Chapter 8
Olive
Fantino also spends the whole of the following day reminding me that he’s got something over me, partly by his mere presence and partly by these little sidelong glances.
My rage at him still hasn’t cooled by the afternoon, when I’m sitting at my desk, trying to study.
It’s not going too well, because my thoughts are everywhere but in this room.
Everything within me is crying out to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head, but I won’t give in to weakness.
If I can’t keep up with the lower-sixth prep, there’s no way I can fulfill my plan to catch up with the upper sixth on the side.
Mind you, that’s also true if Colin means what he says and grasses on me over the broken display case.
I don’t know him, but I’d believe anything of him.
He’s one of those people who have absolutely no interest in anybody else.
On the other hand, I do know Mrs. Sinclair.
I’m very sure that she’d be angry or, worse, disappointed if she knew, but I’ve been at this school long enough to be equally sure that you wouldn’t be immediately expelled over something like that.
And I’ve never done anything that bad before.
Besides, and however much I hate the idea, I can always play the sympathy card.
Her school went on fire, and it almost killed me.
I wouldn’t like to claim that means I can get away with anything, but I’m pretty certain Mrs. Sinclair feels guilty.
Not that the fire was any more her fault than anyone else’s.
I get goose bumps when I remember Colin’s questions as we stood outside the west wing yesterday. Luckily, Henry didn’t tell him about the fire either. I couldn’t have dealt with it if Colin had kept digging. No way, a fire. Did anyone get hurt?
Yeah. Me.
Then he’d know, and he’d be able to start giving me the same sympathetic looks as everyone else here.
Although, no, that’s not true. Fantino isn’t the kind of guy who’d look at you like that because he has zero empathy.
Even so, I don’t want him to know. And I don’t want to know anything about him either.
Such as why he’s so desperate to get kicked out of Dunbridge.
I don’t care. I seriously couldn’t give a fuck.
Maybe I would if he wasn’t such a total arse.
It’s not like I’d been hoping to make loads of new friends in the lower sixth.
A few good friends are enough for me. So I’m fine with knowing some people already in Will and Kit, plus Luke and Ana from the swimming team.
And Elain from enrichment seemed really nice.
I’ll get through the next few weeks somehow or other.
And if Colin’s gone by then, all the better.
I’m annoyed with myself for thinking about him so much.
I drag my mind back to my maths prep but I’m nowhere near finished by the end of study hour.
When the noise level out on the wing rises, I push my books away and go to see Tori.
Or, rather, Tori and Emma. The fact that everyone else is sharing rooms again will take some getting used to.
In lower years, we were four to a room. I kind of miss that, chattering the nights away with Tori, Inés, and Amara.
Knowing someone’s always there. The memory of us planning to go to St. Andrews together is like a dagger in my heart.
We were full of ideas for sharing a flat there, still living together.
No rules, no wing time, just my friends and me.
Even Grace, who lives with her parents in Ebrington and doesn’t board, could finally have joined us.
Mind you, Tori’s plans all revolve around Sinclair these days, and Grace is now hoping to study law at Cambridge.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me because, while I used to long for freedom after our A levels, the thought of being cast out into the world now makes me panic.
I’ve always been stressed out by change, but it’s worse as I’m getting older.
I left home young to board at school, but that was hardly fleeing the nest, given that I see Dad the whole time and can go home to him and Mum any weekend I like.
The idea of my familiar life at Dunbridge being a thing of the past gnaws at my belly.
I don’t want us all to leave here. I don’t want my time at boarding school to be just a memory that fades with every passing year.
I don’t want to come back someday and find I don’t know any of the pupils and even the teachers have forgotten my name.
I want something to hold on to. Is that really too much to ask?
These days, I’m increasingly scared there’s no such thing.
As I’m heading toward my friends’ room, the door opens, and Emma walks out. She’s in her running clothes, so she gives me a wave, holds the door for me, and disappears.
I knock on the doorframe when I can’t see Tori anywhere. Is she in the bathroom? But then she pops up from under the desk.
“Oh, hi,” she says, clapping the dust off her trousers. “My bloody plug’s not working again.”
I shut the door and drop down onto her bed. It wouldn’t occur to me to ask if I can come in or sit down. This must be what it’s like to have a brother or sister. Knocking is as good as it gets.
