Wicked Little Secrets: A Prep School Confidential Novel (21 page)

“I can’t deal with this anymore,” he says. “I can’t trust you when you’re acting like this.”

I reach in my dress and pull out the photo I stole from Travis Shepherd’s office. “You can’t trust
me
? I thought your dad wasn’t friends with Matt Weaver, Brent.”

He motions to take the photo in my hand, but I yank it away. His face is furious. “You’ve got to be kidding. I told you to drop this.”

“Since when do you tell me what to do? I am not Bea-freaking-Hartley,” I yell. He looks over his shoulder and motions to shush me. I take a step back from him. “No! I’m not going to be quiet. Do you have any idea of who your father is, Brent? Because I’m starting to get a picture, and I don’t like it.”

Brent is speechless. Color floods his face. “I can’t believe you.”

“What’s so hard to believe? You thought I’d just let this go after what happened with Isabella?”

“That’s
exactly
the problem,” Brent hisses. “I don’t
get
you, Anne. I don’t get this freakish OCD you have about Matt Weaver. You’re out for blood. Goddard’s, my dad’s—I don’t know. It’s like
you
don’t even know anymore.”

“Fuck you,” I say. And I mean it ten times more than I did when I said it to Anthony a few weeks ago. I never thought I could be this mad. I stalk past Brent, heading for the stairs.

“Anne—”

“No. You can’t take that back. And just because you said no more lies, I know about you and Remy.”

“What? What does that have to do with anything? That was before we were together—”

“You didn’t tell me. Just like you didn’t tell me about your diabetes until you freaking almost died.” I can’t stop myself. “When are you going to let me in, Brent? You tell me you love me, then hang up on me? God, at least if I’m crazy and obsessive about things, I
let you
see that side of me.”

I expect him to follow me down the stairs, to say something, anything, except what comes out of his mouth next.

“So this is it?”

I can’t fight around the pounding in my head and come up with a good reason this shouldn’t be the end. I know it’s wrong because I’m angry—and drunk—but all I want to do is hurt him as much as he hurt me.

“Yeah, I guess it is it,” I say, and take off down the stairs.

He doesn’t follow me. When I get back to the living room, I expect something to have changed. But no one has a clue Brent and I broke up. If anything, everyone’s having a better time than before.

Some genius—definitely a guy—figured out the only way to get girls interested in beer pong is by turning it into a strip game. Two senior guys are down to their boxers, and Remy and Jill Wexler are in their bras and underwear.

Kelsey and April see me from across the room and start waving. Beer flies out of April’s cup and onto the floor. They’re too drunk to care they’re making a mess. They have the right idea: I join them, because it seems like oblivion is the only thing I’m going to find here tonight.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

I wake up with my cheek pressed to what I hope is not vomit. I blink a few times. I’m on a couch, and the wetness on the arm is just spilled beer. The pain behind my eyes is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

Something is sticking to my side. I reach down into my dress and pull out the photo I took from Shepherd’s office. I quickly turn it facedown, in case Casey is nearby. Although I’m willing to bet he fell asleep somewhere a little more comfortable.

“Anne?” An arm brushes against the couch cushion. I look down at the floor. Kelsey waves to me. “What are you doing down there?” I ask.

“We both fell asleep on the couch,” she croaks. “Kind of like … snuggling. I guess I fell.”

I massage my temples. I need a scalding hot shower and a coffee.

“
Damn,
” Kelsey says from the floor.

I don’t know why that’s what finally sets me off. I lock myself in the bathroom while everyone else wakes up. I pull out the photo I stole from Travis Shepherd’s office and clutch it to my chest as I sit on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub.

And I let myself cry.

*   *   *

I’m silent as everyone loads their stuff into the cars, ready to head back to school. Brent doesn’t look at me as he opens the back door for Kelsey, who crawls in, moaning, “I’m never drinking again.”

I turn to April. “Can I ride back to school with you?”

She looks from me to Brent’s car, confused. “Sure.”

I climb into the backseat. Murali calls shotgun, so Remy gets in next to me. Phil opens the door and yawns. “I guess I’ll ride with Brent.”

