Page 19 of Invitation Only

  A chill skit­tered over my skin and I wrapped my arms around my­self. I couldn't be­lieve this was hap­pen­ing. All that fear, all that sneak­ing, all that guilt. It was all for noth­ing.

  “What would you have done if I'd gone di­rect­ly to the dean with that disk?” I asked, star­ing at the floor. “It's kind of a dan­ger­ous game you were play­ing, isn't it? You could have got­ten thrown out of school. All of you.”

  Noelle laughed again and this time was joined by the oth­ers. “Please, Reed. They'd need a lot more than that to kick us out of school. Dan­ger? No. There was nev­er any dan­ger.”

  “Ex­cept for you,” Ki­ran said, point­ing at me. “For you there was dan­ger. If those pic­tures had got­ten out, you would have been on a bus back to Cro­ton be­fore you could say 'See ya.'”

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  “They re­al­ly are quite in­crim­inat­ing,” Noelle added mat­ter-​of-​fact­ly.

  I pressed my hands in­to the bench at my sides and leaned for­ward, fight­ing back some se­ri­ous nau­sea as they laughed. This was fun­ny to them. It was all very amus­ing, toy­ing with peo­ple's feel­ings. With their lives. With their fu­tures.

  “Oh, Reed, come on,” Ar­iana said, stand­ing. She glid­ed over and sat down next to me, wrap­ping one arm around my shoul­ders and touch­ing my wrist with her oth­er hand. Her fin­gers were ice cold. “It's all good now. It's go­ing to be okay. Don't you re­al­ize what all of this means?”

  It means you're all nuts. It means you're all evil. It means I've aligned my­self with the dev­il's min­ions.

  “It means you're one of us now,” Ar­iana said qui­et­ly. “Re­al­ly and tru­ly.”

  “It means you don't have to play Cin­derel­la any­more,” Tay­lor said.

  “Which kind of sucks, be­cause I hate mak­ing my own bed,” Ki­ran added, tak­ing an­oth­er swig.

  “It means you're in,” Noelle stat­ed sim­ply. “For re­al this time. From here on out. No more se­crets.”

  Some­thing about these three words sent a thrill of ex­cite­ment through my heart. Even in all my mind-​twist­ing, stom­ach- clench­ing des­per­ation, I was still psyched at the idea of ac­tu­al­ly be­ing ac­cept­ed by these nut­cas­es. What was wrong with me?

  I had been se­duced. It was of­fi­cial. There was no turn­ing back

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  now. I fi­nal­ly looked up and met Noelle's dark eyes from across the room.

  “No more se­crets?” I said.

  “None.”

  I took a deep breath and looked at Ar­iana. She gazed back with that enig­mat­ic smile. Part of me was still an­gry. And I knew that part of me al­ways would be. But I had cho­sen this. When I had first been wel­comed in­to Billings, I had known what these girls were ca­pa­ble of, at least to some ex­tent, and I had still cho­sen them be­cause I knew what they could do for me. I knew the kind of fu­ture I could have with them. And in the here and now, they made me feel spe­cial. Im­por­tant. Like I had true friends. In the end, that was what this whole game had been about. They might have had a sick way of go­ing about it, but they'd just want­ed to make sure that I was a true friend.

  It was all about loy­al­ty, just as Whit­tak­er had said. Loy­al­ty was paramount.

  Les­son of­fi­cial­ly learned.

  “So, are we okay?” Ar­iana asked fi­nal­ly.

  'Yeah. Can we get back to the par­ty al­ready?“ Noelle added, push­ing her­self up. ”I'm very over this con­ver­sa­tion."

  'Yeah,“ I said, and al­most couldn't be­lieve I'd said it. ”We're okay."

  I was ex­haust­ed, crash­ing from my adrenaline rush, but some­how I man­aged to lift my­self up off the bench. Tay­lor gave me a quick hug and slipped out ahead of us. Ki­ran kissed both my

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  cheeks and winked, then fol­lowed. Ar­iana sim­ply lift­ed the cur­tain and ducked out. I was about to go af­ter her, when I re­al­ized that the most im­por­tant ques­tion of the night had yet to be an­swered. I stopped and turned to face Noelle.

  “So, those files I found on Ar­iana's com­put­er--the crib sheets and the IMs,” I said. “Those were plant­ed too?”

  Noelle smiled slow­ly. “Ev­ery­thing for a rea­son, re­mem­ber, Reed? Ev­ery­thing for a rea­son.”

