by Claudia Gray
Did he feel the same way? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew for certain was that he was wrong about my parents.
“How are you feeling, Bianca?” Mom asked softly as we cleared away my dishes from our Sunday dinner.
I hadn’t slept well, hadn’t eaten much, and mostly just wanted to pull a blanket over my head for the next two years or so. But for virtually the first time in my life, I didn’t want to confide in them. They were Lucas’s teachers; it wouldn’t be fair to Lucas to tell them about his suspicions. Besides, talking about the fact that Lucas and I were apparently over before we’d even started would have made the loss more real. “I’m fine.”
Mom and Dad exchanged glances. They could tell I was lying, but they weren’t going to press me. “Tell you what,” Dad said, heading toward the record player. “Don’t go back downstairs just yet.”
“Really?” Normally, the Sunday dinner rules dictated that I return to the dorms for studying not long after dinner had ended.
“It’s a clear night, and I thought you might want to get in some telescope time. Besides, I was about to put Frank Sinatra on. I know how you love Ol’ Blue Eyes.”
“‘Fly Me to the Moon,’” I requested, and within a few seconds, Frank was singing it to us all. I showed them both the Andromeda galaxy, directing them to look up from Pegasus, then go northeast until they saw it, the soft fuzzy glow of a billion stars far away. After that, I spent a long time combing through the cosmos, each familiar star like a long-lost friend.
The next day, on my way to history class, I glimpsed Lucas in the hallway at the very same moment he spotted me. Sunlight from the stained glass windows painted him the colors of autumn, and it seemed to me that he had never been more handsome.
When our gazes met, though, the moment lost all its beauty. Lucas looked hurt, as bewildered and lost as I’d been feeling ever since the argument in the restaurant—and for a terrible second I felt guilty, because I knew that I’d hurt him. I could see guilt in his eyes, too. Then he clenched his jaw and turned from me, shoulders slightly hunched. Within seconds, he was lost in the crowd of uniforms, one more invisible person at Evernight.
Maybe he was telling himself, once again, that it was best to keep his distance from people. I remembered how he had acted when we were together—so much happier and looser, more free—and I hated the idea that I might have forced him to shut himself off from the world again.
“Lucas’s totally dragging ass around the dorm room,” Vic informed me later that day when we ran into each other on the stairwell. For once, Vic was dressed normally—at least, from the ankles up, because the red Chucks he had on his feet were definitely not part of the uniform. “He’s kind of a moody guy anyway, but this is beyond moody. This is supermoody. Megamoody. X-treme moodiness.” He made an X with his arms to spell out the last.
“Did he send you here to plead his case?” I tried to make it sound light. I don’t think I did very well; my voice was so ragged that anybody could tell I’d been crying earlier that day—even someone as oblivious as Vic.
“He didn’t send me. He’s not like that.” Vic shrugged. “Just wondering about the source of the drama.”
“There’s no drama.”
“There’s totally drama, and you’re not going to tell me about it, but, hey, that’s okay. Because it’s not my business.”
I felt so disappointed. I would have been angry if Lucas had sent Vic to argue on his behalf, but it was depressing to realize that Lucas was going to let me go without a fight. “Okay.”
Vic nudged my elbow with his. “You and me are still friends, right? You guys get joint custody in the divorce. Generous visitation rights.”
“Divorce?” Despite myself, I laughed. Only Vic could call the aftermath of a bad first date a divorce. We hadn’t exactly been friends beforehand, so “still” was an exaggeration, but it would’ve been mean to point that out. Besides, I liked Vic. “We’re still friends.”
“Excellent. The weirdos have to stick together around here.”
“Are you calling me a weirdo?”
“Highest honor I can bestow.” He held out his hands as we walked through the corridors, taking it all in with one gesture: the high ceilings, the dark, scrolling woodwork that framed every hall and door, the shaded light that filtered through old windows and streaked long, irregular shadows on the floor. “This place is the capital of weird. So what’s weird here is what’s normal anywhere else. That’s how I look at it, anyway.”
I sighed. “You know, I think you’ve got a point.”
He was definitely right about needing as many friends as I could get in a place like Evernight Academy. It wasn’t as if I’d ever liked it here, but my brief time with Lucas had taught me how it felt not to be so desperately alone. Now that he was gone, my isolation stood out in sharper relief. Realizing how much better it could have been only made it harder to bear how unfriendly and intimidating this place actually was.
The change in seasons didn’t help. The school’s Gothic architecture had been softened slightly by the lush ivy and the sloping green lawn. The narrow windows and strangely tinted light hadn’t been able to fully mask the brightness of the late-summer sun. Now, however, dusk came earlier, making Evernight seem more isolated than ever before. As the temperatures cooled, a lasting chill crept into the classrooms and dormitories, and sometimes it seemed that the featherings of frost on the windowpanes were etching themselves permanently into the glass. Even the beautiful autumn leaves rustled in the wind, a lonely, shivery sort of sound. They’d already started falling, leaving the first few branches bare, like naked claws scrabbling at the gray-clouded sky.
I wondered if perhaps the founders of the school had created an Autumn Ball to cheer the students up at such a melancholy time of year.
