For some reason I can’t understand, it hurts to see Chace being protective of my friend. I mean, he’s probably just being nice to her because she’s my friend. But then it hits me. In this moment, he’s more concerned about her than he is about me and my mom. Even though I agree that Mom shouldn’t be treating Nicole like a hired entertainer, still, what right does he have to intervene?
“You guys can have mine,” she says, handing her dinner plate to Stephanie. “I’ll be right back.”
“Come on,” I tell Chace and Stephanie, after Nicole goes upstairs to get her violin and my mom leaves in triumph. “Let’s go find seats.”
“I have a little surprise,” Mom announces, once the guests are all seated at the round tables dotting the foyer, forks and knives poised to dig in to dinner. “My daughter’s friend and roommate from Oyster Bay Prep School is treating us to some live music tonight. Take it away, Nicole!”
Nicole follows my mom to the front of the room, her expression verging on panic as she looks out at all the expectant faces. Homegirl might be used to performing, but clearly she’s rattled by having to put on an impromptu show for half of Congress.
“Um.” She swallows hard. “Happy New Year, everyone.” And then she begins to play.
I’m used to hearing Nicole practice what she calls “scales” in our dorm room, playing the same annoying sequence of notes over and over until I want to hit her with my pillow. I’m not used to…this. I’m not used to music that pierces my insides, that covers my skin with goose bumps, that makes me want to cry for no reason.
I glance at Chace. He’s watching in openmouthed amazement, as if she’s the only thing that exists in this moment. But he’s not the only one. Looking around the room, I see all of my mom’s jaded colleagues and friends rapt, their forks frozen in midair, forgetting to eat. An older man dabs his eyes with a handkerchief.
That’s my friend up there, I remind myself. I’m proud of her, I am. But I also feel a red-hot, searing envy. What have I ever done in comparison? I’ve never been able to bring a room to an awed hush. My parents have never looked on proudly as my talents moved people to tears. I might be a star in my little world at Oyster Bay Prep, but Nicole is an actual star. And the way my boyfriend is looking and listening to her right now, it makes me feel…insignificant. Something I never imagined I could be.
Nicole finishes the song with one final, breathtaking note. And then, after a moment of silence, the foyer fills with applause. The applause grows to a standing ovation, and of course I rise to my feet alongside Chace and Stephanie.
“How’s that for proving Oyster Bay is teaching our students well?” my mom exclaims as she rejoins Nicole, giddy from her idea proving such a success. She hugs my friend and iPhone flashes go off, her guests capturing the moment. And I’m happy for her, I am, I am. I’m not jealous.
I’m not jealous.
I follow Mom and our new lawyer down the path to the school gates, my face shadowed by a baseball cap and sunglasses. I have to admit, as terrified as I am of the outside world right now, it does feel good to get out of my claustrophobic dorm room. But as we get closer to the gates, Mr. Sanford suddenly stops, wincing at something up ahead. I follow his gaze to a throng of spectators outside the campus gates.
There must be fifty or more people standing there, their heads peeking through the iron railings, their cameras snap snap snapping. I must have turned numb, because it takes me a full moment to remember that the spectators and cameramen are all here because of what happened to Chace. And because of me. I turn away as fast as I can, before any of those people can realize they’ve found me.
“Scratch my earlier plan,” Mr. Sanford says. “I’ll pick up some breakfast for us at Starbucks and bring it back here. We’ll just have to find a somewhat private place to talk.”
“The theater is almost always empty at this hour,” I tell him. “We can meet you there.”
I regret my idea as soon as Mom and I push through the doors into Joyce Hall. What was I thinking, bringing this trauma into my favorite place? This is the room where I experienced some of my happiest, proudest moments; this is the stage where I first played for Chace. And now it’s tarnished, just like when Detective Kimble and Officer Ladge infected my room.
“I can’t,” I tell Mom, shaking my head violently. “I can’t do this here. Let’s just talk in the lobby or something. I don’t care who sees us.”
