Grayson finally goes upstairs, promising to stay hidden in his room for the rest of Family Day. My mom talks with Charlotte’s parents for thirty seconds before giving me the sign it’s time to move on, and we spend the rest of the hour wandering around the grounds. She talks about people from the neighborhood, but I can only half listen, my mind still on Henry, and if he’s okay, and Grayson, and what the hell he was doing with that safe in the director’s office.
Then we gather in the gym, where Belk announces that a few of the students have prepared a surprise, a demonstration of what they’ve been learning.
Irritation wells inside me as Caleb steps into the center of the circle with Geri at his side. She’s grinning up at him, all swinging hips and perfect hair and fresh makeup. Her black dress matches his black jeans and raven hair, and when he gives her a nervous grin, I feel my ribs turn brittle around my throbbing heart.
“Aren’t they a cute couple,” says Mom.
“Not really,” I mutter.
The waltz music is piped in through the speakers, a sliding, three-beat cadence that now reminds me of Grayson’s hand on my waist and his square shoulders. I shove him from my mind as Geri takes her place in front of Caleb and smiles, like she did earlier when he left Paz and Joel to talk to her.
Probably about this.
The parents love it, of course. They’re already oohing and ahhing. Caleb’s mom is wiping away a tear. Geri’s dad is pointing her out to other nearby parents, as if they don’t already know she’s his. They make sure they show how impressed they are—no one’s stupid enough to blow off a guy who could bench press double their body weight.
Again, I get the strange feeling I know him from somewhere, but I can’t place it.
Mom clasps her hands over her heart as they begin their slow curve around the floor. Caleb’s still terrible, but it’s obvious they’ve been practicing. He hardly looks at his feet, and though his gait is stiff, he doesn’t run her over.
“Can you do that?” Mom whispers reverently.
The sudden memory of Grayson sweeping me across the floor fills my mind, and it’s stupid, but I wish she could see us. We’re a thousand times better than these two.
As Geri tilts her head back like the women in the training videos, I suppress a groan, and try to hold on to the feel of Caleb’s hand in mine. But I can’t stop staring at his ink-stained fingers on the back of her black dress.
“Mrs. Hilder.”
I jump as Dr. O comes up beside us. As he takes my mom’s hand, my focus shifts away from Caleb and Geri to the director. I’m excruciatingly aware of how her silver shoes and red lipstick stand out against his deep, quiet tones, and the way she sizes him up like he’s a customer who’ll leave a huge tip if she plays her cards right.
I’m dead if Dr. O saw Grayson talking to her.
“I’m so glad you could make it.” Dr. O takes Mom’s hand in both of his, smiling warmly as Geri and Caleb finish their dance. “Your daughter has proven to be a wonderful addition to our school.”
Nerves flutter beneath my sternum. My nails press into the heels of my hands. This can’t be about Grayson—Dr. O would have talked to me about it, not her. He’s just doing the good director thing and making the rounds.
Still, I’m nervous for what she might say. Is he going to bring up the job with Wednesday Pharmaceuticals? She won’t—she has no reason to see the connection.
Which leaves it to me. But if I say something, then it ruins it for her. This leap that’s taken her all my life to make will be nothing more than a favor, and she’ll turn it down because Hilder women don’t take handouts. We earn our keep.
Even if it means stealing.
“She’s always been smart, I’ll give her that,” says Mom. “This is a gorgeous place, sir.”
“Please, call me David.”
“David,” she smiles, and it’s at full Allie Hilder wattage. “It’s really good of you to do this for her. No one believes my girl made it out—they all think I’m lying and she’s in juvy or something.” She laughs so hard she slaps his shoulder.
I want to die.
“They should know she was bound for greatness being raised by someone like you.” Dr. O’s all charm, and it reminds me of the way Grayson turned it on with her earlier.
Mom waves a hand. “Oh, you.”
“Anyway, it’s me who should be thanking you,” says Dr. O. “I’m not sure what we’d do without Brynn here. She’s the very definition of hard work.”
“That’s my girl.” Mom grins at me, but when Dr. O does the same, my gaze falls to the floor.
Maybe this is all coincidence, and he had nothing to do with her new job or place, but right now it feels like the worst kind of reward—the one that comes with an IOU.
