I’m not hungry after my fight with Molly, so instead, I roam the halls and eventually find myself on the roof. It’s a shiny sort of day. The air is warm, and I inhale deeply, letting it fill my lungs and course through my veins. I pass cherry-cheeked tomatoes, glossy bell peppers, and fragrant rosemary, finding myself among the sweet-smelling rows of basil. The sun is especially hot today and even just standing next to the basil reminds me of the sauce a few days ago. Why weren’t basil and garlic included in that recipe, when they so obviously belonged? And why were we cooking in the first place? We never did get an explanation. Was it a joke? A portent of things to come? A frivolous break from the more rigorous subject matter? Or was it meant to be something different, altogether?
A warm breeze rustles my thin cotton skirt, providing a welcome draft against my calves. A little white flower glints in the light, and I pinch it, flicking it off my fingers. I bring them to my nose and smell the oils of the herb, fragrant and sweet.
“Why, hello there. Can’t get enough of me?” Declan’s voice surprises me, and yet I’m somehow reassured, knowing he’s here, as if this is where he’s meant to be.
“Yes, that’s exactly why I’m here,” I deadpan, but a warm smile works itself into my cheeks. He turns the corner ahead of me and presses his fists into his hips, puffing out his chest.
“I know. My animal magnetism is difficult to avoid,” he counters with a grin, and I can’t quite keep from laughing. I look down, shake my head at the ground.
“So I’ve heard. Molly couldn’t stop talking about it.” I don’t know why I say it; the words tumble from my mouth before I can think, and the heat of embarrassment floods my face. He’s quiet, regarding me, and the acute awareness of his silence intensifies everything around me: the tweets of distant birds, the rustle and sway of trees, the buzz of bees among and around us in the garden.
“You want to talk about Molly?” His voice is stiff. I shake my head and walk away from him, moving to the next row.
“The basil in the kitchen,” I say, hoping my lack of segue will be charming and not as awkward as it feels. “I used it in the sauce I made. Did it come from this garden?” He doesn’t join me immediately, and I search for more flowers to pinch. My knuckle brushes against a bee, and I back away, watching it circle me a few times before deciding I’m not worth its life. I pinch another flower, and then another, until I have about twenty cupped in my hand, and Declan is standing about a foot away.
“I still can’t believe you pulled off that dish the other night.”
“Why not? Is it so hard to believe I can cook?” I ask, pinching another flower.
“Most of the girls here can’t,” he says softly, pinching a flower for himself and adding it to my collection. “But then, you’re not like most girls.”
“What did you think I did before I got here? Braided my hair and practiced applying lipstick?”
“Of course not. You do neither.” I smack his bicep with the back of my hand, and he laughs.
“I don’t intend to start when I leave, either.”
“We should talk about that,” he says, squinting his eyes, even with his back to the sun.
“About me leaving?” I ask. My pulse pounds loud in my ears.
“No.” He shakes his head and tugs on a leaf from a mint plant behind us. He rubs it between his fingers and sniffs, then pops it in his mouth to suck on it. “What I mean is, I’m really glad you did so well, with the cooking challenge. Now that you don’t have a benefactor, you don’t have a team behind you to pad your losses.”
“Come again?” I say, placing my thumb and middle finger on a flower. I rub it gently between the pads of my fingertips, letting it slowly twist off.
“Part of what the benefactors do is provide the materials to get you through this. But it’s more than that. It’s their connections that can keep you here. It’s their connections that secure better placements.”
“And . . . what? Nobody’s going to want to take me on, because I don’t have a crappy creeper of a person vouching for me?”
“Yes, he is a crappy person,” he says with a heavy sigh, “but that’s not his public persona, and his reputation is stronger than yours.”
“I don’t have a reputation,” I say.
“Yes, you do.” He bites his lower lip and lowers his stormy gray eyes. “You’re the girl who divorced her benefactor. You are difficult. You are strong-willed. You are Independent, and independence is dangerous.”
“So, you’re saying I screwed myself? Because I wanted to be safe?” My shoulders tense with the helplessness of my current, untethered position.
“Kind of,” he says. “But you have my support.”
“Can your support get me a placement?” He flinches and looks away, staring at the ground, over his shoulder, and then finally, back at me.
“It can . . . but it’s complicated.”
“Complicated how?” I ask, walking across the aisle to the next planter box. It looks well pruned, and as the breeze rustles the basil, a few white petals blink, exposing themselves for the picking.
“This whole game is about perception. Weren’t you the one who decided not to sit at the top table because you didn’t want others to view you as a threat?” I shrug and look back at the bushes, searching for more tiny white flowers.
“I guess so.”
“Well, if I don’t marry the top girl, how great can she be? It’s stupid, I know, but it is what it is.”
“So then, how did the past two classes play out, when you chose nobody?” I ask.
“The top girls left in the last few weeks.”
