"My mother has this woman Charlotte come in and do her nails every week, and when I was a kid I was kinda fascinated by it, so she taught me," Taylor said with a shrug. Her blond curls were held back with a skinny black headband, and she wore a black spaghetti-strap nightgown with eyelet cutouts at the hem. She grabbed the bottle of polish she had mixed for me and shook it up, inspecting it closely as the polishes incorporated.
"It came in handy at Billings when there was too much snow to go out and nothing else to do," Kiran said, dropping onto my bed and reaching for a chocolate from one of the many open boxes we had tossed there.
"Ah, Billings. I can't wait to get home," Tiffany said, tilting her head back as Amberly filed her fingernails.
Kiran and Taylor exchanged a look. They had left Billings last year, never to return. I wondered if, all protestations aside, they actually missed it. I'd only been kicked out for a month, and I definitely had.
"I've been thinking about it, and Reed, I think you should move in with me," Noelle said. She
dropped onto the bed near the pillows, sending the boxes of chocolates--and Kiran--bouncing.
"What?" we all blurted in unison.
"You're going to give up your single?" Tiffany demanded, sitting up so fast Amberly dropped the emery board.
Noelle rolled her eyes like it was no big deal. "I can't make her and Amberly live together. They'll kill each other."
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There was an uncomfortable silence, filled only by the sound of the bubbling foot spa. My last roommate had, after all, tried to kill me. At this point there could be a club--a small, very exclusive club--of people who'd tried to off Reed Brennan. I wondered what the meetings would be like--Ariana, Sabine, and Mrs. Ryan all gathered in the same room comparing notes. The very idea made me shudder.
"Bad choice of words," Noelle said. "But you know what I mean. We'll just move Astrid in with Amberly and get those girls out of that horrid triple, and Reed can live with me."
"Areyou sure?" I asked.
"Clearly someone has to be looking out for you at all times," Noelle said, flipping open a copy of Vanity Fair on the comforter in front of her. "Who else is going to do it? Besides, if it wasn't for me convincing you to stay after the whole near-drowning episode, you wouldn't have even been here to get kidnapped. I think that makes you my responsibility."
She said this all very cavalierly, like it wasn't the biggest deal, but I knew her. I knew she never would have said a word about it if she didn't feel horribly guilty. Of course, it wasn't her fault. Not really. I made my own decisions. I was the one who had decided to stay. But I didn't say it. Dwelling on it would probably just piss her off.
Everyone looked at me. It was as if Noelle was asking me to the prom in front of all our friends and everyone watching was on the edge of their seats, wondering if I was going to break her heart. While I doubted that Noelle had anything emotionally invested in what I was going to say next, I felt suddenly nervous.
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"Um, okay," I said.
"Cool!" Amberly blurted, then turned beet red.
Everyone laughed. Clearly she wanted to room with me about as much as I wanted to room with her. Suddenly I found myself looking forward to getting back to school. I couldn't wait to move back to Billings, to settle in with Noelle. Living with her was going to be amazing. I just knew it. And even if it wasn't, it couldn't be worse than living in that crappy single in Pemberly.
"Then it's settled. But I get the bed by the window," Noelle said, lifting a finger.
"Of course you do," Kiran replied with a touch of sarcasm.
"Oh, turn this up! I love this song!" Amberly gushed, waving a hand at the iPod.
Kiran got up and strolled over to the dock, cranking up the volume. It was some doofy pop song I couldn't believe Noelle had downloaded, but before I could make a crack about it, Amberly was singing along, bopping her head to the music as she filed Tiffany's nails. Soon the rest of us were watching her, trying not to burst out laughing so she would continue obliviously, amusing us for as long as possible. Finally she must have realized how quiet we had all become, because she looked up at us and turned pink all over again.
"What? I'magood singer!"
We all burst out laughing, and Kiran tossed me a piece of chocolate. As I sat back to enjoy my pedicure, I looked around at my friends and realized this was the last time we'd all be together for a long time-maybe even forever. For a split second it felt like old times. Like the
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days when Ariana was my friend--before I knew what she had done to Thomas, before she had threatened my life. It felt like those rare nights when we were all hanging out, letting go, keeping the outside world at bay.
I missed those times. But maybe I could have them again. Not with the same people, of course, but still. I was headed back to school. Back to Billings. And while a lot of my relationships there needed some serious repairing, after everything I'd been through on this trip, the fact that my Billings sisters had wrongfully ousted me no longer seemed like the biggest deal.
Soon I would be home. I'd be back with my friends. With no one stalking me or trying to kill me or playing stupid pranks on me. My life had been saved on that island, and this was why. So that I could go back. So that I could go back to where I belonged.