He may have handed my mom a winning lottery ticket, but the payout isn’t tax free. The responsibility of it falls on my shoulders, and if I fail to complete my assignments, I don’t just lose my future, but hers as well.
I owe Dr. O nearly as much as Caleb does now.
THE AFTERNOON ENDS with a thank-you from Dr. O, and Belk and Moore driving the parents who took the train back to the SCTA station. Caleb borrows the Jeep to take his family home and pick up Sam from the jail, and Charlotte, claiming to be sick so she doesn’t have to face him, returns to her bedroom.
I go on a hunt for Henry.
He’s not in the pit or in his room, and since I’m already upstairs, I knock on Grayson’s door. Even though he should have stayed in his room today, I’m not mad at him. He risked his secrecy, but Mom swore she wouldn’t say anything, and Henry’s stepdad didn’t seem to recognize him.
Plus, he stood up for Henry. I didn’t think he cared about anyone enough to do something like that.
He calls me in, and I’m surprised to see Henry sitting in a chair next to his bed. They’re watching something on a laptop, and judging from the creases around their eyes, they’ve been laughing.
“Brynn, come here.” Henry motions me over, but there’s nowhere to sit, so I end up squeezing on the side of the bed next to Grayson.
He doesn’t move much, which means our hips touch, a fact he acknowledges with a wicked tilt of his lips.
They’ve picked some old movie about a bomb on a bus, and a hot policeman who has to keep the driver going above fifty miles per hour. The freeway’s halfway built, though, and when they run out of road, they jump a forty foot gap.
In a bus.
I see now why they’re laughing.
“You okay?” I ask Henry as the bus careens around another turn.
He’s wearing a school shirt again, fitted to reveal his slender torso and the lean muscles of his arms. His hair is damp, like he’s recently showered, and brushed over the side.
He looks like the old Henry again.
“I’m good,” he says.
“He’s going to hockey camp,” Grayson says. “Where he can learn all about knee pads and scoring triple doubles.”
“Hat tricks,” says Henry. “Triple doubles are in basketball.”
Grayson and I stare his way.
Henry gives a sheepish shrug. “I actually do like hockey.”
“That’s all right,” says Grayson. “I actually like to dance. Nobody’s perfect.”
I glance between them. Despite Grayson turning Vale Hall into a social experiment, it seems they’ve actually managed to become friends.
“Where’s your mom?” The second I ask, I wish I could take it back. On the chance that they are pretending, I don’t want Henry to feel awkward by me asking this question in front of Grayson.
“Probably at church. Or at home. Or doing whatever will make Luke happy.” Henry slouches over his knees.
“Sounds like a winner,” says Grayson.
“She’s great,” says Henry. “Really. She would do anything for anyone. She once gave all our clothes to this shelter because they put out a sign saying they needed donations.” He gives a small smile. “She used to bring home dogs and cats that looked hungry because she felt bad for them. Animal control had to come clear out our house when the neighbors complained.”
“So she’s crazy,” says Grayson.
Henry’s cheeks darken. “She likes taking care of people.”
I think of how Henry’s always the first to give a hug, or praise, or to point out all the positives when something goes wrong. His mom’s not the only one who puts others first.
“Sometimes she tries to help the wrong people,” he says. “They’re not always so nice. To her.”
He doesn’t say or to me, but I see the haze of memories in his eyes—the kind of things you wish you could forget. Experiences that wake him up at night and have him crawling into Caleb’s room until they pass.
I reach for his hand, and he takes it and holds it against his chest. Even though we’re with Grayson, even though Dr. O plays us like chess pieces, I’m glad we have this place. Henry needs it.
We all do.
“Well, if I had to live with all that, I’d be drunk all the time.”
I hit Grayson hard in the shoulder.
“What? It’s more fun than talking about feelings.” He closes the laptop, which none of us are watching anymore. “And less fun than punching someone in the face.”
“So half-drunk, all the time?” Henry asks, giving my hand a little squeeze.
“Or full drunk, part of the time,” Grayson says.
I sigh. “Would you settle for ice cream, some of the time?”
Henry stands. “I would. Who’s going to be my enabler?”
“I’m in,” says Grayson. He sends me a wolfish smirk. “Who’s going to be my enabler?”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.”
But I stand up and follow them toward the door.
We play video games through the evening. One by one, the others join us—all except Caleb, who still isn’t back from picking up Sam at the train station.