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  * * *

  Hours lat­er we emerged on­to Park Av­enue to­geth­er, hold­ing hands, laugh­ing, try­ing to hold Ki­ran up as she fum­bled and stum­bled. The en­tire night had been a blur of drinks and danc­ing, of sto­ries and sight­ings. I had avoid­ed the al­coves for the rest of the night, stick­ing to the safe­ty of the ball­room with the rest of the girls. Noelle and Dash had dis­ap­peared for an hour and came back look­ing di­sheveled and grog­gy and sat­is­fied. Ki­ran had made off with a group of peo­ple from Kent and had re­turned to us in a dif­fer­ent gown, which cracked ev­ery­one up. A per­son­al joke I didn't quite get, but that I didn't ask about. I had a feel­ing that I didn't want to know.

  Thanks to the white-​gift tra­di­tion, Ki­ran had on a white fur stole over that new gown, Tay­lor was tot­ing a gor­geous Chanel bag, Ar­iana had a pair of Dior shoes dan­gling from her fin­gers, and Noelle was wear­ing a crys­tal tiara that I knew would join the pile of junk un­der her bed the mo­ment we got home. I had trad­ed a se­ri­ous­ly ug­ly de­sign­er belt with a girl from Bar­ton to get the beau­ti­ful Tiffany white-​gold-​and-​sap­phire ring I now wore

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  around the ring fin­ger of my right hand. Oth­er than Whit­tak­er's di­amonds, this was my first re­al jew­el­ry ev­er. I couldn't help hold­ing up my hand to ad­mire it ev­ery five sec­onds.

  I was do­ing just that when a beefy hand slipped in­to mine and the court­yard gate locked be­hind us. I looked up, star­tled and slight­ly tip­sy, to find Whit­tak­er hov­er­ing over me.

  “Whit!” I said with a smile. “Where have you been?”

  “That's ex­act­ly what I was go­ing to ask you,” he said a bit petu­lant­ly. “I bare­ly saw you all night.”

  Be­hind me, Noelle, Ar­iana, and Tay­lor gig­gled, snort­ing their laugh­ter through their noses.

  “I know. I'm sor­ry,” I said, lay­ing a hand on his chest. “I was cel­ebrat­ing with my girls.”

  “Cel­ebrat­ing what?” he asked.

  Noelle came up and threw her arm around Whit­tak­er's large shoul­ders. “Girl stuff, ba­by. Girl. Stuff,” she said, slap­ping his face on the last two words.

  That sent her in­to drunk­en hys­ter­ics and I had to laugh along. Maybe I was a bit tip­si­er than I re­al­ized.

  “Come on, you guys,” Josh an­nounced, try­ing to get the rab­ble in or­der. “We're go­ing to miss the last train.”

  We fol­lowed af­ter him, an un­steady mess of high heels and silk, un­but­toned shirts and lost jack­ets. Whit­tak­er, who seemed might­ily sober, kept his arm wrapped around me and I was grate­ful both for the warmth and the added sta­bil­ity. I could hear the girls' un­even foot­steps be­hind me and knew it would be a mir­acle if no one broke an an­kle.

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  “Did you at least have a good time?” he asked.

  “Oh! The best!” I an­nounced. “Thank you so much for let­ting me be your plus-​one.”

  “You're quite wel­come,” he said, squeez­ing me a bit clos­er to him. “So, I was think­ing, per­haps when the cold weath­er comes, we might take a trip out to my fam­ily's house in Tahoe. I'm sure my par­ents would love to meet you.”

  I tripped on a seam in the side­walk and grabbed on­to him to steady my­self.

  Par­ents. Meet­ing. Meet­ing the par­ents. No. Wrong. For a mo­ment the world spun, but then it all clicked back in­to place. I pushed away from Whit­tak­er slight­ly, stand­ing on my own two feet, and tipped my head back to look at him.

  “Whit? Can I talk to you for a sec­ond?” I asked. “Alone.”

  “O
f course,” he said. He looked at the oth­ers. 'You can go ahead. We'll be right be­hind you."

  Noelle shot me a know­ing look, then walked off with the oth­ers in tow. I took a deep breath. Even in my tip­sy state I knew what I had to do. This had gone on long enough. Whit­tak­er de­served to know the truth.

  “Whit­tak­er, I'm re­al­ly sor­ry, but I don't think we should see each oth­er any­more.”

  “Ex­cuse me?” Whit­tak­er said.

  “I'm sor­ry. I re­al­ly like you. You're a great guy,” I said. “But the truth is ... I'm just not at­tract­ed to you.”

  “Oh,” Whit­tak­er said, look­ing at his shoes. “Well. That was blunt.”

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  “I'm sor­ry! I didn't mean it to be,” I said, my eyes swim­ming. “I just thought you'd ap­pre­ci­ate the truth.”

