Privilege 1 - Privilege (19 page)

ou you get to go to Atherton-Pryce in the fall while I go back to that shitty public school in Chicago.... Anyway, thinking about that made me realize how great you've been. I mean, who else in your position would take a random stranger in? And then I felt even more guilty and I just knew I had to tell you the truth. I'm so sorry."

Briana Leigh looked at Ariana, and her eyes were filled with tears. Ariana's heart skipped an intrigued beat.

"It's not so great being me," Briana Leigh admitted.

"What do you mean?" Ariana asked, finally drying her eyes. "Remember how I told you my dad died in an accident?" Briana Leigh said, tugging at the hem of her tank top. "That wasn't exactly true either."

Ariana had to chomp down on the inside of her cheek. She was finally going to get the truth.

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It wasn't!

"No. He was actually murdered," Briana Leigh said, looking down at her hands as she twisted the fabric. "By my best friend." A tear slipped down her cheek and Ariana chomped down harder.

So, not the truth, but the cover story. Still, it was better than that "accident" stuff. It was something.

"What?" Ariana breathed, trying to sound shocked.

Briana Leigh stood up and paced over to the dressing table, where, for the first time since Ariana had known her, the girl managed to stand in front of a mirror and not look into it. Instead she toyed with a light blue scarf Ariana had found in the back of the closet. She picked it up and wrapped it around her hand.

"Her name is Kaitlynn Nottingham and our families were friends. When I was eleven and she was thirteen, her parents died in a plane crash," Briana Leigh said, her voice full as she pulled the scarf tighter around her palm. "She came to live with us and it was like suddenly having an older sister. I was usually away at my boarding school, but when I was home, we had the best time."

Ariana watched Briana Leigh carefully. She knew all of this already, but she was curious as to how good a liar Briana Leigh was. Once she got to the fairy tale, would she have any tells?

"Kaitlynn lived here with my mom and dad and kept going to the day school she'd been in before her parents were killed. Then, after my mom died, Kaitlynn and my dad... they kind of had an affair," Briana Leigh said, her face turning pink with what appeared to be embarrassment. She glanced at Ariana in the mirror and Ariana feigned surprise.

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"No way. Wasn't she kind of young?" Ariana said, forcing a horrified grimace onto her face.

Briana Leigh swallowed hard, disgusted. She tugged harder at the scarf. Her fingers were starting to turn red. "Sixteen. The only thing I can think is that my dad was so broken up over losing my mom, he just kind of lost his mind, you know?"

Ariana stared at Briana Leigh. There were no tells. No blinking or touching her face or looking away. And the whole scarf thing, it just seemed... genuine. Like she was trying to keep from crying out in anger. Trying to hold a hundred different awful emotions inside. A creeping sensation tugged at Ariana's heart.

"I'm sure that's what it was," Ariana said, realizing Briana Leigh was waiting for a response.

"When I was home for Christmas that year, I walked in on them...." Briana Leigh paused and closed her eyes, unable to look at Ariana for this part. She yanked at the end of the scarf and gritted her teeth.

"Oh my God." There was a lump in Ariana's throat now. "What did you do?"

"I freaked. I told my father he had to end it or I would never be able to look at him again."

Here the tears really started to fall. Briana Leigh wept silently, her head bowed. Ariana waited in silence. The creeping feeling intensified. It was so powerful she had to acknowledge that Briana Leigh was telling the truth. There was nothing disingenuous about her. This moment... it was raw. Real.

"So he did. He ended it." She stopped yanking on the scarf and

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brought her trembling, purple fingertips to her forehead. "And she killed him."

Ariana felt as if she was about to throw up. What was she supposed to believe? Briana Leigh's confession seemed so genuine. Was it really possible that Kaitlynn had been lying to her all this time? That she was actually guilty? Had that note Ariana had found in Briana Leigh's father's office been started by him? Maybe he had planned to break up with her by letter, but had been interrupted by Kaitlynn and never had a chance to finish writing.

My dear Kaitlynn...

Ariana got up and crossed over to the desk, just to give her jittering nerves some sort of outlet. She pulled a piece of paper from the drawer and started to fold. Halves, then quarters, then eighths... The systematic motion calmed her slightly. Allowed her to think.

