Georgetown Academy, Season One

by Schwartz, Alyssa Embree

  “It is. The last thing I need is more attention right now.” She swallowed, internally freaking out about how she would ever show her face at school or at work again.

  Hunter sat back down next to her and a few beats of silence passed between them. Finally, he looked back up, his features softening. “I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t needed you to drive my car...”

  He had apologized several times since that morning despite how often Evan told him it wasn’t his fault. She didn’t blame him for having a beer at the party, but she knew what he probably felt guiltier about was that if it had merely been Evan in that car, no one would care enough to make it a front-page story. Having the son of the attorney general with her instantly made it newsworthy. Now not only had she been charged with a DUI, but her humiliation was on prominent display.

  “It’s okay,” she told him, pretty much failing at her attempts to downplay her misery. She could tell he wanted to present another argument, but was holding back. “You should get to the party,” she said in a muffled voice.

  She was half waiting for him to say he wasn’t going to go after all, but instead he stood up and said in a distracted voice, “You’re probably right.”

  When she shut the door behind him, she felt even worse.

  By nine p.m., Evan was already dressed in her oldest flannel pajamas about to crawl under her comforter for what would probably be her second night of no sleep.

  “Evan?” She looked up to see her mother at the door, the familiar look of disappointment still etched on her face. “Your father finally got a hold of that lawyer we were referred to.”

  Terror nestled in Evan’s stomach, pushing aside the severe anxiety just enough so there was room for both of them to coexist. She sat down on the edge of her bed and her mother gingerly sat next to her. Evan had explained to her parents what had happened with the mints and they believed her, but they had also done everything except outright say “I told you so” since they had been against her going to Sarah Corliss’s party to begin with.

  “It looks like you’ll be saddled with a fine and some community service. It’ll go on your DMV record, but…” Her mother’s voice broke and she stopped for a moment to collect herself before continuing. Evan held her breath. “But juvenile records are sealed after the offender turns eighteen so there won’t be any permanent evidence of the crime.”

  Evan nodded numbly, slowly exhaling. She was relieved by the news, but truthfully, it didn’t make her feel that much better. Nothing could.

  “Did Hunter end up going to the party?” her mother asked, though Evan was sure she already knew the answer.

  “Yes, but I insisted on it,” Evan said defensively, playing with the end of her comforter so she didn’t have to look at her mom.

  Her mother nodded, obviously seeing right through her. “Your father and I were curious why you were driving Hunter’s car in the first place.”

  Evan debated saying she had wanted to drive it for fun, but again, her mother would know it was a lie. “Hunter had a drink and we were just being cautious.”

  Her mother looked like she might cry. “He was drinking? Does he do that a lot?”

  Evan should have gone with the lie. “He had one beer. We were trying to be responsible.”

  With the disappointed look her mother was pushing on her right now, it was clear she was unimpressed by Evan and Hunter’s responsibility. “Look, honey. I know you like Hunter, but—”

  “Mom, please,” Evan begged, not wanting to hear the end of the sentence.

  “Just hear me out, Evan. Here you are facing the worst thing that’s happened in your life and he’s off gallivanting around at some party.”

  Evan swallowed. She wanted to tell her mom she was crazy and she didn’t understand her relationship with Hunter, but she had obviously been having the same thoughts herself. Why had Hunter left her tonight?

  The sound of the doorbell saved her from having to respond to her mother and she straightened up, her spirits lifting at the thought that Hunter had left the party to be with her. But a few seconds later, it was Luke who entered her bedroom, not Hunter. He was in Adidas warm-up pants and a G.A. sweatshirt, a typical look for him since he thought athletic-wear helped sell his straight-guy image. He was holding a bag in his left hand and a few Gerbera daisies in his right, and even though he wasn’t Hunter, the sight of him made Evan feel a little less dismal. Luke’s parents were in the Caymans celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary so it would have been weird for him to show up to the Dedication Party without them. Although he was such a good friend, he probably would have ditched out on the party anyway to try to cheer her up.

  “Hey, Snoop Dogg. How you feeling?” he asked. Evan rolled her eyes. “What? Too soon?”

  Her mother gave Luke’s shoulder a squeeze then left the room. Luke lay down on the bed next to her, his long legs practically dangling off the end of it as he put an arm around her.

  “I came to distract you from your misery.”

  He handed her the daisies and she rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. “You have your work cut out for you.”

  “What’s getting you down the most? According to the poster in the guidance counselor’s office, it helps to pinpoint where your depression is coming from.”

  “When were you in Mr. Hudgins’s office?”

  “The other day I pretended to have OCD so I could get out of the Spanish test I forgot about. He was really proud of himself that he cured it in under two hours, so really I did us both a favor.” He gave Evan a smile then looked at her more seriously. “So lay it on me, Evs.”

  She sighed, the exhaustion making it hard to put her thoughts together cohesively. “I guess the worst part is that from now on, no one will ever see me as anybody except the girl who crashed Hunter McKnight’s car into a pole and got a DUI. And I didn’t even want to go to that party. If I hadn’t been so scared of telling Hunter that, none of this would’ve happened.”

