Georgetown Academy, Season One

by Schwartz, Alyssa Embree

  It felt like someone zapped her heart with a defibrillator. He wasn’t making sense. She took a step back as her pulse slowly began to work its way into a semi-normal rhythm. “Wait, if you’re not mad at me then why did you make that comment about how I just couldn’t help myself?”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t saying that to be mean. It’s just…you’re always so honest about everything. I like that about you. It didn’t surprise me you told her the truth.”

  “Oh.” Now Evan was the embarrassed one, though a question suddenly popped into her head. “If you hated doing that to Ellie, then why go along with it in the first place?”

  He sighed. “She was being tortured at school, by the media. And I was really confused about everything. Then you and I kissed after the library that night and I realized it was pretty hypocritical of me to judge Ellie for the Gabe thing.”

  Evan furrowed her brow. “Why? You guys were broken up when we kissed.”

  Hunter cocked his head with a curious expression. “No, not because I cheated on her. But...I did the same thing to Luke that Gabe did to me. Luke and I are friends. I kept beating myself up over kissing you while you guys were together. That was why I was trying to keep my distance from you after Follow the Stars.”

  “It was my fault, too,” she quickly said, wringing her hands nervously. “Luke and I were going through a weird time.” The last thing she wanted was for Hunter to think of her as a girlfriend who cheated.

  He nodded. “We were all going through a weird time I guess. And yeah, my dad hinted it would be good for Marilyn if Ellie and I got back together, but that wasn’t the only reason I did it. I thought maybe if everything went back to the way it was, I could forgive her for the Gabe thing and I would stop feeling guilty about kissing you. But then I saw you that night at Follow the Stars and I realized there was another problem.”

  “What?” she asked quietly, suddenly feeling self-conscious under his gaze.

  “I hadn’t stopped thinking about you. Getting back together with Ellie didn’t change that. But you were with Luke and—”

  “Luke and I actually broke up,” she blurted out. Way to play it cool. Her face went beet red and she quickly turned toward the musket, hoping he didn’t notice.

  “Yeah, I actually talked to him about it this morning.”

  Her mind raced. How had Luke not mentioned this to her? What exactly had they talked about?

  Hunter stepped closer to her. “I told him how I felt about you. And he said he was fine with it.”

  “He did?” she eked out, but what she was really thinking was how unbelievable it was that Hunter had liked her this whole time. This had all been a huge misunderstanding. If Hunter was the JFK of Georgetown Academy then this was their version of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Blood rushed to her head as she suddenly realized she liked him even more now. Hunter with actual human flaws was even hotter than the idealistic version she had projected on to him.

  She finally tore her eyes away from the musket, and when she looked up at him, his stare was so intense she thought he must hear her heart thumping out of her chest. He started leaning in to her and a thrill of excitement bolted through Evan. He was going to kiss her. She stood on her tip-toes, bringing her face closer to his when…her phone alarm screeched loudly from her pocket refusing to shut up. Not the soundtrack she wanted right now.

  “Sorry, it’s my alarm,” she mumbled, reluctantly looking down and silencing it.

  “Do you have to be somewhere?”

  “I’m supposed to meet a friend for coffee,” she answered breathlessly, wondering how late she could be before Jana would completely kill her. But now Hunter was looking at his watch.

  “I’m supposed to be meeting Narc soon to go skiing anyway.”

  She was instantly deflated. What if Hunter changed his mind about everything the second they left the museum?

  “Can we meet up after I get back from skiing, though?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist and instantly evaporating her fears.

  She nodded, literally unable to speak. Apparently, that was a good thing because that was the moment he finally kissed her.

  It was even better than their first kiss, and as he ran his hands through her hair and pulled her even closer toward him, she was completely lost in it…

  And then one unwelcome thought entered her head. Ellie. What would she do if she found out they hooked up again? She hadn’t even forgiven Evan for the last time she kissed Hunter. But then again, she did seem to be dating Weston now. Maybe she wouldn’t care as much this time around. If she ever started talking to her again in the first place.