I watch him head over to the jeep and say something to Brent that I can’t hear. Brent’s face is emotionless as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

As we pull away from the Shepherds’ house, Murali and April rehash Brooke Dempsey’s meltdown after someone spilled wine on the back of her white dress. I close my eyes and lean back in the seat, avoiding Remy’s probing gaze.

“All right, what is going on?” she cries out when we pull onto the highway.

“What? What happened?” April nearly slams on the brakes in the merging lane.

“Jesus, Apes, pay attention,” Murali yells. “Remy, you can’t just yell things when she’s driving, or we’re all going to die.”

“Sorry. I’m just confused. But Anne is avoiding me. What did I do?”

“Nothing,” I lie. “Brent and I broke up. I don’t want to talk about it.”

A hush falls over the car. April murmurs
Oh, no,
and Murali stares out the window.

“Can we not act like someone died?” I snap. My brain is pounding against the walls of my skull. “It’s not a big deal.”

Remy pats my knee. “It happens, when you’re dating someone you have to see every day.…”

I shut my eyes again. If she keeps using her
This is why we can’t have nice things
voice on me, I’m going to puke. Or maybe it’s April’s constant slamming on the brakes whenever a car passes in front of us. In their defense, she’s going thirty in a sixty-mile-an-hour zone.

“You guys will be okay,” Remy says. “Maybe you just need space from each other—”

I grab the back of April’s headrest. “Pull over.”

Murali turns and looks at me. “Oh, crap—”

“PULL OVER!”

“I can’t get over!” April cries. “No one will fucking let me over!”

Her response is to stop in the middle of the highway. The driver behind us leans on his horn, and Murali yells at April to keep driving and put on her signal.

And that’s how I wind up vomiting all over the backseat of her mother’s SUV.

*   *   *

We have to stop at a car wash, so we don’t get back to campus until after four. When I go to power my phone on and see if Brent left me any messages, nothing happens. There is a layer of sugary film on the screen.

“
Shit.
” I try to piece together the events of last night, but everything after doing shots of cake-flavored vodka with April and Kelsey is a blur. I sniff my phone and gag. Yup, that’s cake vodka all right.

I flop on my bed and entertain a series of angry thoughts. One: If alcohol companies don’t want teenagers to drink, why make vodka taste like my favorite dessert? Two: My favorite dessert is ruined for me, because every time I smell cake now, I’m going to think of that cake vodka and want to puke. Three: Now I need a new damn phone.

I’m not going to sit around all day feeling hung over and sorry for myself. I spend a good forty minutes in the shower, scrubbing all evidence of last night off my body. The tears and crusted mascara under my eyes. The kisses Brent traced along the back of my neck while we waited to go inside the dance.

I’m toweling off in my room when there’s a knock at the door. I freeze. Even though I have no desire to forgive him for what he said last night, part of me hopes Brent got someone to let him into Amherst so he could see me.

I’m willing to accept full responsibility for picking a fight with him. I was pissed he didn’t tell me he hooked up with Remy, and maybe if I’d stayed sober, we could have talked it out. And I probably shouldn’t have insulted his dad like that.

But still, I never would have stooped as low as Brent did when he said I wasn’t over Isabella. He was one of the ones who helped me solve her murder—and now he’s just like everyone else who thinks I ruined his school’s precious legacy?

“Anne, I know you’re in there.” Remy knocks again.

I swallow. “I’m naked.”

“Oh, come on. Let me in.”

I slip into my bathrobe and open the door for her. I didn’t think it was possible to look worse than I did earlier, but Remy looks terrible. Her eye makeup has downgraded to raccoon-mask status, and she smells like booze.

“You need to shower,” I say, as politely as I can.

“I wanted to talk to you first.” She motions to sit on my bed. I lay my towel down first.

“Are you mad at me?” Remy asks, her doe eyes not completely hidden behind last night’s mess of mascara. “When we got to the party, you were weird all of a sudden.”

I can’t look at her, because all I see is her and Brent together. Doing things we did. Doing things we never got to do. “Remy, I know you and Brent hooked up earlier this year.”

Remy’s mouth opens a little. “Is that why—?”

“No, it’s not. We were about to break up anyway.” Tears build in my eyes as I realize how true that is. “But I’m upset neither of you told me.”