  Tears welled in her eyes and Luke looked back at her with such a sad expression, she almost felt worse for him.

  “I’m starting to think that poster is a sham,” Luke finally said. “I think distraction is a better tactic. How about a movie? I downloaded all your favorites.” He pulled an iPad from his bag. “Even the boring ones with subtitles.”

  “I don’t think I can concentrate on a movie right now,” she answered sullenly, though she appreciated the effort. “Got any tranquilizers in that bag?”

  “Wow, pot really is the gateway drug.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Want to blog stalk Kyle? That could be a fun distraction.”

  Luke had met Kyle Price, a sophomore at Sidwell Friends, on the ski trip last week. They had immediately hit it off and had been texting nonstop ever since. Unlike Luke, Kyle wasn’t out of the closet yet to his family, but his reasons were something Luke could relate to. Kyle came from a prominent, extremely conservative family known for their impressive fundraising efforts around the city. His mother made it very clear where she stood on her acceptance of homosexuality when she made a hefty donation to one of those “Pray the Gay Away” camps and hosted several meetings at their home protesting legislation to legalize gay marriage in Maryland.

  Evan furrowed her brow. “I don’t think I’m familiar with that form of stalking.”

  “D.C. Dish is live blogging the Dedication Party,” he said as he clicked on the homepage. “Kyle said since I couldn’t be his date, this would be the next best thing. And you can see Hunter working the room in his Armani.”

  Evan pushed away the pit in her stomach and instead sat up and curled her knees against her chest, trying to rally. Luke looked too excited for her to deny him of blog stalking Kyle. Plus she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a little curious.

  He clicked a link that brought up several photographs from inside the party, including one of Kyle standing with his parents inside the National Statuary Hall.

  “Look what statue he’s posing next
to,” Evan said, pointing to the picture.

  Luke laughed. “Brigham Young. Hilarious.” It was definitely a little shout-out to Luke from afar. It was nice seeing him so happy after everything he’d gone through the past few weeks.

  “Wow, is that…” Luke’s voice trailed off as he flipped the iPad horizontally to get a closer look at the next photograph. “Yup. It’s Taryn. Weird.”

  Evan took the iPad and studied the photograph for herself. She understood why Luke didn’t recognize her. Taryn didn’t look anything like herself in a conservative red dress, her normally loose, wavy hair pulled back tightly in a severe chignon. Seeing her brought the whole saga to the forefront of Evan’s brain again and made her head throb.

  Luke clicked on the next page then scrolled through several photos of some of the most elite members of D.C. society until one of Hunter filled the screen. Evan’s pulse quickened, but not because of how hot Hunter looked. The photograph was of him and Ellie, both unaware anyone was taking their picture. Hunter’s lips were pressed against her ear like he was burrowing into her neck. The caption underneath the photograph read, Looks Like the Walker/McKnight Alliance is Back on Amidst Marijuana Crisis. Hunter and Ellie Get Cozy by the Hannibal Hamlin statue.

  Evan’s insides frantically flipped and she could feel Luke staring at her. He cleared his throat. “I’m sure it’s not what it looks like.”

  “Oh good. Because what it looks like is that Hunter is kissing Ellie’s neck,” Evan said, her voice borderline hysterical.

  “You know how cameras can make innocent moments look…not so innocent. Please don’t panic about this, Evs.”

  It was way too late for that. In the back of her mind, she knew Ellie wasn’t interested in getting back together with Hunter. Not only did it seem unlikely she would betray her and Evan’s friendship, but Ellie was in love with Gabe. However, none of that mattered because Hunter had clearly tried to kiss Ellie.

  Then another nauseating thought gripped her. Maybe that’s why he had suddenly decided to go to the party at the last minute. Between the news coverage of the accident and Evan’s freak-outs about it, he probably realized he and Evan were too different and he was better off with someone from his own world. And even if Ellie rebuffed his advances after the photographer snapped that picture, what would stop him from going after another girl at the party? As Evan knew all too well, there were probably dozens of girls there dying to comfort him and pick up the pieces. Her mother had warned her she was going to get hurt by Hunter, but Evan had never considered it would happen this quickly.

  “Okay, this was a horrible idea.” Luke clicked off the website. “How about I let you kill me in Boggle instead?”

  “Sure, I guess,” she answered listlessly, though she couldn’t imagine being able to focus on anything besides the photo of Hunter so intimate with Ellie.

  She reached for paper and pens while he opened the Boggle App on his iPad.

  “Try to use words I’ve heard of for once,” he said with a smile. She smiled back thankful to have such a good friend by her side.

  But the smile quickly dissipated when she looked down at the board and the very first word she made out was “pot.”

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  CHAPTER TEN

  Sunday, 9:27 p.m.

