There You'll Find Me (34 page)

Of course it would be her. Because this night needed a cherry on top.

“Sorry. There’s so much stuff in the nurse’s office, I had trouble finding the plasters and had to open a lot of cabinets and drawers. Here you go, Finley.” Beatrice watched me with a movie villainess grin as she handed them to me. “Different sizes. Wasn’t sure what you needed, so I just . . . grabbed a few things.”

“Very helpful,” Mr. Plummer said. “Thank you, dear.”

Helpful? I wondered if this would be a good time to remind the
dear
one’s father about her setting me up for cheating. Or how she’d nearly sabotaged Erin’s chances for a date.

“Your hands are shaking.” Beckett took a medium bandage from me and kneeled on the floor. He leveled those famous eyes at the small crowd around us until people drifted away.

“Just let me know if you need anything else.” Beatrice gave one last smirk, then swiveled on her fancy heels and walked away.

Beckett’s fingers were cold on my skin as he blotted at my knee with a napkin, the crisp white cotton coming away red and gross. “You took quite a fall. I’m really sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” I watched him gently apply the Band-Aid.

“We need to call your host mother.” Mr. Plummer reached for his phone.

“No!” He couldn’t.
Please, God, no
. “I don’t want to worry her. I feel fine now,” I lied. “I’ll just sit here the rest of the night. Drink some Diet Coke. Take it easy.” I implored him with my eyes. “Tonight’s a big deal, and I don’t want to mess up anyone’s evening. Please.” I shot Mr. Plummer a pleading look.

He reluctantly put the phone back in his suit pocket. “If you become the least bit light-headed, you are to let someone know. I still think I should call the O’Callaghans.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her, sir,” Erin said.

“As will I.” Beckett watched me with a frown.

“Fine. But I’ll be checking on you later.” He walked away with the mayor, making a beeline for a large gentleman dancing on a table, and my shoulders sagged in relief.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling this badly at the house?” Erin turned to Beckett. “She had a little spell earlier.”

Beckett gazed up at me as I righted my stained skirt. “You’ve felt like this all night?”

“It’s nothing. Just a little under the weather. No big deal.” I wanted to go home. I wanted to go to bed, pull the covers over my head, wake up on a brand-new day. One where I did things right.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Beckett asked.

“I’m okay.” How many times did I have to say that? “Let’s go back out and dance. That’s what we’re here for.” My voice sounded a bit too snappish, so I countered it with a smile and held out my hand to Beckett. “Besides, I didn’t get my whole dance.”

“No way,” he said. “Erin, you and Joshua go on. I’m going to sit here with Finley.”

Joshua offered his arm to Erin. “I do a mean pop and lock. Want to see?”

Erin hesitated. “Finley, I don’t know . . . Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Go.” I waved toward the dance floor. “I’m fine. Orla, you go too.”

Beckett and I watched Joshua lead a worried Erin to the center of the crowd, with Orla and her date beside them. I knew they were talking about me.

“Erin will be watching you all night,” Beckett said.

The ice in my glass clinked as I took a sip of Diet Coke. “She has no reason to be concerned. She’s just so kindhearted.” And I hoped her kindness extended to refraining from telling her mom about my little episode. Though I knew I couldn’t count on that. Panic coursed through my nerves as I thought of all the possibilities for fallout.

Beckett pulled his chair closer until his legs touched mine. “You’d tell me if something was going on, right?”

His eyes looked at me so directly, I feared he could see straight into my mind, where my every lie, every truth scrolled by. “Yes. I’m sorry I ruined your night.”

“Except for nearly having a heart attack, I’ve had fun.” Beckett rubbed my hands in his, as if trying to transfer some of his heat. “Now I can say I’ve been to a village dance. Check it off the list.”

I pushed past the weariness and the fog in my head and tried to focus on his eyes on mine, his gentle hand covering my fingers, his comforting nearness. Tomorrow I’d eat more. Erin was right. I couldn’t keep doing this. “I didn’t know there was a list.”

“Look at your arms. You’ve got goose bumps all over you.” Before I could protest, he peeled off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. I was instantly surrounded by his warmth and the smell that was only Beckett Rush. I wanted to remain in this safe cocoon, but when I got home, there would be Erin to answer to.

“I just came up with a list,” he said. “Things I’ve missed out on.”

“Like what?” I watched a couple clear the table beside us.

“School. Senior trips. Holidays.” He ran his finger over my hand. “Fin, you swear you’d talk to me if there was more to this, right? You’ve just been . . . different lately.”

Him too? “Of course I’m behaving differently. I’m going to lose my mind before this audition.”

“I know you’re working really hard on it, but—”

I moved in closer, hoping to distract him. “What else is on that list?”

“List?”

“The things you haven’t gotten to do.”

He blinked at the topic change, but let it go. Then smiled.

“Kissing a girl under the stars.”

“Too bad we’re inside.”

He looked up, pointed to a web of fairy lights above us. “Looks like they found us anyway.”

I rested my forehead against his chin, wishing I could stay there forever. “People are looking.”

“In my life, someone’s always looking.”

I smiled, despite the sad note in his voice. “Sometimes it’s worth doing anyway.”

His grin returned. “You are worth it, Flossie. You are definitely worth it.” And as the band played, my friends danced, and my knee burned, Beckett Rush covered my lips with his, and I felt my head spin once again.

