It had been precisely four hours and forty-eight minutes since I’d read Grace’s most recent words. As I sat beside Bradley after school on his so-soft-it-practically-swallowed-me-whole sectional, I couldn’t stop picturing myself tackling his sister, Naomi, and tearing her hair out, chunk by chunk.
Can you keep a secret?
The Naomi in my head asked the same question over and over again. How dare she ask Grace to keep her secrets? How dare she pretend to be my friend?
It hadn’t been easy convincing my parents to let me come over here, but in the end a school project and Dr. P.’s urging them to “give me the freedom to overcome my grief” had been enough to get me off lockdown. Bradley rambled on and on about protecting the Brotherhood and figuring out who was behind all of this.
And all I could see was Naomi whispering in Grace’s ear. Naomi telling me about the Sisterhood for the first time. Naomi breaking the news about Liam and Bethany. Naomi throwing her arm around her brother.
Naomi.
I’d spent the day as a creeper, narrowing my eyes in her direction, assessing the dark waves that fell down her back and over her sparkling, golden eyes. Why would she do this to me? To Grace? Why lie? Now the only realization that came into crisp focus in my mind was that Naomi was involved in a way she could never admit.
“Right?” Bradley asked, his eyes full of hope.
Crap. I had no clue what the hell he’d even been talking about. “Um…yeah? I mean, yes, yeah!” Wow. Convincing.
Bradley deflated a little, so I blinked my eyes heavily and twisted my body in his direction. It was against pretty much everything I stood for, but I was desperate and I didn’t want to hurt him. And I liked the way his hands felt in mine. This at least wasn’t a lie. The way his fingers were calloused from holding a lacrosse stick, the surprising softness when his fingers linked with mine wasn’t a lie. The energy that flowed up his hand and set my whole body on fire wasn’t a lie either.
And then the image of Liam and Bethany making out popped into my head, and I tilted my head back in a silent invitation which he accepted. Greedily. But when his lips came down on mine, I only saw Liam. I only heard Naomi’s whispered secrets. When I kissed him, it was a lie.
If only I was in the before-Grace. If I’d been my first-year self, that brown-haired girl with all four years at Pemberly Brown laid out before her like some sort of all-you-can-eat buffet, I’d have surely melted at the first touch of Bradley’s soft lips. But the after-Grace Kate knew too much. In the after-Grace, I was kissing him so he wouldn’t sense my feelings toward his sister and my complete lack of attention.
God, the after-Grace sucked on so many levels.
Bradley pulled away, concern lining his features. He fell back into the couch, resting his head on a cushion and tilting his chin toward the ceiling. “We’ll fix this, right?”
Loaded question. I nodded my head because it’s what he wanted me to do.
The silence that bounced between us felt like an opportunity. I jumped on it. “I need to get my phone. My mom read some article about another mom who had a list of cell phone rules for her son, and now she’s full of regret and is randomly making up new rules like having my phone charge in their room at night. Um…no.” I shook my head, considering whether to continue. “So, I have to, like, check in. You know?” Bradley smiled, and my heart broke a little. He believed me. He believed all of my lies. And it felt like a knife in my chest.
I took the basement steps two at a time and slid into his foyer to get my phone from my book bag. Raising it to my ear, I mocked a call, peeking into the kitchen (no one), family room (empty), and finally standing before the open basement steps so Bradley would hear. “Hey, Mom.” I continued talking up the main stairwell, in search of a more private location, namely Naomi’s bedroom, to tell my “mom” all about my day.
Please, dear God, let her room be empty.
“We got our tests back in Calc,” I said, tapping the door open with my foot. Soft gray walls, splashes of turquoise, dark floors, huge canopied bed, no Naomi.
I had seconds.
“Really well. I studied forever,” I continued as I scanned the contents on top of Naomi’s desk. An open book, some pens, a calendar, a few papers. Nothing. “Next Wednesday, we’ll review for midterms.” I rushed to the side of her bed. Phone charger (the Farrows must not have gotten the cell-phone Nazi mom memo). Notebook with mainly blank pages, a few random notes throughout, a thick, black pen tucked inside. The pen.
“Not well, she has to retake.” I stumbled over the made-up conversation, my voice hushed as I studied the pen. Returning to the book on Naomi’s desk, I flipped to her marked page. Her bookmark was a piece of a paper. The paper. It was thick and expensive and identical to the paper used in the Brotherhood’s Factum Virtutes.
I lowered my phone and snapped a quick picture of the stationery and pen. And then I saw his name. Porter Reynolds. “Study group starts on the sixteenth,” I mumbled, running my finger over the script. All day, Bradley had been asking and wondering and worrying about who was going to be targeted by the Brotherhood next.
On the desk, in perfect calligraphy scratched into creamy card stock, was the answer to the question bouncing around in my mind since I’d first laid eyes on the still body of ex-Headmaster Sinclair. It was so obvious, so clear, that I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.
Porter Reynolds.