First, though, we had to spend the whole night huddled on that sofa together, lighting a fire in the hearth to keep warm—because right as she had launched into a tirade about the moral faults of trespassing, the power went out.
It’s hard to maintain a consistent standard of animosity when you spend eight hours with someone in the dark. Alex could have gone up to bed. I would have, if it had been me. But she stayed downstairs, bundled up in one of the blankets off the sofa, and we discovered that we both loved Daphne du Maurier and Margaret Atwood, that we hated the snobby STEM students with equal fervency, and, most important, that we were both determined to be accepted into Godwin House.
Midnight secrets weren’t enough to build a friendship, though. I didn’t see much of her after that; at least not until I broke my wrist in December and encountered Alex in the same emergency department waiting room. She was curled up on a stretcher, sweaty and grimacing, from what would later turn out to be appendicitis, but she somehow spotted me and called me over. Mostly to make me hold her hair back while she vomited, but still.
I stayed with her after my wrist had been bandaged up. Her mother appeared right before Alex was about to be wheeled into surgery, a panicked woman whose frantic hands flit about like wild birds. I managed to get Ms.Haywood to take a seat and calm down, stroking her hair like she was a little child while Alex made faces at me from the cot.
I remember being so fascinated by Ms.Haywood: her tears and her soft words, the way Alex seemed to bloom in her presence, even sick. The maternal way Ms.Haywood pressed her lips to Alex’s temples.
“I’m so glad she has you, dear,” Ms.Haywood told me, blotting her wet cheeks with her wrist. “Alex told me how horrible all the Dalloway girls have been. But you’re so…so sweet. What a lovely friend.”
It turned out Alex was at Dalloway on full scholarship, one of only three girls in our year. Ms.Haywood had raised her as a single mother working two jobs. Alex had attended public school, not prep. These factors had resulted in Alex’s summary dismissal from every social group on campus.
Well, not anymore. I already had a generally low opinion of half the school, having seen how contingent their interest in me was upon whether they knew or didn’t know my mother’s name. Alex, I was fairly certain, didn’t have the first clue who Cecelia Morrow was—and that suited me just fine.
Alex and I became our own clique: inverse images of one another, the rebel and the heiress. Alex had her own charm; it was impossible not to love her.
Our first kiss was at a rooftop party in the city. It was just an hour’s drive away, so we’d gone out for Friday night, my mother’s credit card covering bottle service at a bar I hoped my mother had never actually visited. I didn’t want to hear the embarrassing stories if she had.
The roof was draped in greenery and market lights, which glimmered off the low reflecting pool that ran parallel to the bar. Alex and I were merely sixteen, but it didn’t matter—no one had even glanced at our fake IDs. We were wearing enough makeup to pass for twenty-three, smoky-eyed and red-lipped, in designer heels. Alex was luminous in lavender, her hair drawn up into a chignon and exposing her bared back, a fine lariat chain falling along her spine and punctuated by a single glittering garnet. I knew Alex, so I knew the gem was fake. But in this strange, warm light, anything could have been real.
I’d never wanted to touch someone so much in my life.
“I still can’t believe you failed the geography test,” Alex said, both of us leaning against the iron railing with sparkling wines in hand. It was the fourth time she had brought it up that weekend, ever since I made the mistake of telling her about my dismal score on our drive down from Dalloway.
She was gazing out across the city, her hair shining scarlet. She looked like a Pre-Raphaelite painting.
I sipped my wine so I wouldn’t speak. That was my third glass already; the alcohol had started to make me feel unpleasantly weightless, light-headed. Half the girls I knew at Dalloway drank, but all I could think about was my mother. I knew this feeling could be dangerous. I wondered what Alex would say if I poured the rest of my drink off the edge of the roof.
At last, I managed a response. “An off day, I suppose.”
Alex looked over. “We studied,” she said, half an accusation.
My glass was cold and sweaty in my hand; I twisted the stem between my fingers. “I know.”
“What happened? You knew that material. You were quizzingmeon it.”
I chewed my lower lip until it hurt. I didn’t know how to lie to Alex, even then. At last I sighed and tipped my head back, staring up at the stars. Or where the stars would have been if the sky weren’t obscured by all that light pollution.
“I failed the test on purpose.”
“Youwhat?”
Alex grabbed my arm and tugged until I looked at her. I couldn’t tell if the expression on her face was more repulsed or amused.
“I know,” I said. “But…Well, you know Marie, from our class?”
Alex nodded.
“She loves geography. I was actually talking to her at a dinner thing the other day, and she said she’s going to major in it in college. She wants to go to grad school and get her PhD. And I suppose I thought…”
Alex was staring at me like she’d never quite seen me before.
I shrugged. “I have the top score in that class right now. And I figured maybe I should let that be hers. Only I guess I overcorrected, and I…ended up failing the test.”
It took a moment, but finally a small smile pulled at the corners of Alex’s lips. “You’re a good person, Felicity Morrow.”
I didn’t know what to say to that then. Now I know exactly what I would say.
