Invitation Only

  38

  “Please, when we come to get you out of class, do not be ner­vous,” the chief con­tin­ued. “Un­der­stand that we are not treat­ing any of you as sus­pects. All we care about right now is find­ing your class­mate and re­turn­ing him to his par­ents safe­ly.”

  So they can brow­beat him in­to sub­mis­sion and ship him off to mil­itary school, no doubt.

  “There will be no judg­ments,” he added. “But we will be grate­ful for any light you can shed on the sit­ua­tion.”

  His eyes fell on me as he said this and I sank a bit low­er in my seat. Why look at me? Why?

  He's not. He's just look­ing in this gen­er­al di­rec­tion. Get a grip.

  “I thank you in ad­vance for your co­op­er­ation.”

  The chief pushed him­self away from the podi­um and leaned down to whis­per some­thing to the dean. It was all the pause the stu­dent body need­ed be­fore break­ing in­to full pan­de­mo­ni­um.

  “Do you think he bailed?”

  “Maybe he was kid­napped.”

  “I bet that freak Mar­co knows where he is. You think the po­lice have talked to him yet?”

  “Why would they? No one in the ad­min­is­tra­tion knows where he got his shit. They're so obliv­ious.”

  Mar­co? Who the hell is Mar­co?

  I squirmed, try­ing to ig­nore all the voic­es around me. I tried even hard­er to ig­nore the im­pli­ca­tions of what they were say­ing-- that it seemed that these ran­dom girls might ac­tu­al­ly know more about Thomas than I did.

  39

  “Please. I bet the kid just scored some taint­ed shit and is ly­ing in a pool of his own vom­it some­where.”

  Okay. That was it. Sud­den­ly, all the mor­bid thoughts I had been try­ing to keep at bay for the past two days hit my al­ready frag­ile skull with the force of a freight train. In that mo­ment, the fee­ble hope that Thomas was fine was all but oblit­er­at­ed. My heart pound­ed shal­low­ly and, pan­icked, I leaned for­ward to press my fore­head in­to the cool back rail of the pew in front of mine. The sour taste in my mouth in­ten­si­fied.

  Breathe. Just breathe.

  I could sense ev­ery­one look­ing at me. Could feel their cu­ri­ous, in­trigued stares.

  “Reed. Are you okay? Do you want me to take you to the in­fir­mary?” Con­stance asked, lay­ing her hand on my back.

  “Take her to a show­er first,” Mis­sy sug­gest­ed help­ful­ly.

  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

  Kid­napped. Taint­ed. Vom­it.

  Where the hell was Thomas? Where the hell had he gone?

  40

  THE GIRL­FRIEND

  The whis­pers fol­lowed me out of the pew and all the way back down the aisle af­ter ser­vices. I crossed my arms over my stom­ach and held on tight, try­ing to keep all the ner­vous­ness and fear and to­tal con­spic­uous­ness I felt from burst­ing out of me in all di­rec­tions. Thomas was miss­ing. Thomas was miss­ing and the po­lice were look­ing at all of us like we were sus­pects. And as if that wasn't bad enough, now the en­tire school was watch­ing me too.

  Why couldn't he just come back? If Thomas could just show his face for five sec­onds on cam­pus, all of this would go away. I just want­ed it to go away.

  Ar­iana and Tay­lor stepped away from the arched door­way to the chapel as I ap­proached and I was re­lieved to see friend­ly faces, even if they were the same faces that had dragged me out of bed and in­to an apron that morn­ing. My grip on my own el­bows even loos­ened a bit.

  But then Tay­lor whis­pered some­thing quick­ly to Ar­iana, cast me an al­most skit­tish look, ducked her head, and speed-​walked

  41

  off across the quad. I won­dered if she was feel­ing guilty about what she and her friends had done to me ear­li­er. She had, af­ter all, al­ways dis­played a tad more of a con­science than the rest of the Billings Girls.

  “But I heard they broke up. . . .”

  “I know, but they got back to­geth­er, like, the day he dis­ap­peared. ...”

  I glared over my shoul­der and two sopho­more girls I rec­og­nized from class quick­ly blushed scar­let and hur­ried away. Ar­iana fell in­to step next to me and I was glad to have her there. My gos­sip buffer.

  “Ev­ery­thing all right?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said, feign­ing non­cha­lance. Some­thing told me Ar­iana would ap­pre­ci­ate the show of strength. “What's with Tay­lor?”

  “Oh, she's still not feel­ing well,” Ar­iana replied.

  “Hang­over?” I whis­pered.

