"That's why you're here," I said, turning around to face him fully. "But why are we here?"
But I knew why we were here. It couldn't have been more obvious to the world. It was difficult to wrangle alone time at Easton. And an untrafficked room with a locked door in a remote corner of campus seemed almost too good to be true.
Josh smiled slowly. "I guess I was hoping it would impress you. Does it impress you?"
"Oh, so much. Really. The keeper of the art cemetery? Wow!" I joked, clasping my hands beneath my chin.
"Not that, you loser," Josh said, grabbing the flap on my coat and pulling me closer to him. "The fact that there is a room on campus to which I am one of only two people who have the key."
My heart pounded a sweet little beat as I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Now that is impressive."
"I thought so."
Josh grinned before leaning in to kiss me. Everything fluttered as his tongue searched mine, his hands cupping my face. We stood there for what felt like a very, very long time. Kissing, touching, gently searching. Slowly, he unbuttoned my coat, and I let the ridiculously expensive piece of couture hit the floor. I was very
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aware of the couch right next to us, and when my legs started to ache from standing in one place, I crooked at the knee and brought Josh down with me.
"We don't have to do anything," Josh said, breathless. His lips looked swollen and pink. He was trembling slightly. "I just wanted to see you. That's all."
"I know. I know," I said. I trusted Josh in that moment more than any guy I had ever touched lips with before. "Let's just.. . see what happens."
So we did. And everything that happened was sweet and pure and perfect.
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CONGRUITY
What is Josh doing right now? Is he painting? Studying? Possibly sitting on his bed pretending to be reading, but instead daydreaming about me?
I looked down at my open history text and smiled to myself. I was descending into dorkdom over this guy--and it didn't even bother me. Especially since Natasha was downstairs in the lounge and not here to catch me spontaneously smiling.
I felt a pang of guilt oncoming and steeled myself for it, let Thomas's face pass before my mind's eye. At moments I wished there was something I could do to bring him back. I did. But at other moments I wished that I would have just stayed broken up with him before his disappearance. Then maybe my new crush wouldn't be overshadowed by guilt and sadness. I wished I could just be happy. I was human, after all.
The door to my room opened and I jumped. Noelle stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
"You scared the crap out of me," I said, my hand to my chest.
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Noelle's nose wrinkled quickly. "I've always hated that phrase. I mean, just the visual." She shuddered. "That would be so unsanitary."
I rolled my eyes and pushed back into my pillows, setting the heavy book aside. "What's up?"
Obviously, something was up. She wouldn't have been here unless something was up.
"Not much."
Noelle walked over to my desk. She picked up a framed picture of me and my brother, put it back. Plucked the top off my one ceramic jewelry box, which held my four pairs of earrings, then placed it down. Slipped the novel Natasha had given me from atop a pile of books and flipped through it. I waited patiently as she pawed my things. It wasn't as if there was anything interesting for her to find.
"So, you and Hollis," she said finally.
A pleasant warmth spread through me at the mention of his name. I drew my legs in, knees to chin, and held them. Was she actually here for girl talk? First the Thanksgiving phone call and now this. Crazy.
"Okay, you got me," I said. "How did you know?"
"Have you not been paying attention? I know everything."
It always stunned me when she made statements like that. Who had that kind of ego? That kind of absolute certainty? I envied it to no end. She had moved on to my collection of classic novels on the shelf above my desk and was inspecting their well
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worn spines. Not that I'd had a chance to crack any of my old favorites since arriving at Easton. Too much to do--studying, playing soccer, getting hazed, mourning boyfriends: My plate had been pretty full.
"Do you not approve?" I asked with a bit of a challenge.
Noelle raised one eyebrow at me. "Do you care?"
Of course I care. You know it. I know it. Who are we kidding?
I decided, however, to ignore the obvious and move on.
"He's so amazing, Noelle," I said. "He makes me forget all about Thomas. In fact, he makes me wonder what I was ever doing with Thomas."
"Something we all wondered."
I decided I'd ignore that as well.
"It's just that he's so good, you know?" I said. "He's like Thomas's polar opposite."
"I wouldn't go that far," Noelle said flatly.
My heart kind of halted. "What?"
Noelle sighed and moved over to my bed. She sat down near my feet and looked at me in that way that made me feel like I was the kindergartener and she was the teacher.
"Reed, there's something you should know about Hollis."
Oh. Dear. God. What now? Please tell me it's something good. Like he's the undercover heir to the British throne or his dad is the guy who came up with Google. Please tell me this warning will be along the lines of 'You may have to get used to jetting around the globe and meeting loads of interesting people. Can you handle that?"
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"He's only at Easton because he got kicked out of his old school. He used to go to St. James Prep in New Hampshire."
"Josh got kicked out of school? Please," I said.
"I'm serious, Reed. And it wasn't for anything normal like going on a bender or flunking out," Noelle told me. "There was this whole scandal involved."
I felt a tickle in the back of my throat. "What kind of scandal?"
Noelle blew out another sigh. I wasn't sure if she was having a hard time telling me this or if she was pausing for dramatic effect. If it was the latter, I didn't appreciate it.
"What, Noelle?" I prompted.