One by one, they all go to bed.
“Goodnight, friends,” says Henry with a yawn. He pats me on the knee and then stands. “You guys are the best.”
“Have sweet dreams of me,” says Grayson.
“Maybe I will.”
“For sure you will.”
I snort.
Henry blushes.
It’s late, and I should go, too, but there are things Grayson and I need to discuss, and we haven’t had a chance alone all day.
“So,” I say. “About that safe in Dr. O’s office.”
His grin is reflected in the television as we change to a mountain track and pick new trucks. “About that.”
“What were you doing?”
“Looking for the phone.”
I pause.
“What phone?”
“The phone that was on … you know. That was in the car.”
The warmth of the room falls steadily, one degree at a time.
“Susan Griffin’s phone.”
Grayson took it off her after he found her dead in the car. He hid it in a hollowed-out tree near the accident site and gave it to me when he told me he’d been the one to run her off the road.
He nods.
The game starts, but my fingers slip off the right buttons on the controller, and he jumps into the lead.
“How did you know it was there?”
“Deduction,” he says. “Your director said it was in a safe. Henry said there’s a safe in his office, hidden in the fireplace. It’s where he keeps all your student files.”
Why Henry is telling Grayson, who doesn’t even really know what we do here, about our student files is beyond me.
“If there is, it’s locked by combination.”
“You don’t need a combination if you’ve got an axe.”
“You have an axe?”
“I was working on that part.”
My monster truck takes a dive off the road, and I drop the controller into my lap. “Why the hell do you want that phone?”
He shrugs. “Insurance.”
“Explain.”
“What’s your director doing?” he asks. “He knows Dad covered up what I did, and he’s just sitting on it. Why? What’s he waiting for?”
More information on Jimmy Balder.
Urgency rises in my veins.
“He’s letting me stay here without question until I testify against him, but when will that happen? Dr. Odin hasn’t made any reports. He hasn’t done anything.”
“I know.”
“He’s up to something,” says Grayson, tossing the controller on the couch beside him. “And unless I’ve got my own insurance, I’m the one who’s going to get screwed here.”
He says screwed as if he weren’t the one to run Susan off the road.
“So what’s the plan?” I ask, shifting in my seat. “Get the phone, then what?”
“Keep it. I never should have given it away.”
A wave of guilt washes over me, a reminder that I betrayed him by passing the phone along to Dr. O. Never mind that I was trying to protect Grayson by doing so. Never mind that I could have turned him in to the director, or the authorities, and didn’t.
“Without that phone it’s his word against mine that I actually … you know.” His brows are furrowed, and his tone is thin with unease. “If my dad admits I did it, it will destroy his reputation, and since he’s not talking, the only evidence I was there that night is that phone, with my fingerprints.”
“You want to get rid of it,” I realize.
He looks back at the television.
“Grayson, I…”
“Before you say anything, tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”
I swallow my breath, feeling it burn in my throat. If I had done what he had, and the only thing standing between me and jail time was a stupid cell phone with my prints on it, I would get rid of it, too.
I’d burn this house to the ground if it meant making my guilt disappear.
“Somebody died,” I say.
His eyes flash to mine, and in a snap, a desperate anger sizzles across the room. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t think of it every second of every day? I tried to make it right, but I couldn’t. Now it’s just me. I’ve got to look out for myself.”
He is scraped raw and aching. I can hear it in his voice. I can feel it in the throbbing tension between us. This is the boy who went to his father after the accident. This is the boy who tried to tell the cops and was sent home.
This is what exists beneath the anger, and the privilege, and the sarcasm.
“You’re not alone,” I say.
For a while, he doesn’t respond. Then, he reaches for me, his hand closing around my calf. I stare at his fingers, glowing red and green and brown in the reflection from the television. The weight of them burns through to my muscle.
“Help me,” he says. “You helped me before. Help me get that phone.”
“I can’t.”
He starts to pull back, but I stop him. My hand over his.
“I will help you. I just need some time to figure out a plan.”
“What kind of plan?”
I don’t know. I squeeze his hand, but it feels too heavy to move. “I need to know everything you do about Susan Griffin.”
“I told you everything I know.”
“What about Jimmy Balder?”
He looks confused. “The intern you were talking about? I don’t know anything about that.”
“What about your father? Is there anything else he’s done? Anything we can use to make a case against him?”
