Chapter 3 Marlene
Marlene
“You guys are going to fucking die when you see this place,” Emerson shouts from the front of the group, his pale, skinny arms flung wide. “It’s fucking incredible.”
“Language,” Ms. Dorman mumbles, but there’s no conviction in it. She’s shivering next to me, probably doubting every decision that led her to this moment—especially the one where she trusted Emerson Butler’s claim that the Airbnb wasn’t “that far away.”
Her mistake, honestly. Everyone knows that Emerson Butler isn’t the kind of guy you trust. He is the kind of guy to act scandalized and fall apart when the hotel stocks the fridge with Dasani instead of Voss—a real complaint I witnessed him filing with the front desk of our hotel.
“Really?” he told the poor girl behind the counter. “You couldn’t even find some Fiji?”
That kind of sheltered isn’t what you need when you’re tramping through a literal storm, and judging by the grumbles around me, I know I’m not the only one thinking it.
Emerson must realize it, too, which is probably why he’s jabbering on about how great this Airbnb is.
He monologues about how it was built in the 1930s, how it was remodeled in the ’60s and then never touched, how some famous interior designer worked on it.
To hear Emerson tell it, it’s basically a living work of art. We’re so lucky to be staying there.
We’re always so lucky to do things because Emerson has access to them, because Emerson can afford them, because Emerson knows some guy who knows another guy who worked with Steven Spielberg or Larry Ellison or whoever else Emerson can name-drop.
He’s a specific type of entitled asshole, not that I’d say that to anyone.
I’m not drawing attention to myself again.
My eyes slide to Avery, who’s closest to Emerson, to the way she’s stomping next to him.
As far as the team goes, I probably trust her the most—even after she screwed up.
Maybe even more because she screwed up. Ever since we left the hotel, she’s been beating herself up for it.
I can see it in the way her foot bobs and how she picks at her cuticles.
Which is why it’s probably a good thing we were interrupted before I could tell Avery what I wanted to earlier.
The words nearly slipped out, and I wouldn’t have been able to pull them back.
And I didn’t need to add another burden to what she’s already dealing with, even if I know she would’ve wanted to help me.
Plus, even if she was understanding, she also would’ve been very Avery about it.
She would’ve tried to fix it, and this…Well, this is beyond her ability to fix.
Above us, thunder rolls again, and I shiver. My hoodie’s not helping, seeing as it’s completely soaked through and sticking to my skin.
Maybe Ms. Villasenor was right. Maybe I should’ve done chess club instead.
My mind zips back to that first meeting with her in her tiny office.
It was after my transfer, during my first week of school, when she wanted to see how I was settling in, and I wanted to tell her I would’ve been doing better if she hadn’t called me out of class with everyone watching.
Everyone knows she’s the school counselor, and I didn’t want anyone getting any ideas about me.
Not that they hadn’t already started formulating their own.
I felt the whispers, after all. I’d been the new kid before.
I knew what to expect. I just wish Ms. Villasenor had realized what would happen when she tapped on the door of my math class and asked to speak to me “real quick.”
It was not “real quick.” It never is.
During that meeting we also went over my “academic profile” up to that point. I had good grades—“Excellent grades,” she admitted—but that wasn’t enough, apparently.
“You want to start working on this stuff now,” Ms. Villasenor told me. “Colleges want you to be someone special, someone who stands out. Someone well rounded.”
I shifted in my seat, avoiding her eyes. “Isn’t it kind of early to be talking about this?”
She laughed in a way that made my skin itch.
“I know students who’ve been working on their college apps since seventh grade,” she told me. “Writing drafts of their PIQs with tutors. Participating in programs. Volunteering at hospitals and animal rescues. And of course, that’s all with strong grades.”
I thought of Avery. Even though I hadn’t met her then—didn’t even know her name, technically—I’d seen her.
She’d been in the office when I checked into the school in July, talking to the people at the front desk about her schedule.
They’d been trying to keep her from taking five AP classes, and she’d been arguing her case.
Politely but firmly, the way I’d later see her handle herself in a debate.
Clearly, Avery was the type of student Ms. Villasenor was referring to. Someone who’d had life planned out on color-coded sticky notes while I’d been drawing chalk animals on the sidewalk.
“They want to see you’ve been doing something for at least two years, but preferably three to four,” Ms. Villasenor said.
“And really, they’ll want to see you take on a leadership role as a junior.
Which means you need to seriously think about these things, especially since you’re starting from scratch as a transfer student. ”
“Starting from scratch” was an interesting way to put it.
A way to gloss over everything that had led me to be sitting in her office in the first place.
But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything.
I was too terrified of crying, of letting my eyes get red and puffy.
It was the last thing I needed people to see.
“Who are you, mija?” Ms. Villasenor asked me, reaching across the desk to touch my hand. When I pulled away, keeping my eyes on the desk, she clucked at me.
“They need to know what you’re interested in,” she told me. “They need to see a full person in that application. They need to know you.”
But that isn’t really true, is it? If they wanted to know me, then just me would be good enough.
But it isn’t. Ms. Villasenor could say that colleges want us to be well rounded, but what they really want is a sob story.
Something to break their hearts just enough that they add me to their admissions list, but not anything traumatic enough that they have to alert CPS.
In other words, something I refuse to give them.
