Only With You

by Gray, Cecilia

  Emma saw Lizzie, a girl so determined to change the world that she probably would. Or Ellie, the sweetest girl with a brain so dangerously genius she'd be a villain if she had a mean bone in her body. There was Kat, an actress so talented she could make you feel things you never expected and give you a fresh perspective on life. Fanny was the fastest girl she'd ever met and was blasting through pre-Olympic records. Then there was Anne, who had suffered so much hardship but was always putting other people first.

  Not to mention the hundreds of other classmates. That girl in her Chem class who was trying to find new, cheap ways to screen for cancer. The tall guy in Government who knew every American historical document by heart. Even the headmistress, who for all her stern-faced attempts to shut down the Academy was this really interesting person with a life Emma had never imagined.

  When she look at the Academy, she saw her friends. She saw the people. She'd spent so much time assuming they needed her help, that she was better than they were. But really, they were all amazing in their own ways.

  Right now, they didn't need her. She needed them.

  Emma opened the door to her dorm room. Ellie was sitting cross-legged on the bed in denim shorts and blue tank, eating French fries from a carton. Emma was so relieved to see her that she didn't even make a face at the bits of food she was sure were soaking into Ellie's blanket.

  Before she could stop herself, she dropped her bags to her feet and threw herself onto Ellie's bed. With her arms wrapped around Ellie's neck, she pulled her best friend close and began to cry.

  Not a soft cry one might imagine of Emma Greene, but loud, hiccuping gulps that racked their way out from her ribs.

  "What's wrong? What happened? Emma? Was it Josh? I will kill him."

  Emma snorted into Ellie's neck, only because the idea of Ellie hurting a fly was so ludicrous, but she knew the athletic blonde could be quite vicious when it came to protecting her friends.

  After holding in her feelings, after denying the truth to others and to herself, she was home. Where she felt safe. With someone she felt safe with. And she let it all out. The truth.

  Ellie listened. She didn't interrupt, even when Emma tripped over details or circled back to the same thought. Ellie let Emma get the story out the way it came to her, the way it needed to be said.

  All about how she'd meant to set up Anne and Josh but instead had brought together Anne and Knight, and how she'd realized, too late, how much Knight meant to her.

  When every last word wrung out of her, she looked up at Ellie, waiting, expecting, to be judged. After all, who would choose Emma over Anne? Who would pick the loud, confident girl who could get whatever she wanted when compared to the poor, sympathetic girl who had everything taken from her and deserved so much more?

  Emma Greene was no underdog.

  Ellie was silent for a while, the way she was when puzzling over a particularly difficult quadratic equation or pondering some obscure mathematical problem that had never been solved.

  "Say something," Emma begged, shaking Ellie's arm.

  "Are you sure Knight and Anne like each other?"

  "Of course I'm sure. Anne all but said that Knight convinced her she could love again."

  "That doesn't sound like Anne."

  "She said it, trust me. And Knight was being so sweet to her. He followed her into her room, checked on her, chose her—" Emma choked on the words. "Chose her over me."

  "I'm sure it felt that way, but Emma…Knight has always been yours."

  "I know, I know." Emma moaned as she lay back on Ellie's bed. "We've always been such good friends. I'm not sure how it all got mixed up in my head, when he transformed into this other thing that makes me feel turned around and twisted inside. I wish I could go back. Two days, Ellie! I wish I could just blink and time travel to when everything was simple."

  "I think everything still is simple. You like Knight. You have to tell him."

  Of course Ellie would think everything was simple. Ellie thought Fermat's Last Theorem was simple.

  "I can't. He's already made his choice, and besides, I can't do that to Anne. I can't hurt her after what she's been through with Rick."

  "Can I show you something?" Ellie said. She reached for her phone and scrolled through the windows. "Look. You, Knight, and Anne all sent me a dozen messages while I was in Guatemala."

  "Well, yeah, duh. We missed you."