“I don’t think so,” Balthazar said. We were at the same table in the library; he’d first invited me to study with him a couple of days after the ill-fated Riverton trip. At my old school, I hadn’t studied with anyone, because “studying” usually turned into “talking and goofing off,” and then the assignments stretched out even longer. I preferred to get my homework over and done with. But Balthazar turned out to feel the same way, and we’d spent a lot of time together in the two weeks since, working side by side, hardly saying a word for hours. The conversation didn’t start until we were packing up our books. “I suspect the school’s founders loved autumn. It brings out Evernight’s true nature, I think.”
“That’s why they’d need cheering up.”
He grinned and slung his leather satchel over one shoulder. “This is not the most terrible school on the face of the earth, Bianca.” Balthazar was teasing me, but I could tell that he was genuinely concerned. “I wish you were having more fun here.”
“That makes two of us,” I said, glancing at the corner where I’d seen Lucas reading a few minutes before. He was still there, lamplight making his bronze hair shine, but he didn’t so much as turn his eyes in our direction.
“You could like it if you gave it a fair chance.” Balthazar held the library door for me as we went out. “You ought to explore a little more. Try harder to get to know people.”
I shot him a look. “Like Courtney?”
“Correction: Try harder to get to know the right people.” When Balthazar said “the right people,” he didn’t mean the richest or the most popular; he meant the ones that might be worth getting to know. Thus far, the only member of the in crowd who seemed remotely worth knowing was Balthazar himself, so I thought I wasn’t doing too badly on that score.
“I don’t think Evernight is right for everybody,” I confessed. “I’m positive it’s not right for me. I know it serves a purpose, but I’ll be glad when I graduate.”
“I will, too, but not for the same reason.” Balthazar walked slowly by my side, carefully measuring his long stride so that I wouldn’t fall behind. Sometimes it hit me how big he was—tall and broad, powerfully built—and a weird little tingle would start in my be
lly. “Evernight always makes me feel like I can understand the whole world. Like I can master it. Every new subject I study, every innovation I learn about—it’s like I can’t wait to get out there and try everything for myself.”
His enthusiasm wasn’t enough to make me like the school, but it did make me smile for what felt like the first time in ages. “Well, at least one of us is happy.”
“I hope we’ll both be happy before too long,” Balthazar said softly. His dark eyes were studying me intently, and that warm tingly feeling started again.
We’d reached the archway that led to the girls’ dormitory wing, and he stopped right at the boundary. I could imagine him in the nineteenth century, all courtly manners, and a smile tugged at my lips as I envisioned him bowing from the waist.
Balthazar looked like he might be about to say something, but at that moment Patrice walked up, apparently done with her own schoolwork. “Oh, Bianca, there you are.” Easily, she took my arm as if we were best friends. “You must explain our latest assignment in Modern Technology to me. I can’t make any sense of it.”
“Um—okay.” As I was being towed down the hallway, I looked back at Balthazar and waved. He looked more amused than disappointed. I muttered to Patrice, “We were talking.”
“I realize that,” she whispered. “This way he’ll keep wishing he’d gotten a chance to talk to you more. That means he’ll return to you more quickly.”
“Really?”
“In my experience, it works rather well. Besides, I really do need you to explain.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d had to shepherd Patrice through that particular course, or the first time I’d wondered why I bothered signing up for it at all. “Not a problem.” I sighed.
Patrice giggled, and for a moment she was almost girlish. “Balthazar’s the most attractive man here, if you ask me. Not precisely my type, but those shoulders? Those dark eyes? You’ve done rather well for yourself.”
“We’re just friends,” I protested as we returned to our room.
“Just friends. Hmmm.” Patrice’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “I wonder if Courtney would agree.”
I held up my hands, trying to cut this conversation off before it got even more uncomfortable than it already was. “Don’t tell Courtney about this, okay? I don’t need the hassle.”
She arched one eyebrow. “Don’t tell her about what? I thought you said there was nothing to tell.”
“If you want help with your homework, you’re going to drop the subject. Now.”
Slightly offended, Patrice shrugged. “Suit yourself. If I were you, I’d be excited about attracting the attention of a guy like Balthazar. But, by all means, let’s talk about homework instead.”
Honestly, I was a little proud that Balthazar liked me. I wasn’t convinced that he wanted to be anything more than a friend, but he definitely flirted with me sometimes. After the mess with Lucas, it felt good to be flirted with—as if I really were beautiful and fascinating instead of the shy, awkward girl in the corner.
Balthazar was kind, smart, and he had a sly sense of humor. Everyone liked him, probably because he seemed to like most people in return. Even Raquel, who detested virtually all the in crowd, said hello to him in the hallway, and he always said hello back. He wasn’t snobbish or cold. And he really was devastatingly good-looking.
He was everything a girl could ask for, basically. But he wasn’t Lucas.
Back at my old school, the teachers always decorated for Halloween. Orange plastic pumpkins were set in the windows, waiting to be filled with Tootsie Rolls and Butterfingers, and construction paper witches flew across every wall. Last year, the principal hung candy-corn lights around her office door, which also had a sign that said, in green shaky letters, Boo! I always thought it was cheesy and fake, and it never occurred to me that I might someday miss it.
