Page 108 of All These Beautiful Strangers

I got up and followed her over to the drink dispenser.

“Hey, you okay?” I asked.

“I don’t know why he thinks I’m in any position to do something about this,” Stevie said, pulling a cup from the stack with so much vigor the whole thing shook.

“He’s just upset,” I said. “We all are. But I’m sorry he’s taking it out on you.”

Stevie held her empty cup under the drink dispenser and pushed the tab for water. “If he’s looking for someone to blame, I’m not the person,” Stevie said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

Stevie slowly turned to face me and for the first time, I saw how angry she was. “Obviously Drew wasn’t stealing the exam for herself—she was stealing it for someone else,” she said.

“You don’t actually think—” I said, and then stopped and swallowed. “Are you really saying that you think I asked Drew to steal that exam for me?”

Stevie shrugged. “All I know is, I’ve heard a lot of talk from you lately about UPenn, and I know you’ve been distracted with your new boyfriend—”

“Dalton is not my boyfriend,” I said.

“Whatever,” Stevie said. “I just—I can’t think of a single reason why Drew would have been in that room if she weren’t doing it for what she saw as a very good reason—to save you.”

“Stevie, I would never ask her to do something like that for me,” I said.

“It’s either that,” Stevie said lowering her voice, “or she was there because someone else asked her to do it.”

“Someone else?”

Stevie crossed her arms over her chest. “Just tell me. Is Drew . . . is she in the A’s? Are you?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

Stevie looked like she might cry. “That’s what Headmaster Collins is going to think,” Stevie said. “And I honestly don’t know which is worse—if you were selfish enough to ask Drew to do something so dumb, or if you guys were in that stupid, awful secret club together this whole time.”

“Stevie—”

“They’re horrible,” Stevie said. “The A’s. It’s a bunch of egotistical, self-entitled rich kids running around acting like gods. It’s a bunch of stupid pissing contests.”

“I don’t think it’s exactly like that,” I said.

“It is exactly like that,” Stevie said. “I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

Part of me wished I could tell Stevie what was really going on—that Drew wanted to leave. But I thought about the way Drew had covered for me with River when we were freshmen; we didn’t even know each other yet, and still, she had kept my secret. This secret wasn’t mine to tell.

She took a step away from me and then turned back. “You know, for someone so smart, you’re being a complete idiot,” Stevie said.

I opened my mouth to respond but just then, my phone vibrated.

I glanced down at the screen and did a double take. It was my father’s office. What now? I didn’t have time to deal with this, but I didn’t really have a choice.

“Rosie?” I asked as I picked up.

But it was my father’s voice that answered me. “Charlotte.”

“Dad?” I said, more than a little surprised. My father never called me. “Is everything okay?” I plugged my other ear with my finger so I could hear him over the noise of the dining hall.

“No, it’s not,” he said. “I thought it imperative that I call and talk to you about the company you’re choosing to keep.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback. What did he know about the company I kept? Had he somehow found out about Drew? That she was about to be expelled for cheating? Then I stupidly remembered my dinner with Dalton and our parents the other night. “Are you talking about Dalton?” I asked, confused.