Brandon read it once. Then again. Then, because it still didn’t make any sense, one more time.
But the words didn’t change. Callie was dumping him. Again.
“Callie just broke up with me,” he blurted out, too shocked and stunned to do anything else. At least this time she sent an e-mail, he thought. It was better than, for example, walking into a room to find her kissing someone else.
“Shit, man,” Heath said. He moved to the hook on the back of their door and wrapped his ratty black scarf around his neck, obviously done with the conversation. Brandon instantly regretted telling him about the e-mail at all, even involuntarily. Heath shrugged into his charcoal Shipley & Halmos peacoat and grabbed his messenger bag from the floor, where he’d tossed it the day before. Homework was one more thing Heath didn’t really do unless he absolutely had to.
“Later,” Heath said, and opened their bedroom door.
Brandon’s head was spinning—and he was pretty sure he was just too numb to feel what he ought to be feeling, so wouldn’t that be fun when it caught up with him—but he did know that the last thing he wanted was for the whole school to be talking about what a loser he was, again. That Callie had ripped his heart out, again.
“Hey,” Brandon said. “Don’t mention this to anyone, okay?”
Heath gazed at him innocently. “Of course not, buddy.” He smiled. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
16
A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS THAT GOOD NEWS
TRAVELS FAST.
Easy was daydreaming through his history class, which was much more entertaining than paying attention. Farnsworth Hall was famous for being one of the most overheated places on campus. Even though the windows were wide open, the room felt like a broiler. He was approximately five hundred degrees and had been forced to strip down to his thinnest layer, a battered Jimi Hendrix concert T-shirt he’d worn under his henley and hoodie. Directly beneath the windows, Kara Whalen had her coat and hat on and was still shivering. Easy thought the waste of all that energy was more interesting than another discussion of the New Deal, but he knew better than to say anything. Ms. Harrigan’s teaching style was more Attila the Hun than Earth Mother.
He missed his history class from fall semester. At least then he’d gotten to stare at Callie while he doodled in his notebook and imagined he was riding Credo through the fields somewhere, with Callie sitting behind him, clinging to his waist and pressing up against him. This semester he had to have the fantasy without the visual aid. Still entertaining, if a little bit less fun.
Easy looked up, startled, when Heath Ferro slid into the seat next to him. He wasn’t even in this class. Easy nodded in greeting, but instead of returning the gesture Heath leaned toward Easy as he took off his coat.
“Did you hear?” he asked, a bright gleam in his green eyes. Easy knew that look. It generally meant trouble.
“Hear what?”
“Callie dumped Brandon,” Heath said, watching Easy closely. Too closely. “Harsh.”
For the first time since he’d been sent away back in the fall, Easy was actually grateful that he’d had some experience with military school. He might not have learned the respect for authority his father had claimed he would, but he’d very quickly learned how to compose his expression to complete and utter blankness. Not easy to do with a drill sergeant barking in your face. He stared back at Heath and didn’t so much as twitch.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” The sarcastic tone of Ms. Harrigan’s voice cut in. “I don’t mean to interrupt your conversation, but are you new here to Waverly?” The teacher scrutinized Heath, propping one hand on her round hip.
“Actually, I’m an important part of the establishment,” Heath replied, lounging back in his desk chair and gazing at Ms. Harrigan as if she had not, in fact, been chastising him. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Heath Ferro.”
Everyone laughed, and Easy couldn’t quite help the smile that threatened to take over his mouth. Not because of Heath’s stand-up routine but because of the news he’d just delivered.
Finally.
Finally, Callie was free. He couldn’t really believe she’d done it—she’d let Buchanan go. Which meant… everything would finally be the way it was supposed to be. He could kiss her whenever he wanted. He could have her all to himself. He could walk out of Farnsworth Hall the minute this class was over, go find Callie, and make her stand in the middle of the quad while he demonstrated exactly how he felt about her.
Only thirty minutes to go.
After Heath slid out of the classroom, saluting Easy and accepting a round of applause, the rest of the class passed in a blissful kind of blur. It was much easier to fantasize about Callie when the fantasy would soon be a reality. When class was finally over, Easy didn’t retain a single fact about the New Deal or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But he knew where he was headed, and it wasn’t to another boring lecture. He would convince Callie to blow off her afternoon classes, and then maybe they could act out some of his favorite fantasies. He could hardly wait.
As the class streamed out around him, he stood up and dug his phone out of his pocket to text Callie and see where she was. He didn’t care what she was doing, really, he just wanted to be with her. It was like he’d finally admitted that there was an empty space inside him that only she could fill—and he couldn’t stand being apart from her for even one second more.
As he exited the class he looked down at the blinking message indicator, then clicked over to his e-mail. He smiled. She’d already e-mailed him. They always thought of each other at the same time, like there was some invisible cord tying them together. Subject: Us.
Easy opened up the e-mail and felt his mouth drop open. He stopped dead in the middle of the bustling hallway.
I just don’t think it’s going to work.
She was… breaking up with him?
They weren’t even officially together. She’d broken it off without giving him a chance. A second chance. Or were they on their third or fourth chance? He couldn’t remember.