  “Among oth­er things.” Ar­iana sighed. “Tay­lor gets strep ev­ery fall and then is sick on and off all the way through the win­ter un­til spring fi­nal­ly springs again. She spends half her time study­ing in the in­fir­mary. Bet­ter get used to it.” She stared off af­ter Tay­lor's re­treat­ing form. “Weak con­sti­tu­tion on that girl,” she said al­most wist­ful­ly. “It's a shame.”

  “Oh.” I stared at the ground. Be­ing sick and in­fir­mary-​bound seemed like a fine op­tion to me just then. Maybe I should get Tay­lor to breathe on me, I thought.

  42

  'You okay?" Ar­iana asked me.

  “I guess,” I replied.

  Even though I wasn't. Even though my body, heart, and soul all ached with a vengeance. Even though I felt as if I could break apart from frus­tra­tion and con­fu­sion. Why couldn't Thomas just call me? Or Josh? Or any­one? Why was he do­ing this to us?

  Was it be­cause the whis­pers were right? Had some­thing hor­ri­ble ac­tu­al­ly hap­pened to him? A chill raced down my back and I squirmed, mov­ing my shoul­ders around, try­ing to shake it. Ar­iana watched ev­ery move I made as if each one held the key to my soul.

  “So. What are you go­ing to tell them?” Ar­iana asked, her pierc­ing blue eyes full of point­ed con­cern.

  “Who?”

  “The po­lice,” Ar­iana said in a low voice.

  I paused. “What do you mean?”

  Ar­iana turned and stepped so close to me I could have count­ed the pores on her nose if she'd had any. Her skin was as per­fect as porce­lain.

  Porce­lain. Toi­lets. Bile. Ugh.

  “I mean, you're Thomas's girl­friend. They're def­inite­ly go­ing to ask you a lot of ques­tions,” Ar­iana said. “You'd bet­ter know what you're go­ing to say be­fore you go in there.”

  My throat went dry. For a mo­ment I felt like I was com­plete­ly out­side my body. She could not mean what I thought she meant. A cool breeze lift­ed her white-​blond hair and caused her scarf to dance. Be­hind her some guy shout­ed at an­oth­er. Ar­iana didn't move or flinch or blink.

  43

  “Ar­iana ... I don't know where Thomas is,” I said fi­nal­ly.

  Ar­iana stared in­to my eyes, search­ing. Search­ing so thor­ough­ly that heat start­ed to prick­le all over my body. So thor­ough­ly that I found my­self won­der­ing if I did have some­thing to hide.

  The mo­ment I thought that, Ar­iana smiled.

  “Okay,” she said fi­nal­ly.

  “What?”

  “Noth­ing. But if you do want to talk be­fore you go in there, just let me know.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Slow­ly, Ar­iana backed away. “I'd bet­ter get to class.”

  She lift­ed one shoul­der and gave me a small, know­ing glance be­fore turn­ing and strolling off. Left alone again, I couldn't help but no­tice all the stares. When­ev­er my eyes fell on some­one else, they quick­ly looked away. When­ev­er I got near any­one, they in­stant­ly stopped talk­ing. Was this what it was go­ing to be like for me now? Ev­ery­one talk­ing about me all the time and watch­ing my ev­ery move? I had known from the mo­ment I ar­rived at Eas­ton that I didn't just want to dis­ap­pear among the no­bod­ies, but I had nev­er want­ed this.

  I checked my watch as I head­ed across the quad. Ten min­ute
s left be­fore class. I need­ed a friend­ly ear. Some­one who could calm me down and re­mind me why I was here. I dropped on­to the near­est bench, pulled out my cell, and di­aled my broth­er, who was miles up­on miles away at Penn State. He picked up on the fifth ring.

  “Hel­lo?”

  “Scott? It's Reed. Did I wake you up?”

  44

  “No! No! I don't have a class for an­oth­er three hours, but hey, I'm wide awake,” he said.

  I smirked. A group of girls was watch­ing me from a few feet away so I stared back at them un­til they were shamed in­to look­ing away.

  “How's ev­ery­thing there?” I asked.

  “Fine. How's ev­ery­thing at Eat Me Acade­my?” he asked.

  “Ha ha. So glad I got all the in­tel­li­gence in the fam­ily.”

  “At least I got the stun­ning good looks,” he said. “So what's wrong?”

  “Some­thing has to be wrong? ”

  “In this fam­ily, yes,” he said.

  I blew out a sigh. “It's got­ten re­al­ly weird around here,” I told him. “This . . . well, this guy has gone miss­ing and the cops are all over the place now. They're gonna in­ter­view ev­ery­one.”

