Breaking Read online

“Of course you and I have a different agreement,” she says. “Straight As. That was the deal.”

  I nod. “I understand.”

  “I want to see significant progress within two weeks,” she continues. She squints down at her phone. “The hospital’s anniversary gala is on the twenty-seventh. If you’ve brought your grades up by then, you can stay. If not, we’ll revisit the idea of you going back to New York.”

  I press my lips together, careful to keep my face blank. Two weeks. I have a C or lower in every class, including fencing, my physical education credit. It’s a ludicrous deadline. I could study until well past midnight, complete a dozen extra-credit assignments, and ace every single test, and I’d still be lucky to get a B average. It’s like she wants me to fail.

  Mother waits for me to answer, one eyebrow raised. Her expression is a challenge. I turn her terms over in my head. Maybe I’m looking at this wrong. Two weeks won’t be long enough to make Mother happy, but seventeen years hasn’t been long enough to make her happy, either. If it’s obvious I’m going to fail, then I have no reason to worry about grades and classes and my stupid internship. I can focus all my time on solving Ariel’s puzzle.

  I force my lips into a smile. “Two weeks sounds adequate.”

  “You’ll need to speak with the dean to get your updated schedule. She insisted that you take an earlier shift at the Med Center this semester so you’ll be less likely to … forget to show up.” Mother lifts her eyes to my face, one eyebrow raised. “Your first shift is tomorrow at nine thirty. Be sure to check in with me after you finish.”

  She pushes the school doors open, hurrying down the steps to where Darren waits with the car, her high heels clacking against the stone. I watch through the glass in the door. She pauses and glances back at me, and, for a second, my reflection lines up with hers. We have the same long, straight nose, the same full eyebrows and high cheekbones. Only our eyes are different, mine brown instead of blue. I always thought we looked nothing alike, but reflections don’t lie. We’re so similar. It’s astonishing.

  Mother holds my gaze for a moment, and then she turns and slides into the car, the gold rose glinting from her lapel.

  My hands are sweating when I walk out of Dean Rosenthal’s office one hour later. I’ve smeared the ink on the new schedule she printed for me, creating a Rorschach test of room numbers and subjects and times. I crumple the schedule into a ball and shove it into the front pocket of my backpack. I hurry down the halls, footsteps echoing. It’s nearing the end of third period. Teachers’ voices sneak out through the cracks beneath their classroom doors.

  “… quadratic formula …”

  “American …”

  “… arigatou.”

  The bell rings, cutting the voices short. Shit. I walk faster, hoping to avoid the throng, but doors fly open and the hallway quickly fills with plaid-and-navy-clad students. They muscle their way toward the doors, shoulders wedged together. A few people glance back, staring at me unapologetically. I hear whispers and giggles. They must know about my near-expulsion. Weston is small, only about fifty students per year. News travels fast.

  I duck my head, pushing my way past. The halls are always mobbed but today it’s intense. I rise to my tiptoes and peer over dozens of glossy, perfectly coiffed heads. A line has formed, stretching through the double doors and into the quad, where it bottlenecks at the frozen-over fountain.

  I squeeze through the other students and into the quad, finally spotting the source of the traffic jam. Three seniors perch on the fountain’s concrete edge: Chloe Pearce, Molly Hendricks, and Vivian Marsh, widely considered Weston’s most popular girls but only because Devon and Ariel never applied for the job. We used to hang out with them a little, but they were always second-tier friends. We’d go to their parties and we’d hold their hair back when they threw up, but we’d never let them have our secrets.

  They look how you’d expect—hair dyed the same golden blond/brown, fake-tan-colored skin, stacks of brightly colored flyers clutched in thin yet toned arms. An iPod sits on the fountain next to their feet, connected to a tiny speaker blasting candy-coated hip-hop.

  Molly tosses a stack of flyers into the air like confetti. They flutter down to the sea of waiting hands, blocky black letters shouting the words “SENIOR BONFIRE” from their brightly colored pages.

