Second Thoughts (26 page)

“You
look
like you haven't been home.”

“That's what Dr. Stewart said.” She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest.

“And you were carrying your bag.”

“I can carry a bag whenever I want!” Her temper was rising again. “It's not like I was still wearing my dress or something. Besides, I thought she was
joking
with me. It sounded like she was trying to be funny.”

Uh oh. “What did you say? No, what did
she
say?”

“She said, ‘Just getting back, Ms. Moretti?' but I
swear
she sounded like she was joking.”

For real uh oh. “Seriously? When is she
ever
joking? What did
you
say?”

“I said, ‘Of course not!' and I laughed, because…I thought…” The extent of her error was starting to become apparent.

“You
lied
to her?! Amy! You know better!”

She spun on the bed to look at me. “What the hell was I supposed to say? It was just being funny. Except then she didn't laugh back.” I groaned. “You
can't
lie to her.”

“I wasn't lying!”

“Yeah, you were.”

“I didn't mean to! I was, like, joking.” Amy got up and started pacing again, face a little pink from her frustration. “How does she even
know?
I bet she kills at poker. Who can bluff her?”

She had no idea. I held my tongue from saying that and asked, “So now what?” Amy shook her head. “Just a warning maybe? I mean, it was the Winter Ball.” Infractions were practically expected. Plus Amy was good, never in any trouble. She was the freaking Valedictorian, or would be soon enough. When she didn't answer right away, just shrugged and looked down, I knew something more was wrong.

“Ame?”

“Maybe I already had my warning,” she said to her feet.

I sat up straighter in my desk chair and set down my nearly empty coffee. “Sorry, what?”

She cleared her throat and looked at me, meeting my eyes for about a millisecond before glancing away. “I already had a warning.”

“You already had a warning.” That was news to me.

“Two warnings,” she basically whispered before she dropped back onto my bed and buried her face in my pillow.

Two
warnings. Two strikes and I didn't know about either of them. I stared at her in silence until she lifted her head to look at me. “You've gotten two warnings, which you didn't tell me about.” Now
I
was pissed. Maybe it was a little irrational, because I kept a
lot
of secrets, but whatever. She had two warnings and had just lied to Dr. Stewart. This was Honor Board territory. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“You don't have to curse,” she said and I cursed again. I swore all the time, just never at her, and she flinched.

“Sorry, but this is cursing serious. Of which you are perfectly aware.” She made a face but I persisted. Like so many times, I was the mom between the two of us. Usually it was something we laughed at, but like her run-in with the headmaster, this was no joke. “What were the first two?”

She sighed and sat up, letting her feet dangle over the side. My already messy bed was even more of a mess from her. “I cut final hour too many times and then someone saw me on the way back from Caleb's a week or two ago.”

The only thing I could do was curse again.

“I know, okay, I know.”

“Do you? Really?” She was upset, yeah, but also…defiant. Maybe that meant she was
really
upset, but at the same time, she'd broken curfew for the Ball
knowing
she had two warnings. And she hadn't just broken curfew; she'd meandered back onto campus after freaking
noon.
I was pushing her, but she needed it. Or I wanted to do it. Either way, it forced the eruption.

“Yeah, Lane, I do!” She launched herself off the bed and kicked one of the lounge pillows in the middle of the rug. “But it's my senior year and everything's fucked up. You almost died, but you're always with your boyfriend or, like, wrapped up in yourself or some other world, and I'm trying not to
lose
my boyfriend, so I'm just
whatever.
Having fun or trying to keep all my shit together, with basically no help from you. Thanks St. Elaine, for taking a few seconds from shining your halo to give me your
super
helpful commentary.”

I gaped at her back as she angrily dumped the rest of her things out of her bag and put them away with unnecessary force. She made sure not to look at me as she moved around her half of the room. In a way, she was right. I wasn't being helpful. I was hurt. Maybe I wasn't a perfect friend, but neither was she. If I was the angel she was implying, I would have done something helpful. I probably
should
have, apologized or I didn't know what.