  Whit­tak­er took a deep breath and nod­ded. “I do,” he said game­ly. “I can't say I'm not dis­ap­point­ed, but I'm glad you were hon­est.”

  I tilt­ed my head. “Aw, Whit. You are so gonna make some girl very hap­py one day.”

  Whit­tak­er laughed. “I hope so,” he said.

  I teetered on my heels and he slipped his arm around my shoul­ders. I'd just bro­ken up with him and he was still look­ing out for me, steady­ing me. It made me think of Con­stance and how she'd tak­en my hand dur­ing ser­vices that morn­ing when they'd an­nounced Thomas's dis­ap­pear­ance. Sud­den­ly, sad­ly, I hoped more than any­thing that those two would some­how get to­geth­er. They were com­plete­ly per­fect for one an­oth­er.

  'You will!“ I told him, my words slur­ring to­geth­er. ”In fact, I know some­one. You know her, too. You just have to go out with her once and you'll to­tal­ly fall in love with her."

  Whit­tak­er smiled wist­ful­ly. “Maybe we should talk about this on the train,” he said, start­ing to walk and tak­ing me along.

  “Okay,” I said, my eyes half-​clos­ing as we moved down the street.

  The train, a soft seat, maybe a nap, sound­ed like a fab­ulous idea. But even as I looked for­ward to it, I couldn't be­lieve that it was over. The Lega­cy, my “re­la­tion­ship” with Whit, my first trip to

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  NYC--it was all done. And it had all passed in a blur, with no sign of Thomas.

  In the end, he had nev­er shown. In the end, I hadn't even need­ed to be there. I took a deep breath and sighed grim­ly. Sud­den­ly all I could think about was get­ting back to Eas­ton and putting it all be­hind me.

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  GET­TING A LIFE

  I rest­ed my tem­ple on the cool glass of the train's win­dow and watched the world come to life as the sun slow­ly rose above au­tumn-​col­ored trees. The hum of the train had long since swept most of my class­mates off to slum­ber, but I couldn't tear my eyes off the view. It was too in­cred­ibly beau­ti­ful. Beau­ti­ful and blurred and ripe with pos­si­bil­ity. I didn't want to miss any­thing.

  All around me peo­ple snoozed and snored. Noelle had passed out with her head on Dash's shoul­der, her tiara askew. His jack­et had been pulled up to half cov­er his face and his arm rest­ed around Noelle's back, his fin­gers curled around her el­bow in a lov­ing, gen­tle way. Ev­ery so of­ten I glanced back at them and smiled. It was the most at peace they had ev­er been in my pres­ence.

  Some­where in the back of the car, Ar­iana and Tay­lor whis­pered. Ki­ran was dead to the world, laid across a three-​seater with her fur un­der her head on Gage's lap and Whit­tak­er's jack­et over her. Whit had at­tempt­ed to get Gage to give her his coat, to which Gage had replied, 'Yeah, right. I get cold, too, you know." So

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  Whit­tak­er had im­me­di­ate­ly tak­en off his own jack­et and spread it over Ki­ran's prone form. Now Whit dozed at the front of the car, hug­ging him­self, snor­ing loud­er than any­one.

  I heard a sigh and glanced left. Natasha sat up straight in the far win­dow seat, her knee up, her el­bow rest­ing on it, hold­ing her fin­gers to her mouth. She stared out at the world, pen­sive and sad, and I won­dered what our re­la­tion­ship was go­ing to be like now. She had shared her biggest se­cret with me, though ad­mit­ted­ly not by choice. Would we be friends now? Re­main en­emies? I hoped it was the for­mer. Now that I knew she wasn't an ac­tu­al black­mail­er, I had a feel­ing she might be in­ter­est­ing to get to know.

  Some­one stepped in­to my line of vi­sion and I blinked out of a trance I hadn't re­al­ized I was in. I looked up slow­ly in­to Josh's face and my heart thumped. That was the sec­ond time tonight. What, ex­act­ly, was my heart up to?

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey. Mind if I... ?” He ges­tured at the emp­ty seat.

  “No. Go ahead.”

  Josh sat down and blew out a sigh, press­ing his palms in­to his thighs and set­tling back. Of all the guys on the train, he was the least di­sheveled. Shirt still tucked in, tie on­ly slight­ly loos­ened, all but one but­ton done. It didn't es­cape me that this meant he most like­ly had kept his hands to him­self all night. Some­how, the re­al­iza­tion of this made me hap­py.

  “So. In­ter­est­ing night, huh?” he said.

  “Def­inite­ly. I would def­inite­ly say that,” I replied.

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  “But... no Thomas.”

  The train hit a turn and squealed like mad. I caught my breath and pressed my fin­gers in­to the seat back in front of me. Josh chuck­led and touched my arm.

