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I can’t think about that. I have to at least try.

“Ava, what if these people somehow… I don’t know. Trick you into pledging or something?”

I shake my head. “You don’t have to worry about that. Even if they could trick me, they wouldn’t want to. One look at me, and people know I’m no fun. There’s the girl who’s the life of the party, and then there’s me. The one you’re worried might call the cops about all the underage drinking.”

She sucks in her lips, as if fighting a smile. “That’s…accurate, actually.”

My chest fills with warmth. I love that there are no fake reassurances with Sienna. She sees the real me—every overthinking, rule-following part—and still chooses me. Not in spite of it. Because of it.

Before I get a chance to respond, Sienna reaches out and touches my arm. “Your dad wouldn’t be happy about you going to Thornecroft. He didn’t even want me to enroll at Ashford. He said it’s a dark place.” She smiles faintly. “He hinted that I was just following you.”

I frown at her. “He had that same talk with Rhett. But not with me. Don’t you think that’s weird? He never told me Ashford is a dark place.”

“I don’t know…” Her lips purse. “He knows you. Ava St. Clair wasn’t going to turn down a scholarship at Ashford University. Not for anything.”

“It wasn’t just that, though. It was bizarre, Sienna. When we were driving here…”

My mind drifts back to that first trip up the coast. The sun was burning low over the ocean, and the fog was drifting in, pooling in the hills.

I thought it looked like another world. Like Narnia, but…not. More like a dark fairy tale. The kind my dad didn’t like me reading as a child because he thought it might jeopardize my faith that God is in control.

On that drive, my dad was quiet. Not in the way he usually was—lost in thought, preparing a sermon, or organizing his schedule in his head. This was different.

Like he knew something.

At the time, I thought only of myself. There I was, leaving my whole life behind to go to college, and I missed him already. I wanted him to tell me one of his exaggerated college prank stories and pretend like I hadn’t heard it a dozen times before. I even wanted one of his overly serious lectures about the dangers of partying.

Anything to make him feel like my normal dad. But the man in the car with me was a different person.

“He was acting weird,” I say. “There was this…sadness in him.” I shake my head. “It’s hard to explain. He didn’t say anything, but I felt it. He seemed…resigned. Like he didn’t want me here at Ashford, but there was nothing he could do about it.”

Sienna exhales, pulling at a loose thread on her sweater. “That sounds like him. He always seems omniscient to me.”

“He does have a sense for things. I just keep thinking… Ben Cartwright’s death doesn’t feel right. It’s like it was…explained too fast. It sort of feels like it was hushed up. Did you know Damian Cross has already been named the president of Thornecroft? Ben hasn’t even been dead a week.”

Sienna shrugs. “Really rich people don’t like scandals. And a drug overdoseisa scandal to them.”

And she would know better than me. Sienna might not be Ashford-rich—her dad’s only a millionaire—but she understands this world in a way I never will.

I push back from the desk and stand. “I need to go to Thornecroft. I won’t be able to sleep or focus on my classes until I do.”

Sienna’s eyelids flutter. “A very Ava thing to say. My grades come first. My life, second.”

I wave a hand. “One party isn’t going to put me in danger.”

“If you’re even able to go.” She smiles wryly. “Those parties are invitation only. Good luck getting Rhett to take you.”

She’s right. Rhett’s been infuriatingly protective of me since we were kids, and sometimes Sienna gets motherly too. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up as your best friends’ pastor’s daughter. They probably both think I’m a little too soft for this world.

But with Rhett it’s a little more complicated. I’m pretty sure he’s protective because it gave him purpose—someone to care for when no one cared for him.

No, that’s not fair. His parents might not have been as emotionally available as my dad, but they did their best. They provided well for him and his older brother. They encouraged Rhett to do well in school and sports so he could get into a university like Ashford.

“I’ll make him take me.”

She snorts. “We’ll see about that.”

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