He felt like she’d punched him in the stomach. What the hell?
* * *
OwlNet
Instant Message Inbox
* * *
BennyCunningham: I just heard that Callie dumped Brandon!
SageFrancis: Again?! WTF?
BennyCunningham: I can think of only one reason, and his initials are E.W.
SageFrancis: Um, then why did I just see him looking like he wanted to punch a wall outside Farnsworth?
BennyCunningham: Huh. Sounds like another episode of Unsolved Waverly Mysteries…
* * *
OwlNet
Instant Message Inbox
* * *
AlisonQuentin: Isn’t there some love poem thing tonight? Do you think I should see if Parker wants to go?
CelineColista: Only if you hate him. Or want him to hate you. Or just want to die together, surrounded by extreme lameness.
AlisonQuentin: Really? Ryan Reynolds told me he heard it would be cool?!
CelineColista: That’s Ryan pretending to be sensitive. Kind of like how he pretends not to be a man-slut….
* * *
OwlNet
Instant Message Inbox
* * *
HeathFerro: Callie Vernon is single again. You gonna hit that or what, Perfect Match?
AlanStGirard: Dude, so not my type.
HeathFerro: Right, because you hate hot girls. I forgot.
AlanStGirard: She’s hot, for sure. But too high-maintenance.
HeathFerro: I think the hotness outweighs any personality issues, personally.
AlanStGirard: You think that about everything that moves.
HeathFerro: True.
AlanStGirard: Hey, what’s up for tonight? There’s some poetry reading?
HeathFerro: Did you put crack in your weed? I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.
17
A WAVERLY OWL ALWAYS LISTENS TO THE VOICE
OF REAS
ON.
Jenny decided on a bright red bowl of tomato soup with a side of roasted red pepper bruschetta for dinner on Thursday evening, after eyeing something that claimed to be red beans and rice but looked a whole lot more like reddish brown oatmeal. She took a small helping of the beet salad, just to add some vegetables to her existence, but shuddered at the salmon mousse on rye toast. She shoved her tray along the track, biting her lip as she tried to choose between red velvet cupcakes and strawberry ice cream sundaes with raspberry sauce—neither of which she wanted necessarily. But this was her first Valentine’s Day at Waverly, and she thought she should get into the mood. Red velvet cupcakes it was.
The dining hall certainly had. There were red streamers hanging from the walls and shiny red hearts on every plastic tray. Red Kool-Aid sat in large pitchers near the drinks machine, and pink-tinted Rice Krispies Treats were stacked on platters near the rest of the desserts. Red Jell-O sat in a large glass bowl, wobbling slightly, next to separate bowls of cherries and strawberries. It was red, red, red, as far as the eye could see.
Including Brett’s signature fire-engine red bob, which Jenny spotted the moment she walked into the dining hall. Jenny had told herself over and over that it didn’t matter what Brett had said on Tuesday at the Three-Legged Race. Isaac had been back to his normal self since then—and Jenny was almost entirely convinced that the weirdness she’d sensed between them was just a little blip. She wouldn’t have given it another thought if she didn’t still have the echo of Brett’s words sneaking around in her head, whispering I just don’t think you should get ahead of yourself when Jenny least expected it.
Jenny had come up with a hundred explanations. Like, maybe Brett was just concerned that she was falling too hard for someone she didn’t know very well. After all, she could admit, with a flush of embarrassment, she was sort of known for taking things too seriously, too fast. She didn’t even want to think about how many times she’d been in love since the start of the school year. But still…
“Hey,” she said in a determinedly cheerful voice when she made her way to Brett’s side. Brett was still scowling at the variety of red foods, looking personally affronted by the spread.
“What’s up with all the forced Valentine’s Day cheer?” she asked crankily. She wore a charcoal gray wool Nanette Lepore sweater dress over opaque tights and knee-high black Elie Tahari boots. She looked sleek and serious, and not at all interested in Red Hots or lacey doilies.
“I guess it’s just something else to celebrate,” Jenny murmured. Brett seemed as tense as she had in the Field House the other night, and Jenny wondered if she might just be wound up about her own problems.
“Hooray,” Brett said under her breath. She bypassed the entrées altogether and picked up a dish of the wobbly red Jell-O.
“So…” Jenny kept pace with Brett as she moved through the serving area. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” Brett slid her a look and smiled. “You just did.”
Jenny grinned, but she wasn’t going to be put off that easily. She had to know. “What did you mean,” she began, annoyed that her voice was climbing up a couple of octaves. She coughed slightly to cover it. “You know, in the Field House? When you said… what you said about Isaac and me?”
Brett stared down at her bowl of Jell-O, wishing that she could disappear through the tile floor beneath her feet. Anything to avoid Jenny’s wide, worried, doelike brown eyes.
Why had she said anything in the first place? She felt her temper kick into gear and wished Isaac were nearby to take the brunt of it—because he clearly hadn’t told Jenny yet, the way he’d kind of promised he would. So now he was that much more of a liar. It was his fault she even had to have this conversation.
