Private 8 - Revelation (8 page)

I slowed my steps, not wanting to appear too interested, but dying to know what was going on. As I watched, Amberly tossed her blond hair--which she had clearly straightened this morning--and handed a small white card to Trey. He said something that made her laugh before tucking the card away in his back pocket. Then I noticed that everyone walking away from the circle was clutching one of these cards, and those still in the circle seemed to be clamoring for them. What in the world was going on?

Noelle whispered something to Amberly and they both laughed again, the sound echoing merrily across campus. Watching them made my stomach sink. They looked perfect together, all tucked into

77 their designer coats, puffing clouds of steam into the cold air as they chatted and laughed-- like perfectly matched best friends. Surrounded by people, they were clearly the belles of this ball. It was almost like watching Noelle and Ariana from afar last year. They looked that close. That untouchable.

A few weeks ago that had been me. A few weeks ago Noelle and I had been close like that. We had been the center of Easton together. And now... now I was merely a loser on the outskirts of Nowheresville. A nothing.

I wondered if Noelle had gotten my e-mail. If she'd read my apology. If I could just get her to talk to me, maybe I could also get her to forgive me for what I had done with Dash. Then she could make the Reed-as-murderer rumor go away. Then I could come back to Billings with a clear conscience and name and everything would go back to normal.

Of course, there was no way to know if she'd read my e-mail unless she decided to come to me. And right now it looked like I was the furthest thing from her mind.

A group of Billings Girls broke off from the crowd and started toward the cafeteria, clutching their cards. Missy and Lorna were among them, but so were Astrid and Sabine. I hesitated for a moment, then realized I could endure the sneers of the former two if it meant I could get info out of the latter pair. I scurried to catch up.

"Hey, guys," I said, falling into step next to Astrid.

Missy scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Oh... hey, Reed," Sabine said tentatively.

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"What're those?" I asked, nodding at Astrid's card. Astrid glanced warily at the others before reluctantly handing over the white square. It was an invitation for a party thrown by Noelle and Amberly. Scheduled for next Saturday evening.

"I don't get it," I said. Why would Noelle and Amberly be throwing a party together? It didn't gel.

"It's a pre-party for Kiran's birthday extravaganza," Astrid said apologetically. "It's so everyone can gather on campus before the party buses come round to get us."

My heart curled into a tight ball inside my chest. I had received my invitation to Kiran's birthday party the week before the fundraiser. The week before the proverbial shit had hit the proverbial fan. But I hadn't thought about the event for days. Other dramas had shoved it to the back of my mind. Did my falling-out with Noelle and my ostracism from Billings mean I would no longer be welcome? Did Kiran even know what had happened? Would she care?

"Everyone's invited. Well, everyone who matters," Missy said snidely, plucking Astrid's invite out of my hand and giving it back to its rightful owner.

I ignored her comment. "Okay, but why Noelle and Amberly? Why are they throwing it together?"

Astrid and Sabine slowed to a stop, as did Missy and Lorna, who hovered a bit behind them. The silence dragged on for so long I was starting to get knee-knocking cold.

"Oh, for God's sake, if you don't want to tell her, I will," Missy

79 said, stepping forward. "It's Noelle's way of welcoming Amberly into Billings. We just voted her in last night."

I felt as if all the stately buildings of Easton had just crumbled around me, shaking the earth beneath my feet.

"Amberly?""Yep," Lorna replied. "She's moving her stuff in this afternoon."

I glanced at Sabine, who confirmed it all with one guilty and sad look. Amberly would be moving her stuff into our room. Into my space. I felt nauseated and dizzy. That was my room. My bed. Mine.

"But she's a... a freshman," I stammered.

"So? You were a sophomore when you got in," Missy reminded me. "Clearly if they can bend the rules once they can bend them again."

"Why didn't you warn me?" I asked Sabine, my throat dry.

"I didn't... I'm sorry... I just didn't want to upset you," Sabine said, as a stiff wind tossed her long dark hair behind her. "After how hopeful we were yesterday... I didn't even know we were holding a vote until they woke me up in the middle of the night."

