There’s a string of treat-related emojis.
Isolde: Do you want me to bring anything else?
She sends me her address and a denial of any additional supplies.
“Hey.” Adeline pushes into the locker room. “Everything okay?”
“It’s Hadrian’s birthday.”
“Hallow, right? We went to the same school.” Her face is perfectly neutral, so I’m guessing she’s trying to be nice about how much of a wanker he was. “He’s a year younger than me, but I know him. You know he and Elijah call one another mortal enemies.”
“I’ve never heard Hadrian talk about Elijah.”
“It’s a huge thing. From what I’ve heard, Elijah was furious when Hadrian showed up in Oxford. They’re several years apart, but he was doing his master’s degree. Lennie said he dated your sister?”
I’m guessing Len got the information from Abe, the group's biggest gossip.
“Yeah.”
Adeline pulls out her gym bag, her face still perfectly neutral. “How’d it happen?”
She’s not asking about Sammie and Hadrian’s meet-cute.
I feel nothing as I speak. I’ve thought about it so much, repeated the story so often. It’s all just fact-based. The one thing Isolde Matheson somehow manages to say.
“A week before she would have graduated, my sister was walking home from a pub. Guy raped her. Strangled her.”
A crime of convenience is how the police put it. Sammie had walked across the guy at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Adeline sits down beside me. “I’m glad you killed the motherfucker.”
A grim laugh tries to come out. I hate the awkwardness when I talk about Sammie’s death, but Adeline’s response isn’t so bad.
“So Hadrian’s got birthday plans?” she asks.
“A dive bar, apparently.”
She outright laughs.
I pick at my workout shirt. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
It’s pathetic. Worrying about my outfits like I’m some teenager again. The Hallows are so proper, though. For once I don’t want to sit there in my trusted tracksuit.
“I don’t think I’m going to go.”
Adeline touches my arm, retracting it instantly like she understands I’m not a touchy person. “Don’t do that. Go.”
“I don’t want to look like a loser.” I know it sounds whiny.
“You’re not a loser,” she says, as if she doesn’t look like a supermodel. “When is it?”
“Wednesday.”
A day away.
“I’ve got a date.”
“Oh, shit.”