  They finally pulled apart and he said softly, “So I’ll see you later tonight?”

  It seemed like an eternity, but considering she’d been hoping for this moment since seventh grade, she could handle waiting a few more hours.

  “So were you and Weston friends?” Evan asked Jana, who sat next to her on an oversized couch in the hotel lobby. She willed herself to focus on the conversation, though it was nearly impossible with the instant replays of her and Hunter’s make-out session running in a loop through her mind.

  “Not really. I mean, we hung out at the same parties, but that’s about it,” Jana answered, swirling the whipped cream around in her mug of steaming hot chocolate. Jana, whose mother was the V.P.’s chief-of-staff, was on the periphery of the popular crew at Sidwell, but it was her choice rather than theirs. She once told Evan she refused to commit to a hair color so how could she commit to a clique? Right now, she had streaks of hot pink in her long, dirty-blond hair, but last time Evan had seen her, half of it was bright blue. She was wearing black-and-white polka dot-printed jeggings, a red off-the-shoulder knit sweater and a sparkly silver beret. On Evan the outfit would look like a costume, but Jana easily pulled off the funky style.

  “Do you know why he left in the middle of the year?”

  Jana raised an eyebrow, elevating the tiny hoop pierced through it. “Well, I know what some people at school were saying. But it’s kind of a long story and who knows if it’s even true.”

  Ever since Evan discovered those yearbook photos, her journalistic radar told her there was a bigger story with Weston’s school transfer and something in the way Jana said this got Evan’s heart beating a few steps quicker.

  “I’ve got time.” Evan wished she was recording this like a real reporter. She needed to be clear on all the facts if she was going to construct a cohesive story for Samantha.

  “A bunch of us were at this house party in Cleveland Park. Weston was there with all the lacrosse guys. Everyone was pretty tipsy, but this girl, Ashley Blair, was completely tripping out on something. Like running around saying everyone’s heads looked like parrots and the photographs on the wall were yelling at her. Really weird stuff. Her parents had to take her to the hospital when she got home because she was still really high, but she was throwing up and everything, too. They ended up pumping her stomach or taking blood or something and they found traces of MDMA mixed with a bunch of other hard-core stuff. It took her like a week to recover.”

  Evan leaned in closer, her adrenaline picking up. “And what does that have to do with Weston?”

  “Ashley said she didn’t have one sip of alcohol at the party. She’d been complaining about a really bad headache as soon as she got there and Weston came over and told her he had a Tylenol. So she took it and next thing she knew, she was hallucinating.”

  Evan almost dropped her mug of coffee. “So Weston drugged her?”

  Jana leaned back on the couch and shrugged. “Who knows? He obviously denied the whole thing. Ashley’s parents told the headmaster and then I heard they were bringing a civil suit against him, but for some reason, it never happened. It probably didn’t help her case that no one at school believed her.”

  “Why? Did she do a lot of drugs or something?”

  “No, but she was kind of an outcast. People have been mean to her since first grade and the sad thing is, I d
on’t even remember why it started. You know how it is.” Jana and Evan had also bonded over the fact that they couldn’t wait to get to college and leave all the social politics of high school behind. “And, of course, when she went to the headmaster, it made her even more of an outcast.”

  “So if nothing happened with it, why did Weston transfer to Landon?”

  “Apparently, his mom was super pissed about the way the headmaster handled the whole thing and she claimed the school was trying to drag Weston’s name through the mud. And then Ashley didn’t come back this semester and everybody kind of forgot about it.”

  Evan frowned. If the story wasn’t true, what could Ashley possibly have to gain by fingering Weston as the one who drugged her? She needed to talk to her and find out why she dropped the civil suit. Just because a bunch of high school kids didn’t believe her story was no reason to think a court of law wouldn’t. And maybe after she spoke to her, she’d have enough facts to present the story to Samantha on a silver platter.

  Evan looked at Jana steadily. “Do you think Weston did it?”