Mom knows better than to argue with me. She brushes her hand against my cheek.
“Sweetie, what was the song that made you want to be a musician?”
I give her a funny look.
“You know my answer by heart. What does that have to do with anything, anyway?”
“It has to do with reminding yourself of who you are whenever life threatens to push you down,” Mom says intently. “You’re still Nicole Morgan, the most amazing, talented, beautiful person I know.”
Tears well up in my eyes.
“Can I possibly still be her, after everything that’s happened?”
Mom takes my hand with a nod.
“Tell me the song. What was it again?”
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, remembering what I told Chace ages ago, at the Riveras’ New Year’s Eve party, when he asked me what I had just played.
“It’s Gershwin’s ‘Summertime.’ That’s the song that made me fall in love with music. The first time I heard it, I was so young, and it was so beautiful, I wanted to crawl inside the notes and live there among them.”
Mom smiles.
“See? You’re still you.”
I find Brianne waiting for me on the front steps of Academics Hall as I make my way to class, escorted by one of the dozen new security guards employed by Oyster Bay Prep. She rushes over to give me a hug, and I’m relieved to see that her shock and hurt over my secret seems to have worn off.
“How are you doing?” she asks, her eyes flickering between me and the other students filling the quad, all of them turning to stare at us as they pass.
“Um…” I swallow hard. “I guess I’m doing about how you’d expect.”
She squeezes my shoulder.
“Well, it’s super brave of you to go to class.”
“I don’t know about brave. I didn’t really have a choice,” I admit. “Mom said if I get any sort of truancy record, that would mess with my Juilliard scholarship.”
Brianne nods, lowering her gaze, and I immediately regret bringing up the J-word. She doesn’t have a verbal commitment from the president of the music program there, like I do. She has the upcoming audition hanging over her head instead.
“Come on.” I take her arm and we follow the rush of students inside the building, the silent giant of a security guard tailing us. People stop in their tracks and whisper as we walk past, but I manage to keep my eyes trained above their heads.
“Nicole, Brianne. How are you holding up?”
I turn, startled to hear a friendly voice in these halls. It’s Ryan, wearing a black ribbon tied to his shirt pocket. For Chace, I realize, my stomach twisting.
“I miss him.”
I didn’t expect to blurt it out, least of all with a security guard hovering over my shoulder. But it’s the truest thing I could have said.
“I do, too. It still doesn’t seem real.” Ryan falls into step with us. “I can’t stand to be in our room anymore.”
I look at Ryan, noticing the dark circles under his eyes, and I feel a pang in my chest.
“I’m sorry, Ryan. That has to be brutal.”
He nods, eyes on the ground.
“Did you hear about the—the weapon?”
“What?” I stop in my tracks. Brianne shoots me an alarmed glance.
Ryan lets out a slow exhale.
“So you didn’t know. I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s just been all over the news for the past couple hours.”
“I’ve been avoiding the news.” I swallow hard. “What…what was it?”
“A kitchen knife,” he sa
ys quietly. “They’re saying it must have been swiped from the party.”
The hall sways. Brianne grabs hold of my arm, keeping me upright.
“Who—who do they think…?” she asks Ryan, her voice trailing off.
“Please tell me this means they found and locked up the killer for life,” I say, nearly choking on the words.
Ryan shakes his head.
“It was only forensics that determined the weapon. Now the cops are on a mad search for it. I just hope it leads them to the bastard who did this, and then the nightmare can be over.”
“It won’t ever be over for the people who loved him, though,” I say. “It’ll never be over for us.”
Ryan nods, reaching his arm over my shoulder.
“I know.”
Brianne raises an eyebrow at me, and I wince as it dawns on me what she’s thinking. You confided in this guy about you and Chace and kept me in the dark? I clearly have more explaining to do.
And then I sense someone else approaching. I feel the heat of her stare before I see her. I can smell the floral perfume, a scent I once loved that’s now turned sour. Do I dare look up?
