14. Aria
14
ARIA
Q uinn and Elena exchanged glances. “Aria,” Quinn said quietly. “What’s the matter? You know you can speak to us, and we won’t betray your trust.”
I sighed, staring out of the tall lead-paned window next to me, watching the raindrops chase each other down the glass. The soft patter of the rain filled our quiet corner of the library, soothing my nerves somewhat. “It’s Tristan.”
Elena’s brows rose. “What has he done? You’re normally never so…down.”
Burying my face in my hands, I mumbled, “I slept with him.”
Identical shocked gasps came from them both, and I would have smiled if the situation wasn’t so dire.
“I’m surprised, but I’m also not surprised. Now I know why you wouldn’t tell me who gave you those marks on your throat,” Quinn said finally, and I lifted my head to glare at her. Her humour instantly died away when she saw the misery that was no doubt written all over my face.
“It—it was supposed to be hate sex. Just a thing to get it out of our systems—I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just…it’s messed everything up because I remembered, and it hurts .” To my horror, my voice cracked on the last word, and Quinn and Elena moved closer instantly. Quinn gripped my hand while Elena gently squeezed my shoulder.
“Why does it hurt?” Quinn asked softly. “Tell us. It’s not good to keep it bottled up.”
My vision was going blurry, and I hated Tristan even more for having this effect on me. This wasn’t who I was. I didn’t cry over boys, especially not arrogant ones who I meant nothing to.
I went to wipe at my eyes, but Elena pulled my hand back. “Wait. You’ll smear your eyeliner.” She fished a tissue out of her bag and handed it to me.
When I’d composed myself as much as I could, I began. “I don’t know if either of you know this, but Tristan’s parents are my godparents.”
They both gasped again, visibly shocked, but after a second, Quinn’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Now I think about it, I do remember Knox or maybe even Tristan mentioning something about that years ago. I’d completely forgotten until you said because neither of you ever bring it up.”
Quickly nodding, I rushed to continue before they could start asking me questions. I needed to get through this as quickly as possible and then hopefully never speak of it again.
“We both like to pretend they’re not my godparents. You know, since we prefer to be in each other’s vicinity as little as possible. Anyway. Long story short, I stayed with his family one summer when we were eight and my grandma was in hospital with pneumonia. Tristan and I became…close, I guess. After that summer, I only saw his parents intermittently, but I stayed friends with Tristan. Then when he hit puberty, it was like he had a complete personality transplant overnight. He was—” I paused, trying to articulate my thoughts. “—a little teenage version of how he is now, I guess. There was no room for me, not that I would have wanted there to be, because I didn’t like the arrogant, superficial person he’d turned into.”
It was safer to hate him. That way, I couldn’t get hurt again. I couldn’t allow myself to think about any other alternative. Even though I could barely admit it to myself, the truth was it had hurt me so badly when he just stopped talking to me all those years ago. When he showed me I meant nothing to him.
Quinn nodded. “I can see how that must’ve been difficult. Did you ever speak to him about it?”
“Did his parents ever say anything?” Elena added.
“We stopped speaking unless it was to insult each other. His parents…no. Like I said, I only ever saw them intermittently after that summer. They’re nice enough people, but they’ve always made it clear that they pity me, and I hate that. It’s like they feel a sense of obligation as my godparents, so they offer to pay for things for me or whatever, even though I have the money my parents left me to pay my way through school. Now, my godmother’s even offering to set me up with people. She wants to arrange a good match for me for my future.”
Elena’s lip curled. “Rich people.”
“Yeah.”
“Not all rich people,” she amended.
“No, not all of them. Anyway, that’s kind of irrelevant to the whole Tristan thing. Even if there was a world in which Tristan wasn’t Tristan and we still got on with each other, we’d never be allowed to have a relationship—” I cut myself off, seeing Quinn’s brows arch. “No, I do not want a relationship with him. Never, ever. My point is that in the world of my godparents, they’re up here, and I’m down here.” I lifted my hands to illustrate my point. “In their eyes, Tristan belongs with someone on the same level as him, and I’m just not quite there. You know, since I don’t have the illustrious pedigree.”
“This is giving me flashbacks to my parents all over again.” Quinn slumped back in her seat with a huff. “We should be able to love who we want to love. End of.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So you slept with someone who used to be a close friend and who you’ve been at odds with for, what…five years now?”
“Something like that.”
Quinn nodded. “And his parents don’t think you’re suited or whatever. And he makes a habit of sleeping around…although you have your fair share of fun, too.” When I nodded, she smiled at me before delivering a dagger straight to my heart. “And you like him, but you don’t want to like him.”
“What?” I stared at her.
