Reading Between the Lines

by Katrina Abbott

  Jared was waiting in the hall and I glanced up to see his concerned face before I quickly turned away and allowed the dean to lead me out of the building to the parking lot.

  ~ ♥ ~

  As I put the key card into my dorm room lock, I realized I’d completely forgotten about the thing with Dave and Emmie. At least, until that very second, when I opened the door and heard the water running in the bathroom.

  I cursed, wishing she was down the hall in the lounge with the other girls, but I entered the room anyway and headed straight to my computer on the off chance Robert forgot my cell number and had e-mailed me to get in touch.

  Nothing. And I re-checked my cell to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Nothing there either.

  I used the land-line to call his cell, but it went straight to voice mail, so I left a casual message saying hi and asking him to contact me once he sobered up. I even included a “Ha ha,” hoping it would sound like one very normal sibling kidding around with another.

  I didn’t think Robert was one to drink, but we hadn’t really been in touch much since I’d come to Rosewood and he was deep in his studies at Yale in the accelerated MBA program, so anything was possible. But there was no way he’d gone on a bender to Mexico. Something was definitely wrong.

  No One Is Flawless

  Five minutes later, which was three hundred seconds of staring at my electronic devices and willing my brother to contact me, Emmie came out of the bathroom. I turned my head to look at her. Her short pixie-cut hair was wet, shining almost blue-black in the overhead light. She was wearing her pajamas already; as early risers, we both went to bed at lame o’clock.

  “Hey,” she said with a half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. I’d been prepared to be mad at her for not giving me a heads up about her dumping Dave, but that look on her face along with the fear over my brother tamped down my anger at her. Something was really wrong.

  “Hey,” I said back. “What’s going on?”

  She exhaled and came to sit heavily on her bed. “I’m sure you heard what I did.”

  I nodded because there could be no doubt what she was talking about. “Dave told me.”

  “How is he?”

  How was I supposed to answer that? “I think he was surprised. Definitely sad.”

  She looked down at her hands and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You should have told me you were going to break up with him,” I said. “That was...”

  She looked up at me and I choked on my words, suddenly sure she knew about the incident that had happened between Dave and me in the bed. In her bed.

  “Sorry. I totally should have told you, but we were talking and it sort of slipped out.”

  What? “It slipped out that you wanted to break up with him? How does that happen?”

  “Not exactly like that. He was talking about making plans for Thanksgiving—to go home with him to spend it with his family since mine won’t be in the country—and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep lying to him. You know I don’t see a future with him, so I had to end it. It was kind of harsh the way it happened, and I hated doing it on the phone, but I didn’t want to bring him all the way over here just to end it with him.”

  I didn’t mention the fact that getting him to come all the way over here really wasn’t like calling him to go from one coast to the other. Anyway, I wasn’t one to judge and probably would have chickened out, too. No, I totally would have chickened out.

  I took a breath and chewed on my words but it didn’t stop me from blurting out, “He said you think there’s someone else.”

  “Someone else?” She looked at me blankly for a second while I held my breath, then shook her head and said, “Oh that. I had to say something. He has seemed a bit distracted lately, but it’s not like I actually thought he was cheating on me. There should be someone else for him. He’s an amazing guy and I do really care about him, just not that way, you know? God, it killed me to do it, but better to cut him loose now.”

  It seemed so inconceivable to me that she could have this perfect guy in front of her and yet not have those feelings for him. He was the perfect mix of funny and sexy and smelled so good I could see myself sneaking up to his dorm room and stealing a t-shirt out of his laundry hamper to sleep in. You know, if I didn’t room with his now ex-girlfriend. And it wasn’t completely stalkerish and creepy.

  But the heart wants what it wants (or doesn’t want what it doesn’t want) as they say. And Emmie was such an amazing girl and friend that I couldn’t exactly fault her for not being into him the way I obviously was.

  “Is there someone else for you?” I asked, thinking about the other Westwood guys I’d met. There were certainly plenty of quality guys to choose from.

  She shrugged. “The thing with Dave is...” she trailed off and then shook her head.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to think it’s stupid.”

  “Probably. But tell me anyway.”

  Emmie smirked. “He’s too perfect.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, perfection. That’s the worst. A hot guy who’s smart and nice?” I shivered.

  “I know, right? He’s just...I don’t know. I want a messy guy. Someone that needs a little fixing.”

  “Like a hobo?”

  She gave me a withering look.

  “Okay, so not a hobo. Like a bad boy?”

  Her eyes lit up and she nodded. Which seemed so stupid. I hated when girls were attracted to guys who treated them like garbage. I wouldn’t have pegged Emmie as one of those girls. She didn’t take crap from anyone. But...

  “So you’re looking for a jerk?”

  “No...” She shook her head. “Not like that. Just someone without...polish. Maybe just a bit of a bad boy with some tattoos or scars and not so clean-cut.”

  “Someone who would make your mother have a coronary?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Emmie, you can’t just date someone because you know your parents wouldn’t approve.”

  She waved me off. “It wouldn’t be just for that reason. I want someone who looks a bit dangerous.”

