Page 137 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“No, but do you think you could introduce me?” Finn asked.

“Finn,” I said.

Finn shushed me and glanced down at his laptop screen, his ears growing noticeably red even in the dim library light. “Be nice,” Finn chastised me in a whisper. “He’s here.”

I turned my head, and there was Dalton. He set a white to-go cup down on the table in front of me and gave me a hopeful smile.

“I brought you a coffee,” Dalton said. “Bone-dry cappuccino with skim milk from the coffee cart outside the dining hall. Your favorite.”

“Flowers would probably have been safer,” Finn said. “Caffeine is just going to give her more energy to devote to being pissed at you.”

Dalton chuckled. “You’re probably right. Didn’t think of that.” He held out his hand to Finn. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Dalton.”

Finn eagerly took his hand. “Finn,” he said. “We actually have Ethics and Morality together.”

“That class is the worst,” Dalton said.

“Totally,” Finn said. “Terrible. I hate it.”

I glared at Finn and mouthed, Traitor, at him.

“I was hoping to maybe get a word with Charlie, if you don’t mind,” Dalton said.

“Actually, Finn and I are in the middle of—” I started.

“—saying goodbye,” Finn cut me off. “I’m going to go finish up the draft of our article. It was a pleasure to see—I mean meet—you, Dalton,” Finn said.

“Likewise,” Dalton said.

I glowered at Finn as he gathered up his things and left. Dalton sat down in the seat next to me and turned his chair so that he was fully facing me.

“I know I’m probably supposed to already know this,” Dalton said. “But humor me anyway. Can you please explain to me why you’re so upset?”

“Because of the fish,” I said.

“Yes, but what about the fish exactly?”

“One, you were really gross and mean to my friend,” I said, and I held up a hand before he could say anything. “And, yes, despite what you may think, Stevie is my friend—or was my friend, before your little fish prank.

“And two, you used Leo and me to steal that fish. We did all the grunt work, and little did we know that that was going to be used to harass someone I care about. And that seems to be a pattern—the initiates taking all the risk and doing all the work and being kept completely in the dark on what it’s all for, and having to deal with the consequences if there’s fallout.”

Dalton nodded, like he was really listening and considering what I had to say, which disarmed me a little, because I was ready to knock his head off, or go verbal blow for verbal blow.

“Listen,” he said after a minute. “About the fish—if I had known you weren’t on the outs with Stevie, I wouldn’t have done that. And about the second thing—I know it’s frustrating right now, because it feels like you’re being left out of something. I felt exactly the same way when I was in your shoes, and I may have forgotten what that’s like a bit being on the other side of things. But trust me, once you get in, you’re all in. This—right now—is the hard part, and you’re almost through it. And once you get through it, all of this will feel worth it.”

“Will it?” I asked. “Because right now, it seems like I’m doing a lot of grunt work for people’s elaborate pranks and revenge schemes, so that next year I can make someone else do the grunt work for my own elaborate pranks and revenge schemes, and that just isn’t looking worth it to me.”

“I know it seems like we dick around a lot, and pull pranks and stuff,” Dalton said. “And yeah, we do that stuff. But that’s not what the A’s are really about.”

“It’s not?”

“No,” Dalton said. “It’s about . . . belonging to people who know you better than anybody. People who know your worst parts and stick by you.

“I know Crosby and I seem really close now, and we are, but that never would have happened if not for the A’s and all the shit we went through during initiation,” Dalton said. “Now, Crosby, he’s like my brother. He’s family.”

I thought about my father and his friends. How he’d always talked about his time at Knollwood as if it were some kind of mythical paradise, and the friends he had made there, and the good times and memories they shared. And it was true that many of the people who remained in my father’s life from high school were probably A’s.

Dalton reached out and took my hand and gave it a little squeeze. “Charlie, the A’s isn’t about the two years we’re together at Knollwood. When you’re in the A’s—it’s for life. I hope—I really want—for you to be a part of that with me.”