Chapter 27
SUTTON
Quincy Anderson taps her fingers on the edge of her desk, as if uncomfortable with my very presence despite us having interacted several times previously this semester.
The look she gives makes me feel like a nuisance, and I wonder if this is standard. If she regards Elle like a bug on the bottom of her shoe and that’s where the tension between them comes to a head.
It’s one thing to tell your sibling you don’t believe in them and a whole different one to look at them like you don’t.
Still, I need her help, so I don’t let her disdain intimidate me.
“I’m not sure I’m qualified to assist you with auditions for a play,” Quincy notes after a long moment. “I’d suggest asking someone else.”
“Aren’t you the head of the classics department? Who could be more qualified?”
She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, sitting back in her fluffy, rolling desk chair.
Her entire office is covered in potted plants, some flowering and some just boring old leaves, which makes the floral aroma a bit overwhelming.
I rub my nose with my knuckles, trying to dislodge the sudden itch to sneeze.
“Don’t you think there’s a huge difference between studying the classics and performing them?” she asks, her dark eyes searching mine. “Otherwise, why would we have separate departments at all?”
“Studying them should be the precursor to performance,” I tell her, pointing at the copies of The Iliad and The Aeneid on the corner of her desk.
“Acting is all about interpretation, and you can’t really do that without understanding the texts you’re trying to pull from.
Thus, I think you’d be a great co-casting director. ”
“I don’t know, Sutton. Shakespeare’s a little different from Homer, and it feels like a conflict of interest.” She shifts, glancing at the books. Quincy Anderson might be the only person on this campus more interested in the rules than I am.
“Given how highly Dean Bauer regards you, I find it difficult to believe you’d allow personal relationships to tie in whatsoever with your decision-making.”
“The dean doesn’t really like me,” she says. “I know you’re not dumb enough to believe his blustering, especially after what happened in the fall.”
“How he really feels hardly matters if he’s willing to pretend, right?”
“I suppose, but how long does that last?” She lifts a shoulder, shrugging. “Avernia’s hanging by a very thin thread, if you ask me. Your sister’s death was just the tip of the iceberg. ”
That stirs unease within my muscles, and they tense up. “Bellamy’s death was an accident.”
“Officially.” She meets my gaze. “Some have suggested otherwise, and after what your brother pulled last semester, I’m inclined to believe it.”
I say nothing.
“You don’t have to agree out loud. I’m not usually wrong.”
“It is what it is.”
“Doesn’t have to be,” she says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That not everyone is as comfortable letting a town curse and corruption from the founding families run rampant as you are. I know you were born into this world, so it’s probably difficult to see a way out, but…I wasn’t. I came here voluntarily.”
“Do you stay voluntarily?” I ask, though I can already guess the answer.
No one around here talks about Avernia’s underbelly unless they know too much.
Too much to be allowed to leave quietly.
I imagine it’s why she’s still here despite her brother’s brush with death. Why she came back after graduating and, according to Pythia, swearing off this place entirely.
Death’s Teeth or not, once Avernia sinks its claws into a person, it doesn’t easily let go.
Quincy leans back in her chair, glancing at The Iliad and The Aeneid. “My sister gifted those books to me for my high school graduation. Mint condition, rare antiques she haggled with at least three collectors over because she knew I loved the stories.”
Shit. I don’t want to talk about Elle right now.
She’s the main reason I’m here, begging for a fucking buffer.
After kissing her in the Obeliskos the other day, the feel of her lips on mine is the only thing I’ve been able to think about, and I know that if I’m left to my own devices with her, I’ll start obliterating every line and boundary.
And though I want to, I also want to respect her wishes. I don’t want her to feel like she’s coerced me into something, especially when it’s clear she’s hiding things from her past that make her the way she is.
I don’t care about the substance of the rumors, but I care if they’ve done irreparable harm to the woman I can’t stop thinking about.
Which is why I’m hoping her sister’s presence at auditions might cool her off a bit.
“That was kind of her,” I offer.
“Noelle is kind,” Quincy says. “Her temper sometimes obscures it, but she’s kind, talented, and smart.
Resilient to an absolute fault. I used to get so annoyed with her when we were younger because she told our parents everything, and I locked my secrets up in a vault like I was afraid they’d be used against me.
” She lets out a small laugh, shaking her head.
“Which was ridiculous, because our parents aren’t the type.
They always trusted us, and Noelle trusted them. ”
I cross my arms over my chest, listening.
“When I came to Avernia… I was lacking something within, you know? It felt like something fundamental was missing, and I would look at Asher, who marched to the beat of his own drum with his drawings and obsession with his best friend, and I’d look at Noelle, who loved performing and being around people, and I’d feel defective somehow, because I preferred being alone.
I didn’t like to talk, didn’t go out much…
It felt like I didn’t know who I was, so I thought maybe looking into my family history would fix that. ”
“It didn’t?”
“No, it did. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Noelle’s face when I left, like I was abandoning her.
She’d been like a shadow to me, always wanting to go where I went with friends, borrowing my clothes even when they weren’t her style, begging me to go to rehearsals or run lines with her.
And when I left, she seemed so horrified, I almost didn’t go at all.
She had no filter, and I was witnessing my first best friend’s heartbreak in real time.
I didn’t know what to do with it though.
I’m not great at dealing with others’ emotions. ”
I’m not sure why she’s telling me this, but still, I don’t try to stop her. Apparently, those Anderson girls have more in common when it comes to word vomit than they seem to realize.
“Anyway, my bright idea was to try and push her away, hoping it would hurt less when I didn’t come back.
I was pretty awful to her and said a bunch of things I didn’t mean about her wanting a career in Hollywood.
” Quincy frowns, glaring at a worn spot in her desk.
“I said I didn’t think she could make it and that they’d chew her up and spit her out.
It wasn’t something I believed, I just… I don’t know.
It was a stupid attempt at keeping her at bay, because something in me said she’d follow me here if I didn’t. ”
Pain seizes my chest, the conversation a near mirror to a similar one I had with Bellamy before we enrolled at Avernia.
I knew, even before we were students, that nothing good awaited us here. I tried so hard to keep her from doing it anyway, but she didn’t listen.
She never listened.
Even now, I’ve been doing something similar with Elle.
“When I learned she’d moved out to LA anyway, I was so happy, but then she showed up here and she’s just so different.
Gone is the bright-eyed open book I grew up wanting to throttle, and in her place is a woman I barely recognize half the time.
She won’t tell any of us what happened to send her back to our parents last summer, but it’s obvious something did.
And I can’t help feeling responsible for it. ”
“Okay…”
“My point is,” she continues, pressing her index finger into the top of a book, “if you’re trying to recruit me because you’ve crossed the line with her, you’re going to have to find help elsewhere. I’m not going to help ruin something she loves. Not again.”
A pit opens up in my stomach. “Why would you assume—”
“She might be different, but I know my sister. She’s all those things I say, but her resilience often comes at the price of her own self-worth and others’ sanity.
Her being here is a step in the right direction, and I don’t want her feelings or lust or whatever it is she might have going on get in the way of that.
Not when there’s enough moving in the shadows for her to deal with in the first place. ”
Swallowing, I force my head from side to side. “That’s not it at all. My co-casting director went on sabbatical, and I just need someone to fill in. I can’t handle auditions on my own, and I know you did some theater work as an undergrad, so this just made the most sense.”
She stares at me for a long, tense moment. Nausea rolls through me, making my muscles tighten. Can she see through me like her sister?
“Well, if you want my assistance because you think I’d be a good addition, then I’ll join you.”