  "Look at Anne's messages. They are all about the animals. Pictures of dogs. Every single one. Knight's? He talks about how great your place is. How much work you put into the event. And okay, there's a picture of some nachos. You? You talk about what a pest Knight is being."

  "Yeah so?"

  "So? You and Knight always talk about each other. I can't talk to one of you without hearing about the other. That's the way it's always been. You have to talk to him, Emma. You have to."

  Emma scrolled through Ellie's phone again as she turned the advice around in her head. Ellie was right. She and Knight had always been close.

  Too close, maybe, for Anne's comfort.

  If Knight and Anne were going to be dating, well then—Emma took a deep, sharp breath—then it meant she and Knight would have to see each other less. Would have to stop relying on each other all the time. Knight would have to learn to rely on Anne instead.

  It was the least Emma could do. She'd find another partner in crime. Maybe Josh would be up for some unromantic hijinks.

  "Emma?" Ellie said uncertainly, peering at her with questioning blue eyes.

  "You're right. I'll talk to him," Emma said.

  And she would let him go.

  * * *

  Emma did not rush over to Knight's room. First she showered. Then blow-dried and curled her hair and tried on a dozen outfits before settling on a blue micromini. By the time she finished applying her makeup, she felt stupid, stripped it all off, and ended up in her sea-green sweatpants and matching hoodie. She wiped her face clean of makeup and ran a comb through her hair to pull out the curls.

  If she was going to do this, she wasn't dressing up for it. Why make herself attractive when she was trying to repel? She had to tell Knight that they could no longer be friends.

  Okay, nothing so dramatic as that, but she owed him the truth, that she couldn't be his friend so easily anymore. Not without hurting herself.

  Maybe that made her selfish or stupid. Maybe it made her difficult. But it didn't matter anymore. She couldn't imagine getting over Knight well enough to watch him with another girl.

  She found Knight in his dorm room. He was lying with his head hanging off the foot of the bed. His eyes were closed, and he bobbed his head along to whatever song was blasting through his muffler-sized headphones.

  She gave herself a moment to imagine being with him. To imagine crawling next to him and pulling the headphones off so she could hear, too. To imagine him rolling her against his side, his arms wrapped around her shoulders.

  It would have been perfect.

  She kicked the foot of the bed. His eyes flew open, and he sat up and pulled off his headphones.

  "How was the ride back?" he asked.

  "Not bad. How was yours?"

  "Pretty nice," he said. "Anne plays a mean game of twenty questions. You wouldn't think she was competitive, but she's got a streak."

  Emma didn't miss the twinkle in his eye when he talked about Anne. It sent her stomach sour. How was she going to make it through the rest of the year watching them together? "We have to talk."

  "Okay." Wariness stole into his expression and hooded his eyes. "Here? Now?"

  "May as well."

  "Why do I feel like this is a big talk?"

  "Because it is. You said some things to me this weekend…not all of them nice."

  "Emma—"

  "Let me finish," she said in a rush. "Because I need to finish. I know I'm not the best person in the world, but I try my best, and I think that counts for something. I really care about my friends, but I also care about myself, an
d Knight, I don't think we can be friends anymore." She choked on the final sentence and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying again.

  She waited for Knight to respond. He seemed to be digesting what she said because he was quiet, staring at her, lips pressed thin. "Good," he said. "I don't want to be friends, either."

  Her mouth opened in surprise. Of all the things she'd expected him to say, that hadn't been one of them. She clutched her stomach. "Oh. I guess… Okay. Anne and I are still friends, but maybe we can…take shifts."

  "Emma, stop." He got to his feet and crossed the room to her. "You're the dumbest smart person I know sometimes."

  "I'm the best person you know," she retorted.

  "I know, Emma." He laughed. "Don't you get it? I know! I don't want to be your friend."

