“Charlie, I met him…” I paused so I could check my nonexistent watch, “a little over four hours ago. I’m notseriouslyobsessed.” I smiled. “Just obsessed.”
“Well, at least you’re honest.”
I laughed. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Ugh, shut up! He’s going to be your new best friend.”
“I don’t need a new best friend,” Charlie said. “I’ve got you.” He held up his phone to show me at least a dozen missed texts. “Plus all these people.”
I punched him in the arm. “You’re so full of it.”
He smiled. “I should go.”
“Yeah, okay,” I sighed. “Love you.”
“I’m aware,” he chirped, already starting to walk away.
I rolled my eyes, and started to turn back toward Simmons, but Charlie’s voice stopped me, shouting out into the night: “And I love you, Sagey Baby!”
I laughed and shook my head.
Yes, I told myself, pretending I didn’t just see his shoulders slump.He’s happy to be back.
CHAPTER 2
CHARLIE
My room smelled like death when I wokeup. My phone screamed at 6:00 a.m., time to meet Sage for our morning run. I climbed out of bed and threw on a T-shirt and shorts before lacing up my sneakers.
“So how’d it go?” Sage asked as we headed toward the Kingdom of Far, Far Away—the nickname for the farthest athletic fields from main campus, inspired by the greatest sequel ever made:Shrek 2.“Did you puke?”
“Yes,” I told her. “All my sins have officially been purged.” Last night after the standard Name-Year-Hometown icebreaker, the main event in Daggett had been a sickeningly professional chicken nugget-eating contest. I’d made it to the semis, but this sophomore named Dhiraj Bagaria ended up winning; he’d eaten sixty without breaking a sweat.
Sage cracked up after I told her the full story. “I can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “I thought Paddy would win for sure.”
“Well,” I replied, “had he been going at full speed, he probably would’ve.” Paddy Clarke was another Dag prefect, and never sat down at dinner without a minimum ofthreeplates.
Sage turned and smirked at me, her hazel eyes shining. “I think Paddy needs a girlfriend.”
“Why? You interested?” I asked, half-wanting to add,Because he is!
And like I knew she would, Sage just laughed, something she always did when we talked about stuff like this. Sometimes I baited her: “If you were the Bexley Bachelorette, which four guys would make it to hometowns?” but today, I didn’t push things. Instead, I followed suit when she picked up her pace, and then we ran in silence for a stretch, whipping by pine trees.
“Are we still on for Pandora’s today?” I asked once we’d slowed back down, turning off the fields and onto Ludlow Lane. Every year on the first day of classes, atotally gruelinghalf day, Sage and I went to Pandora’s Café across from campus for lunch.
“Of course.” Sage nodded, and as I began to mentally page through the Bible-length menu, I heard her add, “I was also thinking of inviting Luke, if that’s okay with you.”
My immediate response was to pretend I’d never heard the name. “Luke who?” I asked, aloof.
But I had to fight a laugh when Sage responded by reaching over and shoving me.
Mom cried when she and Dad had dropped Nick and me off last week for preseason. The two of us were in different dorms, so we’d gone our separate ways with one parent to execute “Operation Move-In” before all meeting in The Meadow to say goodbye. “I justcan’t believe it,” she whispered, managing to wrap both Nick and me in a single hug. “I can’t believe my twins areseniors.” Dad on the other hand, couldn’t stop smiling. “This is it,” he’d told us. “I remember being where you are…” He clapped me on the back. “Make it count.”
To be perfectly melodramatic, the Bexley School was in my blood. It had been up and running since 1816, and from then on, the boarding school had dealt with generations of Carmichaels wreaking havoc across its campus. Great-Granddad hid his homemade moonshine under a floorboard in Mortimer House during Prohibition, while Granddad was responsible for “The Great Daggett House Fire of 1956,” and Dad nearly slept through graduation in the 80s. The latest diploma belonged to my sister, Kitsey. Nick and I always knew we would apply to Bexley, and thengoto Bexley. It was how things were done in our family.
So here we were, back for round four, and as clichéd as it sounds, it was never hard to separate the new students from the returning students on the first day. Freshmen were dressed like their moms picked out their outfits (afraid of breaking dress code) and turtled with their backpacks while they ran across campus as if they were on some mad Easter-egg hunt. “No, sweetie, all math classes are in the Carmichael Science Center,” I overheard Mrs. Leveson telling one girl, and I laughed to myself; Granddad thought of the CSC as his penance for burning down half of Daggett.
