Chapter 6. In Which I Play Nice Because a Harpoon Isn’t an Option
IN WHICH I PLAY NICE BECAUSE A HARPOON ISN’T AN OPTION
“Everyone is required to study until tomorrow,” Jameson shouts. “No exceptions. Now, return to your cabins.”
I barely register the other campers leaving the courts.
My heart is beating so fast that I could explode. I’m too stuck in place, too panicked, too focused on Luca. He’s speaking with his cabinmates like they’re best friends, even though they only met yesterday. He says something, and they crack up like he’s a professional comedian.
If Luca told everyone else what I did at JSHS Nationals, they would take his side without a doubt. They probably should. I didn’t want to hurt Luca. I just wanted some justice for what I’d lost. But that wasn’t my best moment.
Maybe, though, this person I’m peering at isn’t Luca. I could be seeing a look-alike.
I’ll need to approach him to know for sure.
My legs start moving on their own, carrying me to him.
“HEY!” bullets out of my mouth.
Right in front of me, Luca—not a look-alike, definitely my Luca, rings and freckles and all—turns around. The moment our eyes lock, he freezes.
The memory of throwing that smoothie at Luca collides into me at full force as I stand before him, immediately falling silent. It suddenly hits me that this is our first ever conversation.
Luca’s cabinmates are staring now, too. As are the other campers passing by, sending me their finest glares.
Most likely because I’ve become a living traffic cone in the middle of the courts.
A much more anxious voice in my mind, though, offers another hypothesis: They’ve somehow seen the video.
They want my head hung from the gates of brAIN now.
They adore Luca more than they once did.
“Rory!” Luca finally says. I swear, his golden-brown eyes glow in the sunrise. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Did he just say my name? With familiarity?
Not only that. Fancy seeing you here. Like he doesn’t think I’m smart enough to be here?
Of course. This unexpected “kindness” after our competition is a further manipulation tactic to hide his true thirst for revenge. The “nicer” he is, the more he’s clearly pretending.
I’ll kill him. I’ll squeeze his head so tightly that his eyeballs pop out of the sockets, and I’ll eat them. I’ll stomp on his hockey-stick-shaped grave.
“How are you?” I say through the most difficult media-trained smile I’ve ever had to summon in my life.
“Good. What cabin you in?”
“Omega.”
“Word. I’m in Gamma.”
Not Iota or Theta, the teams I’m up against this week.
I should be relieved, but I’m shaken by how clearly Luca recognizes me after years of not speaking to me. I suppose after throwing a smoothie at the back of his head and promptly running out of the venue, I would be recognizable to him now. He thinks that was our first interaction.
Either way, it’s finally happening. Every night, for three long years, I’ve dreamed of this moment.
Watching the glowing stars on my bedroom ceiling, I’ve wondered how Luca would acknowledge my existence.
Would it be because I defeated him at the American Mathematics Competition or the National Chemistry Olympiad?
Or would he simply notice the Prince Kid was standing beside him and apologize for not noticing sooner?
But now Luca is seeing my old middle school spirit day shirt that shouts GO BOBCATS, RAWR! in Comic Sans. I haven’t brushed my teeth or put on deodorant.
My body heats over how exposed and vulnerable I am. I tightly cross my arms. What should I say? Probably an apology if I want to keep fixing my image. But I would also rather set my gasoline-soaked body on fire.
If Luca is seemingly ignoring the smoothie incident, then I’m happy to as well. “What are you doing here?” I ask. “You won the Harvard program slot.”
Luca shrugs, his upper arm muscles shifting in his T-shirt, which is very white and normal compared to mine. I try not to focus on his muscles, earned from hours of practice and conditioning. Hours that I have to spend studying. The unfairness metaphorically slaps me across the cheek.
“Harvard doesn’t suit my future goals,” he says. “I heard the offer went to the second-place winner instead.”
Second place.
That spot would’ve gone to me. If only I hadn’t thrown that smoothie. If only I hadn’t gotten disqualified for losing my cool for the first time. Seventeen years of never once succumbing to Mom and Dad’s distractions, being a perfect, textbook face, all of it for nothing—
“Keep moving,” Jameson announces through his megaphone, looking straight at us.
Luca follows orders, waving politely in apology.
I walk beside him, smiling through the pain of learning that he snatched my dream Harvard program only to then throw it in the trash. Because—what did he say? Harvard doesn’t suit his goals? In what universe would an esteemed Harvard program not suit someone’s goals?
Another dig at me. Luca somehow knows that’s my dream school.
“So,” I say calmly. “This place does suit your goals?”
“As long as I win the Medal of Victory,” Luca responds.
With Luca’s reputation, everyone assumes he’ll win. But hearing Luca say the words himself—that he wants to win—fills me with a heavy dread.
The figure I saw in the woods. The bed on the rooftop. All odds point to the culprit being Luca after all. He’s expected to win, but he’s drawing first blood in this year’s annual sabotage.
Luca, who’s never tasted failure and probably views this as another simple mark on a checklist. Luca, who could never understand that, for me, winning means a repaired relationship with Mom and Dad and a way to fix The Plan.
It makes no sense.
The only way to derive conclusions is through questioning.
“Are you the bunk bed culprit?” I ask him flatly as we reach the gravel path leading toward the cabins.
Luca makes a face. “What now?”
“I swear I saw you walking around last night.”
Luca’s shoulders tense. Could be due to the chilly morning weather dotting goose bumps along our skin. But his brown eyes, locked on me a moment ago, are now finding every other spot in the woods instead. “No.”
I expected that answer. Even if he is the culprit, he’s going to say no. What matters is the believability of his excuse—and his body language. So far, he’s losing. “That’s it? No?”
“I wasn’t here yesterday.”
Christiana and Jade saw him by the parking lot yesterday. “Really?”
“Had hockey practice. Same sitch with JSHS. I got here super early this morning.”
He’s lying. “You got here earlier than five?”
Luca’s gaze continues to shift around the woods like he’s searching for an answer in the trees. “Thank God there’s a rink here. I’m already itching to get back in.”
“brAIN has a rink?”
“Yeah, thanks to Cindy’s family.”
“Who?”
“She’s in my cabin. Her grandfather is the biggest manufacturer of PVC pipes.
He donated a rink here two years ago. Big hockey guy.
” He points to the right, where the concrete promenade surrounding Canvasback Lake is barely visible through the trees.
“That lake over there? Sixty-six acres, but barely more than a foot deep. Eighty-one million, four hundred and nine thousand liters of useless.”
Did he just calculate that in his head?
I keep quiet as we continue toward the cabins. Luca is changing the subject. He’s definitely the bunk bed culprit. And he’s trying to act innocent now.
If Luca is fighting dirty, will I need to do the same?
No. As Prince List’s role model, I don’t need uncivilized warfare to win. My intelligence will be my weapon.
Luca and I reach the fork in the path. Cabin Gamma is on the right.
My own is on the left, perfectly in line with his.
Now that we stand so close, I’m reminded of the several inches he has on me.
Not enough that I need to tilt my head up—he’s maybe five nine or ten—but enough to make me wish the soles of my dress shoes were taller.
Luca smiles at me. Despite his cruel sabotage, and the torture he’s put me through for years. “See you for the first test tomorrow.”
I force myself to smile back despite my racing heart. “Looking forward to it.”