Nobody hung decorations at Evernight.
“Maybe they think the gargoyles are scary enough,” Raquel suggested over our lunch in her dorm room.
I remembered the one outside my bedroom window and tried to imagine him draped in candy-corn lights. “Yeah, I see what you mean. If your school actually is a dank, scary dungeon from hell, Halloween decorations are sort of beside the point.”
“Too bad we don’t run a haunted house. You know, for little kids from Riverton? We could dress up, make it really scary. Play devils and demons for a weekend. Some of these jerks wouldn’t have to act that much. We could raise money for the school.”
“I don’t think Evernight Academy needs more money.”
“Good point,” she admitted. “But we could raise money for charity, maybe. Like a help hotline or suicide prevention or something. I don’t think many of these people care about charity, but they’d probably do it just for their college applications. None of these rich bitches even talk about college, probably because they’re all legacies at Harvard or Yale or something, but still, they’ve got to apply. So they might go for the idea, right?”
The images flickered in my mind: cobwebs on the staircases, students laughing maniacally and the sound echoing throughout the great hall, and innocent little kids, wide-eyed with terror as Courtney or Vidette waved long black fingernails above their heads. “We’re too late, though—Halloween’s only two weeks away. Maybe next year.”
“If I come back here next year, please shoot me.” Raquel groaned, flopping backward onto her bed. “My parents say I should stick it out, because I got a scholarship to come here and otherwise it’s just my old public school, with the metal detectors and no honors program. But I hate this. I hate it.”
My stomach rumbled. The tuna salad and crackers Raquel and I had shared wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy my hunger; I’d need to eat again in my room. I didn’t want her to realize that, though. “It’s got to get better.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No.” We both looked at each other, expressions bleak, and then burst out laughing.
As our laughter died down, I realized that I could hear shouting—not close by but farther down the hall. Raquel lived not far from the central archway that connected the girls’ dorms to the classroom areas; to me, it sounded like the noise was coming from there. “Hey, do you hear—”
“Yeah.” Raquel pushed herself up on her elbows, listening. “I think it’s a fight.”
“A fight?”
“Trust somebody who used to go to the meanest public school in Boston. I know a fight when I hear one.”
“Come on.” I grabbed my book bag and started out the door, but Raquel grabbed at the sleeve of my sweater.
“What are you doing? We don’t want to get in the middle of anything.” Her eyes were wide. “Don’t ask for trouble.”
She made sense, but I couldn’t listen. If there was a fight, I had to make sure—absolutely sure—that Lucas wasn’t mixed up in it. “Stay here if you want. I’m going.”
Raquel let me leave.
I hurried toward the sounds of yelling and even screaming. That was Courtney’s voice, savage with glee, shouting, “Take him out!”
“Guys, yo, guys!” Those were Vic’s words echoing in the corridor. “Knock it off!”
Heart sinking, I turned the corner just in time to see Erich punch Lucas in the face.
Lucas went sprawling backward, falling on his ass in front of the whole school. The Evernight types started laughing, and Courtney even applauded. Lucas’s lips were smeared with blood, stark against his pale skin. When he realized that he was looking up at me, he shut his eyes tightly. Maybe the embarrassment hurt more than the blow.
“Don’t insult me again,” Erich commanded. He held up his hands, studying them as if satisfied with his handiwork. His knuckles were smeared with Lucas’s dark blood. “Or next time, I’ll shut you up permanently.”
Lucas sat up, staring at Erich intently. A weird silence fell over the crowd, as if everything had become a lot more serious—as if the fight weren’t over but had only begun. It wasn’t dr
ead I sensed, though; it was anticipation. Eagerness. The desire for punishment. “Next time this is going to turn out a whole lot different.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Erich jeered. “Next time, it’s really going to hurt.” He stalked away, the conquering hero in the eyes of Courtney and the others who followed him. Everyone else sort of hurried away before any teachers could arrive. Only Vic and I stayed.
Vic knelt by Lucas’s side. “You look like crap, by the way.”
“Thanks for breaking it to me gently.” Lucas took a deep breath, then groaned. Vic helped steady him and offered a wadded-up tissue for the blood trickling from Lucas’s nose.
I didn’t know what to say. All I could think was how terrible Lucas looked. Erich had clearly gotten the better of him. Ever since the incident in the pizza parlor, I’d been thinking of Lucas as a much rougher guy, somebody who got into fights all the time for the hell of it. Well, now he’d just gotten into another fight. Did that prove I’d been correct? Or did the fact that he’d gotten the stuffing knocked out of him prove that Lucas wasn’t such a tough guy after all?
Finally I asked, “Are you all right?”
“Sure, fine.” Lucas didn’t look up. “You only need one or two molars, really. The rest are spares.”
“You lost teeth?” Vic blanched.
“One of them is kind of loose, but I think it’s sticking around.” Lucas paused, then said to me, “I told you it would be like this eventually.”
He had told me that, someday, he would be a pariah at Evernight. Sure enough, the day had arrived. But why was he pretending that he had left me alone for my own good? I was the one who had walked away from him.