"All we have to do is get through the next couple of hours," Kiran said with a degree of grimness unfit for a party girl of her caliber. "Then, tomorrow night, we'll all be outta here."
"It will be nice to be home for a few days," Ariana agreed, pausing outside the open double doors. Inside, our classmates
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milled about, sipping punch and chatting. Some were even dancing. "Get away from all this insanity."
I nodded my agreement, even though I neither a) agreed nor b) was actually going home. On day one, my father had arranged for me to spend Thanksgiving here at Easton with some of the other scholarship students and foreign kids who didn't celebrate the holiday and were too far from home to travel. Getting home was too expensive and just not worth it. Thanksgiving had never been big in the Brennan household anyway--what with so little to give thanks for and a mother whose idea of a big home-cooked meal was ordering in from Boston Market and having it delivered instead of picking it up.
"Shut up, you guys. You're depressing Reed," Noelle said.
"Are you sure you don't want to come home with me? " Natasha asked. She had floated this option earlier in the week, but I had declined. I knew she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Leanne while she was in New York and I didn't want to be in the way. Plus, to be honest, I didn't like Leanne all that much. Or at all. But to each her own.
"Really, I'll be fine," I said, feeling conspicuous. I shook my hair back and smiled, standing up straight. "I heard the apple pie is to die for," I joked.
All the pretty faces around me fell. Everyone looked into the Great Room. My heart thumped. Wow. That had been a highly inappropriate thing to say.
"Let's just go in," I suggested.
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"Good plan," Noelle said.
She cleared her throat and led the way. Only a few steps off the plush carpet of the hallway and onto the hardwood floor inside, she stopped. Suddenly I felt as if the whole room was closing in on me.
Thomas was everywhere.
"He has got to be kidding me," Noelle said.
Huge photos of Thomas clung to poster board on every available, wall surface. Thomas standing in front of Grecian ruins. Thomas two-fisting tropical drinks with a straw hat on his head. Thomas and his brother, Blake, on skis. Thomas on a horse. Thomas with Dash and Gage on the back of some boat named My Second Bride. Thomas and Josh in suits and ties. Thomas and some random girl dressed for a formal. Thomas and three big-breasted waitresses. Thomas and an exotic beauty who was licking his face while he grinned.
&nbs
p; Thomas. Thomas. Thomas.
And now I couldn't breathe.
Noelle stormed across the room and unleashed that stored-up shit fit on Dash. I turned around to flee. Don't.
Ariana's cold hand was on my arm. I felt like all the oxygen was being sucked directly out of my lungs.
"I can't do this. I can't stay here," I said.
Everyone was watching me. Concerned faces. Amused faces. A camera bulb flashed. I felt as if there was a space heater inside my
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body, emanating heat through my pores. Thomas was dead. Thomas was dead. Thomas was dead.
"Reed, we have to do this. We have to look at him and accept what we've lost," Ariana said. She swallowed, took a breath, and looked around. "We have to accept that he's gone."
My mind felt like it was a whirling moth, trapped inside a lantern, frantically trying to beat its way out. "How can you say 'we'?" I asked. "You don't understand what it's like."
Ariana's eyes were back on me like that. Her lips were thin and white.
"I understand that everyone is watching you," she whispered. Her grip tightened like a claw. "Now, you can either be a weakling who turns and runs, or you can be strong and face this. Your choice."
I knew which one she wanted me to be. Which one even I wanted me to be. The question was whether or not I was up to the challenge.