Chapter Five
266 days until graduation
The smell of the Callaghan house could make any food connoisseur fall to their knees in complete bliss, and that’s putting it lightly.
It’s a little past six, and Logan’s dinner party is just starting. Eloise, Winnie, and I take our shoes off at the front door and head toward the kitchen.
“Hi, Mrs. Callaghan,” I greet when I see her standing at the stove with a beautifully embroidered apron tied around her waist as she stirs a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup.
“Gen!” She smiles, dropping the ladle on the stove before making her way over to me. “How are you, dear?” She wraps me in her arms.
“I’m good.”
“Good, good.” She pulls away from me to greet Eloise and Winnie just the same.
We’ve all known Mrs. Callaghan our entire lives, and she treats all of us like her own children whenever we are over. She is an angel.
“This smells amazing, Mrs. Callaghan,” Winnie says as she sinks down onto a barstool. “Do you need help with anything? We can set the table if you need us to.”
“Oh, stop with that nonsense.” She waves Winnie off. “You three have known me long enough to drop the niceties, please, call me Wren.”
She tells us this every time we come over, right before claiming that it makes her feel old. However, we were all raised to be respectful and address adults by their last name. Old habits die hard, apparently.
“Now, do you girls want anything to drink?” She asks, opening the expansive, stainless-steel fridge behind her. “I have water, lemonade, and just about every soda you could imagine.”
“Water would be great, please,” I say.
Eloise and Winnie both request lemonade.
“Nobody else is here?” I ask Wren as she pours us our drinks.
“The boys are upstairs. I think they took the ‘dinner attire’ requirement a little too seriously.”
“Are you telling us we should go back to Winnie’s and change?” Eloise jokes, making Wren laugh.
“No, no. You girls look wonderful. But I’m telling you, those boys are going all out. Last night, I heard Jameson ask Logan if he had an extra tux he could borrow.”
We all laugh while I try to conceal the fact that the mention of Jameson makes my blood feel a little cooler.
I never had the chance to tell the girls what happened between Jameson and I in the Headmaster’s office, since they insisted on sitting with him and Logan at lunch. Now it feels too late to come clean, and I honestly don’t know if I want to. It would be a colossal blow to my pride to admit any possibility of defeat out loud.
“Speaking of Jameson,” Wren continues. “He told me about your shared speech with him, Gen. I’m so happy for the two of you!”
Oh, god.
Forget sparing my pride, because now Eloise and Winnies’ eyes are on me, asking all types of silent questions.
“Oh…” My voice trails off, making Wren’s face fall.
Thankfully, before I’m forced to explain the complete debacle, the sound of footsteps bound down the stairs.
“Logan Kai! Light on the stairs, please!” Wren leans back toward the entrance of the kitchen, bellowing toward the sound of the noise.
When the boys enter the room—Logan, Jameson, and our other lifelong friend, Luke—I instantly feel underdressed.
While I thought miniskirts and tank tops were a safe bet, the boys have outdone us on every scale.
Logan wears a maroon button down with black slacks, his feet clad with expensive loafers.Luke is wearing a similar outfit, except he’s wearing a black button down with gray dress pants.
My eyes land on Jameson last. He is wearing black slacks and loafers, much like Logan, but his white dress shirt is rolled up to his elbows, leaving his hands and muscular forearms bare. I have to force myself not to stare.
“Are we going to a five-star restaurant and someone forgot to inform us?” Eloise asks, mouth full of the cheese and crackers Wren sat in front of us.
“You better not be,” Wren gasps in horror.
“You girls clearly don’t understand what proper dinner attire looks like,” Logan teases.
“We’re at your house,” I deadpan, pretending to note our surroundings. “When you said ‘dinner attire,’ we thought you meant ‘dinner attire based on the location of where said dinner will take place.’”
“Dinner attire means normal dinner attire, Gen.” He pokes me in the shoulder. “You think too much into things.”
“I know, I know, go ahead and tell me how uptight and bitchy I am,” I say sarcastically, smiling.
“I would never.” He mockingly gasps. “As long as you”re self-aware.”
I roll my eyes at him before seeing Luke and Jameson have already made their way to the island where Wren has set up her hors d”oeuvres.
“Hey!” Wren yells. “Don’t eat too many of those, boys. The girls already offered to set the table, and dinner will be ready any time.”
“And the boys are helping!” Eloise adds, standing from her barstool and making her way toward the dining room.
