Chapter Three
THREE
The day would never end.
The whispers unraveled Andrew the most. Furtive glances. A conversation cut off as he slid into his desk. That crawling feeling at the back of his neck that warned him someone was staring.
Thomas ignored everything with a deliberate stoicism that Andrew couldn’t muster, and their packed schedules left no time to talk. Dove’s AP classes kept her far away from both of them, so Andrew was left with a mouthful of pins instead of answers about why she was avoiding Thomas.
By the time dinner arrived, he felt too sick to be hungry.
Stepping into the dining hall meant being pounded by a wave of chaos.
Every room in Wickwood was nothing if not antiquated and stately, but the dining hall rarely seemed under such control.
Hundreds of voices tangled with the clatter of plates and cutlery.
Mealtimes had been broken into two halves and the seniors dined second.
It meant less supervision—they were supposedly “responsible”—and therefore meant way more noise.
The hall itself looked like something from a medieval king’s court: three long oaken tables with benches on either side took up most of the room, and a huge fireplace that smelled of evergreens and hazelnuts covered half a wall.
The seating style was meant to “prevent cliques” and “encourage peer conversation,” but Andrew suspected it had been specifically designed to torment introverts.
Thomas had detoured to the bathroom, so Andrew decided to catch Dove in the serving line. He slid into place behind her and resisted the urge to slump his forehead on her shoulder and moan.
“I hate everything.” He pressed his fingertips to his temples. “Have you talked to Thomas?”
“I haven’t seen him.” Dove crossed her arms over her stomach. “It’s roast chicken and apple turnovers. They’re giving us false hope before the weeks of meat loaf start.” She inched toward the serving table stacked with plates and passed Andrew one.
“So,” he said, “are you and Thomas going to fight the whole year or…?”
Dove huffed. She looked worn after the long day, wisps of hair escaping her tight ponytail. “He can talk to me.”
Sometimes Andrew thought Dove and Thomas were in the midst of their own three-act play: first friends, then enemies, and then—
Lovers. That would inevitably come next.
Andrew was sure of one bitter truth: He’d rather have his lungs punctured than watch Dove and Thomas fall in love.
Sometimes he’d lie awake at night and unpack all his feelings about this boy-shaped hurricane named Thomas Rye.
He didn’t know if he wanted to be Thomas—reckless and uncontainable—or if he wanted to kiss him.
He could imagine Thomas’s soft lips on his for approximately five seconds before the entire construction crumpled like wet paper.
Because there was always after. There was always more.
People didn’t just kiss and continue on with their lives.
They undid buttons and touched mouths to hot skin and lost themselves within each other.
And Andrew didn’t want to think about any of that.
At all. Ever. He didn’t have crushes and didn’t think celebrities were hot and, honestly, the whole thing was stressful and overwhelming and better left boxed up in the back of his head.
He was just this … this mess who felt things about Thomas but couldn’t shape them into coherent sentences.
And he was almost definitely certain Thomas liked Dove.
Dove reached the front of the line and tried chatting with the servers, though they ignored her, more interested in the line moving faster.
A few students had begun staring at Andrew, but he kept his eyes on the ground as he trailed after his sister and had his plate filled with a heaping serving of roast chicken, peas, and a roll.
At the condiments table, Andrew fussed with the butter while Hyder, who sat behind him in history, helped himself to gravy.
“Hey,” he said. “Glad you’re back. Sorry about … everything. You doing okay?”
Andrew’s scarred fingers clenched around his plate. “I’m fine.”
Any more of this and he would ask the walls to devour him.
He cast about for somewhere to sit while Dove got cutlery, then followed her to the crowded tables. “It’s just I don’t know what you and Thomas fought about. And I don’t know why everyone keeps looking at us.”
Dove sighed. “Sometimes I don’t know what reality you live in.”
He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But then Dove nodded to where the boy with a mess of auburn hair was slipping out of the dining hall in an illegal escape.
“Do you need me to stay with you, or should I chase him?” Dove said.
It felt like a trick question. Eating alone would be hell, but of course she had to go after Thomas. Fix this. Andrew had to stop being such a coward about being left by himself.
“Go make up.” He hoped she didn’t interpret that as make out, too.
Dove vanished and Andrew walked slowly down the long rows of benches that had turned into hostile territory. No one would notice if he tossed his food in the trash and escaped. But when he turned, Lana Lang stood there with one hand on her hip.
