Tucker and his buddies—mostly gymnastics, polo, and crew athletes—strode down the hall. Lords of the school and Tucker their king. My circle of girls—the lionesses of the pride—broke up with promises to meet at lunch.
I navigated the polished, gleaming hallways to the STEM wing of the school. When I was a freshman, it had taken me nearly a month to map out the Academy. It was bigger than some universities, with different departments in each wing and a state-of-the-art gym in the center that looked like an Olympic training ground.
I figured Xander would spend all his time in the STEM wing, and I’d only risk running into him going to and from calculus.
Why is he here?
The question wouldn’t leave me. I couldn’t get my racing heart to slow down. I’d been an expert at playing the part of the Perfect Daughter/Student/Girlfriend, and just one glimpse of Xander Ford put cracks in the façade. I felt dragged back in time to a perfect afternoon and the last time I’d felt real instead of plastic. Before I knew that Grant was dead. Before my parents’ expectations constricted around me like a straitjacket.
I ducked into a girls’ bathroom and, as soon as the door shut, I sagged, bracing myself on the sink. My reflection stared back: makeup flawlessly applied, hair immaculate, delicate necklaces to accentuate my ample cleavage.
Xander is back.
Like a magic mirror, I watched the thought turn me back into that little girl I’d been with him, free of all life’s pressures and pain. To a time when I still believed in love stories…
“You were just kids. It didn’t mean anything. He forgot you, remember?”
The words rang out hollowly in the empty bathroom. I’d been a silly fool like my dad was always warning me about being, pining after something that wasn’t there. I couldn’t let Xander’s presence turn me back into the soft-hearted girl I’d been. Soft things bruised easily. Shutting myself up behind a hard, closed door was safer.
Mask firmly back in place, I tossed a lock of hair over my shoulder and went out. I sauntered into the calculus classroom a minute after the bell rang, fashionably late. Most of the seats were filled, and Xander wasn’t in any of them. Maybe I’d imagined him. He had to have a dozen PhDs by now.
Maybe he’s teaching here…
The thought almost made me smile as I took the only seat left, in the back corner.
“So glad you could join us, Miss Wallace,” Mr. Greer said, standing at the head of the class in front of a huge whiteboard. “Welcome, class, to AP Calculus. I’m assuming you all did the assigned prep work this summer? Let’s review.”
The entire class pulled out their school-issued iPads and took up notebooks and pencils. I watched in dismay as Mr. Greer began filling the whiteboard with numbers, letters, symbols…equations I barely remembered from Algebra II. Math and my brain just didn’t get along, no matter how much Dad expected them to. I’d been managing to keep my head above water for years, but five minutes into class, I knew I’d come to the end of the line.
The girl next to me—new to the school and a Bender by the looks of her eccentric clothes—shot me a curious look. My mask had slipped. Indignation flared. She obviously didn’t know who I was…
Oh, get over yourself.
Except I had a reputation to maintain. It was superficial and lonely and total bullshit, but it did the trick: It kept people at a distance so they couldn’t see the mess right in front of them.
***
By lunchtime on day one, I was exhausted. My course load was heavy enough without calculus weighing it down, but now it was clear I was in big trouble.
And then I spotted Xander. He sat in a corner of the sunlit cafeteria by himself, reading a book. The light turned the tips of his hair golden as it fell over his eyes. A sack lunch sat on the table in front of him. He talked to no one and no one talked to him.
I could talk to him. I could cross all the stupid, invisible social boundaries and say hi. No harm in that.
But that was the opposite of being hard and aloof. He’d broken his promise and made no effort to tell me why. Maybe he found the social boundaries hard to cross too. But there was no one around now. My friends were at a table on the other side of the room. Maybe…
Xander looked up. Our eyes met for a short moment, but it felt like a current of electricity zipped between us. The weight on my shoulders lifted again for just a moment… Then a smug smirk touched his lips, and he went back to his book.
So there’s your answer.
“Screw him,” I muttered, even though I sort of felt like crying.
***
That afternoon, I led the Royal Pride dance team through our routine. We’d been rehearsing since August for Friday’s pep rally. The dance looked good, and I was happy—mostly because being captain was something my parents approved of. Mom liked it because it kept me fit, code forso you don’t get fat. Dad said it would look good on my Brown application. To them, my life boiled down to looking the “right” way and going to the “right” school.
Years before, when I’d told my parents I wanted to go to RISD to be an interior designer, Mom sniffed like she’d smelled something rotten while Dad shot the dream dead. He already had plans. I was to go to Brown, not for the education but for the pedigree, as if I were a show dog with good breeding. I would marry someone like Tucker Hill—someone politically advantageous to the family empire—and inherit millions in return.
“It’s your duty, Emery,” Dad told me countless times. “We all have a role to play, and that is yours. To ensure the business thrives well into the future. You will be rewarded for it in the end.”
