Journey
I never paidmuch attention to the rumors floating around St. Mary’s when I began attending three years prior. In my first year, I kept quiet and blended in with the portraits on the walls, keeping my face impassive and my eyes empty of anything. I’d wondered if that was why Cade picked me out in the very beginning. I wasn’t like the other girls here. Being in the spotlight made me antsy and anxious, which was one hundred percent inherited from constantly seeing people’s backs turned to you versus their cheery faces. Abandonment and rejection together was like the binding of an unbreakable shield. Don’t draw attention to yourself so you can avoid the disappointment when they leave.
But then came Cade.
He saw me, and his lips on mine did nothing but melt the shield I’d had up.
And now, here we were, months after I’d disappeared from St. Mary’s, with rumors crawling up my back and into my ear at every single turn of this school. Everyone followed my movements. Some pretended like they weren’t interested and would look away when my gaze would skim past, but others—like Aubrey—made it a point to snicker, and at the very least, talk about me behind my back. It wouldn’t matter much, except Sloane was waiting outside my bedroom door this morning, nibbling on her lip in a way that was not comforting.
“I need to warn you.”
“About what?”
Her phone was flipped over in her hand, and I scanned over the big, block lettering from Mary’s Murmurs, the gossip blog that I was probably featured on as soon as I was found bleeding in the courtyard.
“Rumor has it that Journey Smith did not try to kill herself.”
My heart sank the second I read the first sentence, fear like a knife at my throat. It wasn’t that I wanted people to think I was suicidal, but I’d gotten used to the fact that no one knew the truth. Now, it was like my little secret to keep hidden until the right moment. If people knew that someone had attacked me and essentially set me up for death, well… I wasn’t sure what would happen. What would Headmaster Ellison do? Would the police get involved? Would the person get a little knife happy and come at me again before they were caught?
I snatched the phone out of Sloane’s hand with my trembling fingers and beating heart and read the rest of the headline.
“From a pretty little source comes an intoxicatingly juicy theory that Journey Smith left eight months ago because of an unplanned pregnancy where she later gave birth at the Clemency Orphanage. And the best part? The father is assumed to be our very own bad boy Rebel: Cade Walker.”
My face had been pale ever since I gave Sloane her phone back. It’s just a rumor. It’s just a rumor. It’s just a rumor. But it was a sick one for nothing less than the fact that I, Journey Smith, an orphan of her own, would abandon her baby at the same orphanage that I was left at, just to come back to this school.
“Don’t worry, Journ. Cade will get it taken down.” Sloane placed an apple on my tray and her own, knowing I was too caught up in my unwanted thoughts to do much of anything but stand straight.
I found Cade across the crowded dining hall the very second Sloane said his name. My school blouse felt too tight around my ribcage. My breath held itself hostage as he slammed a closed fist down on the wooden table, showing off the tight muscles along his forearms. Mica, one of the Rebels’ friends, was glaring up at Cade, speaking so quickly that I couldn’t read his lips. Cade’s voice carried, and the closer Sloane and I moved into the dining hall, the more my vision grew fuzzy.
Breathe, Journey.
“Who the fuck put that on there? This isn’t a fucking game.”
Isaiah rounded the table with Gemma close by, looking at Cade, then to me, and then back to Cade. “Cade, relax. No one but the students read the blog. You know this.”
Cade turned to Isaiah and shot him a glare. He crossed his arms over his chest, and I lingered on the perfect shade of tan against his forearms. The sun had barely peeked through the trees outside, and Cade already looked disheveled with his loose tie and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “And what if someone close to our fathers is keeping tabs? Huh? Ever think about that, Isaiah? If someone thinks that I have a child with her, then…”
Cade’s tone was subdued, and not many could hear him, but somehow, I found myself inching closer and closer to their conversation, so I heard every last word until he trailed off. His head snapped over to me, the anger swarming his features lessening slightly as I focused on what he was saying.
It stung.
If someone thinks that I have a child with her, then…
Then what? Did he not want to be associated with me? Was that why he kept me a secret for so long? Was that why he touched me behind the bleachers or took me swimming in the off-limits pool that no one ever used? Is that why I had to sneak around with him?
My heart thudded harder and harder, and confusion began jerking me backward until I ran into someone from behind. Cade’s brow furrowed, his perfectly sculpted lips parting with some sorry excuse on the end of his lips.
“So, is it true?”
The person I’d run into came around and blocked my view from Cade, and I nearly snarled when I realized it was Aubrey. Go away. Her sleek eyebrows were raised to her hairline, and she looked stunned. She actually didn’t look vindictive like the other night at the party. In fact, she was curious. “Did you...? Did you seriously have a baby?”
Is she serious?
I heaved, trying to look past Aubrey’s big head full of hair for an escape route. Everyone was staring at me. Everyone’seyes shot down to my flat stomach, as if I magically grew skinnier after having a baby. I was pretty sure that wasn’t how it worked.
“Does that mean it wasn’t true that you cut your wrists?”
I am not answering that.