I meet her eyes. There she is, Lana Rivera, her face pallid against the curtain of dark hair, her red-rimmed eyes flashing with fury. Ryan drops his arm from my shoulder, and even Brianne steps back an inch.
“Lana.” I reach my hand toward her—for what, I’m not sure. Maybe I want to end this; maybe I only have energy for one fight. But she flinches as if I’ve struck her. And then she spits on the floor in front of me.
“Hey!” The security guard springs into action, yanking her away from me. “I’m reporting you for this.”
She laughs bitterly, pushing the guard’s arm off her. And then she’s gone.
I turn to Ryan and Brianne, shivering.
“You guys probably don’t want to be seen with me.”
“Maybe not,” Ryan says, forcing a grim smile. “But Chace would want us to stick up for you.”
The security guard returns, planting himself at my side.
“You okay, miss? Do you feel up to going to class?”
“Of course not,” I say. “But I don’t have a choice, do I? So let’s just go.”
I thought my first day back after my accident last semester was as bad as it could get. Back then, I couldn’t imagine anything comparing to the gasps of classmates seeing my face for the first time, or the many conversations that cut short the second I walked past. But oh, was I wrong. At least in those days, people pretended to care about me. Today, the moment with Lana is just the tip of the iceberg. I might as well have a scarlet letter branded across my chest, or something worse. Because, as Brianne murmurs to me during Shakespearean Lit, there’s a sick rumor going around that I killed Chace out of anger when he refused to dump Lana for me. It’s ironically clear who must have started that rumor.
Brianne asks if I want to join her and the girls from orchestra at lunch, but I can tell she’s just being nice. She doesn’t actually want to sit with me in the eye of the storm, surrounded by all those blatant stares and pointed fingers. Who would?
“Thanks, but it’s okay,” I tell her. “I have so much work to catch up on. I think I’ll just go to the library.”
On my way there, at the top floor of Academics Hall, I run into Stephanie, Lana’s best friend—someone I once called a friend myself. She’s walking alongside the guy I remember as her on-again off-again fling from last year, Ben Forrester, and she pushes roughly past me, the sharp end of her binder jabbing me in the ribs.
“Hey, Ben, did you hear the cops are searching all the rooms in the school right now for the weapon?” she says loudly, clearly for my ears and not Ben’s. “I’d be real nervous if I were a certain Nicole Morgan.”
My cheeks flame. By the time I reach the library, I’ve lost my barely-there appetite, and I toss my sandwich. It feels wrong, anyway, to think of things like eating, drinking, studying, and sleeping—it’s not right that we should be going about the mundane details of our lives, when Chace doesn’t get to anymore.
Afternoon is when I leave academics behind, and the latter half of my school day is taken up by advanced music courses for the Virtuoso Program. I hold my breath as I enter the choir room, unsure if these classmates will be as vicious to me as the others. But from the moment Professor Teller greets me with a big hug, I know that here at least, I am safe. She keeps me busy during the three-hour block of classes, giving me a tricky Shostakovich solo to learn and choral singers to accompany, on top of rehearsing my planned pieces for the Orchestra Showcase, which includes an exhilarating duo number with Brianne on cello. For these three hours, in my bubble of music, I can almost forget. Almost. But the ringing of the bell at three o’clock yanks me back to reality, reminding me of what’s next: my meeting with Chace’s parents.
I used to often imagine what it would be like to meet them. In my daydreams, Chace held my hand proudly, introducing me as his girlfriend, and Congressman and Mrs. Porter’s eyes lit up as they felt the love between us, exchanging a glance that said it all. Thank God he found the right one.
I never had a scar in those daydreams. My face was unblemished, my spirit unshaken. It was certainly never part of the plan to meet the Porters by detective escort, with my mom joining me for “protection.” But that is my current reality. At least I was able to talk John Sanford into letting Mom and me handle this one on our own. The thought of meeting Chace’s parents with a lawyer in tow made my stomach coil, made me feel guilty of…something.
