Chapter One
THERE SHOULD BE A RULE that if your parents name you something like Everett Owen Riley, they should have to double—nay, triple—check things like, say, whether your new boarding school has put you in the correct dorm.
Right about now is where mine would be hearing from my lawyer.
“But you’re a girl,” Archibald Buchanan says for the millionth time since I showed up with a duffel of extremely scary bras.
“Well, I’m glad to see Camden’s education is as stellar as promised.”
He blinks at me. And I blink back. And it’s a good old-fashioned standoff, except that I’m on the wrong side of the door, and he’s on the side where I’m supposed to be, and somehow not one person has come to address this situation.
I try again. “Look, Archie.”
He winces.
“Do you not go by Archie?”
“I do, it just sounds so … ugh coming from you.”
“Now I see why they paired us up. They must’ve known that we were soulmates.”
Looks can’t kill, right? I know “If looks could kill” has been a saying for a long time, and the implication is that they can’t, but Archie looks like he has a whole lot of money, and I don’t know if quirky little sayings apply to people like him.
The ability to pinpoint the exact moment when the light goes out of his cold green eyes and he gives up entirely is what makes me an excellent poker player, and it’s because I see this happen that I manage to wedge my foot in the door before he can close it in my face completely.
“Look. I obviously don’t want to be sharing a room with you either, and given they don’t have coed dorms in this place, I’m not really worried about that happening.
But I would like to put my stuff down while we wait for someone to come fix this mess.
So can you please let me in, and then you can call the cops or whatever rich people do when they catch a glimpse of the poors? ”
I’m definitely getting “Let’s be friends” vibes from his scowl. Or, at least, it’s enough to get him to let me all the way inside.
Once I’m in, though, he’s out. “I’m going to find the dorm head,” he barks, as if I have intentionally put us in this position because I was just dying to be surrounded by boys, when in fact most of the drive for coming to Camden was to get a fresh start away from the last boy and everything wrapped up in him.
“If he can’t straighten this out right now, my parents are going to have a word with the administration when they get back from the parents’ breakfast.”
Of course his parents are here. Of course they’ll fight for him. Of course he didn’t have to drag his duffel bag on a bus and then a cab to get here because his dad couldn’t take off work and his mom had fifty excuses, all of which sucked.
The thing is, I know I didn’t screw this up; I reread every single page of my transfer application to Camden Academy so many times I started seeing it on the insides of my eyelids while I slept.
I meticulously researched the dorms, making sure I wasn’t accidentally checking off anything for freshmen, seniors, boys, or millionaires (seriously, why does Hillman House have suites with fireplaces and claw-foot tubs?) when I put down Lockwood Hall as my first choice and Ewing Hall as my backup.
As pissed as my parents were about my begging to go to boarding school when I was already at a perfectly fine public school, I wasn’t taking a single chance on mistakes.
So how the hell did I end up in Rumson?
It doesn’t matter; Lockwood is so close by, the two dorms literally share a patio, and I already see Archie returning with a ginger-goateed gym teacher type with a smooth white head and a navy-blue Camden polo straining around his biceps. I’m sure this will be resolved in minutes.
“You there,” Ginger says to me in a thick Boston accent, motioning for me to come back into the hallway. “You’re in the wrong place.”
“I’m aware,” I say as nicely as I can, “but no one’s been able to tell me yet where the right place is.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“This is my room.” I hold up my assignment. “This is also clearly not meant to be my room, and so I need a new room. And a new dorm. And a new dorm head.”
He squints. “That assignment says Everett Owen Riley.”
“Yes.”
He looks at me, and I can see it’s not computing.
“My name is Everett Owen Riley. This is my assignment. It is wrong. See right here where it says Rumson Hall? Clearly, I should not be in Rumson Hall.”
“It also says your roommate is Archibald Buchanan,” Archie adds with a scowl. “You didn’t notice that?”
“Obviously not.” And it’s true, I didn’t, because I barely glanced at my assignment before now; I didn’t even know it listed a roommate.
Given I didn’t know anyone here, I didn’t really care where I ended up.
I’d picked Lockwood over Ewing with a rousing game of eenie meeny miney mo, not because it mattered where I slept, or whether my roommate’s name was Chloe or Padma or Talia.
Even Camden Academy itself was a relatively meaningless choice within all the in-state options.