“That was planned?” I ask, misty fragments of overheard dinner conversations rising from the fog of my memory. Girls who were clear favorites to marry Declan, sent away to Swendenland, or high positions in Espancia, near relatives.
“I knew pretty early on that I wasn’t going to choose any of those girls. They knew it, too. We kept them around, though, talked up their chances, and then leveraged it into the best possible placement we could secure for them.
“But those girls had benefactors, family members in prominent positions. People were willing to take a chance on a near top finisher without asking too many questions.”
“So, I’m dangerous?”
“No. You’re just not a good bet.” The bluntness of his words is both refreshing and debilitating. He tugs another mint leaf from the plant to his left, then takes a deep breath and crosses the aisle, examining a vine.
“I have to become a better bet?”
He shakes his head. “You need to be a sure thing.”
“But how do I do that?” I cup the little white flowers in my hand, let them tumble over each other as nervous jitters jostle through me.
“Let me choose you.” His eyes are clear and purposeful, his forehead smooth, but his foot taps the ground too quickly, and there’s frenetic tension in the way he stands.
“What?” I ask, taking a step back. “I already told you—”
“Yes, I know. And I respect that. But if people think I’m going to choose you, someone might make an offer at the last minute.”
“But then, what happens to you?”
“It would be embarrassing, but I’d survive,” he says, and then smiles and shakes his head, golden waves of hair flopping into his eyes. “My mother is another story. You’d make an enemy of her, but she’d get over it, as well. Eventually. Maybe.”
“Would you have to choose another person from this class?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says with a casual shrug. “I’m not sure which is worse: being dumped so publicly, or having to settle the way my father did.”
I study his face for a long moment, wondering what it is he’s talking about. But if he just revealed something he was meant to keep in confidence, he doesn’t seem to realize it. He plucks a long, green string bean and bites into it; an appraising look crosses his face. He twists another one off the vine and passes it to me.
“So, what? You want me to pretend to fall in love with you?” I ask, rolling the bean between my fingers.
“No, of course not. Actually, the longer you can fly under the radar, the better.”
“Why do you say that?” I take a bite of the bean, and it breaks, crisp and sweet, between my teeth.
“You have nobody in your corner—except me. You might be the first Independent girl we’ve had, but we’ve seen girls with poor benefactors leave of their own accord because they were perceived as a threat and couldn’t handle the pressure.” I chew on the bean and swallow hard.
“Like Deena?” I ask. He shakes his head and blows a small puff of air through his lips, using it to shift his hair out of his eyes.
“She was never a front-runner,” he says.
“But someone thought she looked like one?”
“So it would seem.”
“I heard she found insects in her bed.”
“Sort of,” he says with a slight shudder. “It was a spider’s nest.” I shudder, too, shaking my shoulders hard.
“I’m sorry she left,” I say as his face twists.
“Why?”
“Well, if you had something there, between you, then it’s too bad she left.”
“We didn’t,” he says with a slightly sad smile. He scratches the back of his head. “I mean, I kissed her, but it wasn’t earth shattering. I don’t think she even had time to talk about it, she was gone that quickly.”
“Huh,” I say, and return to the basil.
“So, what did Molly say?” His gray eyes are round and plaintive, asking a bigger question, maybe even a hopeful question, that I don’t understand enough to answer.
“That your animal magnetism is difficult to resist,” I say, rolling my eyes. I don’t know why. I’m making a joke, not a judgment. But even though I’m irritated with him for treating Molly poorly, I don’t really want to talk about her. “Apparently, kissing girls you’re not really interested in is your idea of the perfect night.”
“I’m sorry, did you just come up here to make fun of me?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
“No, I just—you made a joke. I was—”
“What’s your problem with Molly, then?”
“I don’t have a problem with Molly. I like Molly. She’s my friend.”
“Well, then, what is it?” he asks, squinting at me, his brows low and knit together. I could stop talking. I could change the subject. I could do any number of things besides stick my foot in my mouth, push away the only true ally I have, but I also know that my staying silent won’t change a thing. Molly deserves better. We all do. I might not have been able to save Neve and Carla and all the other girls forced into lives they didn’t choose, but I can do something here.
“My problem is with you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Okay, what did I do?”
“You spent all night with her . . .” My mouth is dry, and I suck on my tongue quickly, rounding on him. “You kiss her in the atrium, and then tell her not to get too worked up about it, because you’re still ‘getting to know’ the other girls here. So she thinks you’re a really great guy, because you have such a ‘great connection,’ and you’re up front about how you’re still connecting with other girls, but how you also really like sticking your tongue down her throat,” I say. I fold my arms across my chest and wait for his response. He snorts.
“Wow,” he says.
“Yeah, pretty much my thoughts exactly.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I do have a great connection with Molly?” My stance falters ever so slightly, but I plant my feet firmer into the ground beneath me as he continues.
