Secrets, Lies, and Scandals

by Amanda K. Morgan

  He grinned. She was so damn cute. A couple of hairs had come loose from her perfect braid and were in her eyes. He wanted to move them, but he was afraid to scare her.

  “I appreciate it. I guess.” Kinley smiled a little. “God, Stratford totally sucks, doesn’t he?” she said, and laughed.

  Tyler chuckled. “He’s an asshole. You’re right. He gets off on being mean. It’s not you, you know.”

  “Yeah, but he really seems to hate me.” She pulled her notebook out of her backpack and showed him the list of assignments taped to the first page. “This is what I have to do to get back into his good graces—if I even can, after the phone incident. All by Tuesday.”

  Tyler pulled the list off and whistled. “Okay, maybe he does hate you. But guess what?”

  “What?”

  “You’re in good company,” he said, grinning.

  Kinley slugged him playfully in the arm. Tyler rubbed the spot, pretending it hurt. He sort of liked her. No, he actually liked her. Kinley was the most badass chick he’d met in a while. “You know,” he said, “you aren’t the narc they say you are.”

  She didn’t smile. “Yeah, I kind of am, actually. But you aren’t the delinquent they say you are.”

  Tyler lifted up his shirt, revealing the Baggie, and pretended not to notice when her eyes roamed. “Yes. I am.”

  Cade

  Thursday, June 11

  Cade didn’t like his dad, per se. He guessed that maybe he loved him, in that way kids were genetically inclined to love their parents, but that was pretty much it.

  Everyone said that it was just his culture that made his father so rough and unsympathetic, but Cade knew enough Japanese parents to know the truth: his dad was just an asshole.

  It didn’t mean he didn’t have some decent qualities. Just not many. His very best quality was that everyone was half scared of him, and so basically they always treated Cade with a certain measure of respect.

  He was sort of banking on that today. He cleared his throat and adjusted his shirt, and then he rang the doorbell.

  He fidgeted while he waited, listening to the movement inside the house. This was exactly the kind of house his father scoffed at—it wasn’t that it was low income or anything, but there was a sign next to the door that said BLESS OUR LOVELY HOME, and an odd, slouched scarecrow was packed into a mini rocking chair. The whole place was a well-off woman’s tribute to a Norman Rockwell painting.

  The door opened slowly, and Mrs. McWhellen walked out onto the porch, her red-brown hair pulled back and a touch of flour on the bridge of her nose. When she saw Cade standing there, she gave him a big hug, like she was thrilled to see him.

  “Cade! Sweetie! How’s your father?” Mrs. McWhellen put her hands on her hips and grinned at him. “I haven’t seen him since he got back from India.”

  “Great,” Cade said, returning her hug and breathing deeply. Mrs. McWhellen smelled like cinnamon and apples.

  “What can I do for you, Cade? I’m sure you didn’t come by to see Ivy’s old mom.”

  Cade chuckled. “Actually, is Ivy home? I wanted to talk to her about our psych course.”

  Ivy’s mom half smiled. “She sure is. She’s been having a hard time, Cade. I bet you know that.” She reached out and patted his arm.

  Cade knew. Just about everyone knew about Ivy’s fall from royalty. It was the most vicious mutiny he’d ever seen. There was something sort of beautiful about it, actually—some strange, poetic justice. Ivy had taken down countless girls in her time, and when she finally showed that she had some sort of actual feeling, everyone turned on her. “Nah,” he said. “Everyone still loves Ivy.”

  Mrs. McWhellen glowed. Cade always knew just what to say, especially when it wasn’t exactly true. “Well, come on in. She’s upstairs. You can go knock on her door if you want.”

  Cade thanked Mrs. McWhellen and headed up the curving stairs. He knew where Ivy’s room was from a giant party she’d thrown last year when her parents were out of town. He’d actually tried to hook up with Mal Owens in Ivy’s bedroom, and Ivy had been pretty cool about it—she’d just directed him to a guest room.