But I wasn't an angel, no matter what she said, so I didn't do any of those things. “See you at the Honor Board hearing,” is what I said, right before I slammed the door to the bathroom behind me.

A
S USUAL WHENEVER
I didn't know what to do, I ran to Carter. Amy was gone when I came out of the shower. It felt strange and terrible not to have a text or a note on our board telling me where to come find her. Not that I would have.

I went into the bookstore first, instead of going straight upstairs, thinking I might actually talk to Melinda before I found her nephew. She was so good at listening and girl problems, but she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, even though he wasn't supposed to be working, Carter was there. He sat behind the counter on his stool, a newspaper in front of him even on his day off. It must have been obvious something wasn't right, because as soon as he saw me, he flipped the newspaper closed and opened the counter hatch to come through.

“Hey. What's wrong?” In only a few strides, Carter had enveloped me in his strong arms.

I'd come to talk to Melinda, but I'd take this in exchange. I never felt safer or more comfortable than I did with him. Loving Carter was the one thing that scared me in a good way. It had thrilled me long
before the vision and after and, no matter what happened, I suspected it always would. So I held him there in the middle of the bookstore, soaking up the sense of safety and belonging that was like breathing in and out. A lounge full of underclassmen watched us, but I didn't care.

“Hey,” he repeated, pulling back to search my face with his eyes. “What's up?”

“I had a fight with Amy.” It was only one of my problems, but it was the only one I felt ready to tell him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “It was stupid.”

“Stupid enough to make you cry?”

“I'm not crying!” I
was
upset about it though. I looked up at him. “She just, she said some things…and maybe they weren't all wrong.” He hugged me again but didn't press for more details. I decided to change the subject. “What are you even doing down here? You're supposed to be off.”

Carter pulled back and smiled, grabbing my hand to lead me over to the counter. “I wasn't really working. Either job,” he added softly, after I made a face and eyed the newspaper he'd been reading. I didn't really believe him until I got close enough to see the paper's front page.

“Real Estate? What's this?” Besides a good distraction.

“Just…looking,” he said and I examined the paper more closely.

“This is from the D.C. area.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “But there are more.” He moved it aside and underneath was one covering Boston/Cambridge and one for Southern Connecticut. “I thought…maybe you'd look at them with me? Tonight, if you want.”

“You're buying a house?!”

“Probably just a condo, but yeah.”

We'd never talked about this before. In fact, since the dinners and tours his uncle had arranged for us in the fall, we'd barely talked about college or next year at all. For a while, he'd been too worried about the vision and, regardless, I insisted on waiting for my acceptances until I made any serious decisions. Those acceptances were now tucked in my desk drawer. I wondered if Carter had a stack in his drawer as well.

“You never said anything.”

He bumped me with his shoulder. “Neither did you. But you have to live somewhere, wherever you choose, don't you? So do I.”

I guessed that was true. There was so much about next year I hadn't considered, for so many reasons. Also, I was, simply, scared. Not just about my possible lack of future, but about having one too. I was comfortable at Northbrook, settled for the first time in my whole life, and one way or another, I'd have to give that up. I wondered if I was the only girl in the whole senior class who
didn't
want to graduate.

But there was nothing else I wanted to do tonight, so why not talk about the future? I pulled up a second stool and sat next to him. It wouldn't be long until the store closed and all the students would have to go down to Anderson's Cafe or back to campus and Carter and I could claim the couch in front of the fireplace. Mandi Worthington sat there now, and I could feel her watching us.

When I looked in her direction, she smirked and I had to fight my instinct to stick my tongue out or go slap her. Maybe I did want to graduate after all. I turned back to Carter's newspapers.

“You know, normal people just look at this stuff online. What did you do, special order these, old man?” I knew full well he preferred print because of his
Lumen
gift—it was easier to remember pages than scrolling computer screens—but I still liked to tease him.