  Emma gasped, the air in her chest ice cold. To hear him say it like that, to hear him declare it so decidedly, devastated every bone in her body that she hardly knew what was keeping her standing. Her lower lip quivered, and she knew then she could not lose him. But what else was there?

  He shook her shoulders. "Emma, look at me."

  Her gaze had glassed over, unfocused, but with him shaking her, it snapped back to his face. "Well, we are friends, Knight. Whether we want it or not."

  His frowned. "You just said—"

  "I don't care what I said. We'll forever be friends, Knight, because we care about each other," she snapped. No matter how much it would hurt, it couldn't hurt more than caring about someone and not being able to see them happy. "So maybe it doesn't matter what you want."

  "Don't you get it, Emma?" He laughed.

  Was he laughing cruelly? She didn't think so, but he laughed and it was enough to shut her up, enough that her mouth gaped open and closed. "I don't get it," she said finally.

  "I don't want to be friend. Because I want to be yours."

  "Wait…what?" She shook her head, shook out her tears. "What does that mean?"

  "Emma Greene." She loved the way he said her name, tenderly. His hand cupped her cheeks. "Is there something you actually don't know?"

  Was he saying he wanted her? That he loved her? It filled her with such buoyancy until she remembered her friend. "What about Anne? She thinks—"

  "She doesn't think anything. She and I have talked. Several times. Better or worse, she's still in love with Rick. She's not into me. I'm not into her. I hate to say it, Emma, but you failed. Anne and Josh? Failure. Anne and me? Total utter failure. There's only one way to redeem yourself."

  She closed her eyes tight, as if she might open them to find everything a dream. But when she did open them he was smiling down at her, his dark eyes twinkling.

  "How can I redeem myself?" she asked on a whisper.

  "You're always trying to save the world. I love that about you." He pulled her against him, grinning at her confused look. "But for right now, how about you just save me?"

  Knight dipped his head and captured her lips. Emma laughed, kissing him back. She'd been wrong. Gloriously, awesomely wrong. And she'd never been happier.

  * * *

  A kiss was a living thing. It had started so simply, so small. The two of them standing. Lips pressed together. Maybe she had been the one to move closer to him. Maybe he had been the one to pull her against him. But first they had been standing still then they had been moving across the room and now they were lying down on their sides, noses and knees touching.

  "You have no idea how long I've been thinking about this," he murmured against her lips. His fingers danced up her scalp. He tugged at her blond curls, wrapped them around his fingers.

  "Playing with my hair?" she asked teasingly.

  "With everything." He stole a kiss at the nape of her neck that made her hiss in a breath through her teeth. He smiled at the sound. "But mostly about kissing you."

  "But we've kissed before," she said, fighting to stay focused on the conversation instead of the drowsy sensation that stole through her every time his curious, searching fingers drew along her collarbone or the curl of her ear.

  "When we found your phone and when I brought you donuts," he said. "I know. Trust me. I know every time you've ever touched me, every look you've ever given me. But this is different. Because now you know how I feel about you." His hand slid across her waist, belted there, and pulled her against him.

  She stretched along the line of his body, as boneless as the cats at the shelter. "I wish I'd known sooner."

  "Me, too. But we're just in time."

  "For what?" she asked.

  He got off the bed, and she groaned in protest, but he pulled her to her feet. "I left early because I was working on something for you, Emma."

  "For me?"

  "A little scheme worthy of my favorite schemer."

  She looked up at him, confused. "But you were so angry with me and then you ignored me and then—"

  "It didn't mean I wasn't thinking of you."

  Delight lit up her eyes and her smile. "Show me. Where is it?" She flew across the room, checking his desk and opening his drawers. At his chuckle, she turned around to face him.

  "It's not here. We have to go outside. But, Emma, just this once, maybe I can be the one giving the orders?"

  Emma took his hand. She didn't ask where they were going. Didn't try to fight back him. Didn't attempt to assert her way on him. She felt love, and she felt trust. She felt him look at her as though for all the world, she was the best person in it.

