s not like you.”
“I wasn’t ready. I still can’t believe this is happening.”
“I guess you haven’t seen Ben, huh? You miss him?”
I pull the phone away from my ear, squeezing my eyes shut. “No. I broke up with him.”
“What?” Oliver blurts. “How come?”
If I admit the truth about what happened, Oliver will tell Mom and Dad, and then Ben will get kicked out of St. Andrew’s. If that happens, my sacrifice will be for nothing. Even though I’m pissed at Ben for hanging me out to dry, I won’t snitch.
“It won’t work out with him at school and me here,” I lie.
“Yeah,” Oliver replies. “Remember when Jenna screwed things up with Jack Goodwin because she couldn’t handle the long distance?”
“I remember.”
Mom loves that Jenna always acts like a perfect lady. She wears snowy-white pearls without complaint, and you’d never see her out of makeup. She goes to Bible study, for crying out loud. That’s not all there is to her. Imagine the smartest, most beautiful girl in the room who is kind of like a bad-girl version of Hermione Granger. When Mom and Dad aren’t around, she’s more crass than a sailor, which I’ve always found highly entertaining. But Jenna has always been sort of…horny.
Mom doesn’t know Jenna cheated on her ex-boyfriend Jack—son of one of the richest men in Tennessee and one of Dad’s biggest campaign supporters—by sleeping with an exchange student from France. If Mom knew that, she’d have a heart attack. I don’t condone Jenna cheating on Jack, but I don’t care that she likes fooling around with guys. Girls are in charge of their own bodies, desires, and feelings.
“But I thought you liked Ben,” Oliver says, bringing me back to our conversation.
I didn’t just like him. I loved him. We lost our virginity to each other. Now I don’t think I knew what love is. Obviously Ben couldn’t love me, because when it came time to stand up and tell the truth, he didn’t. I took all the blame so he wouldn’t get kicked out of school. I assumed because of who my dad is, the administration would give me community service or make me clean the bathrooms or do dishes for a month. I never imagined that they would expel me.
When I called Dad to beg for his help, he said, “You got yourself into this. You’ll have to work through the consequences.”
I thought I could handle the sacrifice I made to save Ben’s scholarship, but I can’t. Deep down, I was hoping he’d defend me and come clean, telling everybody what happened was his fault. He’s the reason I don’t plan on dating again. Because you gamble when you give a guy your heart.
I bet wrong.
• • •
Before my second day of school, I stop at Foothills for coffee. This diner is from the Stone Age.
I step inside, expecting to find woolly mammoths and cave drawings, but instead, a bunch of old men sitting in vinyl booths look up from their newspapers. They’re all, like, eighty years old. Perfect. Well, perfect in the sense that none of these men are going to tempt me like that hot guy at Donut Palace yesterday.
It’s not so perfect because, well, I get nervous around the elderly.
It goes back to eighth grade when my school choir visited a Chattanooga nursing home. We were singing Christmas carols to a large group of residents when this old man stood up from the audience and made a beeline for me. He grabbed my elbow, then demanded we play gin rummy.
Since then, I steer clear of old men, which is difficult when your father wants to keep his senate seat. He’s always making me attend events, like the local bingo night. I wouldn’t mind if I actually got to play for real. But a senator’s daughter should be seen, not heard, and that’s impossible when yelling “Bingo!” I’ve won a lot of games without anyone knowing.
I pass a booth of old guys who are complaining about the Titans offensive line, walk up to the to-go counter, ring the bell, and that’s when it happens.
“Tease.”
I’d recognize that slow, deep voice anywhere. Over the years, he stopped calling me Tee like everyone else and had nicknamed me Tease. Why on earth is he here? Isn’t he in college at Cornell? Is it his fall break? Oh God, talk about the last person I want to see!
“Tee?”
I slowly turn toward him.
Ezra Carmichael.
The guy who filled my thoughts for years and years.
The first time I met him, I was ten. For elementary school, I went to a private girls’ school, so I hadn’t met many of my brother’s friends. It was Oliver’s twelfth birthday party, and he had invited a ton of boys over to the house for video games, swimming, and a game of football. Mom said they had to play two-hand touch, but as soon as she went to the back patio to drink mint juleps with the other moms, Ezra announced to the boys that they were playing tackle.
