Page 102 of All These Beautiful Strangers

Alistair stopped and turned to face me.

“I know you’ve been unhappy,” he said. “And there are a lot of things I can’t change about our lives. But maybe there’s a middle ground.

“This was our beginning,” he said, motioning around him to the lake. “And it’s going to be our beginning again. I’m going to build a house for us here. Not just a house—a home. And we’re going to fill it with our children, our family. This will be our place, away from everything else. When we come here, it’ll just be us.”

He looked so earnest. It was as if he thought by sheer will and determination, he could hold us together, fill in the cracks, keep things from falling apart. And I wanted to believe him. Oh, how desperately I wanted to believe him. So, I didn’t say anything. I just reached out and took his hand.

Twenty-Seven

Charlie Calloway

2017

Dalton and I got a late start back to Knollwood the next day. Margot called ahead of us to the school to let them know we’d miss the nightly curfew check, and the administration had reluctantly consented, stipulating that we had to check in with our dormitory supervisors first thing the following morning. On the drive back, I leaned my head against the cold glass window of the front passenger seat, closed my eyes, and feigned a headache. I was too shaken by my revelation about Jake to hold up a conversation with Dalton. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. It was like everything suddenly was clicking into place—here were the connections I had been looking for, the connections I had felt were there all along, lying just beneath the surface, waiting for me to uncover them.

But then, the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I was wrong. I mean, would the A’s really kill someone? Even if a recruit did fail a ticket, even if a recruit threatened to expose the A’s, was that really worth . . . murder? Sure . . . the A’s could be dark and twisted and cruel. But murder?

And, most importantly, I didn’t know how to make this fit with my mother’s disappearance. So Jake and my father had known each other at Knollwood; they had been in the A’s together. Maybe my father even gave Jake the ticket to steal the exam. Jake got in over his head, got caught, was threatened with expulsion, and killed himself because he thought his life was over. What could that possibly have to do with my mother’s disappearance a decade and a half later?

Just when things had seemed like they were clicking into place, they fell apart again. The answers that I had been so sure of in the restaurant now seemed flimsy, ridiculous. No, it still didn’t make any sense.

“Here, take this,” Dalton said.

I opened my eyes and saw that he was motioning to a bottle of water in the center cup holder.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the bottle. “I don’t know that hydration is the problem, though.”

Dalton smiled. “No, silly,” he said, leaning across my seat and opening the glove compartment, his other hand still on the steering wheel. “That is to wash down this.”

He dug out an orange pill bottle from the glove compartment and shook it at me. I read the label. Prescription painkillers.

“Where’d you get those?” I asked.

“Some leftover treats from my foot injury last year,” he said, closing the glove compartment and refocusing on the road. “You know, from when the idiot from Xavier tripped me during semifinals.”

I vaguely remembered Dalton hobbling around on crutches last spring, a gaggle of sophomore girls tripping over themselves to carry his books. “Thanks,” I said, taking the pills.

“I’m glad I got to meet your father,” Dalton said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“But I feel like I didn’t really get to know him,” Dalton said. “He seems like one of those people who, I don’t know, it’s difficult to crack the surface of.”

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I busied myself with taking the pills and washing them down with a big gulp of water.

But I wanted to tell him he didn’t know the half of it.

We went straight to the Ledge when we got back to Knollwood. Harper made a sour face when we arrived together. We were the last ones there, and I hurriedly texted the pictures Leo had taken of me and Mr. Andrews to Ren, while the rest of the A initiates piled their items onto the hood of Crosby’s car.

Despite yesterday’s events, I felt a little relieved, a small sense of accomplishment, because I had done it. Two down, only one item left to go. I was practically an A. I looked across the circle and met Leo’s eyes.

We’re almost there, I wanted to say.

I glanced around the circle to find Drew. I wanted her to share in this moment. I couldn’t wait to stay up late together when we got back to our room and hear her story about what it took to steal old Mr. Franklin’s trig exam. But my gaze swept the circle and I couldn’t find her. My heart skipped a beat. I glanced down at the hood of Crosby’s car, searching for Mr. Franklin’s exam—but it wasn’t there either.

It was only then that I realized—Drew hadn’t made it.

Twenty-Eight