The Rivals (17 page)

Then it all just ends in a loud, very loud, finale.

And now silence.

The fabric of my T-shirt is burning, almost wet, with the pressure of his chest on me. I feel his heart beating against my back, his breathing, slow and steady, in the space between my neck and shoulder blade.

“You’re right,” he says quietly.

“About what?”

“You can’t play that for them.”

“Why?”

“Because then they’d want you as much as I do right now.”

Heat floods me as his arms fold around me. I have never wanted him more. I have never wanted to be closer to him, to anyone, than I do right now. Here with the boy I love wrapped around me, all I can think about is him. And me. And him and me together.

In every way.

“Martin,” I say.

“Yes?”

“Are your roommates in your room right now?”

“Yes. But I can kick them out in a heartbeat.”

“I would like that.”

I always thought I’d tell T.S. right away.

Or T.S. and Maia at the same time.

But now that it’s happened, I don’t actually want to tell anyone. I want to keep it to myself. I like nobody knowing what I did last night.

Because even though I wasn’t a virgin, it felt like the first time. The real first time. The way I always wanted my first time to be. Soft, and slow, and under the covers, with just a sliver of moonlight shining through the windows. Looking into his eyes, seeing my own nervousness reflected back, knowing he was the one worth waiting for.

And he was.

Because it was just us. There were no harsh memories slamming between us, no images crashing into me. And maybe, just maybe, that means I’ve managed to banish them for good. My heart soars at the thought, at the possibility that somehow, at some point, I crossed this hurdle, and this part of last year is behind me, where it should be.

That’s why all day Sunday I find myself keeping my mouth shut, just smiling goofy smiles at Martin when we sit together in the caf for breakfast, then again for lunch, then again when he comes to visit me in the afternoon and we go outside and walk around the quad holding hands, squeezing back and forth like we’re sending secret signals to each other.

Which we are, I suppose. Every time I look at Martin, he gives me an
I-have-a-secret
look back.

“Stop it!” I say playfully as we stand under a tree.

“I can’t help myself,” he says, and puts his arms around my waist. “You just seduced me there at the piano last night. You seduced me with your piano playing.”

“I’m a seductress,” I say, trailing my fingers across the front of his shirt as I laugh, because I couldn’t be happier that he finds my music sexy.

“And I’m just smiling because I’m so in love with you,” he adds.

It’s not the first time he’s said it. I’ve said it too. Nor is it the first time he’s said he’s
so in love with me
. Because, really, if you’re going to be in love,
so
is the kind of
in love
you want. But hearing him say it now, again and again,
after
the fact, makes me feel like all is right with the world, or at least my own little corner of the universe, perfect as it is in this moment.

So I keep my own secrets, keeping last night all to myself. This is my new history, the history I get to record. This is the way it should be between a boy and a girl. Then I say good-bye to him because I have a new dinner companion tonight, and it’s Jamie. We practiced together the other day and then made plans for dinner too, because that’s part of the whole mentor-mentee thing. I can’t say
protégé
. It’s too pretentious.

“I’m going to do my first duet soon!” Jamie tells me when we sit down to eat. “The captain of the VoiceOvers said he was super impressed with my singing, so he’s going to assign me a duet. I can’t wait.”

“That’s awesome,” I say. Jamie’s a true musical prodigy—not only is she a rising star in orchestra, she is also a singer, and she nabbed a spot in the VoiceOvers, Themis’s real a cappella singing group.

“So, if you had to pick flute or singing, which is your favorite?” I ask as I take a bite of my pasta.

“Am I going to get in trouble if I say singing?” Jamie asks, a touch of nerves in her question.

“Of course not.”

“I mean, I’m
so
glad you’re my mentor, and I totally want to get better at the orchestra and performing, but singing is my first love, know what I mean?”

I nod as I chew my food. Then I say, “Totally. I get it. And I wish I could sing too. But sadly, I can’t sing to save my life.”

Jamie laughs. “I highly doubt you could do anything wrong musically.”

“Ha,” I say. “Trust me on this one.”