She was Chinese American, wore deep mauve combat boots despite school regulations, kept her hair pulled back in a jagged ponytail, and had an expression flat as a severed heartbeat.
To be scared of Lana was common sense: Fake smiles and false fronts melted before her.
You had to be real or she took you apart.
She flicked a glance up and down Andrew, her mouth a thin line. “You’re wandering around like a lost puppy. Did Thomas misplace you?”
Andrew never knew whether to be meek or defensive with Lana. Their paths didn’t cross often—she was firmly Dove’s friend, not his. “He’s busy.”
“And yet all the seniors are required to be at dinner. I swear he has a compulsion to do the opposite of what he’s told. C’mon. Sit with me.”
Panic set in. “It’s fine. I’ll sit—”
Lana stalked toward a mostly empty section at the farthest table. “I won’t make you sit with my loud friends, Perrault. It’ll be just us.”
He was tired and it was easiest to just obey.
They sat down across from each other. Lana had drowned her plate in gravy and now set to executing her chicken as if it weren’t dead enough already.
“For future reference,” Lana said, “you can sit with me anytime.”
Dove must have put her up to this. Apparently Andrew looked so pathetic and lost when left to his own devices that even his twin was embarrassed.
Andrew started to ask Lana what Dove had told her, but she glanced over his head and sucked her teeth.
He followed her gaze and was almost thrown into his plate by an almighty backslap that could be considered a jovial greeting. Or assault.
Bryce Kane leaned between them, a hand squeezing Andrew’s shoulder.
It looked friendly, but Lana gripped her fork like a weapon and Andrew thought his shoulder was about to break.
The school had a zero tolerance policy against bullying, so Bryce had curated his image to be described as charming and energetic.
He was one of Wickwood’s best tennis players and a “delight to have in class.” He had wealthy parents on the school board, and kids flocked to pay tribute to his court—and he got off on making them grovel.
He knew how to be terrible without looking like he was being terrible.
“Hey, it’s the goth and the Vegemite boy,” he said. “An unlikely couple. How was your summer, Andy? Eating shrimp on the barbie and banging kangaroos?”
“I’m a goth because I wear combat boots?” Lana said. “Wow. Original.”
Andrew shrugged off Bryce’s arm. No point reminding him that July was winter in Australia. “It was fine.”
“Weird seeing you without Dove.” Bryce scrubbed Andrew’s hair. “Or your girlfriend. Where’s Thomas Rye the Psycho these days? Heard he’s getting visits from cops already.”
Lana half rose from her seat, her face gone white with fury. “Back off.” The level of venom in her voice surprised even Andrew.
Bryce raised both hands in mock fear. “No need to get hysterical. Just trying to joke around, be chill and normal, you know?”
“You’re lucky Thomas isn’t here,” Lana snapped. “You’d have a broken face by now.”
Bryce had the gall to look annoyed. “And that’s why I’m not surprised the cops are already on him. Don’t even know why Wickwood let him back after everything that happened last year.”
He strode off, already shouting across the hall at a friend, who hollered back a greeting.
It took Lana a while to stop steaming and sit down. Protecting Andrew was Thomas and Dove’s job, so Lana stepping in should have felt condescending. Andrew should be mad, but at least she hadn’t asked him if he was okay, or said anything cryptic about last year, or commented on his ruined hand.
Andrew ate half his roll before he noticed Lana watching.
He absently rubbed his healed hand against his cheek. “The scars aren’t that bad. I don’t know why everyone’s looking at me.”
“The problem isn’t the scars,” Lana said with clipped precision. “It’s that you smashed your hand through a mirror.”
He wished she wouldn’t say it aloud. It sounded blunt and ugly.
Lana went back to stabbing at her food. “They’ll stop staring eventually.
Some senior will get into a ridiculous scandal in a few days and, boom, attention gone.
They’re all a bunch of airheaded gnats.” She chewed, deliberate and angry.
“But what was with those cops? It’s day one of school. Thomas is unbelievable.”
“What are people saying about it?” Andrew asked quietly.
“You don’t want to know, trust me.” Her voice turned to steel.
“The thing you need to do this year is keep your head down and graduate. Survive. Don’t”—she pointed her fork at him—“let Thomas get into fights for you. They want a reason to expel him. If the gossip gets bad, come to me. I’ll help. Got it?”