  I looked at my roommate sideways. “You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?”

  “Of course not,” she said, frowning. “I’m not talking about writing letters to death-row inmates to find a husband here, Brooklyn. Just someone a little less...bourgeois. Someone who will rattle the ladies of the Junior League if I bring him to a dinner at the country club. You know. Someone more earthy.” She leaned in close like she was about to tell me a secret, even though it was just us in the room. “Maybe someone who didn’t come from gobs and gobs of money and who actually earns it himself. Blue collar is so sexy.” She fanned herself with her hand.

  I laughed. “Well that pretty much eliminates everyone at Westwood unless you can find the rest of the scholarship students. Maybe Declan can help you suss them out.”

  “Is that stupid?” she asked, suddenly serious.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I get it. Growing up with money, you see people who are used to it and take it for granted. Sometimes having it isn’t the best thing in the world.”

  “You get it, Brooklyn. That’s why it’s so important to me to give back, you know? I hate how much my parents waste on stupid things. And I want the same from a guy. Not that Dave’s not a good guy, because he is and he does care about those things, just not the same way I do. I wish he was the right guy for me—it would make my life so much easier and make so much sense, but...” she shrugged, not bothering to finish.

  I felt bad that she was obviously so conflicted about him. But at the same time, I was secretly very relieved she didn’t know about what had happened between him and me. I did hate keeping a secret from her, but at least I knew I hadn’t been the cause of their breakup.

  “And I’m sorry to put you in that awkward spot,” she said, bringing me out of my thoughts. “That was crappy of me. I should have texted you, but I totally forgot you had your CSA with
him tonight. How did that go, anyway?” She gave me an apologetic look, like she already knew the answer to her own question.

  “We didn’t get any work done. He was more concerned with asking me if I knew you were going to break up with him.”

  She cringed. “Ugh. Sorry.”

  I waved it off because what else could I do? “After that, he bailed. He was kind of in a mood.”

  She nodded. “Did you see Abe at least?”

  “Yeah...” I trailed off, thinking about how I’d left him wondering what was going on and probably thinking I was the biggest over-reactor ever. I probably owed him a text.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I may have messed things up with Jared.”

  Her eyes went wide. “What? How?”

  How to explain? I shrugged, like it was no big deal. “We were finally getting around to making out and my phone rang. I took the call and then ran away from him to come back here.”

  Emmie did a double-take. “Why? What’s going on?”

  I sighed. “My brother has gone AWOL and my mother’s kind of freaking out.”

  “AWOL?”

  “He seems to have left Yale and no one has heard from him.” I tried to downplay my nerves, but even just mentioning it had my heart pounding again.

  “That’s not like him, is it?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Not at all. I guess that’s why I was anxious to come back here to check my e-mail. I called and left a message, but...” I trailed off again with another shrug.

  “Abe will understand,” she said, waving off my concern. “He’s a good guy. And a good kisser, I hope,” she added with one of her signature Emmie smirks.

  “We didn’t quite get that far.”

  “Now that really makes me sad,” she said, making me laugh. “When will you see him again?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but got a text notification. “Sorry,” I said, but Emmie shook her head and nodded toward where my phone was on the desk behind me.

  “I need to get into bed anyway,” she said, pulling up the covers and sliding her legs in.

  It wasn’t from Robert as I’d hoped, but from Jared, making me feel like he was either psychic or he’d been listening in on Emmie and I talking about him. Suddenly paranoid, I looked around, even though I knew if we were bugged, there was a good chance I wouldn’t find it with my naked eyes. Bugs had gotten so sophisticated, they were almost impossible to detect.

  “Is it him?” Emmie asked and I knew she meant my brother.

  “No. Jared.”

  “I told you he’d get over it. Keep me posted if you hear from your brother,” she said and then turned toward the wall, her breath evening out almost instantly. Her physically grueling community service assignment down in the laundry had to suck, but it did guarantee her a good night’s sleep.

  I looked down at the message from Jared. Everything ok?

  No. But I texted back: Waiting to hear from him. Sorry for running out on you like a freak.

  Understand. Let me know if I can do anything.

  Thanks

  There was a long pause and I thought we were done, when another text came through.

  Would it be weird if I asked you to read my book?

  I paused for a second until I realized he meant his book. The one he was writing. Wow. He wanted me to read his memoir about being a child actor? That was a big deal, since I knew from Dave that he’d had a pretty crappy childhood and I’d thought maybe he wouldn’t want me to know about it.

  Before it got weird that I was pausing for so long, I texted him back. Why me?

  Because no one else would understand the Hello Kitty references.

  I smiled as I stared at my phone until he sent: I’m kidding. Because you’re smart and a journalist.

  He forgot to add wannabe after journalist, but I was flattered and of course, he’d made me laugh. Flattery accomplished—I’d be honored to read it.

  Great. Can I bring it to you tomorrow night?