  “Miss­ing? Like kid­napped or some­thing?” Scott asked.

  “I don't know,” I said, swal­low­ing hard.

  “Do you know this guy?” he asked.

  “Kind of.” Like in the bib­li­cal sense. “He's a friend.”

  “Wow. That sucks. But I'm sure he'll show up,” he said. “I bet peo­ple dis­ap­pear from that place all the time, then turn up on ex­ot­ic cruise ships or some­thing.”

  I laughed.

  “What? Isn't that what rich peo­ple do? I re­mem­ber Fe­li­cia say­ing some­thing about some dude invit­ing the en­tire se­nior class to his pala­tial es­tate in Turks and Caicos or some­thing.”

  Fe­li­cia. Right. My old­er broth­er's old­er and cool­er girl­friend.

  45

  How had I for­got­ten that Scott knew some­one who had gone here? She was the whole rea­son I had looked in­to Eas­ton in the first place. She had spent her ju­nior and se­nior years here at Eas­ton be­fore grad­uat­ing and head­ing off to Dart­mouth. Which meant, of course, that she knew ev­ery­thing about this place.

  “Hey, speak­ing of Fe­li­cia,” I said, set­tling in, “did she ev­er men­tion any­thing to you about the Lega­cy?”

  “The Lega­cy? No. Doesn't sound fa­mil­iar. What is it?”

  “Some par­ty, I think. I don't know. Ev­ery­one's talk­ing about it, though.”

  “So why don't you ask some­one about it?” Scott asked.

  “I don't want to look like a los­er,” I told him. It was a re­lief to ac­tu­al­ly say it. A re­lief to talk to some­one I could be hon­est with.

  “Too late,” he joked.

  'You're fun­ny," I told him flat­ly.

  “What­ev­er. Look, I bet­ter go. I'm an­noy­ing Todd,” he said. I imag­ined my broth­er's room­mate groan­ing and pulling a pil­low over his head. “But lis­ten, you should call Dad lat­er.”

  In­stant­ly, guilt twist­ed at my heart. I hadn't called my fa­ther in days.

  “Why? So he can make me feel guilty with­out even try­ing?”

  “I got news for you. I've been tak­ing psych. Ap­par­ent­ly we get to feel guilty for the rest of our lives. Might as well get used to it.”

  I sighed. “Fine. I'll call him.”

  “He miss­es you. So does Mom, in her own sick and twist­ed way,” Scott said.

  Sud­den­ly all I want­ed to do was get off the phone. But he'd

  46

  done his job. He'd re­mind­ed me full force of why I was here--of who I was run­ning away from.

  “What­ev­er. Go back to sleep,” I told him, get­ting up. “I'll talk to you lat­er.”

  “Lat­er,” he said.

  And the line went dead.

  I sighed and turned my steps to­ward class, ig­nor­ing the mur­murs that fol­lowed my path. Bet­ter get used to those, too. Bet­ter get used to a lot of things.

  47

  MEAN GIRLS

  “So, what are you wear­ing to the Lega­cy this year?”

  I paused on my way out of the cam­pus book­store, clutch­ing the box of pens I had just pur­chased. It seemed that when the en­tire cam­pus wasn't talk­ing about me it was talk­ing about the Lega­cy. Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to find out about it on my own. “I don't know. I was think­ing the black Chanel.” Sit­ting on a bench just a few feet away were two girls I rec­og­nized from Brad­well--two glossy-​haired, skin­ny chicks whose cell phones were per­ma­nent­ly at­tached to their ears. Even as they spoke, one of them held her phone to her ear, the mouth­piece away from her mouth, while the oth­er one texted on her own sleek num­ber. I dropped to the ground and pre­tend­ed to tie my shoe.

  “Didn't you wear that to, like, your moth­er's wed­ding last year?” the blon­der girl asked the less blond girl. “Yeah. So?”

  “So? You were pho­tographed!” Blon­der said. “You can­not wear a dress in which you were al­ready pho­tographed to the Lega­cy. It is just not done.”

  48

  Less Blond nod­ded thought­ful­ly. “You're right. What was I think­ing?”

  Then Blon­der's slate eyes fell on me. “Uh, ex­cuse me? Do we amuse?”

  “Sor­ry,” I replied, stand­ing. “What ex­act­ly is the Lega­cy?”

  The two girls ex­changed an in­cred­ulous look. “No place we'll ev­er see you,” Less Blond said, di­al­ing her phone. “Even if you are in Billings.”

  “Dana! You're so bad!” Blon­der said, shov­ing Less Blond's arm.

