What a stroke of luck for the thief! To have not only found my writings but the letters as well—it was all they would need to ruin my life at West Egg!
Jay... I had to find Jay.
I ran toward the quad, shoes scraping the stone ground heavily, and scanned the yard, all the disc-throwing boys and overachievers passing out flyers from their extracurricular tables. I spotted Jay there at one of the tables—this one for the hiking club, it looked like.
I weaved through the small crowd and sidled up to him. “I don’t know how best to say this, but there’s an emergency happening.”
“What?” Jay said, looking at me, his relaxed expression dissolving into concern. “What emergency?”
I lowered my tone so only he could hear. “Someone broke into my room and stole your letters and now they’re apparently published in theChronicle.”
Jay looked alarmed, his eyes darting around with quick thoughts. And then, his face relaxed. “Let’s get somewhere private.”
My stomach churned as Jay led us to an abandoned classroom, clearly in need of repairs.
“Haven’t you read it?” I asked as I closed the door behind us.
“No, read what?” he returned, as he sat halfway on the teacher’s desk. “I went to man the table for hiking club first thing today.”
“I’m sorry for what you’re about to see then.” I set my bag on a desk and fished the paper out. “I don’t know if writing letters was the best way to communicate in the first place.”
“Just show me,” Jay said.
I gave him the column Artie wrote, and his face tensed with concern as he read it.
“So, now they know.” He tore it up and threw it in the trash, with seeming indifference.
“You... don’t care?” I asked.
“What’s the point of caring?” he asked, voice low, as if he was speaking to himself, “My father being who he is naturally makes me into a spectacle, so people talk about me all the time. Who do you think it was that broke into your room? Was it Artie?”
“Charlie,” I answered. “I was going to start this paper that pushed back against theChronicle, what it allows us to say.I don’t think Charlie liked that a Negro was challenging the agenda of his paper. So he raided my room and took what I’d been working on. Your letters, I think, were a happy accident, taken to keep the joke going about us.”
Jay entertained the idea but seemed to doubt it as well. “Sounds like something he’d think to do. But the thought of him setting one foot into the Blue House is a bit of a stretch. It could have been anyone, really! This idea ofsexual inversionis such a topic of fascination to people nowadays.”
“Oh.” His philosophical speech was grand on the ears. “What’s sexual inversion?”
“It’s the theory that some boys are attracted to boys, and some girls are attracted to other girls,” Jay said. “Their attraction is flipped from what’s considerednormal, as it were. It’s very scientific—well studied, in fact, and a popular topic in sensationalist press.”
“So, it just could have been anyone who thought we were...”
He looked at me, as if ready to catch my next word like an apple fallen from a tree.
“Fruits,” I finished, making Jay snicker with amusement. “And wanting to have a laugh.”
“Precisely,” Jay said. “Which is why you shouldn’t worry. TheChronicleoffers fifteen dollars weekly for inside scoopsandpeople are desperate for an in with Charlie. They were looking for my letters and got lucky with your paper.”
Though I still felt uneasy in my stomach, his words werecalming me. No need to make this gossip a bigger storm in my mind than it was.
“I’m not used to being in the spotlight,” I said.
“Well, clearly the spotlight loves you,” Jay replied, gesturing to the paper on the desk. “But either way, we can’t have Charlie thinking he’s won by pandering to West Egg’s gossips.”
How would I fight back?The thought of it drained me. There were moments I felt like fighting everyone who wanted to harm me, and moments when I just wanted to give up.
Something behind me stole Jay’s attention, and when I turned, I saw someone passing by in the hallway behind us.
“Ah, Zihan!” Jay called, running out into the hallway.