Then I feel a finger tapping my shoulder. It’s the girl sitting next to me. I turn to face her. She has honey-blond hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail. “What’s up?” I ask.

Her eyes dart back and forth, then she asks, “Is it too late to still try out for the council? For the Mockingbirds? Because you’re the leader, right?”

I nod. “I am.”

“I saw the posters earlier and wanted to try out for the
New Nine
,” she says, using our secret code.

“That’s great. But we actually picked the New Nine already. Were you a runner last year?” I ask, because while I know the names of the runners, I don’t know all their faces.

Her face falls and she shakes her head. “No,” she says.

“But that’s okay! You can be a runner next semester. That’s how you start,” I explain. “Mockingbirds start as runners, then move to the council, and then some to the board.”

“And you’re on the board, right?”

I nod proudly. I want her to feel proud too to be a Mockingbird if she decides to try out.

“So you must have been a runner, then? And a council member too?”

I flash back to Amy’s room, to the decision I made there to
own
my past. I straighten my shoulders and answer her. “It was different for me. The leader is always someone who’s been helped. The Mockingbirds helped me last year when I was date-raped by another student,” I say, and it’s like I’ve stripped down and I’m standing naked before this girl. But I’m not ashamed of my body or my past. I stand here without any clothes on and I don’t hide and I don’t cover up and I am vulnerable, exceedingly vulnerable, but I am also choosing to be okay with this moment, all of it.

“Holy crap,” the girl says, covering her mouth with her hand. “Are you okay?”

“I am,” I say, nodding. “Thank you for asking.”

She shakes her head like she’s trying to shake away the shock. “I had no idea,” she answers. “But that’s pretty courageous.”

“Thank you. I hope you’ll try out to be a runner next semester.”

“I will.”

I turn back to Jamie, and she’s frozen in place, holding her fork in midair, her mouth hanging open. When my eyes meet hers, she speaks. “That was, like, the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”

Then McKenna drops by, sliding in next to us. “Yay!” she says, clapping. “I am so glad that it all worked out and you are Jamie’s mentor.”

“Me too,” I tell McKenna.

“Soooo,” McKenna says, raising her eyebrows and looking at her sister. “Everything fabulous?”

Jamie nods and says yes, but her voice sounds barren, empty. I watch as they lock eyes and something passes between them. Maybe a secret between sisters. God knows I have my fair share of secrets now.

I spend the next day entirely distracted in all my classes. It’s not just that I’m replaying Saturday night with Martin—my stomach flips every time I think back on it and every time I think about how much I want to do it again—but I am also wracking my brain to figure out how to prove Maia innocent.

I want to prove it to the board. I need Parker and Martin to
know
that she’s not the dealer. And I need to do it in a way that doesn’t reveal her secret—that she has the prescription, only she needs it for the right reasons. Most of all, I want this case behind me. I want my friendships back. I want to return to when T.S., Maia, and I could talk about silly names for pets, and mock our teachers, and, yes, talk about boys and kisses and sex. I want to tell them about my real first time and how I now have new memories,
good
memories, toe-curling memories to replace the bad ones.

But I can’t right now.

During my history class I study the Debate Club roster. I recognize some of the names, and one in particular stands out to me: Vanessa Waterman. She’s kind of scatterbrained and always dropping her books and leaving a trail of papers behind her, but from what I’ve heard from Maia, she’s one of the top performers on the team. She’s also sitting two desks in front of me right now. Vanessa and I have been in the same history class every year since we started here, and we were also paired up on special projects each of our first three years.

Here’s hoping that shared history will count for something.

When class ends, I stop at her desk. “Hey, Vanessa,” I say. Her desk is like a smorgasbord. Stuff is spread everywhere—notebooks, papers, textbooks, even some barrettes. She’s jamming it all into her backpack, her frizzy brown hair piled up high on her head.

“Hi, Alex.”

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” I say in my library voice.

She tenses, and tilts her head to the side. “About what?” she asks as she pushes some papers into the bottom of her bag.

The rest of the class filters out, including our teacher, so it’s just us now.