“Anne, I swear, it was nothing; we were both just drunk at a Halloween party—”

I hold up a hand. “I don’t want the details, Rem.”

“I wanted you to like me so badly.” Remy has tears in her eyes, making me want to believe her. “It was so obvious you were into him, and I thought you wouldn’t want to be my friend if I told you.”

“I’m not like that,” I say.

“I know that now, but the more time went on, the less sense it made to tell you. You guys are like
meant
for each other. Everyone knows it. I didn’t want to screw that up over a stupid hookup.”

I let her hug me. Some of the coldness in my chest begins to thaw. I can’t be mad at her for not wanting to hurt me. I didn’t tell Remy I broke into her room to find the video Alexis stole from Isabella, because I didn’t want to hurt her. Most of the time when we say we don’t want to hurt someone, we don’t want to screw ourselves in the process, but I guess you have to do whatever you can to get by.

Remy wiggles her bare toes and tucks her feet beneath her. “Who … did tell you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You should talk to Brent.” Remy drags out each word as if she’s still afraid I’m pissed and will tell her to stay out of it. “Maybe you can work through whatever happened.”

I think of Brent’s face when I accused him of being like his father. “I doubt that, Rem.”

*   *   *

I sleep through the afternoon and until nine Sunday morning. The throbbing in my head is gone, but my body still feels wrecked. I make a cup of coffee—food is still too ambitious—put on my sunglasses, and walk to the pharmacy on Main Street. The photo I took from Shepherd’s office is in my bag. After I buy a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol, I sit at the do-it-yourself photo kiosk.

I choose “enlarge” from the machine’s photo-editing options. I put the picture facedown on the scanner and watch it load on the screen in front of me.

Tears sting my eyes as the faces come into focus. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was Brent in the photo, not Mr. Conroy. The only thing that’s different is their hair. Brent has soft brown waves, while his father’s hair is dirty blond and cut close to his head.

But I’m not here to cry over Brent. I do not cry over guys. I get over them. Even ones like Brent. No, especially ones like Brent.

When the picture is done loading, I choose my new size: 10
×
12. I want to get a better look at the box on Matt Weaver’s desk. I swipe my credit card through the kiosk and wait for the picture to print.

I keep checking my phone, forgetting that it’s not operational. And by not operational, I mean not even Gandalf the White could bring it back to life. I’ll have to wait until I feel better tomorrow to take the T into wherever the nearest Verizon store is.

The kiosk announces my photo is ready. I don’t have to hold it close to my face to see the details now. The quality is still far from perfect, but I can determine two important things from the picture:

The room is Matt Weaver’s dorm at Wheatley.

The box on his desk has a padlock on it and the stamped initials
M.L.W.

*   *   *

There are about a million places Matt Weaver’s lockbox could be, but at least now I know with a reasonable level of certainty what the key from his room opens. I don’t know if there’s anything inside the box that could be a clue to why he was killed. If the box didn’t have something important inside it, though, Matt wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of hiding the key so well. At least that’s what I have to believe.

It’s dinnertime when I get back to campus, but I’m not ready to face Brent yet. Or Remy. I could sneak in and sit by myself, but it’ll be hard to go unnoticed with so many people still away from campus, milking the term
after-party
for all it’s worth.

I notice him waiting on the bench outside of Amherst when I look up from getting my ID out of my wallet. He jumps up when he notices me, and I nearly drop my bag. My whole body warms when I see his face.
He’s here. For me.

Not Brent. Anthony.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. I can’t let him see how I happy I am to see him. Not after the way we left things off.

“I’ve been trying to call you since Friday night. I was worried…, but I also have to talk to you.”

“Anthony—”

“No, hear me out.” He brushes his hair out of his eyes and motions as if he’s going to put his hands on my shoulders, but he catches himself and puts them in the pocket of his hoodie. “I was a dick to you. Not just the other day, after the diner. Way before that. I should never have just left that night without explaining why I had to do what I did to my sister.” He runs his hands down his face. “I—I’m not good at this stuff. But I’ve been thinking, and I think I treated you like that because I wanted you to be pissed at me. Like making you mad would have been easier than letting you down.”