  The senior bonfire is a Weston tradition. It happens every year in the late winter, when the frozen ground has just begun to thaw but the nights still seem to stretch for days and days. The party begins before nightfall and lasts until the early hours of the morning, lit by a massive bonfire in the middle of the woods. It’s the one party each year the teachers don’t break up.

  Molly and Chloe and Vivian start dancing on the fountain, hips gyrating in tandem. Voices become high-pitched and pointed. The beginnings of a migraine stretch through the back of my skull. I’m about to head inside when our school mascot, the Weston Warrior, steps out of the crowd and stops in front of the fountain.

  Wait—not the usual Weston Warrior. Jack.

  Jack wears the Warrior’s metallic kilt and shiny blue cape. His chest is bare, and he’s painted a glittery blue W on his skin. He holds a plastic sword and wears the helmet, too—silver with a white fringe. The whole thing is very Trojan man.

  Chloe grabs his hand and pulls him onto the fountain with her. Jack dances like he does most things—enthusiastically, and with little skill. He body-rolls and runs in place and does jazz hands. He does the robot. Badly. If Ariel were here, she’d catcall and shout something dirty. Show us some leg! Okay, probably dirtier than that. But I just watch.

  Jack’s chest is red with cold beneath the glitter. He smiles and the skin around his eyes crinkles, which has to be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Something in my chest flips. Time to go.

  I’m at the school building and I have the door open and one foot inside, when—

  “Charlotte!”

  I turn and Jack is standing behind me in all his glittery, bare-chested glory.

  “You think I didn’t see you?” he asks, panting. He must’ve leaped off the fountain and pushed through the crowd to get to me before I went inside. Chloe and the others look lost without him, a solar system that’s misplaced its sun.

  I frown. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  Jack flashes another eye-crinkling smile. “Ha-ha. Ian got sick.” Ian’s the fifteen-year-old who usually plays the Weston Warrior. The real costume includes a jersey to cover his skinny chest, but Jack made the right call by going without. It’d be a sin to cover those abs. “Chloe asked me to fill in at the last minute. What do you think?” Jack turns in place. “I make this look good, right?”

  Yes, he does, but I force myself into kid-sister mode. I wrinkle my nose. “Stay at least three feet away from me so I don’t get all glittery.”

  “No hugs, then?”

  He comes at me with arms wide, like this is something we do now, and I flinch away from him on instinct, knocking into the person behind me. The roaring, laughing crowd around us goes on Mute, but only in my head. Jack blinks, and I swear I can hear the sound of his eyelashes passing through the air.

  He rocks back on his heels like I pushed him. “Sorry,” he says, and now I feel stupid for making things weird. He clears his throat. “So. I thought you were leaving.”

  “I came back.”

  “I see that.”

  “I quit quitting,” I say, and now we’re on solid ground. Meaningless banter. Our common language.

  “Good for you,” Jack says.

  It’s my turn to talk again. Jack waits patiently. I cross my arms over my chest. If I stand still for long enough, I might turn to stone.

  Say something, I tell myself. Say something. Anything.

  “Are you going to the bonfire?” I blurt out, nodding at the fountain where Molly, Chloe, and Vivian are still dancing. They keep snatching glances at us. I wonder if they think I’m going to off myself next, like Rosenthal does.

  Oh God
. Is that what Jack thinks? Is that why he’s talking to me now, after we spent the last month avoiding each other?

  “Yeah,” he says. Something passes over his face, lighting him up. “Remember last year?”

  I frown. Technically, the bonfire is supposed to be seniors only, but Ariel, Dev, and I snuck in last year. I spent the entire night nursing a drink that tasted like melted Jolly Ranchers while Dev and Ariel engaged in a fierce competition to see who could smooch the most random hotties. Ariel made me swear I’d never tell Jack she was there.

  “What do you mean?” I try to keep my voice casual, but Jack raises an eyebrow, calling my bluff.

  “Please, Charlotte. Do you think there’s any chance I didn’t know you all snuck in?”

  “I didn’t …”

  “Ariel said she’d be in her dorm studying all night. Studying. Did you ever see her study for anything?”

  “Do eyeliner tutorials on YouTube count?”