Ms. Villasenor sighed. “We have clubs you could join. Test a few out, see what you like. We have a Cosmetology Club—that’s brand-new—and the Environmental Club. That one’s loads of fun. Beach cleanups, helping out at food banks. Or there’s Chess Club, Book Club…What am I forgetting?”
She pulled a list from her overflowing desk organizer and passed it to me. It was laminated, with new additions in messy Sharpie at the bottom. One of them was circled.
“Debate Club?” I asked.
“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” she said, waving her hand. “You need to be very comfortable with public speaking. Quick with it, you know? Confidence is key—”
“I want to do that,” I told her.
I could tell she saw what everyone at this school sees: a quiet girl scared of her own shadow.
They might as well have slapped a Handle with Care sticker on my folder when I transferred.
Which, given everything that’s happened since I officially enrolled at Coastal Canyon in late July, is more than a little ironic.
Handle with care…right before you throw her into the wolf den.
“I want to learn how to speak up for myself,” I said, meeting Ms. Villasenor’s gaze. “I’m not afraid.”
She smiled, revealing a smudge of mauve lipstick on her teeth. I didn’t tell her, but I did accept the sticky note she gave me with the Debate Club’s head coach’s email on it.
If I’d done anything else, picked anything else, I wouldn’t be trudging through the mud right now, backpack on, worried about a serial killer lurking in the bushes. Maybe I wouldn’t—
My feet slip underneath me, and I nearly tumble forward. I’m caught at the last second, a steady arm keeping me upright. I cling to it as I fight to catch my breath.
“It’s okay,” says a low voice next to me. “You’re safe with me.”
Lucas. When I turn and look at him now, my stomach doesn’t just flip. It tumbles, it somersaults, it leaves this physical plane. His brown eyes shine in the rain, fastened on me in a way that makes me lightheaded.
“Slippery, huh?” Lucas says as I get my balance. “I’ve almost fallen like six times.”
The laugh breaks out of me, and he grins in response.
I notice he’s got his tripod in one hand, his mounted iPhone protected by some kind of covering as he continues to film.
This is what Lucas does, I’ve learned. He’s constantly filming for his YouTube channel, gathering every scrap of footage possible, forever hunting for that elusive “perfect shot.” It would seem like he’s wasting his time, like there couldn’t possibly be anything worth documenting, but Lucas always finds something.
More than that, he’s got a gift for turning the mundane into something special.
Not that I’ve obsessively watched every video on his channel or anything. That’s something anyone could pick up on, I swear.
Lucas matches my step as we continue forward, which makes everything seem just a little lighter, even my heavy backpack.
“This house sounds pretty incredible,” Lucas says. “Emerson said it’s basically identical to the house in North by Northwest.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
Lucas holds his chest like I’ve physically wounded him. “What’s North by Northwest? Mari, where’s your cultural education? It’s only one of the greatest Hitchcock movies—nay, thriller movies—ever made.”
Mari. Lucas is the only one who calls me that. The only one who’s given me a nickname. It makes me bold. His.
“Maybe you’ll have to show me sometime,” I say.
“Hell yeah,” he says, elbowing me in the side. “You name the time and place, and I’m there.”
I shiver. It’s hard to say if it’s because of the cold or him.
“Nearly there, everyone,” Mr. McCullough calls from the front. I look up, seeing that Avery’s fallen back a bit, Javi and Kaitlyn are next to her, and Emerson’s talking to the teachers.
Another shiver, but I know this one isn’t because of Lucas.
“Lucas,” I whisper, pitching my voice so only he can hear me. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
More than a bad feeling, if I’m honest. More like I can see a silent warning flashing at me to turn back now.
I glance at Lucas, waiting for his response. He doesn’t say anything right away, just mulls over my words before looking at me. There’s a quirk to his lips as he speaks.
“Don’t worry, Mari,” he says. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I think— Holy shit.”
He comes to such an abrupt stop that my heart bangs against my chest, instant terror that I was right, I was right—but then I see the grin crack across his face as he lifts his tripod up, and I follow his gaze to what’s ahead.
Holy shit is right.
There’s a spindly wrought iron gate that frames the view of the house—if you can even call it a house.
Really, it’s a mansion. It’s a flat rectangle of brick and glass, and I know from Emerson’s bragging that the hill it’s perched on slopes downward all the way to the ocean.
The left side of the house is encircled by woods, woods we’ve just emerged from as the rain continues pounding us.
But the building. I’ve never seen anything like it.
It looks like someone cut it out of a magazine and pasted it in front of us.
“It is the North by Northwest house,” Lucas says, wielding his tripod like a sword to secure his shot.
“Precisely,” Emerson says, appearing beside us. “It’s a near replica. An architectural triumph. A literal work of art. A—”
“We get it,” Javi cuts him off. “Can we hurry up, man? I’m getting soaked.”
Emerson huffs but stalks up to the gate and punches a code into the lockbox hanging from it. He extracts a set of keys and returns to us.
I barely notice him, as I can’t pull my eyes away from the house.
The huge glass windows. The heavy wooden doors.
A flash of lightning makes us all jump.
“Javi’s right,” Ms. Dorman says. “Let’s get moving.”
No one needs to be told twice. Emerson unlocks the gate, and we all follow him toward the house. Through the rain I keep my eyes on Lucas, on his camera light splitting the night and guiding us forward.
On the warmth of his promise, still settled in my chest.
I won’t let anything happen to you.
If only I knew for sure that that was true.