We’re supposed to meet Congressman and Mrs. Porter at the Alumni Club, the exclusive space on the basement floor of Academics Hall. I’ve never been inside, and at any other time in my life, it would have been a thrill. The place is legendary; it’s been described as our equivalent of the final clubs and secret societies of Ivy League lore. It’s not enough to just be alumni—to get a key to the lounge, you need to have made a name for yourself out there in the world. You have to be invited. And now I’m getting a peek behind the curtain, but for the worst possible reason.
I meet Detective Kimble and Mom in the dressing room adjacent to the Joyce Hall theater, the place we determined would draw the least amount of attention. I grab my cap from my backpack and slip on my sunglasses. It’s not much of a disguise, but it makes me feel less exposed.
Detective Kimble leads the two of us back out onto the quad and up the steps into Academics Hall, where she unlocks an inconspicuous door across from the janitorial closet. To my surprise, the door opens onto an antique French elevator. Until now, I’ve only seen elevators like this in old photographs. It must date from the school’s origins. The creaky elevator sputters us down to the basement and in front of a recessed doorway. Detective Kimble slips a card into the slot, and the door swings open. We find ourselves standing in the middle of a Victorian fantasy of a parlor, made up of mahogany mirrored walls, royal blue brocade curtains, antique furniture, and hanging candelabras. A bust of the school’s founder is displayed on a marble pillar at the entrance.
Mom and I follow Detective Kimble farther into the room, where a couple is seated on a blue-and-gold damask couch, their backs to us as they hold each other. A man in a black suit stands off to the side, staring straight ahead. My stomach lurches.
This must be the congressman and his wife, along with their security detail. The moment I once looked forward to, and now dread, is here. I shut my eyes momentarily, willing myself to feel Chace’s hand squeezing mine. But there’s nothing there.
Detective Kimble clears her throat. Congressman and Mrs. Porter turn around, still clutching each other’s hands. They are dressed in black, their expressions deadened as they look at me. They seem to have aged another ten years since I saw them at the candlelight vigil.
“Congressman, Mrs. Porter,” Detective Kimble begins. “I’ve brought Nicole Morgan, and this is her mother, Ms. Lindsey Morgan.”
Mom finds her voice before I do.
“We’re so incredibly sorry
for your loss,” she says, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. “My daughter and I are both heartbroken. We can only imagine what you’re going through.”
Congressman Porter nods slightly. He shakes her hand and then mine, while Mrs. Porter simply sits beside him, staring at us with watery eyes. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“Have a seat,” he instructs us.
“Can I get you any coffee, Congressman?” Detective Kimble offers, her voice far sweeter than it’s ever been with me.
“We’ll take two, please, with no cream. Thank you.” He glances at us. “Would you like anything?”
“No, thanks,” I murmur. I know there’s no way I’ll manage to keep anything down in my current state.
“I’ll take the same, thank you,” Mom says. Detective Kimble smiles tightly, not quite as eager to please when it comes to the two of us.
After she disappears down the hall to the club’s kitchen, the four of us sit in a momentary silence, eyeing each other. Finally, I manage to speak.
“I always hoped to meet you, but in such a different way. You saw the pictures, so you know what…what Chace and I meant to each other.”
“That’s what we’re struggling to understand,” Congressman Porter says, rubbing his forehead with his palm. “Our son was dating Lana Rivera, for almost a year. He never mentioned you.”
The words are a slap across my face. I drop my gaze, cheeks burning. That can’t be right.
“But he said he did—he said he told you about us last spring, when he was planning to break it off with her.” I remember it so clearly, the mixture of relief and terror I felt upon learning that they knew about us. Is it possible Chace was only appeasing me and didn’t tell them the truth after all? Or are the Porters the ones lying?
“No, he didn’t say a thing. And he didn’t break it off with Lana, either, did he?” the congressman counters.
“There were reasons for that,” I say stiffly. “On both sides.”
I catch Mrs. Porter’s eyes fixating on my scar, and I have the nagging sense that Chace did tell them the truth, that they’re only pretending to be in the dark. But why?