  Jana warmed her hands around the mug and thought about it for a second. “Look, he’s always been nice to me, but that was a sketchy night. It’s like, after that, I wouldn’t want my best friend dating him, you know?”

  The color suddenly drained from Evan’s face.

  “What’s wrong?” Jana asked.

  “I think mine is.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Friday, 12:52 p.m.

  Taryn hustled into the lobby from her room, dressed in her favorite baby pink boarding pants with her white puffy parka. She had braided her thick, dark hair into two pigtails that hung down from under her white knit cap, a few flecks of hair glitter thrown in for good measure. She was supposed to be meeting Brooks at one, but the plan would go much better if Gabe was there to witness them leaving together.

  Luckily, he was right where she had left him a half-hour ago, parked in a cozy leather armchair with a tattered copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, though his eyes kept flicking up to the television behind the bar in the center of the room.

  “Hey,” Taryn said, bounding up to him. “Has Brooks come down yet?” It was the third time she had mentioned his name today. After they left the pointless leadership exercise that morning, she and Gabe had grabbed brunch in town and Taryn had made a big deal about getting in back in time to meet Brooks, waiting for Gabe to fly into a fit of jealousy. But all he had done was nod nonchalantly and suggest they get back to the hotel.

  “Well…I guess he’ll be here soon. To snowboard with me. All afternoon. Just me and him.”

  “Cool,” Gabe said, though it was debatable whether he had actually heard her, as his eyes were glued to the television screen, watching the live CNN coverage of Gail Morris’s Supreme Court nomination hearings. Ellie’s mom, Senator Walker, was in the far right corner of the screen and it made her stomach dip suddenly. They had run into Ellie on Mountain Road last night, and though Gabe had only uttered a few words to her, Taryn couldn’t shake the impression that there were layers of subtext to the exchange between him and Ellie she would never be able to understand. And when she tried to talk about it with him after, he sighed and told her it wasn’t worth getting upset over.

  Now, as he stared at the television screen, the same radar she had last night went off again in her head. Was Gabe watching this because he was genuinely interested in the democratic process of it all? Or because his father had already gone on the attack against Gail and he was curious how it would play out? Or was it because Gail was related to Weston, who Ellie now appeared to be dating?

  She’d almost convinced herself that Ellie had nothing to do with why Gabe hadn’t DTR’d, though moments like this made her question whether she was trying to bury her head in the sand.

  Taryn spotted Brooks exit the elevator, dressed in black ski pants, with an expensive-looking royal blue ski jacket, and a pop of red fleece exposed at the collar.

  “Oh! There he is!” She added a note of excitement to her voice, and Gabe finally took his eyes away from the television, followed her gaze to Brooks and scoffed.

  “Could he look any more like the quintessential villain in one of those cheesy ‘80’s ski movies?” he asked, half-whispering it into her ear. Taryn laughed, not only because it was true, but because at least Gabe was finally showing a little fight. Now that Brooks was in the flesh, it seemed he was starting to realize what was happening.

  “Hey, Taryn,” Brooks said, taking in her girly attire with a grin. “You look good as a snowbunny.” Again, Brooks couldn’t have played this better if he tried, giving her a compliment right in front of Gabe.

  “Hello, Gabe,” Brooks added, as an obvious afterthought.

  “Brooks,” Gabe said, barely looking at him. Instead, he focused on Taryn. “Have fun today. I’ll see you tonight.” She nodded.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her,” Brooks added, rather impishly and Gabe flushed slightly. Seriously, if this didn’t do it, she didn’t know what would. She began to follow Brooks, when Gabe called out.

  “Taryn, wait up.” As soon as she turned, she found him behind her. He wrapped his arm around her and gave her a long kiss that left her wondering how was she going to be able to snowboard this afternoon when Gabe left her legs feeling so wobbly.

