“I always wondered”—Eric’s voice caught, but he pushed forward—“whether Heather was one of the girls. If that’s how, with the letter…”
Did I tell him what I suspected? Tell him she’d lied to me about one thing, unwilling to admit the lengths to which she’d gone to get the fellowship, and so she might have lied about this, too? That the truth had died with her, and he would just have to live with the uncertainty?
I looked at Eric. His jaw tensed, waiting for my answer.
“She wasn’t one of the girls,” I lied. “I promise. He didn’t touch her.”
He nodded, and there it was—a flicker of gratitude.
“You said Garvey’s TA was a Phi Delt?” Frankie scratched his head. “I wonder who. Asshole should’ve said something way before it got to half a dozen girls.”
Eric’s voice turned bitter. “Yeah, well, you Phi Delts weren’t exactly known for your upstanding behavior, were you?”
A Phi Delt had known about Dr. Garvey. Something about that didn’t feel right. There was a connection I couldn’t quite grasp.
“You know what I don’t understand?” Mint’s eyes were cold, but his voice—hisvoicewas low and taut, so intense it surprised me.
Fear bloomed in my chest, dampening my palms.
“Why did you go to Coop? I was your boyfriend. If Garvey…took advantage of you…why didn’t you come to me?”
Coop and I looked at each other. I could sense the storm in him. What would we say? It was the only secret left, and it was too big, too destructive, to ever speak out loud.
The silence stretched.
“Jess,” said Caro finally, her voice shaky. “Answer Mint’s question.”
I caught her eyes. Dark and beautiful, soft with pain. Caro, my best friend. Caro, who didn’t deserve this.
But I needed to do something I should have done years ago. It was much,muchtoo late, I knew that—but for once, I was going to make the radical choice.
I took a deep breath. “Because I was in love with Coop. And I still am.”
Chapter 38
February, senior year
Mint
Mint stared at his laptop, a chill spreading over him. There it was, in black and white, the headline screaming “Housing Crash Claims Real Estate Giant Minter Group.” Just like his mother had warned:It’s coming for us like a tidal wave, and we can’t stop it. Your father made terrible investment decisions. He failed us. We’re going to lose everything.
But they couldn’t. Mint didn’t know what kind of life that would be, to go from everything to nothing. The only thing he could think of, the closest comparison, was senior year of high school, when everyone found out his mother had cheated on his father and his father did nothing—just let it happen, let her walk all over him, let the man she cheated with remain on the board of the Minter Group. When rumors spread through school that his father, a man everyone used to envy, had been witnessed staggering up the driveway outside the Blackstones’ twenty-fifth anniversary party, begging his wife not to leave him. The way people had whispered about Mint in the hallways, the way they’d laughed in the locker room. The way he’d felt.Helpless. Worthless. Humiliated.Losing everything would be like that, but worse.
The door to his room flew open with a bang, as if kicked, and Trevor Daly sauntered in. “El Presidente. Just the man I was looking for.”
Mint snapped his laptop shut and shoved it away. He forced his voice to come out even. “What’s up, Daly?”
Trevor was the last person he wanted to see right now. Not only because he was annoying, one of those teacher’s pet types nobody liked but everybody had to put up with because he was a legacy—but because Mint had hated both Trevor and Charles Smith ever since that humiliating vandalism on the East House float freshman year. Even though he couldn’t prove it, Mint knew it had been them. They’d always been gunning for him.
Trevor shut the door, which made Mint raise his eyebrows.
“I have something to tell you that’s sensitive,” Trevor explained, and Mint stifled a groan. Trevor was also a tattletale; this was probably some story about a brother skimming a few bucks off the beer fund, or something equally inane.
He planted himself on Mint’s bed and kicked up his feet. Honestly, the nerve.
Mint turned around in his desk chair and glared. “Trevor, spit it out. Sweetheart is two days away, and I have details to iron out.”
“Speaking of sweethearts,” Trevor said, with a smile Mint didn’t trust for a second, “I have some unfortunate news about yours.”
