Junior Year
ASHA
"This is pointless, Buttercup." I shove my AP calculus book off my lap and onto the hay-covered stall floor.
The past few months have been a mess. After homecoming, I was convinced my pen pal was the one person I couldn't stand, someone wrapped in memories I didn't want to touch. I stopped responding and considered failing the project rather than knowing I'd been confiding in him.
However, when I cut contact, I started noticing things about Eldridge, small habits, phrases, references to things I'd never shared with him.
He appeared right when the texts dried up.
It seemed pretty clear: Eldridge was the guy on the other end of my texts.
Or at least that was what I thought until a few days ago, when I discovered what was really going on.
It's why I'm hiding at the stables instead of my dorm. I can't face Emma.
I was cutting through the courtyard behind Hill House when I heard voices drifting from the shadowed alcove near the service entrance.
I almost kept walking, but then I recognized Emma's laugh—not just any laugh, the one she makes when she's nervous.
I slowed, ready to rescue her from an uncomfortable situation. Instead, I caught her in a lie.
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this, Eldridge." Emma's voice was strained.
"You love me. Stop acting like this is so terrible. It's a white lie. Harmless. You know I'm not going to hurt her, otherwise you wouldn't be helping me," Eldridge answered confidently.
"We both know that's not why I'm helping you," she hissed back.
I should have kept walking. Emma and Eldridge got into arguments all the time, and this sounded like another one of their endless sibling fights, but just as I was about to continue walking, Eldridge's response stopped me cold in my tracks.
"Make sure when you put this back on her nightstand, you check the picture. If the cord isn't exactly as she left it, she'll know."
I could feel the heat in my cheeks as my anger instantly skyrocketed.
Sure, I was betrayed, but even worse than that, I was made a fool.
Emma had gone behind my back again, and I still couldn't figure out why. I kept playing the friend, kept showing up, and kept pretending I didn't know because her betrayals didn’t add up. They were scattered, inconsistent, like pieces from different puzzles forced together, and you couldn’t fight what you didn’t understand. It was why I stayed.
"What are you going to do senior year when the other person on the end of that phone is revealed and it isn't you?"
"It won't get that far. I just need to get close. I need her to see me, and since we both know she wouldn't risk asking me directly because doing so would mean failing the assignment, we won't get caught," he argued.
"I don't know, Eldridge. She really likes the person on the other end of those texts, and if she decides to start texting him again—"
I never told her I had feelings for my pen pal, but it was yet another detail that proved I was even failing at maintaining a fake friendship. Just being in my orbit, she was privy to every flicker of emotion that crossed my face when I’d respond to messages.
"She'll be in love with me by then."
"And how do you plan on getting her actual boyfriend out of the way?"
"Who, Penn?" he chuckled. "She's not into him. He's a beard."
That was it. The last straw, not because I was offended for Penn, but because I was tired of being made a fool. I stepped around the corner, closed the distance, and held out my hand.
"I think you have something that belongs to me," I said, my tone void of any emotion.
Eldridge looked defeated and held onto to a sliver of dignity by not offering me fake apologies. Emma, however, has been blowing up my phone and waiting by my door all week. That's why I've stayed away.
Being around Buttercup always soothes me, so after our show this evening, instead of heading back to my dorm room to study, I stayed with her in the stables.
Taking my time, I brushed her coat, cleaned her hooves, gave her fresh water and a banana for getting us in first place at tonight's competition.
You'd think that would be enough to clear my head, but it isn't. The minutes I'm not unraveling Emma's deception, I'm thinking about Penn Hadley.
After Penn ditched me at homecoming, I wrote him off.
As much as I hate admitting it, Trigger was right—someone truly interested would've shown up.
And truth be told, in hindsight, a big reason I said yes to Penn that night was because I knew it would get under Trigger's skin.
There were too many stolen glances during that game for it not to.