Chapter Thirty

From: [email protected]
Subject: Checking in

We haven’t talked in a while, and your mother
thought you could use an ear. I called your
number, but it went straight to voice mail.

M
iss Sinclair, you’re wanted in the counselor’s office.” Mrs. Campbell folded up the note from a student aid and handed it to me on Monday morning. I read the summons, a message scribbled in blue ink on recycled paper with old vocab tests printed on the back.

As I stood up and walked out of the English class, I was positive if I turned around I would find all twenty-five girls in the room staring at me. Whispering about me.
That’s the girl who passed out at the dance. That’s the one who dates Beckett Rush? What on earth does he see in her?

By the time I got to the counselor’s office, it was a wonder my knees could hold me.

Yesterday was so strained and tedious, dragging on forever. Beckett had to film, and I went to church with the O’Callaghans. Erin was quiet, pensive, and not her usual bubbly self. I knew she was thinking about Saturday night, whether to tell her mom or not. I kept watching Nora, expecting her to pull me aside and talk to me, to ask me a million questions about passing out. I waited upstairs in my room most of the day, playing Will’s song over and over until I broke a string and had to put the violin away.

In all these things, I am more than victorious .
. .

I said rushed prayers under my breath and knocked on the counselor’s door.

“Come in.”

Walking inside, my stomach dropped to the floor. There sat Mrs. Mawby, the counselor, in front of her file-stacked desk. Nora O’Callaghan occupied a chair next to her.

And there was my mother’s Skyped-in face on the computer screen behind them both. Watching us all.

“Shut the door behind you, Finley.” Mrs. Mawby gestured to a maroon cloth chair. “Take a seat please.”

It was worse than I thought.

“Hey, Mom.” My smile felt plastic and brittle on my face.

“Hello, sweetie. Mrs. Mawby thought we should all have a chat.”

The counselor cleared her throat. “About your health.”

No.

No, no, no.

I looked to my mother at once. “I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong. I promise.”

“It’s my understanding you fainted Saturday night,” Mrs. Mawby said.

I cast a sheepish glance at Nora. “Erin told you?”

She shook her head. “No. Mrs. Mawby just called me.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” My mother’s voice sounded tired, as if this were a song she’d heard on repeat every day for the last two years.

“Finley, a concerned friend came in to talk to me today.” Mrs.

Mawby crossed her legs and propped an elbow on her messy desk.

“She witnessed your spell at the festival and is quite worried, so.”

The walls of the small office seemed to shift, as if moving at once to the center, closing me in. “And who is this
friend
of mine?”

“Beatrice Plummer.”

“That’s your informant?” Nora asked. “The same girl who got Finley accused of cheating? And who bullies my daughter? I thought this information was from a reliable source.”

My mother cut right to it. “Finley, did you pass out?”

My head moved in an awkward nod. “Yes.”

“Has this happened before?” Nora asked. “Since you got here?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Actually Beatrice overheard Erin mention you had a dizzy spell at home before the festivities.” Thin red glasses slid down Mrs. Mawby’s nose, and she peered over them with big, owlish eyes that blinked too much. “True?”

“I . . . sometimes I get stressed and I think my blood sugar drops.” Like when I skipped meals.

“And what had you eaten Saturday?” Mom asked.

“Not enough,” I said casually, as if it was just a silly thing I let slip by. “We were so busy with getting our hair fixed, and I’m still working on my audition piece. But I ate at the dance. I did.”

“A full meal?” Nora asked. “She’s been eating like a wee bird almost since she arrived. I thought nothing of it at first, but now . . .”

“I had fish, some fries. The fries were good.” I sounded ridiculous. They were staring at me like I was someone they didn’t know what to do with. Like I had some big bad secret in my closet, and they wanted me to be the one to drag it out.

God, what is wrong with me? Why am I here—in this situation? Why can’t everyone leave me alone and let me deal with problems my way?

“Miss Sinclair.” Mrs. Mawby drew out my name, a nasally sound that was in need of tuning. “No matter Beatrice’s intentions, I do believe she has stumbled upon something that we need to have a care with. Mrs. O’Callaghan, the school nurse, and I were all informed of your . . . previous difficulties.”

“My depression? My year of therapy? Wouldn’t you have been sad?” My voice snapped like twigs in a flame. “My brother died. Murdered.”

“That’s enough,” my mother warned.

Mrs. Mawby continued. “I had hoped that if you had felt any of those same feelings coming on, heard any of those old negative thoughts, you would stop in so we could talk.”

I had an audition in a week. Did they honestly expect me to care about any of this? I had too much to do before then. Couldn’t we deal with this later?

“Beatrice is out to get me. She
told
me that. She specifically said I needed to watch my back. She’s angry—that I became friends with Beckett Rush, that I’m his assistant, and that I’m the new girl who instantly made friends and she wasn’t one of them. She’s jealous and bitter and mean.” Tears clogged my throat, but I kept going. “Nora, she arranged it so every boy Erin might even think about asking to the dance would turn her down. She had a whole plan. And all because she wanted to get back at me.”

“That part is true,” Nora said. “She’s always been a challenge to Erin, and I was never so glad when my daughter got out of her circle.”