"His roommate died," she said.
All the air whooshed out of my lungs.
"Come on."
"Supposedly, he killed himself, but the details were all suspicious," she said. "Some people said that the suicide looked--"
"What?"
"That it looked staged."
I laughed. My temples started to throb. "Yeah, right."
"I'm not kidding, Reed. There was this huge investigation, and no one ever proved anything, but people suspected that the guy was actually . . . murdered."
A chill shot down my spine, but I ignored it. It was just that word. That god-awful word I could not seem to get away from. It was not the congruity of the situation. Because it wasn't even a situation. It was a lie.
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"And--don't tell me--Josh was a suspect," I said wryly, holding up my hands.
She was not getting to me. She wasn't. My heart was not fluttering in a way that scared me.
"Well, apparently, rumors started flying that maybe he had something to do with it--"
"Noelle"
"And then he, like, stopped taking his meds or something and went on this manic -schizo rampage that ended with him tearing apart the dean's office," she continued. "That will get you booted. Deans tend to like things tidy, you know."
"His meds?"
Noelle looked at me blankly. 'You didn't know about his meds? Kid's like a walking pharmacy. He's on everything from Haldol to Ambien. It's a wonder he's not walking around drooling half the time."
At that moment I heard a snap. "Stop it, Noelle!" I was on my feet. I didn't even know how I got there. "Just stop it!"
"Reed--"
"No! This is some kind of joke, right? More hazing?" I said. I was shaking. My fingers trembled so violently I shoved them into my hair and held them against my skull.
; "Reed, no."
I didn't understand. She wasn't actually saying what I thought she was saying.
"So . . . what, Noelle? What do you mean? Are you trying
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to tell me that Josh killed this guy? Is that what you're saying?"
Noelle lifted her shoulders. "I'm just telling you what I know."
"Well, if he killed some guy, he wouldn't just be kicked out of school," I told her defiantly. "He would be in prison, right? Or do you people not go to prison?"
"Reed, calm down," she said. "I told you, they weren't able to prove--"
"No! I don't believe you! Why the hell are you doing this?" I blabbered. "Do you not want me to be happy for some reason? Do you just get off on seeing me miserable? Why are you lying to me?!"
"I'm not lying to you," Noelle said with an incredible calm. "I wouldn't lie to you."
"Right. Because you've never done it before," I said sarcastically.
Noelle stood up slowly. "Reed, I told you that was over. I told you that you could trust us now."
"Consider the source," I spat.
Noelle's eyes flashed. She was seething at that one, I could tell. But she took a deep breath and shook her hair back.
"Fine. I suppose I deserved that," she said finally. "If you don't believe me, research it yourself. It was all over the news. Or just ask the guy, see what he says. It's up to you."
"Fine! Maybe I will," I said.
"Fine." Noelle took a deep breath. "I think I'll go now."
"Good."
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She turned slowly and walked to the door. She paused with her hand on the knob, gazing at me over one shoulder, her thick, lustrous hair tumbling down her back. She looked as beatific as a Renaissance angel. "I'm just trying to protect you, Reed. That's all."
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SEARCH AND DESTROY
Josh's pen tap, tap, tapped against the tabletop as he scanned his essay for Spanish, reading it over for mistakes. He chewed on his bottom lip and tap, tap, tapped. The white collar of his rugby shirt had a small, nonspecific stain right near the left point. For some reason, I couldn't stop staring at it. Tap. Tap. Tap, tap, tap.
I could ask him, right? Just ask him. How long had he been going to Easton? Seemed like an innocent enough question. Why couldn't I just get myself to ask him?
Suddenly Josh looked up. "What?"
"Nothing."
I trained my eyes on my book quickly, but not before noticing that his pupils were really tiny today. Were they always changing size like that?
He slapped the paper down and I flinched. "This isn't making any sense. I need sugar." He pushed back from the table in the library and fished a dollar out of his messenger bag, then closed it backup. "Wantanything?"
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I smiled briefly. "No. I'm good."
"Be right back," he said distractedly.
He walked off and disappeared around the stacks. I stared at his bag. Every inch of me trembled. All I had to do was grab it. It would take all of five seconds to search the thing. I could do it, no problem. If I could stop trembling.
I glanced left. The Dreck boys who were always at the next table had their noses buried in their books. I could hear some angry guitar screaming from the earbuds of one of their iPods. They didn't even know the rest of the world existed, let alone that I did. No one would ever know.
I reached for the bag, then felt a sizzle of guilt and fear and pulled back. I hated Noelle for doing this to me. She'd turned me into a paranoid freakball. Pretty soon I was going to need some psychotropic meds, thanks to her. But now that she'd planted the seed, I couldn't not know. I glanced toward the stacks. No Josh. I grabbed his bag.
All I was going to find were vitamins. That was all he was taking. He had told me as much. I was going to open this bag and all I was going to find was some special one-a-day formulation for overprivileged teenage boys.
My heart was in my throat as my sweaty fingers ripped the flap open. I pawed through the contents. Books. Notebooks. Pens. A mushed, empty M&M's bag. Random crumbs. A crusty paintbrush. Dammit.