  Jack straightens his cape. “Remember Colin Everly?” he asks, referencing some senior who graduated last year. I nod. “Well, Colin told me Ariel made out with half the lacrosse team that night. Is that true?”

  “I spent most of the party by myself wishing I were anywhere else in the entire world, so I don’t really remember.” I glance down, pretending to smooth a wrinkle from my skirt. “Would you care if it was?”

  Jack shakes his head, and a full smile unfurls across his face. He looks like he’s considering a pleasant memory and not evidence of his dead ex-girlfriend’s betrayal. “Nah. That was Ariel. I bet she looked good. With the firelight, and—”

  “She looked amazing,” I say, cutting him off. I was so jealous of Ariel that night. It seemed violently unfair to me, like her beauty could be held directly responsible for my ordinariness.

  Jack cuts his eyes toward me. “That’s funny.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “Just … Ariel said the same thing about you. She said the guys couldn’t keep their eyes off you.”

  I wore jeans and a T-shirt that night, and I didn’t even try to do anything with my hair. I was the most underdressed person at the party. It was embarrassing. “She’s such a liar.”

  “Ariel lied a lot, but never about you.” Jack’s eyes shift downward, landing on my mouth. I’m suddenly very aware of every inch of space separating my body from all that bare skin.

  I lick my lips, and his cheeks color. He becomes very concerned with the plastic sword hanging from his hips. His hands are covered in glitter, and staring at them, I feel a sudden flare of want. I picture those hands wrapped around my waist, smearing glitter over my skirt. He lifts me up, and I wrap my legs around his—

  “Did she tell you she came to see me after you all got back?”

  I swallow, pushing the daydream from my head. Get it together, Charlotte. “What are you talking about? She didn’t sneak out.” Ariel and I fell asleep on our dorm floor that night, drunkenly whispering as the room spun around us.

  “Yeah, she did. She tapped on my window at, like, four in the morning. We snuck up to the river. You know the one near the highway?

  I see water lapping against Ariel’s legs, soaking the edge of her flannel skirt. “I know it.”

  “Right. Well, it was cold as hell. There was ice on the river, but she walked right in, like she’d done it a million times before. I don’t even think she shivered. I waited on the shore, watching, while she just … stood there.” Jack swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. “She swore to me that she didn’t go to that bonfire, but she reeked of smoke. Do you remember how she used to do that? Lie right to your face?”

  “I remember.” The next words fall out of my mouth before I can stop them. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Jack answers so quickly that I know he can’t be lying. “Ariel was a force. She was the reason they name hurricanes after people.”

  “She would have loved that line.”

  “That’s why I never said it to her.” Jack is still smiling, but then he looks at me and the smile fades. I can see the ring of gold around his pupils. The dusting of freckles on his left eyelid.

  He shifts toward me, and suddenly we’re close. I could touch his arm. Ariel would be so mad. I almost glance behind me, to make sure she isn’t watching.

  “Ariel never seemed like a real person,” Jack says, his voice lower than it was a second ago. “Being with her was like taking a break from the world. But being with you … it was like the real world made better.”

  Every inch of my skin seems to vibrate. How long do you have to wait before you can steal your best friend’s boyfriend? What if she’s dead?

  Is a month long enough? A year? How about forever?

  In my darker moments, I used to think that was why Ariel had done it. Death meant they could never break up. I could never have him. She’d be the one we loved the most, forever and ever.

  “Charlotte! Hi!” The new voice is so unexpected and so sudden that it takes me a long moment to figure out where it’s coming from. Chloe has appeared next to Jack, and her body is so tiny and compact that, at first, my eyes pass over her, like she’s a mirage. Her golden highlights glow in the sunlight. Her fake tan doesn’t look even a little bit orange. She blinks, and I swear I feel a rush of wind coming off her eyelash extensions. “Did you get a flyer?”

  She thrusts a neon-pink flyer at me, lips spread wide over twin rows of white teeth. Ariel would notice the smudge of coral lipstick. She’d say something awful that sounded like a compliment in the moment and only hit later, when Chloe was replaying the conversation in her head. I don’t say anything. I take the flyer, feeling stiff. Something has shifted, but I can’t quite place my finger on it.