He flinches.
I wait.
“He called her,” he says.
“You father called who? Susan?”
He nods.
“On that phone?”
He nods again.
This doesn’t seem that important—Pop Store had already reported that Matthew Sterling and Susan were likely having an affair. Of course he’d call her.
“They were talking on the phone when it happened.”
“When you hit her?”
He grimaces.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
His hand slides from my calf. He crosses one ankle over his knee, then sets both feet back on the floor.
“I heard someone talking on the phone when I got to her car. It was sitting there on the seat.”
He bows forward, head in his hands. “He kept saying her name. Susan? Susan? Talk to me. What’s going on? That kind of stuff. I knew it was him.”
“What’d you do?”
“I picked up the phone.”
“You what?”
Sweat has blossomed on Grayson’s forehead, and he swipes it away with the back of his hand.
“I said there’d been an accident, and she wasn’t moving. He didn’t understand why I was there.”
The scene is playing out in my mind in bold colors. Susan’s car, smashed against a tree. Grayson reaching across her to pick up the phone off the seat, while she lays there, still as death.
“I said I needed to call the police, and he told me not to. That I had to come home. I shouldn’t stop anywhere or do anything. Like I’d take a detour and catch a movie or something.” His heels are drumming against the carpet. “When I got home, he was crying. What’d you do? he asked me. He kept saying it over and over. What’d you do? What’d you do?”
“He was crying?” I can’t picture this, but maybe it was part of the act.
Grayson closes his eyes. “Then he got mad.”
He pounds one fist lightly on his thigh. It takes a second to adjust to this new version of his story. It’s like earlier, when he made it sound like Geri was the one who hurt him instead of the other way around. When I thought he was shallow, it was easy to assume everything he did was reckless, the actions of some spoiled brat. But the more time I spend with him, the more I realize there’s so much beneath the surface that no one, not even his father, has bothered to explore.
“Does that help your plan?” he asks.
“I think so. But tell me if you think of anything else.”
He exhales. “Okay.”
Tilting forward, he stares at the floor, his jaw working back and forth.
“Do you think I’m a terrible person?”
“No.”
He snorts, like he doesn’t believe me.
“I don’t,” I say. “It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.”
“Not to you. You’re too smart.”
It’s not meant to be a compliment, but a fact. Even if it’s not true, it means something that he thinks that way about me.
“It was one night,” I say. “A few minutes. There’s more to you than that.”
He’s quiet.
I reach for him, my fingers spreading on his hard shoulder, feeling the breath move his back. With a pang, I remember the night Caleb called me down here, after the Wolves had beaten him up. How he looked at me, like I held all his secrets. Like I could crush him.
I remember the way he put his hand on Geri’s back earlier.
I remember that he chose Dr. O’s assignment over me, and even if I understand why, I still hate that he did it. He may have given me his trust, but he’s been taking mine, piece by piece, since my first night at Vale Hall. Now I can’t get it back, and the armor I’ve worn all my life is riddled with holes. It lets in too much. I feel too much.
As the minutes pass, a change comes over Grayson and me. I focus on the white of his shirt between my tan fingers. On his slowing breath.
On the way mine quickens.
I try to push Caleb from my mind, but the wounds are too deep, and a pulsing ache remains behind my ribs.
“I haven’t always been here,” I say. “Before this place, I lived in Devon Park, and it was all anyone ever cared about.”
He looks over his shoulder at me, the light from the TV washing over his face.
“You’ll break through this, just like I did,” I say, and then I look away, embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell him that. It’s too personal. It’s in the past.
He leans across the cushion and lifts his knuckles to my cheek. I don’t move, frozen by the idea of what’s happening, and whether I want this or don’t, and if it even matters because if it’s what Grayson needs, it has to be what I need.
My pulse jumps in my throat as his hand turns, cupping my jaw. He stares at my lips, the dark blue in his eyes turning stormy gray with an angry kind of need. A slick fist of warning closes around my lungs, but there’s heat in my belly.
I don’t want it to be there. I want Caleb. I miss Caleb.
“Grayson,” I whisper. We can’t. We’re friends.
I say none of it, because all I can feel is that hole inside me that Caleb left, that keeps ripping more every time I see him outside Risa’s, following me. Every time he touches Geri, and I picture that card with his trust, and I hear his voice whispering we should take a step back.