I swatted the flap closed again and ripped open the side
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pocket. His cell phone clattered out onto the table, causing the non-iPod-sporting Dreck boy to shoot me a death-ray glare.
"What're you doing?" he demanded.
"Looking for a pen," I shot back.
'You have a pen." He was very cocky about this declaration.
Mind your own business, Detective Dork.
"I. . . need another color. It's a study-system thing."
He narrowed his eyes but went back to his work.
I almost cried. I was becoming a better liar by the day. But the close call was too much for me. I was just about to shove the phone back and give up when out slid a long, thin, plastic box with seven small compartments. Each was marked for a day of the week.
Every one of my vital organs was moving up my throat now. I opened today's compartment. There were five pills nestled inside nice and tight. So many they barely fit. If Josh had to take these everyday, he hadn't yet taken today's dose. Today's huge dose. The pills were blue and orange and green and white, with various milligrams stamped on their surfaces. My heart stopped, then thumped so hard it hurt.
All kinds of drugs, from Haldol to Ambien.
Noelle had not been lying. At least not about this. Which begged the question, what else had she not lied about?
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* * *
I rushed back to Billings like my shoes were a pair of ticking time bombs. I had just looked up Josh's various drugs in The Pill Book at the library--once I'd gotten over the shock that the Easton Academy library owned a copy of The Pill Book. I only even knew the drug-cyclopedia existed and how to use it because my mother had been referencing her battered copy for years. She kept it in her nightstand, and why not? It was her bible.
It turned out Josh was on medication for depression, anxiety, insomnia, and seizures. And now everything was as clear as daybreak to me. Of course Josh was medicated. Of course he was. He'd been acting strangely ever since Thomas's funeral. First, he hadn't reacted at all aside from at the very moment he heard the news. No tears. No sorrow. No nothing. Like he couldn't feel a thing, even when this horrific tragedy had happened. Then, a few weeks later, the even-tempered guy I knew had started to become way more emotionally askew. He'd gotten so tense with me when I'd missed his Boston trip. And then the manic state on
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Thanksgiving. I'd thought he was nervous about potentially hooking up with me, but apparently he was just on an upswing. The pupils, the jitters, the quick mood changes, the sugar addiction all pointed back to some serious issues. Had his medication stopped working? Or had he missed a few doses? Who knew?
God, now that I thought about it, there were so many clues. I'd never seen Josh drink more than half a beer. He'd been the only sober soul at the Legacy. And what was that crack that Gage had made about him the other day? Well, maybe it just hasn't been diagnosed. Everyone knew about this. Everyone, as usual, but me.
The walls of Billings House shook from the force of my door slam. Natasha looked up from her desk at the ceiling as if she expected it to cave in.
"Reed! What is it?"
"I need to use your computer," I said.
I dropped everything on the floor. My bag, my new coat--all on the floor near my bed. I must have looked half out of my mind as I approached her, because she stumbled out of her seat without another word. The pocket of her fleecy sweats got caught on the arm of the chair and she tore herself free.
"What's the matter?" she asked me.
I sat down and double-clicked the Google icon. For someone in the midst of a panic attack, I was experiencing a pretty sharp clarity. I couldn't believe I was even able to function, let alone type. But I did. I typed Joshua Hollis.
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Natasha was getting impatient. "What are you doing? You're Googling Josh?"
"What do you know a
bout him?" I asked her. I clicked the search button.
"Not much. Just that his parents are world-renowned philanthropists," she said. "They've helped everyone from the homeless here to AIDS victims in Africa. Why?"
The Google results popped up. There were more than a million entries. I started a new search: St. James Academy suicide.
"Oh. Did you want to know what I know or what I've heard?"
Natasha's disapproving tone should have been patented. It could be recognized at even the faintest decibel level. So it was true. She'd heard about Josh's shady past as well. I glanced at her over my shoulder. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she gazed down at me like she was all disappointed. This girl was going to make a great mother one day. Or a drill sergeant. I was about to apologize for being so very immature when she glanced at the computer screen and blinked. Her mouth dropped open slightly. My heart stuttered. When I looked back again it was all there in headline form.
ST. JAMES STUDENT IN SUICIDE SCANDAL
PRIVATE SCHOOL SUICIDE ... OR IS IT?
POLICE SAY 'NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE' IN
PRIVATE SCHOOL MURDER MYSTERY
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"Oh my God."
There was a basketball hovering just behind my mouth. Natasha grabbed my desk chair and pulled it over. She nudged me aside and commandeered the mouse. Good thing. I wasn't sure of my motor functions at the moment.
She opened the first story and we scanned it together. Sophomore Connor Marklin. Dead of an apparent drug overdose. Bruises on his arms. Signs of a struggle. Alleged falling-out with roommate--a minor whose name has not been released. Police suspect foul play. Local authorities bring boy and parents in for questioning.
Then, in the next article: Suicide note ruled authentic. Parents of the deceased will not press charges. "We ask that you respect our family's privacy during this difficult time." Investigation closed.
I sat back in Natasha's chair. My body had been filled from head to toe with lead. I couldn't have moved if I'd tried.
"Everything she said was true."
"Everything who said?" Natasha asked.