“Have you asked Ms. Barnett to get an electrician?”
“Too lazy,” Tori responds. “Just as well Emma’s still works.” She plumps down beside me. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Do you have time?”
Tori glances at her watch. “Theater club in half an hour.”
“Oh, right,” I say hastily. I learned only recently that Tori joined the theater club at the start of term.
Possibly she was trying to spare my feelings.
It was the evening after she and Sinclair starred in last year’s play when the fire broke out in the west wing.
“I just wondered if you could fill me in on what you’re covering at the moment. ”
“English or maths?” asks Tori.
I hesitate. “Both?”
She looks at me in the way I can’t stand. “Livy . . .”
“No, Tori, seriously. I need to know.”
“It’s only your first week back at school.”
“Exactly. I can’t allow myself to get any further behind.”
Tori’s never been good at hiding her feelings. Even now, I can read her like a book as she wrestles with herself. “I’m scared you’re trying to do too much.”
“Well, don’t be,” I insist, but then she says the thing I could see in her and Grace’s faces yesterday.
“You know, maybe your parents and Mrs. Sinclair have a point. It might actually be better for you—”
Tori falls silent as I stand up: I’m suddenly freezing. “For me to what?” I repeat. “Not to be with you all anymore? What’s better about that?”
“No, not that, Olive. But for you to get back to your old self slowly.”
“I’m back already, in case you hadn’t noticed.” I have to force myself to stick to an indoor voice, and I hate myself for snapping at my best friend. Again. Breathe. Cool it.
“Livy, we’re just worried about you, don’t you see?” Tori says quietly. She’s still sitting on the bed, and she takes my hand.
“I know,” I whisper as she pulls me back down to the mattress. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I’ve known you long enough. You don’t have to keep stinging me away, Mrs. Scorpio.”
I can’t help smiling despite myself. Tori’s obsessed with astrology.
I’d love to get her to guess Colin’s star sign.
If there’s anything in her theories at all, he must be a Scorpio too.
But then he’d be the same as me, and that’s the last thing I want.
I have no desire to think about Colin Fantino at all.
So instead, I say, “Huh, according to you and your star-sign shite, I have no choice.”
“Sure you do. And you’re learning.” Tori slips back so she can rest against the wall. Suddenly a burning pain stabs through my shoulder. I bite my bottom lip and try not to wince, but of course Tori spotted it.
“Sorry,” she says at once. “Did I hurt you? I keep forgetting . . .”
“Me too,” I say instead of answering her question.
Tori doesn’t reply, and when I turn to her, she meets my eyes.
“Don’t make me cry now,” I manage. I know my best friend. If she keeps on looking at me like that, she’ll say something like “I’m so glad you’re here,” and I’m not in the mood for more tears.
“I wouldn’t dare,” says Tori, starting to plait my hair.
That doesn’t make it much better, because she started doing that in the hospital when I couldn’t manage any of the hairstyles I used to be famous for.
To plait your hair properly, you have to be capable of holding both arms above your head for several minutes, and the sad truth is that I’m not anymore.
“So how’s the theater club going?”
“Pretty cool. We’ve just started planning the auditions. I can’t wait to see who’ll play the leads this year.”
I think back to the performance in the summer when Tori and Sinclair made the best Romeo and Juliet I’ve ever seen at this school. “Like there’s anything to decide,” I say. “Or aren’t you and Sinclair auditioning?”
“We are,” Tori answers. “But Mr. Acevedo might want to give somebody else a chance.”
“Would you mind?”
“A wee bit, maybe,” she admits. “But whatever will be will be. And we were lucky to get the chance to audition a year early last time around . . . So how have your first nights back been?” she asks.
“Dire,” I say without hesitation. “On Sunday night I had a panic attack. I couldn’t stay lying in bed, so I got up.”
“I still can’t believe that was you with the trophy cabinet.” I stay stubbornly silent. “And Colin has a photo of you?” Tori persists. “Why was he even there?”
“No idea,” I say curtly. “Coincidence.”
“Did he try to stop you?”
I give a dry laugh. “Not really, no.”
“He didn’t? So did he watch you . . . ?”
“Tori, he went one better than watching—he did it for me.”
“What?” Tori asks in disbelief.
“Yes” is all I say.
“Colin smashed the cabinet?”
I nod.
“Is he actually Ava Fantino’s son?”