I crouch down next to her. “So, listen, I wanted to ask you something. And this’ll be totally, one hundred percent confidential. But we’ve been hearing about some stuff going down in the Debate Club and—”

“What sort of stuff?”

“Well, basically that there’s some sort of widespread Anderin use, sharing, snorting, selling.”

Vanessa gives a coarse laugh. “Oh. That’s all?” she asks sarcastically.

“Yeah. I know, right? Crazy stuff. So I was just wondering if you had heard anything or might know anything about it, because we were asked to look into it. You know, the Mockingbirds.”

“So you want to know who’s involved?” she asks in this conspiratorial way, like I’ve come to just the right person.
Score
, Alex!

“Definitely,” I say, my eyes glowing as I wait for the goods.

“I. Don’t. Have. A. Clue.”

Then she walks out, and I feel like I’ve been slapped. I put my hand on my cheek briefly, as if my face is still stinging from where she smacked me. Maybe it’s red too.

But then I look down at the floor, and I see that Vanessa left behind a lot of stuff: a bunch of hair clips, a notebook, and something else. Something better. Her cell phone. I stare at it for a second like it has a heartbeat, like it’s beating loud and seductively, wooing me to lean down, wrap my hands around it, touch it, scroll through all its contents. I glance around. No one’s here.

The way she shoved my question back in my face tells me she knows something.

And maybe that something is on her phone.

The room is so quiet that the silence in here feels like a life force, like another person standing next to me, urging me to look. I’m burning up inside; this hot, racy feeling of danger slams through me. Then I just do it. I grab the phone, swipe my finger across the screen to bring up her messages, and click on her e-mail.

I hold my breath the whole time as I flick through her messages.
C’mon, there must be something here.

Then I see it. A note from Theo. A group e-mail. Thank God I have steady hands, because inside I’m so jumpy, my nerves are about to boomerang out of my body and bounce across the room.

Got more of the good stuff. I’ll spread the love as usual. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Then I hear footsteps heading toward me, clicking closer and closer. I grab my phone from my back pocket, snap a picture of her screen, then swipe her phone back to its home screen. I lay it on her notebooks, right next to a red barrette.

Then I walk out of the room, keeping my own phone in my hands as if I’m deeply engrossed in a salacious text-message conversation, affixing a silly grin on my face because this message from T.S. is so freaking raunchy that I nearly bump shoulders with Vanessa on her way back in.

I spend the rest of the day staring at the picture I took like it’s a note from a lover.

But that heady feeling slips away at night when I show the picture to Martin and Parker in the laundry room. They ask me how I got it, and I’m pretty sure digging around in someone’s phone, checking e-mail after e-mail, won’t pass muster as an ethical investigation technique.

So I cloak myself in a new layer of gray as I make it seem like Vanessa’s phone was just a gleaming twenty-dollar bill I found on the sidewalk and happened to pick up and, lo and behold, the message was right there on the home screen
that very second
. Naturally, I had to snap a photo.

As I tell the tale I feel like I’m swallowing my grandma’s badly cooked pot roast and pretending it tastes good. I stick to my story, figuring the ends for now
have
to justify the means. Besides, I’m one step closer to clearing Maia’s name, to returning to the way we were.

We all agree that Parker needs to tail Theo more closely now, to try to figure out where and when these deals are going down. Amy had said in our phone call at the start of the case to be cautious about following students. But we have enough clues now to track him more closely.

Martin and I will keep our eyes on the others in the e-mail thread.

Later that night in the library as Martin studies inorganic chemistry, I think back to what Anjali said—
freshmen are involved
. I wonder if I should spend some time in the freshman dorms too, maybe pay some calls to first-years along with Anjali. Then I feel Martin brush his lips against my neck. I shiver at his touch, then whisper, “More.” He moves in closer to me, lingering this time, his soft lips leaving a trail of warmth across my skin. I am suddenly more daring than I have ever been in public, even though we’re tucked in a quiet corner where no one can see us. I move still closer to him, placing a hand against his T-shirt, feeling the smooth lines of his stomach even through the gray fabric. A small sigh escapes his lips, and I press my palm harder against his shirt, against him, feeling a zing shoot through me as I touch him.