  He knocked on her bedroom door, and it swung open to reveal Home Ivy, in yoga pants (tight) and a T-shirt (loose). Her dark hair was pushed back into a careless, messy bun, and her face was clean of makeup. She was far from the evil tyrant queen who ruled the halls of the school, but she was still really beautiful.

  Not good enough to date, though. Not in her current state. It didn’t matter how hot she was. He thought of introducing Ivy to his father and repressed a shudder that started at the small of his back.

  Of course, he had another plan. One that involved making his now-ex second-guess her decision.

  “Cade!” she said, frowning a little. “What are you doing here? She swung her door open a little farther, revealing the expanse of her bedroom, and he walked in, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  “We haven’t talked in a while,” he said. “I thought I’d just stop by.” He smiled and grabbed a picture she had tucked in the corner of her mirror—Ivy and that weird kid, Garrett. His arms were slung around her, and Ivy’s face was relaxed. Happy.

  She hadn’t taken the picture down. That said something.

  Without as much as a flush, Ivy snatched the picture out of his hands. “I forgot this was up,” she said. And then she ripped the picture in two and tossed it in her small silver wastepaper basket. “Funny how your room just sort of fades into the same old environment, right? It’s like you don’t notice anything about it until someone else points it out for you.”

  Cade stared at the pieces of the photo. Ivy McWhellen did not mess around.

  But neither did he. “How are you doing, Ivy?” He sat down on her bed, knowing it would make her uncomfortable. It didn’t matter who she was—all girls got a little weird with such an intimate gesture.

  Ivy, though, sat down at her desk and pulled up Facebook on her laptop. “Fine. Listen, what are you even doing here? Can I help you with something? I really don’t have a lot of time.”

  This was the new Ivy, then. She’d dispensed with her old games. She was smart enough to see there was no point.

  “I thought you could use a friend.”

  She spun around in her chair and glared. The same glare that had cut so many of her peers to ribbons. “Really?”

  Cade respected that. Clearly, he wasn’t going to get far with his revenge-on-Bekah plan. And clearly, Ivy McWhellen did not care what his father could do to her. She was already destroyed.

  There was actually a certain freedom in total destruction, and for a moment, Cade envied her. She was freer than he’d ever be. Freer than his father. His mother. His sister.

  Of course, everyone was freer than his sister.

  “Psychology class,” he amended. He didn’t move from her bed.

  She didn’t stop glaring.

  “What about psychology class?” she asked.

  “I missed a few classes. And we have a test coming up, right?”

  “Yes,” Ivy said slowly. She folded her hands and rested them on a crossed leg. “What about it?”

  “I thought maybe you could help me?” Cade asked. “I feel like I missed a ton.”

  “You could be asking Kinley. She’s smarter than me.”

  Cade knew that Ivy wasn’t being self-effacing. Kinley really was smarter than just about everyone. She was probably smarter than Stratford. Her family was known for being brilliant. Her great-grandfather was actually rumored to be one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s key advisers.

  But that also didn’t make Kinley a suitable study buddy. Or any other kind of buddy either. Cade ran his hand over Ivy’s bedspread.

  “The narc?” he asked. “Really?”

  Ivy looked up at the ceiling, exasperated. “What do you want, Cade? Do you want me to tutor you? Do you want to study together? Or, what, do you want to be pals? Do you want to be the first dude to have sex with the recently fallen? Seriously. Jus
t spit it out.” She turned back to her laptop.

  Cade spotted her backpack leaning against her bed. It was half open, and notes were sticking out of the top. Her psych notes. They had to be. Ivy definitely wasn’t taking another class.

  “I’ll go,” he said. He stood up, slipped the notes out of the backpack, and stuffed them in his shirt.

  Ivy turned to him. “Fine.”

  Cade paused at her door. “I like you, Ivy McWhellen. But you really should be careful who you’re mean to.”

  Ivy smiled very tightly. “I like you, Cade Sano. But honestly? I don’t give a shit.”

  Ivy

  Friday, June 12

  List all of Freud’s psychosexual stages and a three-paragraph description of each.