She didn’t want Jenny to hate her, after all.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, looking away from Jenny. She hated having to lie—but how could she tell the truth? It would only make things worse. Isaac could do his own dirty work, thank you very much. Besides, it was entirely possible that Isaac had already broken up with his girlfriend at his other school, in order to be with Jenny. And if that was the case, Brett didn’t want to stir up drama where there wasn’t any. “What did I say?”
“You know.” Jenny’s cheeks reddened. “That stuff about, um, getting ahead of myself?”
“I don’t even remember saying that,” Brett lied, and forced a laugh. It sounded as brittle as she felt. “I must have had too much of Heath’s iced tea.”
Jenny’s big brown eyes seemed to get even wider, if that were possible, and her shoulders sagged. Brett felt like she’d drop-kicked Bambi.
“I have to go talk to Tinsley,” Brett said breezily. She smiled apologetically and then quickly walked away, trying not to look like she was hurrying. She felt horrible. Jenny was her friend. But she didn’t know what else to do. She wished she’d never looked at Isaac’s phone in the first place.
Jenny watched Brett practically sprint away from her, weaving in and out of the red tableclothed tables. What was going on?
“What’s wrong?” a familiar voice asked. Jenny turned to look up at Julian, who was wearing a friendly smile and a long-sleeved black thermal shirt that clung to his lean chest.
“Why do you think something’s wrong?” she asked, deflecting the question. She forced a small smile. “Maybe I’m just contemplating the redness of everything.” She waved a hand at the dining-hall selections that she no longer had an appetite for.
“Nope,” Julian said, tucking his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants and rocking back on his heels. His gaze was warm and knowing. “I know that worried look you make.”
Jenny shook her head, her brown curls bouncing up and down around her. “What worried look?”
Julian ducked his head and wrinkled up his forehead, in an imitation of her. Jenny didn’t think she’d ever made that particular face, but Julian looked awfully cute making it. She couldn’t help but laugh.
“So?” he asked. He took Jenny’s tray from her hands and walked over to an empty nearby table. Once they were seated, he turned to give Jenny his full attention. He waited, patiently, for her to go on.
Suddenly Jenny couldn’t think of a single reason not to tell Julian the whole story. So she did. She told him how Isaac had been acting strange before the Three-Legged Race, but now he seemed normal. And she told him what Brett had said—and how she couldn’t seem to let it go.
“I don’t know,” she said, blowing out a breath. “I just can’t help thinking that she might know something that I don’t. I can’t stop wondering about it.”
Julian nodded, his brows drawn together in thought. He reached over, snagged a red velvet cupcake from Jenny’s tray, and peeled the paper cover off its base.
“What did Isaac say?” he asked after discarding the paper. He popped the entire cupcake in his mouth, somehow still looking cute as he chewed then swallowed it. Jenny was sure she would look like a pig if she shoved a whole cupcake into her face. Maybe she’d look like one of those mini-pigs they were breeding in England.
“I didn’t ask him about it,” she admitted.
Julian shrugged. “If you’re worried about something, you should talk to him,” he said, his tone gentle but sure. “Because if it’s a good relationship, you should be able to talk about anything, right? Isn’t that the point?”
Jenny smiled as Julian’s words moved through her like sunshine, making everything feel better and warmer as they went.
Julian was right, of course. She should be able to talk to Isaac about it.
Why hadn’t she thought of that?
18
A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS THAT IF AT FIRST YOU
DON’T SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN.
Tinsley tossed her coat into the empty space next to Heath at a long table full of boys and sank down into the chair next to him. After his pathetic performance in the Three-Legged Race the previous night—a performance for which he was, quite literally, falling-down drunk—she
felt that on some level he owed her. She also felt compelled to mark her territory in front of as many Owls as possible. Heath might be kind of a slut, but he was her slut. Or at least, he was her Perfect Match.
“What’s up?” Heath said, eyeing Tinsley over the collar of his blue Hugo Boss button-down. He’d shoved the sleeves up over his elbows, the better to lounge back with his dirty blond hair a mess and that ever-present smirk on his chiseled face. “I’m surprised you didn’t just fall down on me again, like last night.”
“I was not the drunken idiot who could barely walk, Heath,” Tinsley drawled, sweeping her hair off her shoulder. She made sure every male eye at the table was focused on her—all eyes were, of course, except for Sebastian’s, which Tinsley grudgingly allowed out of loyalty to Brett—before letting the silky strands fall out of her hand one by one, sliding and slithering over her bare shoulder. Lon Baruzza and Ryan Reynolds practically drooled into their sodas. She crossed her long legs, encased in skintight Fendi leather leggings, and let one black Prada buckled stiletto pump dangle from her foot. “That would be you.”
“Please,” Heath said with a laugh. “I make the drinks. I don’t do headers on the AstroTurf.”
“And yet there you were,” Tinsley retorted with a mischievous grin. “Facedown on the racecourse—repeatedly—and nearly disqualified for failing to tie a knot correctly.”
“I thought you were the one who sailed halfway around the world with the America’s Cup when you were, like, eight years old,” Heath tossed back. Tinsley smiled, satisfied that he still remembered random facts about her life. “Why was I the one tying the knots when you’re supposed to be the expert?”
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