He kissed the side of my head and smiled, ignoring my commentary. “I got some for you too.” From under the counter, he pulled out a second stack and handed them to me.

I quickly scanned the D.C. one on top. “This is different from yours?”

“Babe, your
budget
is different from mine.”

To his credit, it wasn't bitter or embarrassed the way he said it. He took it in stride that I was wealthy, though he was always more conscious of it than I was. For the first time, I realized that was probably annoying about me. That I forgot about the money, in the way only the truly wealthy can. Before Northbrook, my life with my aunt moved so quickly, I never had time to compare myself, and at Northbrook, I was surrounded by students with comparable bank accounts.

I blushed. “Sorry,” I said and resolved, going forward, not to be so thoughtless. About
everything,
I added to my resolution, thinking back to what Amy had said earlier. Occasionally legitimate or not, maybe I did spend too much time wrapped up in myself.

Carter pushed the stack closer to me and put an arm around my shoulder. “You don't have to apologize. Just buy yourself a nice place that I can come visit.”

We sat in companionable silence for a while, perusing the various papers while we waited for closing time. It was kind of thrilling, looking at the listings and imagining myself there. I'd never considered
buying
somewhere to live. It wasn't a typical concern for someone my age. Of course, neither was antique furniture, and I had a ton of that just waiting to furnish my own place. Whenever I let myself think about after graduation, I always figured I'd bounce around between my family and Amy's before living in a dorm. I could still do that. I even might.

“Why not just rent?” I asked Carter. I knew he'd never choose a dorm or to have roommates, because that's just how he was, but renting seemed simpler.

He glanced over. “I thought about it. But I've been saving for years…it feels like a waste just to spend it on rent and get nothing back. Real estate's a good investment.”

That was true. Uncle Martin said so all the time; in fact, he'd encouraged me to consider it once before. And I knew Carter wasn't a pauper or anything. Between the bookstore, his Perceptum income, and a college fund he didn't really need for tuition, he had savings far greater than a lot of people, especially guys his age. Now that I was thinking about it, buying a place seemed like a natural step for him.

The more listings I looked at, the more exciting the idea seemed to me too. A little while ago, I'd been sad about leaving Northbrook, a place I'd finally experienced the feeling of being
settled.
I still had to leave Northbrook, but I realized I could make my
own
place to feel settled. I didn't have to be a wayfarer. I'd already experienced that. I could travel whenever I wanted, but putting down roots took time to grow. There was no reason I couldn't start now. The real question was, where did I want those roots?

“Where?” I blurted, my thoughts slipping from my mind to my tongue. The students all gone and the doors locked, Carter and I were performing the nightly ritual, wiping the tables and pushing in chairs.

Carter looked up. “That chair? Wherever. Either of those tables.”

“No, I meant…I was thinking out loud. I meant where should I choose?” I gestured toward the papers we'd left on the couch by the fireplace. “Where do
you
want to go?”

“Wherever you want,” he said, wiping the last table and stowing the cleaning supplies in their cabinet. “I like them all.” As a nonanswer, that stressed me out and I told him so. After a hesitation, he said, “I promise I'll choose wherever I want most.”

“But?”

“I like
you
best, Lane.”

I sat on the couch, tucking my knees up on the seat, and Carter joined me after stoking the fire. “I don't want you to go somewhere just because I'll be nearby. My aunt thinks you're crazy.”

“She's right.” He winked at me as he unfolded a paper to a page with a few listings he'd circled. I huffed and he put the paper down, finally serious. “This is different for me. I don't
have
to go to college. I want to, for fun, but I have a career. I have this”—he gestured around the room—“and I
love
it. I've never wanted to do anything else. I
am
crazy, just like your aunt thinks. I'm twenty years old and already as content as the old man you joke about me being. I want to
study,
but there are so many places I can be happy doing that. All of the places I've looked at, and none of them are going to change my life. I
have
a life. What will make me happiest right now is being close to you.”