“Aria. You two have so much sexual tension, it’s?—”
“—enough to make us all go up in flames,” Elena finished. She seemed to be trying very hard not to smirk, struggling to keep the sympathetic expression on her face.
“Please, no.” I groaned, burying my face in my hands again. They were both so wrong.
“Tristan’s a good guy underneath it all. I know you don’t think so, but he is. Honestly.” Elena rubbed my arm. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to make light of your situation. I don’t like that this is upsetting you. But I do agree with Quinn. You like him, and I know a little bit about being attracted to someone you really don’t want to be attracted to. Remember how Knox and I hated each other at the beginning?”
“And how Roman threw me in the lake?” Quinn added. “Believe me, he spent a lot of time making that up to me.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“The details will stay between me and Roman. But hey, you know what? Tristan likes you, too, and I think he’s just as unhappy about it as you are.”
I took my hands away from my face, shaking my head firmly. “There is no possible way. No. Way. Never, ever. What happened was just sex because he was bored, and I was there or whatever. Plus, he was trying to goad me into admitting what I knew about the box. It meant nothing to him and nothing to me.”
Quinn and Elena exchanged glances again, but before they could say anything else, I was saved by Quinn’s phone vibrating across the table. She tapped on the screen, her eyes widening as she took in whatever was written there.
“Aria…listen to this. Roman contacted his cousin—you know, the hacker—to see if he had any information on those other names we didn’t recognise. Four of them were dead ends—they’ve either passed away or don’t live around here anymore. But the other one…he’s your politics professor.”
What? Professor Watkins? “How? It can’t be him. He has a different name.”
“According to Roman, he reverted to his mother’s maiden name when he came of age. Something to do with inheritance and disowning, Roman isn’t sure. He said his cousin couldn’t find out the exact circumstances, but he found the record of the name change.”
“Does Tristan know?” As soon as I asked the question, the bell rang, notifying us that it was time to get to our next classes.
My politics lesson happened to be next.
“You know,” Tristan said when I slipped into the seat next to him. I nodded briefly before turning away, pulling my books and laptop from my bag. He remained silent as I got everything set up, and I was grateful for it. It gave me a moment to gather myself, to compartmentalise everything, until only two goals remained in my mind. My politics class, and what had happened to my great-uncle.
The thing currently tying those two goals together was my professor. From what I knew, he was past the average retirement age, but he was passionate about teaching, and I had the feeling he’d stay until he was either forcibly removed or was no longer able to teach. I studied him, taking in the thinning, receding white hair, the lined face and sunken eyes, and I tried to imagine him as a younger man. As a student here.
Tristan’s gaze slid to my throat. I’d been careful to cover the marks he’d given me with make-up after Quinn had immediately spotted them on my return to school, and I’d left my hair down as extra insurance, but he knew exactly where he’d left them.
His thumb stroked across my skin, and I suppressed a shiver. ‘Don’t touch me,” I hissed.
Lowering his hand, he studied the pad of his thumb, his brows pulling together. “Make-up?”
“Obviously. I don’t want anyone to see the evidence of our mistake. Do you?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. Eventually, he shook his head. “No.”
“Good.” I returned my gaze to my professor, concentrating on taking deep, even breaths to calm myself as I re-compartmentalised everything in my brain.
A thought hit me, and I leaned into Tristan, ignoring the warmth of his body.“Are there any photos of the previous students anywhere in the school?”
He shot me a lazy grin. “Good thinking. I dunno about year group photos, but there’s the gallery with the head students…and we have photos of the winning teams in the sports facilities. I’ll check it out.”
That grin… I shook my head. Focus, Aria . “Your dad said my great-uncle wanted to be on the rowing team but never made it. But if we can find photos of the other students, put names to faces?—”
“Miss Harper. Have you finished?”
My eyes rose slowly to see Professor Watkins standing in front of my desk, his arms folded across his chest. When did he get here?
“Sorry. I was just wondering…um…you went to school here, didn’t you, sir?”
“How is this relevant to our group project discussion?”
“I’m sorry. I was just curious. I don’t know much about my family history, and I wondered if you knew my great-uncle at all?”
“I have a question about rumours of a secret society during that time, too,” Tristan cut in. I could have happily throttled him at that moment.
I’d heard the term “ghostly pallor” before but had never really thought about what it meant until that moment. Visibly shaken, our professor took a step back, shaking his head firmly. “You should know better than to listen to rumours, Mr. Smith-Chamberlain.” He completely ignored my question, turning on his heel and striding back up to the front of the classroom.
Tristan nudged my foot beneath the table, and I kicked him back. I saw him glare out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare to look at him. Whether it had been my question or Tristan’s that had set our professor on edge, I wasn’t sure. What I did know was that he was watching us both very, very carefully.
I felt my professor’s eyes on us for the rest of the class.