  After having successfully slipped out of the Statuary Hall unnoticed, Ellie walked quickly down a dimly lit hallway in another wing of the second floor of the Capitol toward her mother’s hideaway office. In addition to a senator’s regular office, most of them also had a hideaway office, an unmarked haven away from staff, constituents and the media. Because Marilyn was a high-ranking senator, her hideaway was an impressive size with sweeping views of the Supreme Court. But all hideaways were not created equal and the freshman senators and lower-ranking members were relegated to the cramped ones located in the basement. Either way, though, the location of a senator’s hideaway was one of the last secrets they had from the public.

  Ellie’s stomach was in knots as she spotted the nondescript door at the end of the hallway, no room number or name etched on it. Gabe would be waiting in there for her. She had tried to approach him inside the Statuary Hall, but every time she had gotten close, she was immediately pulled into another conversation. First with Hunter, who shocked her with the news about Taryn’s inadvertent involvement in Evan’s car accident. Then there was a quick exchange with Brinley, who in between flirting with her father’s intern, Patrick, was actively trying to keep a lid on the Taryn tidbit. Then they had stumbled upon Brooks and Taryn making out in the hallway, and Brinley, looking like she might throw up the champagne she had been sipping, promptly excused herself. By that point, Gabe was nowhere in sight. Ellie finally broke down and texted him, asking him to meet her here so they could talk. Moments later, she received a curt text back that he was on his way.

  She pushed open the hideaway door to find him perched on the back of the blue-gray upholstered sofa, staring pensively out the window at the sixteen massive marble columns of the Supreme Court building. His jacket was slung over the arm of the sofa and his sleeves were rolled up, giving him a rumpled appearance that made him look even hotter than he did when she saw him earlier. He shot his head up when she entered like she’d woken him from a dream.

  “Hey,” she said uncertainly. She hadn’t realized exactly how nervous she was until she had stepped on to the plush carpet. She shut the door behind her and locked it. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  He nodded, but didn’t rise from his perch, so she sat next to him on the back of the sofa, an electric current coursing through her fingers as they lay inches away from his.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back,” he said steadily, his gaze meeting hers. “I didn’t want to say anything to you I’d regret. You have no idea how wrecked my mom was by your mom’s comment.”

  Ellie nodded and was instinctively about to apologize when it struck her that she actually did have an idea of how upset his mom was. And she immediately resented the fact he seemed so clueless about it.

  “Gabe, your dad has been making offensive comments about my mom to the media since the day he stepped back into office. I think I get it,” she said in a clipped tone.

  “Yeah, but your mom is in politics. It’s different.”

  “You think that makes it any easier on her or me to hear crazy insults hurled at her every time your dad sees a microphone?”

  “No, but my mom should’ve been off-limits. She’s always felt guilty about leaving her job, but now she has to deal with the whole country thinking she’s responsible for millions of girls suffering. It was a low blow, Elle.”

  The temperature of Ellie’s face rose ten degrees as she narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you really not remember this whole thing started because your father paid some skank to lie about having an affair with my dad? Who, by the way, is not in politics and clearly wasn’t off-limits.”

  “Yeah and it took you two years to talk to me again after that. It’s only been two days.”

  She hated that he had a point. She stood up and walked to the window, staring out into the distance instead of at him. She was too terrified of what he might say next. Had he spent the past two days realizing being with her was way more difficult than he thought and he couldn’t go through with it anymore? It was so frustrating that no matter what happened between them, they always ended up back in the exact same place.

  “You were the one who always said what goes on between our parents shouldn’t affect us,” she said quietly, still unable to look at h
im.

  “I know.”

  She heard him sigh, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around and face him. “Have you changed your mind?”

  She suddenly felt his body behind hers.

  “No,” he said firmly. “This whole thing sucks, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.”

  A wave of relief surged through her and she turned around to him, their faces inches apart. He ran his hand through her hair and she exhaled, soaking in the physical contact she had missed from him the past two days.

  “I’m sorry my mom said that,” she whispered.

  “Eventually our parents will run out of insults.”

  They stared at each other, the heat building between them with every second that ticked by. Her body was on fire all the way down to her toes. She had never wanted him as much as she did right that second. Finally, he pulled her to him and kissed her, and she felt like she could erupt into flames as they gave into the withdrawal of not being together for forty-eight hours. His hands squeezed her back tightly and they tumbled on to the couch, their bodies intertwined. When the staff director for the Senate Rules and Administration Committee assigned these hideaway offices, this was probably not what she thought they would be used for.

  The next morning, Ellie cheerily packed up her book bag, still giddy from the hideaway hook-up session the night before. She was relieved her mother had left on an early flight that morning to New York to meet with a few U.N. Ambassadors because Marilyn would surely notice Ellie’s mood was a little too peppy for a Monday morning. Ellie didn’t want to have to make up a lame reason for it.

  She slipped on her chunky, heeled rag & bone booties over her tights and did a quick once-over in the wood floor mirror leaning against her bedroom wall. She usually didn’t spend a lot of time in the morning choosing her outfits since she was a fan of hitting the snooze button at least three times, but today she had carefully picked out a black, wool drop-waist dress she had bought at the Sandro boutique up in Soho a few months ago. Not that she believed in dressing for a guy, but she couldn’t help but think Gabe would like it.