  I look down to the flyer, and that’s when I notice Chloe’s hand. Casually resting on Jack’s arm.

  “Oh!” I say the word out loud, and I feel like such an idiot that I pretend to cough to cover it up. I blink and look away.

  “It’s next weekend!” Chloe hugs her body closer to Jack’s arm. I want him to squirm away, to shake her off, but he just stands there, statue still, refusing to meet my eyes. “You should come! It would be so, so great to have you there!”

  The exclamation points at the end of Chloe’s sentences have brought back my migraine. I lift a hand to my face and rub my eyes with my thumb and forefinger.

  “Uh, yeah, I’ll try,” I say. I look at Jack again, but he seems very interested in a bit of thread coming loose from his cape.

  A lump forms in my throat. I shift my eyes back down at the flyer, but I don’t really see the words on the page. They switch places, tricking me. “I’ll definitely try.”

  Jack glances back at the girls handing out flyers. “I should …”

  “Get back to dancing,” I finish for him. “Me, too. I mean, I should get to class. I’m not dancing.” For the love of God, stop talking. “Um, see you later, Chloe.”

  She says something else, but I’ve already turned and stepped into the school building. The door slams shut behind me, cutting her off.

  I breathe in and in, forgetting to exhale until the oxygen makes me dizzy. This is my own fault. I shouldn’t bother with Jack, or with anyone. I don’t need friends here anymore. I’m only staying long enough to find Ariel’s clues, and then it’s back to New York and good-bye to all of this.

  As soon as I turn the corner in the hall, I ball the flyer up in one hand and throw it in the trash.

  Chapter Ten

  Jack has always been a joiner. When I told him I wanted to start an animal shelter, he went to Dean Rosenthal’s office with me to talk her into letting us use the old garden shed. He made a petition when she said no, and got everyone in school to sign it. He volunteered to help clean out the old shovels and flowerpots and half-full bags of soil after she finally gave in.

  We were alone one night, repainting the walls. I wasn’t wearing any makeup, and I had my hair pulled back with a rubber band. My jeans were two sizes too bi
g, and my T-shirt was from a math camp Mother had made me attend, and probably I wasn’t wearing a bra because, let’s face it, I don’t actually need a bra.

  But I glanced up at one point, when the sun had started to set and twilight had stretched out across the floor of the shed, all golden and soft. Jack was staring at me. His head was tilted and his eyes were narrowed, and he had this look on his face. This look I’ve never seen except in really good romance movies. Awe. He was looking at me like I was something holy. It was the first and only time I ever wondered if I was beautiful.

  I did a bad thing. But I had my reasons.

  I just thought you should know that.

  Chapter Eleven

  I spend the rest of the day searching. I look beneath Ariel’s old desk in calculus, the only class we had together. She used to pass me notes constantly, not even bothering to hide them from the teacher. Unfortunately, the only thing beneath her desk is old gum. I check her favorite bathroom stall, the one where she carved our names into the door, and I search the alcove just past the library where we used to sneak cigarettes between classes. Nothing.

  I skip dinner that night. Zoe isn’t at the dorm when I get back, but she left a Post-it on my bed.

  Welcome back, it reads in big, loopy handwriting. Won’t be home tonight. Don’t wait up.

  It’s 100 percent against Weston’s rules to stay out all night, but whatever. I crumple the note into a ball and toss it, then I take advantage of Zoe’s absence to search every inch of our dorm. I find an old lipstick and a few stray bobby pins, but no more mysterious bottles, no notes. I try the closet next, standing on my tiptoes so I can search the very back. Someone’s stuck a cardboard box into the far corner. I grab it and pull it down, tossing the lid aside.

  My breath catches. A beaded cocktail dress glimmers from inside the box. I run my fingers over the black lace and glittering gold beads. I was with Ariel the day she bought this. We saw it in the window of a vintage store, and Ariel stormed in and demanded the clerk get it down for her. The store’s only fitting room was being used, so she stripped right there, in front of the blushing clerk, while I shrugged off my coat and tried to cover her up.