  “It's okay. Just a turn,” he said.

  “No. I know,” I said.

  What had freaked me out more was that I hadn't thought about Thomas once since I'd seen Leanne and Natasha to­geth­er. I had for­got­ten all about him.

  And maybe that was a good thing.

  “I'm sure he's okay,” I said. Most­ly just to have some­thing to say.

  The truth was, at that very mo­ment, I no longer cared. He had left me. He had bailed with­out the cour­tesy of a good-​bye and left me there to fend for my­self with the Billings Girls and Whit­tak­er and the po­lice. Clear­ly he didn't care about me. I had done ev­ery­thing I could, even dat­ed a guy I wasn't re­mote­ly at­tract­ed to, in or­der to so­lid­ify my in­vite to the Lega­cy and the pos­si­bil­ity of see­ing him, but he hadn't even cared enough to show up. He had to have known there was a good chance I would be there, but he had stayed away.

  No. As of that mo­ment, I was over Thomas Pear­son. As of that mo­ment, I was mov­ing on.

  “Yeah. I'm sure he is,” Josh said, sound­ing none too con­vinced.

  'You know what? I don't want to talk about Thomas any­more,"

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  I said. “I mean, I want him to be okay and ev­ery­thing, but to tell you the truth, I'm over him. He's off hav­ing his life, and that's fine. But it al­so means that I get to have mine.”

  Josh glanced at me, eye­brows raised. “Re­al­ly?”

  “Re­al­ly,” I replied with a nod.

  “That's very healthy of you,” he said.

  “I think so.”

  With that, I yawned huge­ly, feel­ing as if about a liter of my adrenaline had been drained right out of my body. My eyes drooped and I leaned over to rest my head on Josh's shoul­der.

  “Tired?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Kind of.”

  Here.

  He lift­ed his arm and let me cud­dle in­to him. My pulse raced at the in­ti­ma­cy of this ges­ture, but it al­so felt per­fect­ly nor­mal. Nat­ural. If noth­ing else, Josh had been a good friend to me over the past few weeks, and now I found I was to­tal­ly com­fort­able with him. More com­fort­able than I'd ev­er been with Whit. Cer­tain­ly more com­fort­able than I'd ev­er been with Thomas, who con­stant­ly kept a girl guess­ing, both in good ways and bad.

  I last­ed about two sec­onds be­fore my neck de­vel­oped a strain. I moved my head around, try­ing to find a com­fort­able spot, and Josh lift­ed his arm again and nudged me, di­
rect­ing me down un­til my head was rest­ing on his thigh.

  Ah, yeah. That was com­fort.

  “Thanks,” I mur­mured.

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  “Not at all,” he replied.

  As I start­ed to drift off, lis­ten­ing to the hushed sounds of my friends' whis­pers, the lulling rhythm of the train, I could have sworn I felt Josh's fin­ger­tips slow­ly, gen­tly, brush­ing my hair back be­hind my ear.

  And I smiled.

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  SO DEAD

  By the time we got ev­ery­one off the train and trudged our way back through the streets of Eas­ton prop­er, the last traces of dawn were fad­ing away, leav­ing a nice, thick mist in their wake. High heels sank through the dewy grass in­to the soft earth, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to walk. Fi­nal­ly I just pulled them off, caus­ing my feet to sigh in re­lief. I hooked the shoes over my fin­gers and wig­gled my toes as I walked. The re­lief last­ed about ten sec­onds. Af­ter that my feet were frigid blocks of ice.

  “Are you okay?” Josh asked, bump­ing me light­ly with his arm.

  “Fine. Just can't wait to get home.”

  Home. Eas­ton was home. Billings was home. It was the first time I'd re­al­ized that.

  Even­tu­al­ly we ar­rived at the fence that sur­round­ed Eas­ton's grounds. We felt our way along the iron bars un­til we reached the crag­gy open­ing, hid­den by ev­er­green bush­es. Each of us ducked through, one by one, hold­ing skirts to keep them from get­ting snagged, whis­per­ing di­rec­tions so that no one bumped their

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  heads. Now that we'd had the night of our lives, no one had both­ered to change back in­to jeans and sweaters. If we got caught now, it would make no dif­fer­ence what we were wear­ing, and ev­ery­one had been too tired to change.

  Once on the oth­er side of the fence, I stuck close to Josh's side, not want­ing to lose him in the fog. As we as­cend­ed the hill, I could hear the voic­es of the oth­ers but couldn't quite make them out.

  “Eerie, huh?” Josh said.

  I shiv­ered and hugged my bare arms. “Yeah. But at least it might keep us from get­ting spot­ted.”