Chapter 5
five
“Do you think I made the skirt too short?” Ainsley asked as she burst into my room on Monday morning, spinning around to show me her uniform skirt. I glanced away from the mirror where I was busy pulling some of my dark brown hair back in clips, and snorted.
“Way too short.” We had a uniform at Parkhurst Prep, including a plaid skirt that came more than halfway to our knees.
Ainsley’s main mission in life was to make said skirt as short as possible without getting dress-coded.
Actually, more widely, her mission was to make the uniform look as unique as possible, from the short skirt to her blazer covered in pins to the blouse that I was half-convinced she didn’t know how to wear properly since it was always tied up to show her stomach.
She sighed and came over to stand beside me in front of my floor-length mirror, turning each direction as she studied her outfit. Her mouth twisted as she looked at the back and a released a second sigh, then she began unrolling the waistband to make it moderately longer.
“Hurry up,” she told me as she spun around again, assessing. “Sebastian wants to leave in five.”
I frowned and looked at the clock, wondering if I’d somehow been doing my hair for twenty minutes, but the clock only read 7:45. I still had fifteen minutes, even if we wanted to make sure we got to school on time.
“I haven’t even had breakfast yet!” I protested as Ainsley started back to her own room.
“We’re getting breakfast at that coffee shop,” Ainsley called from the hall.
My heart stopped. She had to mean our usual place, right?
Not The Corner Cup. Anywhere but there. She popped back in my doorway as she headed downstairs.
“You know, the one we went to on Saturday? I told Nora about it and she said she wanted to try it, so Sebastian said we could stop there on the way to school, but we have to leave soon so that we have time.”
I’d spent the better part of yesterday trying to forget all about Saturday night.
I’d gone as far as looking up ways to cause myself amnesia because that seriously sounded preferable to reliving being caught in Cole’s flat then having to hide in a closet with him.
My face went red just at the memory of it.
I couldn’t step foot in there. I wouldn’t.
But what excuse could I use? I’d been too embarrassed to tell anyone what had happened in Cole’s closet.
Ainsley was usually my go-to person for that, but I knew if I told her that I’d talked to Cole, then she was going to fixate on the juvie stuff again, and I didn’t want to think about the idea that I might have been locked in a closet with a criminal.
It was easier not to mention it. Or it had been, until now.
“Imogen!” Sebastian yelled up the stairs. “Come on, we need to go!”
“I’ll be down in a minute!” I called back. “Go warm up the car. I’ll meet you!”
I pulled on my blazer, the last piece of my uniform, and stared at myself in the mirror.
I’d never minded the look of the Parkhurst Prep uniform—in fact, I generally liked it.
Blue and silver were good colors, much better than our rival school’s colors of red and gold, and the clothes themselves I’d always found flattering.
But now, when I looked at my reflection, all I could think about was the sneer on Cole’s face as he’d called me a prep school girl as if that was the worst thing in the world.
I couldn’t leave Sebastian waiting too long or he might ditch me, and since Lavender had gone to school early with her boyfriend, Dean, I’d be screwed, so I picked up my bag and ran downstairs.
Sebastian wasn’t there but Ainsley was leaning against the foyer wall, ready to go and holding my red peacoat in one hand.
“Waiting for me?” I asked as I took the coat from her and pulled it on.
“I thought it was best that I give Sebastian and Nora some alone time.” She rolled her eyes but a grin played on her face.
I thought Ainsley would be annoyed that her friend was dating our brother, but over the last couple of months, it seemed that she was actually happy about it.
Then again, Sebastian’s ex-girlfriend had been so horrible that we were all happy to see him with anyone else.
It was obvious as soon as we stepped outside that Sebastian and Nora had been making use of that alone time as they broke apart from kissing the moment the door slammed.
They weren’t even hiding in the car, they were pressed up against the passenger side door, like Sebastian had gone to open it for her but his lips got caught on hers.
He was unfazed as he broke away from her now and opened the car door, but Nora’s face was bright red.
The drive to the coffee shop went by much too quickly for my taste.
In the span of a couple songs, we made it from our front door to the very same parking spot Lavender had pulled into on Saturday morning when she sent me in there to embarrass myself.
