He shrugs. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
The sound of voices makes us both look up. Three senior girls who I recognize from my classes turn the corner and walk down the path that’s right in front of us. They’re talking about some girl named Amber and how she has bad skin. Then they see us, and their conversation immediately stops.
I look at my computer and type a few words of nonsense, just so I look busy.
They stay silent as they walk past us, and when I glance up to see if they’re gone, Declan is looking, too.
“Why is everyone so mean here?” I whisper, just in case anyone else is around.
He shrugs. “People are mean everywhere, Sophia. You just have to find the nice ones and surround yourself with them.”
Chapter Ten
There’sa little pep in my step as I walk back to my dorm after an afternoon spent sitting next to Declan in the gardens. I feel like we became friends today. Not just partners, or acquaintances, but actual friends. And there’s nothing wrong with having an incredibly attractive friend.
I do the little familiar knock I’ve invented on our dorm door just before I unlock it and let myself in. Doing the same knock each day calms Belle’s nerves because she knows it’s me. I still think it’s weird that she gets scared of the idea of a stranger being at the door, especially since her traumatic episode didn’t involve anyone hurting her. But her panic attacks are her thing, and I’m trying to make it easy on her. I’m pretty sure she could go tell the administration if she wanted me gone, and they’d send me to live with two roommates in the real dorms where they have shared bathrooms. No thanks.
“You look happy,” Belle says. Like always, she’s sitting on her bed, on the computer.
I shrug. “This lock is getting easier and easier every day. It just needed a little elbow grease to make it work.”
“That’s not why you’re happy,” she says. “You look happy for other reasons. Boy reasons, perhaps?”
“What kind of nonsense are you going on about?” I toss my bag and plug my laptop into the charger and then steal a bag of Skittles from Belle’s bookshelf candy stash.
“I’m talking about Declan.”
“He’s just a friend. A classmate.”
“Aromanticclassmate?” Belle says, grinning at me like a kid who just saw their parents kissing.
I throw a Skittle at her. “No! What’s gotten into you?”
She turns the laptop around and I briefly see a photo on the screen. It’s me, in my Harvard sweatshirt, and Declan in his school uniform. The photo was taken from behind us, secretly, because I definitely didn’t know about it. It shows us walking next to each other just as the sun is getting low on the horizon. That must have been taken ten minutes ago.
“What kind of stalker crap is that?” I say, diving onto her bed.
She quickly closes her laptop. “Someone posted it to Knight Watch. There’s a rumor going around that you and Declan are a thing.”
“I want to see it,” I say, making grabby hands.
Her hands fold over the top of the laptop and she tugs it toward her. “It’s not a big deal.”
My lips press into a tight line. “That means it is a big deal.”
I haven’t signed up for Knight Watch yet because I haven’t seen a need in looking at school-specific social media page. It’s not like I have any friends to add on there, and it’s not like I have anything to say. Plus, my own social media accounts have pretty much gone ignored since I was forced to move here against my will. I have nothing to share with the world while I’m stuck in this boarding school.
Still, Belle doesn’t know that. “I’ll just make my own profile and see for myself,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. But you can’t get upset because I tried to protect you from this.”
She slides the computer over and I open it, looking once again at that photo of Declan and me.
A: looks like someone is getting cozy with the Cali brat.
“Who is A?” I say, clicking on the little circle with the letter in the middle of it. Nothing comes up.
“It’s anonymous. You can post as yourself, or anonymously.”