“No wimps!” he said, and of course, none of the boys tried to bow out. You had to play tackle or you’d be considered a pansy forever.
With hands on my hips, I stood on the porch in my little red dress and announced, “I want to play!”
“No way!” Oliver said.
“Let me on your team or I’m telling Mom you’re playing tackle and you’ll be in trouble!”
Ezra scowled. “Just let her play, Oll. She can be on my team.”
The other team kicked off. I sprinted forward and somehow managed to catch the ball. “I caught it!” I yelled, and Ezra waved his arms, screaming, “Run!”
I took off for the end zone, my red skirt flapping in the wind. I was nearly there—and then this whale of a kid tackled me into the ground. A rock gashed my forehead.
I felt blood trickling down my face as Ezra slid to a stop in front of me. He pulled off his sweaty T-shirt and held it to my forehead, stopping the flow of blood. It hurt like the devil, but I couldn’t cry in front of these boys, especially Ezra, who had stood up for me and argued to let me play. So I bit down on my lip.
He crouched over me that day. “Tee? You okay?”
“Did I score?”
Ezra burst out laughing, and that’s when I knew I wanted to marry him.
When we were in high school together, I spent a lot of time secretly doodling Ezra + Tee and Tee + Ezra in the margins of my notebook, then scribbling over it so no one would see. I thought our names sounded perfect together, looked perfect together, and thus we would be perfect together. But he didn’t think so. Or at least I don’t think he did. I base this assumption on the fact that even though he flirted with me, he never made a move, and I chickened out the few times I might have had a chance to.
After what happened on my sixteenth birthday, we stopped hanging out. So of course, he’d show up again when my entire life is falling apart because karma.
His deep voice calls out again. “Tee.”
I open my eyes and face Ezra Carmichael.
Modeling Integrity
Ezra is at the sugar station, pouring half-and-half into a steaming cup of coffee. The sight of him turns my knees to JELL-O. Dark, cropped hair. Serious green eyes that glance away from mine to make sure his coffee isn’t overflowing. The way he licks his lower lip when he’s concent
rating. I’ve rarely seen Ezra out of a white button-down Oxford shirt, khakis, and blue plaid tie, which is the dress code for guys at St. Andrew’s. Now he’s wearing holey jeans spotted with paint and a bright-white T-shirt that is magnified by his warm tan. He’s carrying a construction helmet under his muscled arm.
“What are you wearing?” I blurt.
His cheeks flush at my outburst. “What are you wearing? Where’s your uniform?”
I look down at my jeans and cardigan. It’s been weird trying to figure out what to wear—I’ve never had to pick out school clothes before. I own one pair of jeans, because when I’m not at school or soccer practice, I wear dresses and skirts to parties and political events.
“I don’t need the uniform anymore,” I finally reply.
“But you’re a senior.”
“I am, but I’m going to Hundred Oaks now…”
His eyes go wide. “Why?”
“You don’t know?”
“Should I?”
“I figured everybody knew. I bet the guys on the International Space Station even know.” Ezra’s face is blank. “It was all over Facebook,” I tell him.
“I didn’t see anything, I guess,” he says quietly. This is not a surprise to me. He doesn’t have a Tumblr or Twitter account. He never posts anything on Facebook. At least not in the past several months. Not that I noticed or anything. I’m no stalker. Well, not all the time.
It’s weird that he’s never online. My brother’s phone is practically fused to his fingers.
“Are you home for fall break already?” I ask.
He rubs the back of his neck, meeting my eyes for a long moment, and just as I’m asking why he’s holding a construction hat—“Isn’t it a little early for Halloween?”—an older man dressed in a T-shirt and dirty jeans comes into the diner and waves at him.
“Ezra, man, let’s go!”
“Take care, Tease,” he says, then hurries out the door and jumps into a truck with a construction logo on the side. As they drive away, he stares at me through the window.
Defending Taylor (Hundred Oaks #7) Page 2