We’re supposed to meet tonight. Fix things. Tell each other the truth.
But what if he doesn’t want to fix things? What if he just wants to ask more questions about my assignment?
What if I can’t trust him again?
What if this place that brought us together has broken us for good?
Grayson leans close and kisses me.
It isn’t gentle. There is no question in the press of his lips, no tentative exploration. Only a heated, desperate desire, a demand to fix all the broken things inside him, to sand away the razor-sharp points.
And I answer with my own hurt and doubt and anger.
Until I can’t smell Caleb’s soap, or hear his breath, or feel his glasses nudge my nose.
Until there’s only Grayson.
His other hand rises to my cheek and he kisses me hard again, his eyes closed tightly, the force of his grief threatening to swallow me whole.
I place my hands on his chest to steady myself, or push him back, I don’t know, and he responds by grabbing my shirt and bunching it in his fist, dragging the fabric tight across my chest.
“Grayson,” I say, gasping for breath. This isn’t right. He’s my assignment. Kissing him makes me no better than Geri, no more immune to his callous brush-off than any one of his conquests. Doing this isn’t a job requirement; there are a dozen other ways to make him feel safe and comfortable.
I don’t want this.
Only …
Only I kind of do.
“Brynn.”
I shove back at the low voice that rumbles from the foot of the stairway. Humiliation scalds me as I register Moore’s stiff posture, his jaw flexed in anger. Beside me, Grayson slumps back in the couch, running a hand down his jaw. He stares at the television, avoiding my gaze.
“Go to your rooms,” Moore says. He’s furious, though my thoughts are flying too fast to think why.
I kissed Grayson.
I can’t even say it was all for the job. I was hurting, and he was hurting, and for a moment, the lines blurred. I stopped thinking about Caleb. I stopped thinking about how this was supposed to accomplish my assignment for Dr. O.
It’s what Margot, Caleb’s ex-girlfriend, did. She played her assignment, and then fell for him, and told him everything about Vale Hall.
I try to swallow, but a knot has formed in my throat. I stand, trying to look innocent. Failing miserably.
Grayson’s thumbs punch the game controller. “I thought curfew wasn’t until—”
“Upstairs. Now.” Moore isn’t playing.
Grayson doesn’t even look at me as he shoves to a stand. Without turning off the game or the TV, he heads toward the stairs. Realizing he needs this quick escape as much as I do doesn’t exactly make me feel better.
He shoves by Moore without a word.
I shut down the game console and walk toward Moore, palms damp. I don’t know what I’m going to say. In the end, it doesn’t matter; I don’t have to say anything.
“I told you to watch yourself,” he growls. “I told you to stay public.”
My hands ball into fists inside my sleeves.
“Get in your room. I don’t want you leaving until morning. I don’t want you calling him or sending a single message. I don’t want to see you looking at him again until you remember this isn’t a game.”
Moore’s never talked to me like this before. He wasn’t this angry when he caught Charlotte and Sam in the hot tub after curfew. This is a step above security officer. This is dad territory.
A wave of shame crashes over me.
With a nod, I hurry up the stairs, through the kitchen, up to the girls’ wing. I close my bedroom door and sit on the edge of my bed. My heels bounce against the floor. My hands fist in the comforter.
I should be heading to the roof to meet Caleb right now, but I’m stuck in my room. Moore said no texting, and if I had to guess, he’s checking my phone. I could probably get a pass if I went to Dr. O and told him Moore’s interfering in my mission, but I don’t want to. Last time I blew off Moore’s orders I ended up careening down Route 17 in a Porsche, half-convinced I was going to die.
No wonder Moore’s touchy when it comes to Grayson.
No wonder Caleb wants me to focus on my assignment.
I can’t even tell him I’m not coming tonight. Maybe it’s better that way. I don’t know what I’d say to him.
My head falls into my hands.
I kissed Grayson.
I’m not sure what to say to him, either—he didn’t exactly look pleased that I’d bolted back when Moore caught us.
This isn’t a game.
I close my eyes, my lips still tingling from Grayson’s searing kiss. My chest still aching from Caleb’s lies. I go to my nightstand, shoving aside my books and notes until I find the card labeled Trust. Gripping it in one quaking hand, I trace the word with my finger, feeling its meaning slip out of reach.
I don’t even know if I trust myself anymore.