I mean, yes, I researched to make sure it had decent academics and extracurriculars, but there was only one criterion I really cared about: it wasn’t Greentree High, which meant I was nowhere near any of the people who’d broken my heart and sent me running for a fresh start where no one knew me and vice versa.
My parents also cared about exactly one criterion—financial aid, which the school kindly provided me—and so Camden it was.
“You’re in the wrong place,” Ginger repeats unhelpfully.
“Yes, we have established that. I was assigned to this room by someone who clearly thought from my name that I was a boy, and they were wrong, and now I need a new room in a girls’ dorm. Are we all caught up?”
Ginger eyes me like I’ve said something extremely shady, but he does it while picking up his super cool walkie-talkie and repeating the scenario to whatever unlucky bastard is on the other side, having to deal with logistical screwups like this in the middle of an already hectic orientation day.
Ten minutes of silent standoff later, during which Ginger has to keep darting out to shake parents’ hands and help kids find where they’re going, someone with an even bigger beard—and so I assume more authority—shows up.
“This is a problem,” says Beardy. “Your name is Everett?”
“Evie.”
“What?”
“Evie. I know, the long E isn’t intuitive with Everett’s short E, but it’s what I prefer to be called. Possibly because Everett has a way of landing me in situations like this.”
There’s a gruff acknowledgment, a squint like maybe all the blond from my frizzy cloud of hair has seeped into my brain, and then, “Okay, Evie. Are your parents at the breakfast?”
“They couldn’t make it today. It’s just me.”
He frowns. “And you’re a sophomore transfer?”
“Yes, sir.” I have no idea where the “sir” comes from. It feels like something Archie would say. It might be because in contrast to Ginger’s Bostonian accent, Beardy’s is crisp and bordering on posh, and it demands some propriety. Which is not my strong suit.
It also occurs to me that no one wears name tags in this place. They should really wear name tags at orientation.
“Lockwood, Ewing, Hillman, and Baker are the options for sophomore girls,” he says, as if he’s talking to someone who didn’t do her research before uprooting her entire life and throwing herself into a school she hadn’t even heard of three months earlier.
“I know. I put down Lockwood and Ewing.”
“Well, Lockwood and Ewing are both full to capacity.”
“Okaaay,” I say slowly, “so put me in Baker or Hillman.”
“Those are also full to capacity. It’s a great year for Camden Academy,” he says proudly, as if I’m gonna cheer on the very fact that’s screwing me over.
“Maybe Mercer?” Ginger suggests, and I can’t remember off the top of my head whether that’s a freshman dorm or a senior one, but I really and truly do not want either one.
“Lemme save you the trouble here,” Beardy says to him, a note of irritation entering his voice. “Every single room—girls’ and boys’—is full this year.”
“That can’t be,” Archie says coldly.
Now the men are exchanging glances and then looking at me like I’m some kind of problem child, like I caused this, like I wanted to have to practically run away from home and deal with this on top of a thrice-broken heart.
Because of course, Evie is always the problem.
My sister, Sierra, could set my house on fire and convince the rest of the town I did it to keep myself warm.
I came here to escape that, to escape her. And if being myself isn’t helping me achieve that sufficiently, then maybe I need to take a page from her book.
Putting on my stone-coldest expression—the very one I wore when I told Sierra to get out of my life for good—I cross my arms in front of my chest and look Ginger squarely in the eye.
“Not to agree with him on something, but it really can’t.
You accepted me here. You took my parents’ money.
You took me in as a student—as a boarding student—and that means you have an obligation to fulfill.
So I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Quickly. ”
My sudden frostiness seems to stun them all into silence, and finally, there’s some action. Beardy starts arguing with someone on a walkie-talkie, while Ginger starts pleading with someone else on his. Then a bell rings, and Ginger swears under his breath.
“We’ve got dorm orientation right now, and I don’t have any more time to deal with this. Just come to Rumson orientation and we’ll figure it out afterward.”
“You want me to come to orientation for a boys’ dorm?”
“‘Want’ is a strong word, but yes, that’s what we’re doing. Come on.”
“Don’t you dare tell anyone you’re my roommate,” Archie warns me as Ginger hurries ahead, leaving us to follow in his wake. “This is not lasting past the hour.”
“I promise not to cramp your style around the other guys,” I vow with a hand over my heart.
“Oh, shut the fuck up.”