  And then there was that complication. Sorry, I have equestrian practice. There was no way I could bail on Brady’s private lesson to meet up with my boyfriend. Even though equestrian practices—especially the private ones that were just Brady and I—were incredibly awkward since that smoking hot kiss at the masquerade ball. Neither one of us had mentioned it, but that didn’t mean either of us had forgotten it. I could feel Brady’s eyes on me constantly, the weight of his gaze as heavy as his hands had been on my flesh less than seven days before. The memory of his taste and smell making me shiver and my skin turn to gooseflesh.

  Saturday? I’ll meet u 1st flr lounge 2pm.

  I shook off thoughts of my coach and the impossible situation that could never be, instead thumbing at my screen. Sounds good. See you then.

  <3 J.

  Forcing the last lingering thoughts of Brady out of my brain, I thought about Jared, this huge, built guy sending me a heart smilie. He was pretty cute, my boyfriend. My boyfriend—the guy who had grown up on network TV and went to award shows where he rubbed shoulders with Oscar winners and superstars.

  But more than that, he was such a nice guy and I felt even worse about bailing on him earlier when he’d tried to help and comfort me and I’d just run off. But like Emmie had said, he was obviously over it, making me feel a little better about the evening’s events. Other than the whole missing brother thing, of course. But as I thought about Jared, I knew I had definitely lucked out in the boyfriend department.

  Reunion

  I tried not to panic, but it wasn’t easy. Being called down to the dean’s office in the middle of the school day could only mean one thing: something horrible had happened to my brother and they were bringing me to the office to tell me.

  Although, I thought as I made my way down the empty hallway, if the worst had happened (I couldn’t even bring myself to consider precisely what that might mean) my parents would have contacted me. I was sure of it, actually. But other than a couple more sweet texts from Jared this morning, my phone had been eerily silent. No news—at least in this case—was good news.

  So it had to be about something else. But what? My grades were fine and I hadn’t missed any classes. And when I’d had her drive me back to Rosewood the night before, I’d given the dean a lame excuse about how I’d forgotten my mom’s birthday and needed to Skype her right away, which she seemed to believe.

  So what could it be?

  It suddenly occurred to me that maybe the dean knew about what had happened with Brady in that supply closet at the dance. Maybe I was being pulled into her office so she could throw me off the equestrian team and freak out about me distracting her son from not only his duty as the Rosewood equestrian coach but also his own Olympic training.

  Maybe she’d even try to blame me for that bone-melting kiss when it had absolutely been initiated by Brady.

  I mean, I hadn’t exactly pushed him away. But he’d totally started it and I would have stopped it eventually if we hadn’t been interrupted.

  Probably.

  My face flushed as I thought about having to endure her reprimand over a steamy kiss from her son. Worse would be the issue of being kicked off of the Rosewood equestrian team because despite my being the worst on the team, I was getting better under Brady...er...Coach Fleming’s guidance. I really did like being on the team, and not just because of him, either. In fact, my life would be significantly less complicated if I wasn’t on the team, so it was a testament to how much I enjoyed it that I kept subjecting myself to the almost daily torture of being near Brady.

  Taking a deep breath and trying to calm my nerves, I paused outside the main office doors, smoothing my skirt along my thighs with my palms, wiping some of the sweat off my hands at the same time.

  “She’s not so bad,” I told myself, “She’s not the dragon everyone says she is.” But now that I knew the dean’s relationship to Brady, she was even more scary in an awkward sort of way.

  I took another big breath and grabbed the ha
ndle to pull the door open.

  Mrs. Andrews, the school secretary, looked up from her computer screen.

  “Just knock and then go right in,” she said with a nod of her head toward the Dean’s closed door. “She’s expecting you.”

  I muttered a thank you and stepped toward the door, stopping in my tracks when I heard muffled voices. The dean’s and then a man’s. It couldn’t be my parents, could it? I listened, but couldn’t identify the man by his voice, only made out a casual tone, which meant it wasn’t my parents; if they’d flown halfway around the world overnight there would be nothing casual about them being here, because it would mean the worst possible scenario had become a reality.

  So no, it couldn’t be my parents. Which meant...Oh no. The dean must have pulled Brady in so she could reprimand us together. Because I needed to be even more humiliated.

  “Go on,” Mrs. Andrew said from behind me, startling me out of my thoughts. “You don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  At that reminder, I grabbed the door handle and turned it, the action causing the conversation in the room to cease, making me even more nervous.

  I pushed open the door and hesitated in the doorway, sensing a body in the chair on the left. I kept my eyes on the dean, worried that if I even glanced at Brady, I’d somehow make it worse.

  “Ah, Ms. Prescott. Come in,” the dean said, her face unreadable, but she didn’t look exactly angry.

  I stepped forward and closed the door. “Ma’am,” I said.

  She nodded toward the body in the chair. “I am to believe you know this young man?”

  Huh? Cautiously I turned my head and gasped. “Robert?”

  My brother grinned and stood up. We’d never been the kind of siblings who hug, but I couldn’t help but throw myself into his arms for so many reasons in that moment, most of them having to do with relief. “Oh my God, Robert,” I said, my face mashed into the fabric of his rugby shirt. He smelled good and clean and not at all like he’d been in a torture chamber at the hands of terrorists.