Mr. Covington had started that letter. It made sense. So much more sense than the idea of Briana Leigh writing to Kaitlynn in prison.

"Oh my God," Ariana said breathlessly.

"It gets worse," Briana Leigh said, finally turning to face Ariana. She leaned back against the dressing table and took a deep breath. Ariana attempted to focus. She wanted so badly to be wrong now, instead of then. She wanted to find the lie behind Briana Leigh's eyes. Wanted to believe Kaitlynn, as she had so trustingly for the past year and a half. "During her trial... this awful, long, drawn-out trial, she tried to pin the whole thing on me. She said that I had done it so that I could get my inheritance and that I had framed her. But it was totally ridiculous. I loved my father and he always gave me everything

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I wanted. I didn't need my inheritance. Plus her fingerprints were on the gun, not mine."

Ariana blinked. Was that true? But then, something like that was easily explained. Maybe Kaitlynn had held the gun at some point, but that didn't mean she'd fired it. And Briana Leigh could have been wearing gloves when she'd done the deed....

"And I had an alibi. So they called me to the stand, and when I was telling the court where I'd been at the moment my dad was murdered, Kaitlynn had a fit, screaming about how I was a liar and a spoiled brat. The whole thing was just too awful. We were best friends and she took my dad from me. And then, as if that wasn't enough, she sent me this letter...."

"A letter?" Ariana asked.

"From jail," Briana Leigh said. "Do you want to see it?"

Did she want to see it? Ariana was practically salivating to see it. She tried as hard as she could to keep her face placid. "Sure."

Briana Leigh left the room and Ariana found herself staring into the mirror. Staring into her unfamiliar green eyes as she tried to keep a handle on her emotions. This couldn't be. It just couldn't. Kaitlynn was not a murderer. Not sweet, innocent Kaitlynn. It was just not possible. There was no way Ariana could have been so very wrong about her.

Within moments Briana Leigh had returned. She handed Ariana a letter that was so worn it seemed as if it had been folded and opened and refolded hundreds of times. Instantly, Ariana recognized the standard-issue stationery of the Brenda T, with the prison's seal in the

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^^^

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center of the top of the page. Her fingers trembled as she looked down at the hand-scrawled note.

Kaitlynn's handwriting. No mistaking it.

Briana Leigh,

I thought you were my friend. I thought we were sisters. But clearly you care about no one but yourself. You broke my heart up on that stand. I was so sure you were going to stand up for me. Going to set me free so that at least we could be together. But you had to go and tell the truth? Do you even realize what you've done to me? My life is over. And it's all because of you.

I'm glad I took your father away from you. I wish you could have seen the petrified, pleading look on his face when I shoved the barrel of the gun between his eyes. I know I'll never forget it. Because it was the moment I ruined your life, you ungrateful little bitch. It was the moment I made sure you'd be alone forever, just like I will be.

Sweet dreams, BL.

Love and kisses,

Kaitlynn Ariana's hand dropped along with her heart. She couldn't believe that the Kaitlynn she knew had written such awful things, but there it was, staring her right in the face. She had been duped. Duped again by someone she loved. What was wrong with her? She had

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always prided herself on being able to read people, but clearly she was always wrong. Always wrong about the people closest to her. Her first boyfriend, Daniel Ryan, Thomas, Noelle, and now Kaitlynn. Everything she had believed for the past year and a half had been a lie. She was so, so stupid. Her fingers closed around her forearm and clamped down.

For the second time in as many days Ariana saw her long-term dreams go up in smoke. There would be no perfect house with Kaitlynn in Australia. The Kaitlynn she thought she knew had never even existed. Ariana was so disoriented she had to sit down on the bed again to catch her breath.

Briana Leigh crouched to the ground and picked up the letter, which had fluttered to the floor.

"Scary, isn't it? I can't believe she was ever my friend."

Ariana swallowed against her dry throat and nodded. She knew the feeling.

"My father was all I had left. And now every single day that I'm in this house I'm reminded of him and of her and of what she did to us...." Briana Leigh let out a long, shuddering sigh. "I can't take it anymore. I just want to get out of here and start over with Teo. Is that so wrong?" Briana Leigh said, her face desperate. "To want to start over? I mean, it is my life."

