“Because you are where you’re not supposed to be,” he replies with a ticking jaw.
“What does that mean?” I ask, trying to not look at it.
The jaw.
Trying not to count how many times he moves it back and forth or how sleek it looks, how much more beautiful and sharper than before, now that he’s using it to display his annoyance.
“It means that this establishment that you find yourself in, either by accident or on purpose, is called a bar.”
“And?”
“And in caseyoudidn’t know, no one under twenty-one is allowed in here. It’s the law, unfortunately. So if I were you, I’d get out.”
My spine goes up. “I’m not afraid of the law. I’m not going anywhere. Not until –”
“It also means,” he cuts me off, “that you shouldn’t even be out of your bed, let alone off campus.”
And then he freezes me with that dark gaze of his, pins me down like a bird, letting my wings flutter and flap furiously now that I’ve been captured.
“Lights out at nine-thirty. Those are the rules, remember? So either you’re breaking them, in your first week no less, or you’re sleepwalking. For your sake, I hope it’s the latter. Makes you look more sympathetic if you happen to get caught.”
It takes me a moment to understand his meaning.
I don’t know why because he couldn’t be clearer. There are no more ways in which to explain the meaning of his words.
But still.
It takes me a few seconds to fully grasp it.
Maybe because I myself had forgotten that I go to St. Mary’s now.
I myself had forgotten that I don’t live in his house anymore, and that I’m not free to go wherever I want.
Does he know why I was sent to St. Mary’s though?
I mean, not the real reason.No oneknows the real reason, and no one will. But the other reasons, the stealing and the running away.
“Like I said, I’m not afraid of the law or the rules,” I say, averting my eyes from him.
“Obviously.”
I look back at him.
The way he says it confirms it all. The way he stares at me, with a knowing glint in his eyes, confirms it all too.
He knows. He knows what I did.
However I don’t know why it comes as a surprise. There are a lot of ways he could’ve found out. His mother might have told him, or my sister.
Besides, this isn’t the first time that I’ve been punished in front of him.
My bad behavior and my bad grades were the norm in the Carlisle family. There have been numerous occasions when Leah would lecture me about my lack of ambition, lack of good gradesand extra-curricular activities, my lack of following the curfew, at the dinner table in front of the whole family.
Everyone knows that I’m not perfect.
That I’m the opposite of my sister and Arrow and Leah.
And even my mom, who was a college professor, when she was alive.