“I resent the implication that if I’m going to—oh, what was that charming turn of phrase you used? ‘Stick my tongue down her throat?’ Yes, that’s it—that this means I can’t possibly have genuine feelings for her. Or that I can’t also have genuine feelings for the other girls I’m still getting to know. I’m doing the best I can here, Arden. Despite scrutiny from every direction!” His indignation is infuriating, and I clench my fists, letting out a frustrated growl. Sharp pain extends out from the soft, round heel of my left palm, radiating into my fingers. Tears flood my eyes as my hand throbs. I open my palm and among the smashed flowers lies a hornet, still squirming as its stinger sticks into the fleshy pad of my palm.
“This way,” Declan says. He plucks the hornet from my palm in a quick, firm swipe, pulling the stinger out with it, leaving me in even more pain. The venom from the sting leeches into my hand, making it hard to focus as he leads me across the rooftop, hand held high overhead. We reach a sink, and he flicks on the faucet, sticking my hand under the cold water.
“Have you been stung before?” he asks. I squeeze my eyes tight as he presses the area around the puncture with his nails.
“Not by something this ugly,” I say, and he laughs. He digs his thumbnail into a particularly sensitive spot and I wince, leaning into the pressure. “Are you trying to hurt me?” He looks sharply up at me, his gray eyes round and clear. He shakes his head.
“No. I’d never do that.” He’s quiet again and continues prodding at the area as I suck in air between my teeth. “Just checking to make sure I got the whole stinger.” When he’s satisfied my skin is stinger free, he lets go, telling me to leave my hand under the water while he rummages under the sink. He works quickly and quietly, his fingers deftly unwrapping a fresh bar of soap, working it into a lather under the water. He meets my gaze, asking silent permission to touch my hand again, and I nod. His fingers brush my wrist, guiding my palm away from the icy stream. I wince as he gently massages the soap into my stinging wound.
“Is this your move?” I ask.
“What?”
“Bring girls up here, feed them to the hornets, and then swoop in to save the day? Show them how you’re tough, but nurturing?” I lower my eyebrows and try to smile, but he presses a fingernail into the puncture wound again, and I wince.
“Sorry,” he says quietly.
“No, you’re not,” I say. He lets out a sharp breath.
“No, my move is to take girls to the atrium, stick my tongue down their throat, and then tell them we have a special connection.” The bitter edge to his words catches me off guard, and I’m not sure if he’s joking, or if he’s actually frustrated and angry. I watch his long fingers stroke my hand and instantly think of Beck, massaging my injured knuckles. There was so much care in his movements, and I see much the same in Declan’s fingers now. And yet, it somehow doesn’t feel the same.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not quite sure what I’m apologizing for.
“Really?” he asks, an eyebrow arched, but already, his fingers are slower and gentler. I nod, and he doesn’t push for more.
“I don’t think it’s going to swell,” he says after a minute. I keep my hand under the water as he retrieves a clean rag, soaks it with a bottle of vinegar-smelling solution, and then folds it neatly, pressing it to my hand. “We should really use some ice, but I think you’ll survive.”
“Thanks,” I say, wiping away a traitorous tear with the back of my hand. He leans back against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Honestly, my biggest fear is becoming the person you seem to think I am.” It’s quiet for a beat as I let his words absorb the air around us, become real.
“I don’t really think you’re that person,” I say, softly. The wind calms for a moment, and everything feels like it’s on the edge of a decision.
“You did, though. You assumed it was the case because of what one girl said.”
“I don’t know why I thought that,” I say. He exhales hard and closes his eyes.
“I think I do.”
“Care to enlighten me?” I say, but my heart pumps with anxiety, with the fear of him knowing me in a way I don’t yet know myself.
“You haven’t exactly been raised with good male role models, to say the least.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.” He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I focus on the throb in my hand, letting the temporary pain course through me. “It’s not nothing, Arden. If you didn’t trust another man the rest of your life, nobody would blame you.” I bite the side of my tongue and let up on the pressure from the wet cloth, allowing the sting to distract me from the swell of ugly, complicated emotion rising in my chest. He lifts my swollen hand and presses the rag against my palm, forcing the cool relief. I look up at him, and he presses my hand against my chest.
“Keep it raised—over your heart—that’ll help.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, not looking away, feeling my breakneck pulse split the difference between the throbbing in my hand.
“Look, you trusted me with . . . well, so much. I don’t want to lose your confidence.” I shake my head and look away.
“You haven’t. I don’t know why—.” I stop talking, because I don’t know how to finish my thought. He places a hand on my shoulder, running his fingertips along the place where it meets my neck. I look up, meeting his uncertain gray eyes. Time slows, and the world narrows to just the two of us, our breath, the sweet, summery scents around us.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he says with a small quiver, “but if you want to run away from me again, you should do it now, before I really mess things up.” I smile and let out a little laugh, but stay where I am. His full lips turn up in the tiniest, most hopeful of smiles before he leans in and presses them against mine.