Plus, dating someone from another school had its perks: it kept the guys at my school at a distance, which was exactly what I wanted.
The problem was, the following weekend on our off-campus day, Penn showed up with purple flowers he thought were my favorite, but he got the species wrong.
Purple wisteria is my favorite. My mother loved them so much that she planted them all over the property.
They were her favorite, and for that reason, they are mine too.
Then he took me to a five-star Indian restaurant he'd rented out for two hours.
We cooked alongside their master chef, and I learned to make my father's favorite dish: chicken tikka masala.
My mother's recipe. One of the last dishes we made together before she died.
Penn didn't know how important that day would become.
He only knew what I'd told him once: I'd like to learn to cook authentic Indian cuisine for my dad.
Working with the chef, I discovered what I'd been missing—the pizza oven.
My mother always cooked it that way. Traditional tikka needs a scorching-hot clay oven for that charred flavor.
That day, Penn notched himself into my heart. He gave me back a piece of my mom I thought I'd lost forever.
"That's it. It has to be," I say to Buttercup. "I don't have deep feelings for Penn. I love what he was able to give me." I grab my book from the floor and set it on the ledge of the door before getting the broom.
I've spent too much time cataloging what he makes me feel and what's conspicuously missing. I’ve been obsessing over all the things I want to feel and don’t because I wanted him to be the one making me feel them.
But when I close my eyes at night, it's not him I'm kissing, and when I dream, it's not his eyes staring back at me.
His touch isn't the one setting my soul on fire.
A branch breaking followed by the faint sound of a hushed whisper outside the barn steals my attention.
It's 10:30 p.m., and the stables are located at the back of the property.
There is no reason students should be back here unless they are coming to the barn.
I slowly set the broom against the stall, my heart now racing as I realize that I'm utterly alone, at night, too far away from any other building for anyone to hear me scream.
The whisper comes again, low and definitely human.
My mouth goes dry. Behind me, Buttercup shifts in her stall, and the creak of wood sounds deafening in the sudden silence I'm straining against. Every horror story I've ever heard about girls being alone at night flashes through my mind. Stop it. Stop.
But my hands are shaking as I inch toward Buttercup's window, careful to keep my body pressed against the wall and out of sight.
The old floorboards protest under my feet, and I freeze, certain whoever's out there must have heard.
My pulse pounds so hard I can feel it in my fingertips as I hold my breath and peer through the window.
Nothing. Just the dark paddock stretching toward the tree line.
Then, a glint of light in the moonlight catches my eye.
Reflective tape. The kind Headmaster Trejo made mandatory after a student nearly got hit by the groundskeeper's truck.
Relief crashes over me. Just a student sneaking around after curfew.
But then the figure moves, and my relief crystallizes into something else. I know that walk, the slight hitch in the left stride, the hunched shoulders. I've seen it a thousand times across the dining hall, on the way to polo practice.
"Hollis?" I whisper.
My cousin. Why is he sneaking through the woods at 10:30 at night, wearing that stupid reflective jacket?
The relief I feel spirals into confusion then curiosity. Hollis doesn't sneak. He doesn't break rules, which is probably why he didn't think to change jackets. He doesn't skulk through the woods in the dark, until now.
I watch him pause near a twisted oak, looking left then right before continuing deeper. He's heading toward the old access road, the one that leads to the maintenance buildings and the back gate.
He's moving faster now, with purpose. In seconds, he'll be out of sight.
Every rational instinct tells me to let it go, finish my work, head back to the dorm, and pretend I saw nothing.
But he's my cousin. We've been at this boarding school together since we were kids.
What could be so important that Hollis would risk breaking curfew?
"This is stupid. Mind your own business, Asha," I scold, but I'm already reaching for my jacket. I grab my phone and slip out the barn door.
At the fence, I pause. The woods are a solid wall of black, and those stupid horror movies scream at me once more, Turn around! But then I see another flash up ahead, and I duck through the fence rails.