  Taryn sat on the swaying chair lift, next to Brooks, her board dangling from her legs, the light snowflakes gracefully sprinkling around them as they made their way up for their first run. She had been so busy focusing on the plan to make Gabe jealous, that she forgot it meant she would now actually have to spend an entire afternoon with Brooks.

  “What’s with the braids, Pippi?” he asked her, slightly tugging on one.

  “I always do it when I board. Otherwise my hair gets in my face and I can’t see anything.”

  She looked down at the trail map in her hands, expertly deciphering the codes and colors. They were on the FourRunner Quad—the lift that would take them straight to the top of the mountain.

  “You want to start with Bypass?” Brooks asked, pointing to the toughest double-black diamond courses in the entire resort, daring her to wuss out.

  “Absolutely,” she responded. He didn’t need to know that compared to the heli-snowboarding she had done out in Whistler (in which a helicopter literally dropped her on the top of a snow-capped mountain in the middle of a quasi-blizzard) this was going to be a piece of cake.

  The chair lift deposited them onto the snowy perch and each of them glided easily to the edge of the peak. Taryn looked down. The run sloped at an almost ninety-degree angle, steep and narrow, with a lip a third of the way down. Talk about fun.

  “You ready for this?” Brooks asked, adjusting his goggles.

  “The question is, are you?” she asked, pushing herself off and leaving him in a cloud of snow dust. She inhaled the cold air as she swept down the mountain, her board cutting into the powder like a knife into soft butter. Suddenly, she felt a quick brush of wind on her left side, and then with a whoosh, Brooks accelerated past her, his body tucked into perfect form. He continued speeding, right into the lip, getting a good twenty feet of air before landing gracefully below. Show off.

  But Taryn wasn’t about to be outdone. She bore down on her left foot, gaining more speed as she catapulted herself off the lip, adding the half-twist she had learned the last time she was in Tahoe.

  When she landed, she saw Brooks was already a hundred yards ahead of her, gliding across a plateau to a tree-lined incline covered in uncut snow. She pivoted into her left heel harder, cutting the distance between them, whipping around the towering pine trees until they were neck and neck. Taryn cut across the thick powder, intentionally pelting him with a spray of fresh snow in her wake. She couldn’t help but laugh as she saw his face. She had a feeling showering others with snow wasn’t part of the Madison school of skiing etiquette.

  As she surged downward, Taryn burst from the tree cover out to a hill dotted with moguls. She
continued full-force, her desire to impress Brooks now fueling her acceleration even more. She maneuvered around them, her knees bouncing in perfect rhythm until he whipped past her, now deliberately spraying her with a hard flurry of snow.

  She giggled as she shook the snow out of her pigtails, then zoomed toward the boulder she saw peeking out under the snow, using it to propel her forward ten feet, finally evening her out with Brooks.

  The bottom of the mountain was now in sight and suddenly, it was a race to get there first. His downhill skis gave Brooks a slight edge in the speed department and he flew past her, a smug look on his face. But she wasn’t going down without a fight. She crouched down, catching him on his right side and shredding back across, completely cutting him off and forcing him to veer to the side. Taryn sped forward, making it down to the bottom first.

  Brooks slid in seconds later, stopping short next to her, and as they faced each other, both out of breath and covered in snow, they broke out into laughter.

  “You aren’t messing around, Pippi,” he told her, lifting his eyebrows as he took off his ski goggles.

  “You’re not bad yourself,” Taryn begrudgingly admitted.

  “Again?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a smile. “But this time I’m not going to go easy on you.”

  The lifts were shutting down when Brooks and Taryn finished their final run of the day, being some of the last few stragglers on the mountain. She hadn’t planned on staying out so late, but the conditions were so awesome and she and Brooks had been having so much fun, that the time had slipped away from her.

  They unclicked their boots from their skis and boards, the fatigue already permeating her calves and shins. She dug her iPhone out of the bottom of her parka’s pocket and her stomach dropped when she saw it was a good half-hour after the time she had promised to meet Gabe in the lobby. Though, she reminded herself, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing if she was trying to make him jealous.