Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Heat hits me like a tidal wave as soon as I walk into Kincaid, painful at first, but even the three flights of stairs don’t warm me up the way I need them to.
When I stumble into my room, I catch a glimpse of Claudia slumped over her desk. She springs up at the sound of the door slamming shut, her reading glasses lopsided on the bridge of her nose.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” I apologize through my chattering teeth.
“’S fine,” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes as I head to my side of the room to wrap my hands in the throw blanket at the foot of my bed. She lets out a groan when she gets a look at the time.
While I defrost, she smooths out the creased page of her notebook she’d been leaning against. A smudge of saliva sticks to the edge of the page and the corner of her mouth. Somehow the dark circles beneath her eyes are even more pigmented, like swollen fresh bruises. Each of her callused fingers is wrapped in a neon bandage, the smiling faces on each fingertip a stark contrast to the frown on hers.
“There’s a party tonight,” I blurt out without thinking, telling myself it’s a good opportunity to get closer to her. Because of the investigation. “If you want to come?”
Claudia doesn’t strike me as the partying type. Especially not now. According to a flyer in the library, the senior recital is next week—the same one Solina said Claudia spent all her time practicing for. This down to the wire, it’s a miracle we’ve had any conversations at all.
“Oh …” She stiffens, biting her lip as she keeps her eyes trained on her notebook. “I, uh … parties aren’t really my thing.”
“Right. Totally. Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I mean—I should’ve known. Not not asked.” When will I learn to shut up? “Sorry … again.”
Playing Solina has gotten easier around Hunter and Poppy and Gabe, but not around Claudia. Their dynamic is unclear, whether they were good friends or not friends at all. I’m not sure what version of herself Solina was around her. Did she let herself be honest with Claudia? Tell her about what our life was really like, who I was to her? Or did she let Claudia believe what everyone else did? That we were perfect. Fake, but perfect.
Not knowing lets the real me seep out during moments like this. Where I’m so lost on what to say and what to do that I start to appear between the cracks.
Thankfully, Claudia doesn’t narrow her eyes and see me for the imposter I really am. Instead, she smiles. It’s solemn and shy, but it’s there at all, and that makes the pressure in my chest feel ten times lighter. “No, you’re fine. I appreciate it.” The moment is fleeting, the smile dropping as she turns back to her notes, tapping her pencil against the page. “I don’t usually get invited to that type of thing, anyway.”
Something unsaid sits between us, something about her and Solina that I still don’t understand. Why Solina chose the friends she did and left people like Claudia behind.
I shrug. “Well, they’re missing out.”
“On someone they don’t know sitting in the corner not talking to anyone? Sure.” She snorts half-heartedly, looking up to meet my eyes for a second before turning back to her homework. A blush creeps along the apples of her cheeks. “Thank you, though.”
Warmth travels up my toes to my collar, bypassing my still-frozen hands. Nerves being unhelpful as ever. Conversation starters and questions flood my mind, but none of them feel right or worth the little time I have before I need to meet Poppy. Yet I can’t shake off the nagging impulse to stay here tonight. To ask Claudia another question. To get her to look at me again.
There’s a lot I could say, but I don’t say any of it. I rub my hands together until they don’t feel like they’ll break off if I try to clench my fist, and cross over to the closet to start putting together a presentable but still warm outfit. With all that time I spent talking to Tiffany outside, I only have a few minutes to get dressed and head across campus to meet Poppy, so I grab the first sweater I spot and start to change.
“Be safe tonight,” Claudia calls out to me as I grab a purse from Solina’s closet and head for the door again, twisted around in her chair to watch me with those wide, inviting eyes.
“I will,” I reply, voice barely a whisper.
We hold each other’s gaze for so long it feels like she can see straight through me, through the skin and bone and muscle to my wildly beating heart. I could skip the party, stay here where it’s warm and safe until I can think of a trap for Hunter to walk into. But I know my time at Kingswood is limited. I can’t waste any of it. Not even if it means getting to spend the night looking into those eyes that seem as endless as galaxies.
I’m here for a reason , I remind myself when the urge to look back at Claudia prickles along my neck as I step out of the room.
And she’s not a part of it.