Holding a vote. The Inner Circle ritual. Suddenly I could see it all so vividly. The girls being roused from their beds. The candlelight as they trailed down the stairs in their nightgowns. The chairs in the circle. The marbles being dropped one by one. I could even see Amberly's picture set before them. Her sniveling, smiling little face beaming hopefully out at them.

And they had voted her in. There was no longer an open spot in Billings. I had already been replaced. And by a freshman. 80

"Can we go now? It's freezing out here," Missy said, shoving her hands into her coat pockets.

She and Lorna started for the cafeteria, but Sabine and Astrid hung back.

"I'm really sorry, Reed," Astrid said.

"It's okay," I heard myself croak.

But it wasn't okay. It would never be okay. Because I knew that Noelle had done this on purpose. Just like she'd told everyone about my meeting with Hauer before Thanksgiving and let everyone believe I was a killer. She had chosen Amberly because she had known it would be the ultimate snub. The Billings president replaced by a lowly freshman. She was trying to show me how very little I had meant. How very easy it was to fill my shoes.

She was trying to hammer it home to me that it was over. I would never get back into Billings. Never.

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***

My Spanish notebook was propped up in front of me, my textbook open to the five-page short story about which I was supposed to write an essay (all in Spanish). I had my English-to-Spanish dictionary out, a new file open on my computer, and iTunes set to shuffle. I was ready to work. Unfortunately, all I could do was stare at the note I had received from Kiran along with the invitation to her party. I turned the handwritten card over in my hand. Over and over and over.

***

Reed,

It's been TOO long. Please come. Would love to catch up.

x's,

Kiran

***

Did the message still apply? Or would she hate me forever once she'd found out what I'd done to Noelle? Was there any possible way she hadn't already heard?

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I so wanted to go to the party. I was dying to see Kiran and hoping that maybe Taylor Bell would be there as well. It had been too long. But even if Kiran did still want me there, how was I supposed to get to Boston? I could hardly imagine sitting on a party bus with a couple dozen Easton students for the two -hour-plus ride. That long in a confined space with nothing but people who detested me? I'd rather be forced to watch my parents' wedding video nonstop for forty-eight hours, complete with my dad's off-key rendition of Bon Jovi's "I'll Be There for You." But if I could make it to the party, it might be the perfect opportunity to talk to Noelle. All our old friends together again. Just like old times. Maybe she would find it easier to forgive me if she could be reminded why we'd become friends in the first place.

I sighed and tossed the card down on my scarred desk, gazing at my blank computer screen. There was a lull as iTunes switched songs and I heard a voice, as clear as day, come through the vent under my bed.

"Okay, if you're going to keep doing that, I'm going to have to leave," Josh said with a laugh in his voice. "We're supposed to be studying."

Hot, acidic bile rose up in my throat. What exactly was Ivy doing? About a thousand unsavory possibilities flooded my mind and I instantly reached for my phone. No way was I going to sit in here knowing they were right next door. Not even if I blasted the speakers on both my computer and my CD player. I quickly texted Sabine.

***

Need 2 get out.Walk?

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***

The few moments it took her to text me back felt like an eternity. Meet u in quad.

***

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I whispered, grabbing my coat. Sabine was definitely going to win the Best Friend of the Year Award. I turned off iTunes, only to hear a peel of Ivy's laughter that sent my pulse racing. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I fumbled with the doorknob, trying to pull my coat on at the same time, and tripped into the hall. My door wasn't even closed behind me when I heard another door click shut. I looked up right into the stunning--and stunned--blue eyes of Josh Hollis.

He froze. I froze. He clutched his gray wool jacket in both hands. I stood there half in, half out of my own coat. I guess Ivy had refused to stop doing whatever she was doing to distract him--make me heave--but I couldn't even think about that right then. All I could think about was how he was mere inches from me and how much I wanted to just hug him and how I couldn't.

How I'd never be able to do that again.

