Chapter Twenty-Seven. Reid #2
After a long stretch of silence where I’m convincing myself slugging my own father would be the exact wrong look for the Legacy guest of honor, he says, “Okay—but I need to know your head is in the game. That Olympic coach, Coach Andrews, reached out again because he’s traveling nearby for one of his athletes.
You’ve been dodging his calls, so I invited him to the banquet tonight. ”
“What?”
“I don’t know why you look so shocked, this was always our plan.”
“Your plan.”
He frowns. “Meaning?”
Before I can answer, someone calls his name and he says, “That’s one of the benefactors. We’ll continue this later.”
As soon as he walks off, I bury my face in my hands. My breath is too short, my entire body covered in a nervous sweat. I’ve let this go too far. What am I going to do?
I just might puke.
But I can’t wallow long because moments later Clara slips into the chair beside me like she’d been waiting. She has on pink lip gloss and a dark sweater and jeans. Her hair is pulled back in its usual high ponytail, highlighting the sharp slant of her cheekbones.
“Hi.” Her smile is timid, and I instantly feel both anchored with her beside me and like absolute shit for walking out on her this morning. For letting myself get sucked into my own self-pity instead of hearing her out.
“Hi.”
There is so much to say, neither of us seems to know where to start.
“Ready for your interview?” she asks.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.
“Now?” We probably talked about this last night and I just don’t remember. I’m wearing old jeans and a gray hoodie that’s torn at the neck, and my hair is a mess as usual. I should probably get it cut soon.
Her eyes flit to it at the same time and light up with amusement. Great.
“I have to edit the video for the banquet tonight, and I managed to get Amaya’s interview by catching her off guard about the latest posts.”
My eyebrows rise in interest, but her sigh is frustrated as she turns her phone toward me. The one about Josh cheating is pretty damning, and as Delaney predicted, the screenshots of Amaya’s texts to her cast were just posted.
“She cried—like sobbed. Maybe I was wrong about her being behind the account.”
“Maybe.” I nod slowly. “But don’t forget that she’s a good actress.”
“Yeah … I just feel like we’re missing something crucial.” Clara tucks her phone away and studies me. “Yours is the last interview I need for the video, though. It’s now or never.”
She always told me she wanted to make films that matter. The glimpse I got of the doc she made last year filled me with all the confidence I needed for her to tell my story then. To trust her.
But I have too much I need to hold back. Too much I don’t want her to show.
Principal West gestures to me that it’s time for my speech. “I gotta do this,” I say, instead of giving her a straight answer.
Her sigh is heavy as I get up gingerly, favoring my knee as much as possible, and follow Principal West to the side of the stage where the other Legacies are huddled together, waiting to be introduced and paraded around all over again.
Amaya and Josh are deep in conversation with Delaney hovering, trying to make it seem like she’s not listening to them.
“I’m going to annihilate whoever is trying to get me to lose my scholarship,” he says to Amaya.
When he catches us all looking at him he grimaces.
“It’s not fucking true,” Josh says so defensively it seems like it probably is. “And if my dad or anyone on the board hears about this account, we’re all fucked.”
Delaney and I exchange a glance. We haven’t really spoken since she and Clara cleared the air yesterday, but we have bigger issues. Josh is right. We’ve been lucky so far that no one official has found these posts.
I twist my watch around my wrist, trying to puzzle out who could be behind it all over again.
Everyone seems likely in their own way. It doesn’t make sense that it would be a Legacy doing this and risking their scholarship along with the rest of ours, but at the same time, the people going for Legacy are cutthroat for their own reasons.
I watch Amaya closely, more convinced that Clara’s theory about her is right even if she didn’t reveal anything outright in her interview.
She’s on her phone all the time, even now, saying she’s talking to her friends back in New York.
But all weekend she’s hung back, acted nervous—almost as if anticipating something.
I’m pulled from my thoughts when Logan hands me a mic and instructs me on the timing for my impending speech.
“They got you working this weekend, too?” I ask, surprised.
Logan shrugs, his tone bland. “Plight of being the go-to AV guy. Hank is useless. They have me running the banquet tonight, too. But I’m used to it since I never got to sit in the audience for any event in high school, either.”
It’s the way he says it that something clicks. He’s the go-to AV guy. For every Woodhurst event. Every show, every performance.
Every assembly.
“Not once?” I prod. “Not even the Legacy assembly?”
He seems distracted, trying to untangle the mic cords. “Nope, worked that one, too. At least it meant I didn’t have to see my parents’ faces when my name wasn’t called.”
If he worked the projector at the assembly, that means he had something to do with showing the video.
As if he can read my mind he says, “Before you even ask, I had no idea that video of Clara was on the flash drive Josh gave me. I just hit Play.”
I go cold all over.
“Josh gave you?”
“He brought it to me right before the assembly started and said that it had the video on it that I was supposed to play.”
That lying motherfucker.
The feedback from the mic shrieks through the speakers the moment it hits the ground. Ignoring the pain in my knee, the voice in my head, the terms of Legacy, I charge over to Josh and slap his shoulder to spin him around.
“What the fu—”
With as much force as I dare, I crunch my fist against his nose.