It didn’t help that Sebastian drove like an absolute maniac, shaving nearly five minutes off the drive.
I fidgeted with my keychain as I stared up at the building in horror, already dreading the idea of having to see Cole again.
“I think Ainsley and Nora should go in,” I announced.
I probably sounded totally insane, but I wasn’t risking the responsibility of getting everyone’s drinks dumped on me.
From the smirk Ainsley sent my way, I was sure she thought it was because of the debacle on Saturday morning, but it was actually because I was terrified of running into Cole.
Granted, he probably wouldn’t be working since he had to be getting to school himself, but he did live upstairs.
“Sounds good to me,” Nora said, clearly not thinking anything of my request. She unbuckled her seatbelt. “I want to see the inside of this place anyway. I know Sebastian’s order, but what do you want, Imogen?”
I barely heard the question, but luckily Ainsley saved me by saying she knew what to get me and the two of them got out of the car a moment later, leaving me and Sebastian alone together in the car.
Sebastian drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Your birthday’s coming up,” he said casually, like it had just occurred to him and not like he’d been thinking about it for weeks.
I narrowed my eyes. “If this is you fishing for gift ideas, I’m not helping.”
“Please, as if I need help picking stuff out.” He looked out the windshield and I got the strange sense that he was avoiding my gaze, even though I had no idea why. “I just hope it’s not going to be weird.”
“What is?”
“Your birthday. The first one without… him.”
Oh. Sebastian and I didn’t talk about Dad.
Ever. It had become an unwritten rule between us from the moment we returned home after Mum and Dad’s epic fight to find Dad gone.
There was a reason he wasn’t the one I went to when I was trying to decide if I wanted to reach out to Dad again and it was the same reason he didn’t know I was visiting him now.
“It won’t be,” I said easily.
But then I realized it wasn’t just me he was worrying about—all four of us had birthdays coming up in the next two months. What would it be like to have all of them pass without Dad around?
“Sometimes I wish they could have just stayed together a little longer,” Sebastian said, his eyes still trained out the front window. “I wish they could have just made it until we were all done with high school.”
Maybe they’ll be back together soon, I wanted to say.
I still didn’t have a solid plan of how I was going to convince Dad to break up with Hilary and go grovelling to Mum, but I was trying to plant the seeds.
I kept reminding him of how happy he’d been when they were still married, how much we missed having him around the house, and making subtle remarks about how a mistake didn’t have to ruin a whole life.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure that he was catching the hints, but I was going to keep trying.
I had to if I wanted our family to get back together.
But if I tried to tell Sebastian that, he would tell me it was a lost cause. As far as he was concerned, Dad was gone and living his best life with his girlfriend, far away from us. He didn’t know how closely he was sticking around. And I couldn’t tell him.
I needed to get out of here. I needed to breathe. I looked around the car for any excuse, any escape, and my eyes landed on a random receipt in the door of his car. I lifted it up and held it between us. Sebastian’s eyes slid from the window to the receipt.
“I need to go throw this out,” I said. “I’ll be back in a sec, okay?”
I didn’t wait for his response as I climbed out.
I glanced through the coffee shop window just long enough to confirm that Ainsley and Nora didn’t have the drinks yet, so I knew I wouldn’t be holding us up, then continued around the side of the building to where the rubbish bins likely were.
It wasn’t like I actually needed to throw out the receipt, but Sebastian could see me through the window so I had to act like I was doing what I’d claimed.
Besides, it was giving me a moment to stretch my legs and walk off the stress of the secret.
I would have to tell him and Ainsley that I was seeing Dad eventually, I knew that.
I just wasn’t ready to do it yet. There was too much risk of them trying to stop me if they knew, and that would ruin my plans to get him and Mum back together.
This was a situation that required asking for forgiveness later rather than permission now.
I rounded the corner and then stopped short when I realized I wasn’t alone.
Cole was by the dumpster, one hand on the lid, a black trash bag slung over his shoulder like it weighed nothing.
He looked up as it banged shut, eyes flicking to me—and then doing a slow, deliberate pass from my shoes to my blazer.
Heat rushed to my face.