It sounded so familiar Ariana wanted to cry. Or laugh. Or throw something. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her frayed nerves. When her mind cleared again, she realized that, as awful as Kaitlynn's betrayal was, it made what she was going to do next so much easier. She

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no longer had to concern herself with fitting Kaitlynn Nottingham into plan B.

Buoyed by this realization, Ariana looked over at Briana Leigh. Everything hinged on what she said next. Everything.

Briana Leigh teared up again and Ariana shoved aside all her confusion and self-loathing, compartmentalizing it to deal with later. She pushed up from the bed, walked over, and hugged Briana Leigh. The girl hugged her back tightly--so tightly she almost squeezed the breath out of Ariana. It was as if Briana Leigh hadn't been hugged in years. Ariana closed her eyes and hoped she got the next words right.

"No. It's not wrong. But your life isn't over. Y have AthertonPryce. It's only for two years and then you can do whatever you want," she said,

ou pushing her hands into the back pockets of the jeans she had changed into after shopping. "I would kill to go to Atherton."

"Yeah. I suppose," Briana Leigh said automatically, drying her cheeks with her fingertips. "It's too bad you can't--"

Briana Leigh stopped and her eyes suddenly lit up. Ariana's heart stopped beating.

"Wait a minute."

Briana Leigh walked past Ariana over to the bed. For a long moment, her back to Ariana, she clung to the post at the foot of the bed, bringing her other hand to her mouth. Ariana could hardly breathe.

Please. Please, please, please...

Suddenly, Briana Leigh turned around. Her eyes were bright with excitement. "What if you go to Atherton in my place?"

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Perfect, Briana Leigh, Ariana thought. You got there even faster than I thought you would.

She let out a slow breath. "What?"

Inside, Ariana was doing a happy dance. Even after everything she had just realized about Kaitlynn. Because her plan B was working. The plan B she had devised thanks to that loser bleach blond back at the boutique. The reason she had revealed her "lie" to Briana Leigh. But now, of course, she had worked it so that Briana Leigh would think it had been her idea all along.

"I'm serious!" Briana Leigh said. She looked around the room as if the details of the plan were falling into place all around her. "Y go toou Atherton-Pryce Hall and I'll go to Ibiza with Teo!"

"I think you've lost it," Ariana said, stepping toward Briana Leigh with a concerned look on her face. "How are we supposed to do that?"

"Easy!" Briana Leigh announced. "Nobody at the school has met me. I did my interview by phone. And even if they've seen a random picture here and there, so what? Y said yourself some girl mistook you for me today. Y definitely fit my description. The hair, your nose, our sense of style.

ou ou We could be twins!"

Ariana pretended to be considering this for the first time. "But what about your grandmother?"

Briana Leigh rolled her eyes, growing impatient. "She'll still be getting progress reports and whatever--they'll just be about your performance, not mine! It'll be perfect!"

Ariana started to smile. "Do you really think we could pull it off?"

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"Why not? And this way you don't have to go to some crap-ass public school and I don't have to leave Teo! It's a win-win!"

Slowly, Ariana lowered herself onto the bed. She looked up at Briana Leigh, chagrined. "I can't believe you would do this for me. After the way I've lied to you..."

Briana Leigh sat down next to Ariana and gave her an "oh, please" look. "Forget about it. Y ou've been through almost as much as I have," she said. "How could I not understand?"

"To pull this off, we can't tell anyone. Not even Teo," Ariana warned.

"Duh!" Briana Leigh poked Ariana in the shoulder. "It'll be our little secret."

Ariana smiled. She was about to get everything she wanted. And maybe, just maybe, she had made a new friend in the process. Kaitlynn could rot in prison forever for all she cared. Briana Leigh was the victim here. Briana Leigh was the one who needed her help. And by assuming her identity, Ariana really would be helping her new friend. They would both be able to live the lives they'd always wanted.

"So, what do you think?" Briana Leigh asked, tossing her hair back. "Tomorrow we go to the DMV and get you your very first license as Briana Leigh Covington."

Ariana's smile lit her entire face. "Sounds like an amazing plan."

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TOO FAST

Atherton-Pryce Hall. I'm going to Atherton-Pryce Hall.