  Ivy bit the eraser on her pencil as she reread the question. It was something she hadn’t done since she was little—the pencil-biting. Something she’d only done when she was stressed. Her mother had hated it. She claimed it was the reason Ivy’s teeth had gone all crooked around fifth grade. And every time Ivy bitched about having her braces tightened, her mother would instantly appear and remind her that it was Her Own Fault, and that if she kept it up she’d just have to get braces again, and wouldn’t that be embarrassing?

  Right now, Ivy didn’t care. If there was anything the past few months had taught her, it was that a little metal in her mouth was the least of her life issues.

  And right now, she could only think one thing: she wasn’t ready for this test.

  In fact, the only thing she was absolutely sure she could get right was her name. And the way she was going, she would probably screw that up too.

  Oral, anal, phallic, latent . . . She scrawled the words on her paper. Damn it. There were others, weren’t there? Hadn’t that jerk Tyler gotten all snickery about them last class? Damn it.

  If only she hadn’t lost her notes. She knew she’d written this stuff down. And she knew she had been putting them in her backpack and labeling them for every single class. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the time to keep good notes.

  But then yesterday, when she finally decided to start studying, they were gone. Just gone. They weren’t in her backpack. They weren’t anywhere in her room. And she’d torn apart the car her parents had bought her for her sixteenth birthday and found nothing (except a peasant-style headband that she was certain Klaire had stolen, like, a year ago).

  She bit down harder on the eraser. What were the others? Were they physical? Did latent count as physical?

  She cast a furtive look around the room. Stratford sat at the desk, looking happier than she’d ever seen him. One half of his weird face quirked upward, like torturing innocent students with a ridiculous test was how he got his jollies.

  The other students looked just as perplexed as Ivy felt. Kip was rubbing his forehead, and even perfect, pretty Kinley—well, she looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept all weekend. Maybe she was sick. Her braid had fuzzed out around the edges, and she wasn’t even writing—just rolling her pen on her desk, up and back, up and back.

  Ivy scanned the questions on the first page, then flipped to the second.

  Describe Pavlov and his canine experiments in detail.

  Ivy frowned. Her mother would have scolded her for that, too. Frown lines. Did Ivy really want Botox before she turned 20?

  Ivy was 100 percent certain that Dr. Stratford had never even mentioned any Pavlov, let alone any dogs. And what had he done to them, anyway? Wasn’t experimenting on animals illegal? Well, maybe it wasn’t in the Deep South.

  Or maybe, just maybe, she would have known all of this if she hadn’t lost her notes.

  Ivy cast a desperate look at the door, and locked eyes with Mattie, who shrugged. She’d borrowed his notes last night, but they weren’t great. Mattie didn’t keep notes like she did, and he was missing an entire class from the day he was locked out.

  Ivy flipped to the third page. Guilt. She remembered this. This was the stuff about the different portions of the psyche—id, ego, superego. She repeated them to herself as she scrawled them down. Maybe she’d actually get one right.

  Probably not, though. Stratford was definitely the kind of professor who ruined lives if someone misplaced a comma.

  Ivy sucked at commas.

  She bit down harder, and part of the eraser came off in her mouth. She plucked it off her tongue and put it in her bag.

  She looked outside. Night was falling, but it was still too dark for the time of day. Strange gray-green clouds had been moving across the sky all afternoon, and on the way to class, she’d watched little bolts of lightning explode across an approaching thunderhead.

  As she’d driven in, she’d prayed for the storm to come faster, to bring severe weather warnings that would force Stratford to cancel class. Maybe he’d get in a car accident, and everyone would show up and he wouldn’t. Or maybe Ivy would, but even if she were bleeding out in a hospital bed somewhere, she doubted the professor would excuse her from the class.

  She glanced up at her professor again, at his gleeful face, and he caught her eye.

  He grinned.

  She hated him a little then.

  Maybe a lot.

  In the back of the classroom, she heard a chair scratch across the floor as someone stood up. It was Kayla, who wasn’t even that smart. Even so, she crossed the floor and set her test purposefully on Stratford’s desk.

  “Have a nice night,” he told her, reaching for his glasses and his red pen.