Logan quickly follows. “Of course, we are!”
Dinner was uneventful.
Most of the time we spent at the Callaghan’s dining room table was spent gorging on all the food. Wren was constantly refilling our plates, so none of us really had the chance to talk.
Eloise, Winnie, and I helped take dishes into the kitchen and load them into the dishwasher while the boys got the pool ready for us to swim.
I’ve always loved being at the Callaghan house when it’s getting dark. Being able to watch the sunset while the water from the pond in their front yard ripples is one of the most scenic sights I’ve ever witnessed.
The fact that the Callagans get to see it every night never ceases to amaze me.
Over the summers growing up, we all used to take rafts out to the middle of the pond after dinner, watching the sun set as we jumped from raft to raft, occasionally falling in the water.
Those are the moments I think of frequently, wishing them back.
I had just shut the dishwasher and was wiping my hands dry with a hand towel when the boys open the sliding glass door in the living room and reenter the kitchen.
“The pool is going to take a bit to warm up, but there”s a bonfire outside if you ladies want to come sit with us,” Logan says.
The stone patio is glowing red from the fire contained by the firepit in the middle, chairs surrounding it.
I don’t think this type of fire is classified as a ‘bonfire,’ but I decide against saying anything and take a seat between Eloise and Winnie.
Logan is on the other side of Winnie; Luke is on the other side of Eloise.
Jameson is sitting directly across from me.
After a few minutes of silence, Winnie is first to speak, “You know, I heard if you drink alcohol when you’re in hotter environments, you get drunk faster.”
“Oh, yeah?” Logan asks, positioning his body so he is entirely facing her. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know, I think the warmer you are, the faster the alcohol can get to your bloodstream,” she replies. “I’m not suggesting we drink, or anything. I just think it’s interesting, since we’re sitting around a fire and all.”
I sit up straighter in my chair, unable to stop myself from correcting her. “It’s because when your body temperature elevates, it causes an increase in blood pressure, which opens up your blood vessels and allows alcohol to circulate faster.”
Logan and Luke look at me like I’m crazy for knowing this, as if I study this stuff for fun in my free time. Blood cells and the circulatory system are a large part of what I remember from AP Anatomy.
“That, coupled with the fact that heat causes you to sweat. Not only will alcohol circulate faster, but you’ll feel the effects more from dehydration,” Jameson adds.
Fuck whatever scientific reasoning I spewed, my blood most certainly stops circulating faster when I hear his voice.
In fact, I think that cold-hearted asshole’s presence alone is forcing my blood to ice over.
If Genevieve Alderidge is the fire in the pit sitting between us, I am the ice she’s striving to melt.
Every time her eyes fall on me, her hatred is prominent, and I don’t even mind.
Her hating me will only make it easier for me to present a valedictorian speech alongside her without feeling an ounce of guilt.
However, Genevieve intrigues me. Her attitude toward people makes me question whether she truly feels indifferent toward everything that doesn’t concern her, or if it is just a front she puts up around me.
She’s on her phone while everyone else is talking. I notice she doesn’t involve herself in conversations unless she’s directly addressed, or if it’s to correct someone.
To me, she’s rude. To everyone else sitting around her, she’s herself.
I can’t help but find it interesting how nobody takes notice of how cold she is. Her domineering attitude should make her insufferable to her friends, yet it doesn’t, and I can’t understand why. Everyone should be irritated with her, but they’re not. It makes me wonder if this is how she always acts.
“Do you not care about anyone other than yourself?” I ask, unable to keep it to myself any longer, and Genevieve looks up from her phone.
“Are you talking to me?” She sets her phone down in her lap, making a show of giving me her full attention.
“There’s no one other than you I would be talking to. Nobody else is blatantly ignoring everyone.”
She looks at me like I’m a parasite. Like I’m just a burden that is below her from every stance.
“The only person I’m ignoring here is you,” Genevieve replies.
“It doesn’t seem like you’re only ignoring me when you haven’t looked up from your phone or talked to anyone in almost an hour.”
“You are unbelievable,” she sighs, getting up from her chair and walking further toward the yard.
I stand up as well. “I’m unbelievable? You can’t be serious!”
“Yes, you!” She’s standing near the pool, almost like she’s fighting the urge to look at me. “You’re the one who came all the way across the ocean to ruin my senior year! And now you have the nerve to call me self-centered?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” I yell, nearing her again as she makes her way toward the other side of the pool. “I earned the opportunity the same way you did.”
