"My God, Reed. What's the matter?" she asked me, her brown eyes concerned. "Wait! Good news first!" she announced. She took a sip from her drink and placed it on a nearby table. "You have good news? " I said weakly. Bonus. Maybe her good news would defray the sting of my weapon of mass destruction. "The best," she said, grasping my hand. "Dash and I got back together!" And so the world stopped turning.
* * *
When? When? When? For the rest of the night that one word kept repeating itself in my mind. Sitting on a chaise waiting for my friends to finish up with their debauchery... When? Clutching my bare skin against the frigid air as our limo made its way to the head of the line of a thousand limos... When? Sitting on the velvet limo seat with Gage's head in my lap while Noelle and Portia applied lipstick and mascara and bronzer to his drooling face... When? When had Noelle and Dash gotten back together? Was it before he grabbed me, before he kissed me, before he felt me up and pinned me down and helped me shatter Josh's heart? Or after? Which was worse? If it had been before, then he was an asshole. An asshole who was using me and cheating on his girlfriend. If it was after, then why? Did he decide he didn't want to be with me? Had my body repulsed him back into her arms? Or did he think I didn't want to be with him, because I'd gone after Josh? Had he meant to go back to her all along and was just waiting until after he had his way with me?
I was going to be sick again. Only this time I was going to be sick all over Gage's unsuspecting face. "Reed, smile!" I looked up. Noelle was holding Gage's clown face up in my lap as Tiffany wielded her camera. The flash blinded me. Everyone laughed. I turned to stare out the window, and at the purple spots floating before my eyes. "I've never been kissed like that in my life," Sabine gushed to Constance. "And I never even got to see his face! Do all American boys kiss like that?" "Lay one on Gage and find out!" Noelle joked. More laughter. They were still having fun. Still buzzed. Still high. The Legacy had been a success. For them. But I... I had lost my boyfriend and my potential boyfriend, all in one night. Zero for % on Legacy outcomes for me. Next year I was staying home.
WORTH IT
The tunnel seemed tighter on the way back to campus. Tighter and colder and devoid of air. Like when you take a trip and it takes no time to get where you're going, but forever to get home. I just wanted out of there, and so it seemed it would never end. And then it happened. Up ahead, someone started coughing. Seemingly at the same time, smoke filled my lungs. And not pot smoke this time, but real smoke. Thick and black and suffocating. "Turn around! You guys! Turn around!" someone shouted. There was a scream. I turned around. Constance, who had been in front of me, but was now behind, was shoved into my back. I tripped and fell into Vienna, who hit the floor. It was a stampede. Mayhem. My pulse pounded in every vein as panic took over. We were all dead. We were all going to get crushed and suffocate and die.
"Stop!" Noelle shouted at the top of her lungs. She was a few people behind me now. She had been leading the way. "Everybody calm down!" she said in her authoritative tone. Nobody moved. "Now pick yourselves up." I helped Vienna to her feet in front of me. The smoke was getting thicker now. Vienna was crying. "Now cover your nose and mouth with something and walk. Walk fast, but walk," Noelle said. "We're not that far from the opening." And so we walked. I gripped my feathered skirt to my mouth and tried to breathe. Vienna grasped my hand with her sweaty fingers behind her, but she kept moving. Someone in the tunnel was whispering a prayer over and over again. I supposed when the privileged were trashed and scared, they got religious.
Soon the smoke started to thin, and the vibe calmed considerably. When I finally found myself back out in the fresh air, I was almost numb with relief. "What was that?" Tiffany asked as Portia and Noelle, the last of the group, emerged from the tunnel. Their faces were streaked with black, and Portia bent over in a coughing fit. Rose stepped forward to help her. Clearly they had gotten the worst of it. "I don't know," Noelle said. "But we're going to have to walk back and go in the front gate." A sort of grim resignation settled upon the group. This was it. We were going to go through the gate, with its guard and its cameras, and we were done for. I looked around at all of them, and hoped it had all been worth it. For me, it definitely had not.
MY CURSE
The guard let us in. He was not surprised to see us. He simply nodded, buzzed the gate open, and watched as we trudged through, our couture dirty and soot-stained and ragged. The walk up the hill was excru
ciating. Not only did those of us who were less trashed have to help drag the semiconscious along the steep road, but we all dreaded reaching the top. Who knew what we would find? Who knew whether we'd be instantly expelled? And how bad was the fire? Had people been hurt? And--my own personal torture--where was Josh? Had he tried to get back that way? Was he okay? Would he ever want to see me again?
As we finally reached the first dormitory circle, the sky was turning a nice, rosy pink. We wouldn't even have the cloak of night now so that we could sneak back to our dorms and delay the inevitable. We were beyond dead.
And then we all saw it at once. The black plume of smoke rising above the trees. "It's Gwendolyn Hall," Rose said grimly. We knew this. Of course we knew this. But someone had to say it. "Let's go," Noelle ordered. Together, we all walked around Bradwell and came into the quad. No one even tried to hide or hang back or sneak off. The guard had us all on tape. Might as well stick together. Unlike with all the other tragedies I had experienced on campus, there was no crowd of students this time. Only teachers, firemen, cops, and EMTs. The students, clearly, had been ordered to stay in their rooms, but their faces were visible in every window, pressed to the glass, staring down at us. Four fire trucks were parked around what remained of Gwendolyn Hall. They had cut ugly, jagged turrets in the grass and kicked up dirt and mud all over the pathways and lawns. One hose still poured water over the smoking remains. Blackened stones were strewn everywhere. Crumbled mortar, singed trees, broken glass. A mountain of busted rock. Gwendolyn Hall, the original Easton class building, the oldest edifice on campus, was no more.
We had done this. This was our fault. Who lights up in the basement of an ancient building with hundreds of aged wooden desks pushed against the walls? Those things were kindling. A conflagration waiting to happen. One match left behind. One smoldering joint. That was all it took. We had brought down Gwendolyn Hall. A few police officers moved aside and I saw Headmaster Cromwell, dressed in a full suit and tie, nodding gravely as one of the firemen spoke to him. What had we done? What had I done? "We should probably get out of here," Lance said. He was right. No one had even noticed us standing there yet. But right then, as if Lance's whisper could have carried all the way across to Cromwell's ears, the headmaster lifted his head and looked right at us. His expression was one of unadulterated ire, and I felt it to my very core. "He knows," Gage said, still drunk and therefore stating the obvious. "Oh crap, he knows."
Instinctively, I looked at Noelle. She was still. Grim, but still. And every other person in our dingy, bedraggled crew was looking at me. Stepping back. Leaving a good, safe circumference around me. That's when I knew for certain. This was on me. It was all on me. I should have seen it. Should have known all along. The blessing of the Billings presidency was nothing but a curse.