  Kayla nodded cautiously, but even before she made it through the door, he began making big, gleeful red strokes across the front page of her test. “Abysmal!” he murmured, bordering on radiant happiness.

  Everyone hated him then. Ivy could tell by the way they hunched over their tests, the way they gripped their pencils, the way their expressions folded in on themselves.

  Outside, the beginnings of rain began to hit the windowpanes. Thunder echoed in the distance.

  “This is bullshit,” someone muttered.

  Ivy turned around.

  Tyler. He was leaned back in his chair in that way that only the real delinquents have mastered, and it looked like he’d almost finished his test—at least, his test papers were open to the fourth page and had been covered in his heavy-handed scrawl.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Green?”

  “We never even talked about a bunch of this stuff!” Tyler said, motioning at his papers. “How are we supposed to know about dogs?”

  Ivy sucked in her breath. That was definitely not the way to talk to a teacher. Especially not Evil, Soul-Sucking ones like Dr. Stratford. She glanced at the Evil Soul Sucker.

  “I assume you haven’t cracked your textbook, Mr. Green?” Stratford asked.

  Tyler didn’t answer. He just slumped a little farther in his desk.

  “Well, in that case, why don’t you bring your test to me right now? It seems that if you’re in a place where you have time to volunteer your opinions, you don’t need any more time to take my test. Am I wrong?”

  “Fine,” Tyler said, lurching out of his chair. He dropped the test on Dr. Stratford’s desk. He had plugged his headphones into his ears and was almost out the door when—

  “Wait,” Stratford called to his back. “I think we have some items to discuss after class.”

  “Items?”

  Dr. Stratford was smiling again, the weird, hungry smile that didn’t properly cover his mouth. Ivy shivered. There was something wrong with that man. Physically, for sure, and maybe mentally, too.

  “Sit, Green.”

  Tyler stared longingly at the door for a second, and Ivy thought that maybe—just maybe—he was going to make a break for it.

  But he turned around and stomped back to his desk. He dropped his bag on the floor and slid back in, his lips pressed tightly together like he was trying to stop himself from saying something else.

  Dr. Stratford stood, suddenly, and with his hands clasped behind his back, began walking around the classroom, surveying the r
emaining students.

  Kip took the opportunity to jump up and throw his test on Dr. Stratford’s desk. He was out the door before Stratford even had a chance to speak.

  Mattie followed him, casting a fearful glance back as he left, like Stratford might reach out and pull him back in.

  Mattie didn’t even notice he’d left his phone on the desk. Ivy made a mental note to grab it and return it to him later.

  One by one, the test-takers dwindled as Dr. Stratford observed them, looking over their shoulders and making disgusted noises deep in his throat.

  Ivy tried to ignore him, but it was pretty hard when he chuckled as he passed her desk. He moved toward the back of the classroom, his right arm crossed over his stomach, supporting the elbow of his left while he stroked the scraggly remnants of his beard.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  Ivy turned around. He was at Cade’s desk.

  Cade shrugged.

  Dr. Stratford leaned down and pulled out a few neat papers.

  Papers Ivy immediately recognized.

  Her notes. Cade must have stolen them out of her bedroom. Her heart sped up as Dr. Stratford paged through the papers, the sheets crackling under rough fingers.

  “Cade, I do believe you’ll be staying after class with Tyler. We’ll be discussing the zero you’ll be receiving in my course, and the fact that you will never be welcome here again. Oh, and”—he paused, scanning the notes—“Ivy McWhellen? Seeing as how you were so very excited to share your wisdom, I feel like we should have a similar discussion.”

  Ivy’s heart moved into her throat. Dr. Stratford couldn’t do that. Cade had stolen the notes. It wasn’t like Ivy was sitting next to him, feeding him answers.

  Surely Cade would clear it up. He’d tell Stratford the truth.

  But then, Ivy hadn’t been very nice to Cade. Maybe he’d take the opportunity to let her burn right along with him.

  “Sir—” Ivy said, standing up.

  “Sit,” Stratford said, pointing down. “There’s no talking during tests, Ms. McWhellen. We’ll all have plenty of time for a little chat when everyone else leaves.”