  She wasn't the best person—she knew this now—but she was a good person. She was trying. And with a little more effort, she would get better and better.

  Starting now, with him, the best friend she hadn't realized she needed.

  She squeezed his hand. "Just this once," she said.

  Epilogue

  Anne Escobar knew the Academy no longer belonged to her family, but there was no other place on Earth she felt at home. Every square inch of the school was familiar to her. She knew the front parking lot had enough spaces for thirty-two cars. That the bushes lining the lot were Western Bleeding Heart. Anne knew the stones of the building had been mined from a quarry 400 miles away. An old family friend had welded the wrought-iron gates and the iron lettering over each entrance—We Will Be Heard—her family's motto.

  She knew about the meteor crater a few miles west of the property that most students had never managed to stumble upon. She was familiar with every nook and cranny in the headmistress's cottage. She'd spent summers cataloging all the books in the school library. She knew it took twenty-two minutes to water down the track when it got too dusty.

  Anne had a favorite spot on the grounds: the apple tree in the central courtyard. Her mother had read picture books to her beneath that tree. She'd had her first kiss under that tree when she was twelve. Rick's mouth had been dry and firm. He'd held his fingers at her waist like he was scared to hold her too tight.

  Now she felt like she was sharing her special place with the world.

  Her roommate Lizzie and her friend Ellie loved to climb the tree. Nearly every one of her friends had been asked out beneath it. Lizzie, Ellie, and Kat.

  Now Emma.

  Anne watched through the open window in Emma's room that overlooked the courtyard as Knight led her to the tree with his hands covering her eyes. Her fingers impatiently pried at his palms, but he held firm. He walked close behind her, whispering in her ear.

  When Knight was a foot in front of the tree, he removed his hands. Anne heard Emma's gasp clear across the courtyard.

  Anne had watched Knight preparing for this moment so he could pull it off before Emma arrived from her beach house. Knight had hung a hundred poloroids from the tree's branches, each one a picture of him in funny outfits. A Jedi knight. A Medieval knight. An English knight. A knight of the round table. Each time holding up a sign with one word on it: Prom?

  The poloroids danced in the wind like chimes of Emma's laughter to match.

  Emma looked so happy that Anne couldn't bear
to share the contents of her mother's letter that the headmistress had handed to her upon her return—the reason for her all-important meeting. She pulled it from her pocket and smoothed it out against the desk. Despite everything they had tried to do, despite all the protests, despite all their snooping, they had not managed to save the Academy.

  The new owners still intended to demolish the school the day after prom.

  Every brick, every stone, every leaf that she loved.

  Soon it would all be gone.

  * * *

  Continue reading for a discussion guide geared toward fans of the Jane Austen Academy series and of the original Jane Austen novels!

  Don't miss any of the books in The Jane Austen Academy series! Catch up with Lizzie, Ellie, Kat, Fanny, Emma and Anne as their friendships are torn, tested and ultimately triumph.

  FALL FOR YOU

  Lizzie’s story in a Pride & Prejudice Retelling

  When Lizzie's quest to stop the changes at The Jane Austen Academy blow up in her face, she has nowhere else to turn but to Dante, with his killer blue eyes, his crazy-sexy smile, and his secrets...

  SO INTO YOU

  Ellie’s story in a Sense & Sensibility Retelling

  When Ellie's parents threaten to pull her from the The Jane Austen Academy just as her flirtation with the cutest boy in school heats up, will Ellie be able to keep her cool?

  WHEN I'M WITH YOU

  Kat's story in a Northanger Abbey Retelling

  Kat discovers pursuing her dreams may mean forfeiting her heart. Unless she can find a way to have both...

  SUDDENLY YOU

  Fanny's story in a Mansfield Park Retelling

  Fanny finds herself center stage in the middle of the The Jane Austen Academy's biggest love triangle as the lead in the school play...only this track star can't afford to break a leg

  ONLY WITH YOU