  My face turned pink. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means,” Less Blond said, “don't act like just be­cause Billings took you in you're some­how bet­ter than the rest of us. We all know where you came from, schol­ar­ship girl.”

  “Don't wor­ry, some­body might take pity on you and bring you to the Lega­cy. You know, since your boyfriend's all MIA.”

  I swal­lowed back the huge lump that had formed in my throat. Would it be wrong to ac­tu­al­ly beat these girls down? I'd nev­er ac­tu­al­ly got­ten in­to a fist fight be­fore, but with all the psy­chot­ic emo­tions roil­ing around in­side my chest, they had picked the wrong time to mess with me. The thought of jump­ing Less Blond ac­tu­al­ly crossed my in­co­her­ent mind. I could even hear the ex­act pitch of her sur­prised screech, see her cell phone fly­ing in­to the air and crack­ing on the stone path. It was not an un­amus­ing vi­su­al.

  I stood up straight, not en­tire­ly sure what I was go­ing to do. They both looked up at me. I could tell Blon­der was about to say

  49

  some­thing even snarki­er, but then both of them blanched. Had I just sprung horns or some­thing?

  “I have to go,” Blon­der said.

  It wasn't un­til they had both got­ten up and scur­ried off that I felt a pres­ence be­hind me. Some­how I wasn't sur­prised when I turned around and saw Noelle just com­ing to a stop.

  “Oh. Did I scare off your lit­tle friends?” she asked, arch­ing an eye­brow.

  “Ap­par­ent­ly,” I said. “Thanks for that.”

  “Any­time,” she told me. “Girls have to learn their place.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my heart still pound­ing.

  “I mean they don't get to mess with you, Glass-​lick­er,” she said, sling­ing her arm over my shoul­der. “That's my job.”

  I ac­tu­al­ly man­aged a laugh.

  “So. How are you hold­ing up?” Noelle asked. 'You must be so sick of all this Pear­son crap al­ready."

  My heart turned over, as it did at ev­ery men­tion of Thomas. “Aren't you wor­ried about him at all?” I asked.

  Noelle slipped away from me and looked me in the eye. As al­ways, she was near­ly im­pos­si­ble to read. “Reed, Thomas
Pear­son has a way of al­ways land­ing on his feet.”

  “If you say so,” I replied.

  “You can­not lis­ten to what all the lit­tle id­iots with no lives around here are say­ing,” she said adamant­ly. "Look at Dash and Gage. They've known Pear­son their en­tire lives and they're not wor­ried. Why? Be­cause they know him. And they

  50

  know that he's out there some­where hav­ing a big fat laugh at our ex­pense."

  I smirked sad­ly at the thought. 'You think?"

  “I know,” Noelle replied, hook­ing her arm through mine. “Stop wor­ry­ing about him. Be­cause soon­er or lat­er he's go­ing to show up here like it's one big joke and then you are go­ing to be so pissed you wast­ed your time.”

  I took a deep breath and let her words sink in. Thomas was fine. All his friends--the peo­ple who knew him best--be­lieved he was fine. They even be­lieved he was go­ing to show up at that Lega­cy thing all ready to par­ty. Who was I to doubt their cer­tain­ty?

  “So. Ready for a lit­tle kick-​ass soc­cer prac­tice?” Noelle asked. “I promise I won't lay you out to­day. Wait. Ac­tu­al­ly, I don't.”

  I laughed as we head­ed off to­ward Billings to change. A lit­tle kick-​ass soc­cer prac­tice was ex­act­ly what I need­ed.

  “What were you crazy kids talk­ing about any­way?” Noelle asked. “Looked se­ri­ous.”

  For a split sec­ond I con­sid­ered ask­ing her about the Lega­cy. But I wasn't yet des­per­ate enough to re­mind Noelle that I knew so lit­tle about the in­ner work­ings of this place. I'd just have to keep try­ing to find out on my own.

  “Oh, you know, the lat­est in Ve­ra Wang,” I said blithe­ly as we turned up the path to Billings.

  Noelle laughed for a long time. “That's what I like about you, Reed,” she said be­tween gasps for air. “Some­times you re­al­ly slay me.”

  51

  DEAR REED

  “Ugh! I just can­not take this sweater one more sec­ond,” Lon­don Sim­mons said, pulling a creamy white cash­mere sweater over her head and toss­ing it at her sil­ver garbage can. Her dark brown hair grazed her bare back, falling in­to per­fect waves.

  “Lon­don! You can­not just throw away cash­mere,” her room­mate, Vi­en­na Clark, replied.