I was about to say something--anything to break the awkwardness--but before I could, Josh tipped his head toward my room, silently urging me to let him inside. My heart leapt like a high jumper on speed. He wanted to talk to me. Alone.

I held the door open, my hand trembling, and he slipped past me. The clean, familiar scent of him filled my nostrils and almost made me faint. I closed the door behind us and he turned to me.

"Reed, I"

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I held a finger to my lips. His brow knit, but he shut up. I went over to my computer and cranked up the volume on the Fall Out Boy song my iTunes had last landed on. Then I glimpsed the blue Holiday Dinner card with his name on it and quickly flipped it over before I faced him again. "I can hear everything Ivy says when there's no music on," I told him quietly--just loud enough to be heard by him. I tossed my coat on my bed. "If you don't want her to know you're inhere..."

Josh nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. "Got it."

He placed his jacket on the back of my chair and put his battered leather messenger bag down near his feet. His hands went directly into the back pockets of his paint-stained jeans, as if he was afraid of what he might do with them if they weren't secured. Or afraid of what I might do if he kept them within reach.

"So," he said.

"So," I replied, my heart pounding so loud that between it and FOB, I could barely hear.

"How are you?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

His eyes were so full of concern, I wanted to cry. How could he possibly be so nice to me after everything? Yes, he'd already known about the Dash thing before everyone else had- -had caught the live show the night of the Legacy before the film adaptation had hit the airwaves. But now that everyone in school had seen it and knew what I had done to him, shouldn't he be hating me with a vengeance? I had humiliated him.

"I'm... fine," I lied with a shrug.

It was obvious he didn't believe me, but I was still stuck on the

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unbelievable fact that he was right there. Right in my room. The two of us. Alone. How many times had I wished for exactly this? How many times had I prayed I would just get one more chance to explain? To win him back? And here I was, a rock the size of a softball in my throat, unable to form a single word in case whatever came out might scare him away.

"I'm really sorry all of this is happening to you," Josh said, running a hand through his curls and looking at the ground. "I know I've been an ass lately, but--"

"Josh, I'm so sorry," I blurted, his words dissolving the softball just like that. "I'm so sorry for everything that happened with Dash. It didn't mean anything, and if I could go back and take it all back, I would do it. You have to know that," I said desperately. "Please, I just... I really need you to know that."

I choked on the last few words, and Josh took a step toward me. For a second I thought he was going to take my hand, but then he thought better of it and merely squeezed my upper arm awkwardly before letting his hand drop.

"I know," he said. "I do."

"You do?" I said hopefully.

"Listen, Reed, it's all in the past, okay?" he said, backing off again. "You can't stress about what's already done, especially with everything else that's going on."

Everything else? Didn't he get that he mattered to me more than any of the rest of it?

He picked up my one bottle of perfume from the top of my dresser and toyed with it.

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"Just... get through finals and everything will be better after break," he said, glancing over at me. "It'll be like a new start or something, you know?" He gestured at my itty-bitty room. "New dorm, new friends... You can focus on the SATs and getting into an Ivy and leaving all this behind. Two years from now none of this crap is going to matter anymore."

Except you. You'll still matter.

I felt at that moment that I would be able to leave all of this behind if only I still had him. The person who had always been there for me. The person who had always kept me sane, no matter what was going on around me.

Josh shoved his hands in his back pockets again and faced me. He looked as if he didn't know what to do with himself next. I just wanted him to touch me again. Even if it was another uncomfortable shoulder squeeze. It was so insane, how you could go from kissing and hugging and cuddling someone every single day like it was the most natural thing in the world to not being allowed within two feet of them. It was as if there were this invisible barrier between us and all I wanted to do was breach it. Did he feel even remotely the same way?

I saw his eyes dart past me to his jacket and sensed he was about to bail. But I wasn't ready to let him leave just yet.

"Well, I guess you finally got your wish," I said with a sardonic smile. "I'm no longer in Billings."

Josh's eyes flooded with so much pity I immediately wished I had kept my mouth shut.