“No!” She turns toward me. “You got the speech because our school doesn’t want a girl to be the center of attention for once!”
I am baffled at her outburst. “Who said this has anything to do with gender?”
“I don’t know if you get this, but everything at that goddamn school is based on gender.” Her voice is level now. “I had to beat out every competitor by a longshot, because if there had been even one boy who stood the slightest chance against me, he would have won. They would have given me the same excuse they’re currently spewing, about how he won because he had more to show than academics. Maybe he played basketball, or football, or anything that would have given him the advantage in the end.”
“I blew everyone out of the water to avoid that from happening to me. My win would have to be undeniable.” I take a step toward her. “You took that away from me, all because you’re a boy.”
I feel in my gut that I should say something to diffuse the situation, to make her understand that her efforts didn’t go to waste, but my subconscious is telling me that it wouldn’t do any good.
Instead, I say what I’m feeling. “If you knew all of that, then maybe you should have taken up a sport.”
I’m close enough to her now to see her eyes flare. We’re also close enough to the edge of the pool for her to push me in.
“You’re a fucking dick,” she says numbly, taking a step back so that she can lunge into the back of my shoulders, trying to push me into the pool. I turn away, facing her before she shoves me again.
I know I’m going in now, the least I can do is take her in with me.
She goes to push me one last time, with all her force, and before I’m too unsteady, I wrap my arm around her waist.
Genevieve screams as she crashes into my chest, aware of her mistake.
We tumble into the water, and if our friends hadn’t already been skeptical of our feud, they sure as hell are now. I hear the girls gasp in shock at the scene, and Logan’s voice saying, “Oh shit!”
Genevieve pushes away from me as soon as we go underwater, as if I was planning on drowning her at the bottom.
It’s a deep pool, probably twelve feet deep, making it so neither of us are even close to touching the bottom, we’re just bobbing above water.
Thank God we know how to swim.
My white button up is clinging uncomfortably to my chest, and my slacks feel like they are shrinking in on me. I’m glad I took my loafers off after dinner.
Before either of us say anything, Genevieve puts her hands on my shoulders, attempting to push me under again.
I go under easily, not having any leverage against the abruptness of her attack.
When I reach the surface again, I notice she looks almost as disheveled as I do. Her Burberry plaid skirt is practically floating in the water, and the white cardigan that she put on over her tank top is sticking to every curve of her torso.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask her.
“You are such a dick!” She splashes water at me.
“Oh, and you’re so mature,” I reply, running my hands through my soaked hair.
“I basically poured my heart out to you, and your response was “maybe you should have taken up sports?” She imitates me with a poor English accent.
“That was you pouring your heart out?” I scoff. “I must have missed the black goo that oozed out onto the pavement.”
“Fuck you, Jameson,” she says, like she means it, which makes a pang of regret run through me. “You may think I’m acting immature about this, but I’m allowed to act childish when something I gave up almost my entire childhood to earn is being taken away from me.” She swims to the opposite side of the pool, toward the steps.
“I’m sorry the system is fucked up, Genevieve, I really am,” I say, swimming to keep up with her. “But you heard the headmaster, we are equal on almost every front. This isn’t the school screwing you over, it’s the luck of the draw that your school was the one that I ended up at.”
“Twenty-seven years,” she states. “It has been twenty-seven years since the last female Valedictorian at Fairwood Prep Academy, and she shared it with a boy.”
Is she being serious?
“I know you think this is a joke, that I’m simply arguing with you because my pride can’t take the fact that someone just as good showed up to take my spot. But the reality is, they hand selected you to come here for this exact reason!” She’s gesturing rapidly with her hands, like this should have been obvious all along. “I could have been the first female Valedictorian who wasn’t accompanied by a boy in Fairwood history, and I almost made it to where the school board would have been forced to let me have it, but you showing up is only helping them stop me.”
She’s out of the pool now, grabbing the towel Eloise is holding out to her.
“I didn’t know whether to step in. I guess I didn’t realize you two were that angry with one another.” Logan holds out his hand. I take it as I step out of the pool. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I say, grabbing the other towel Eloise is holding, then I look toward Genevieve as I run the towel over my hair.
She wraps her towel around her shoulders and gives me one last death glare before she walks inside.