Page 15

Chapter 15

IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

One week did not work.

That’s all I can think as I meet Luis at the gift shop after his shift, wait for him to break free of his sandwich-board-heart costume, and grab lunch with him in Dix for the first time.

In thirty minutes, at noon sharp, the public grade ranks update. I studied every free second between STRIP Time and my first few cardio training sessions with Xavier. Even if Jasper turned in his chemistry and world history exams twenty minutes before I did, none of the answers stumped me.

But studying also came with a price tag: zero time to write love letters from my one-on-one notes. All nineteen are due in twenty-four hours.

“You good?” Luis asks loudly through a mouthful of pad thai, competing with the lunch rush voices bouncing around Dix’s cathedral-like high ceiling. He was in the middle of describing the time he snuck his cat into his room here but chickened out, especially since his roommate, Bingo A. Dixon, is allergic. I think.

I rub my thighs that are still catastrophically sore after the laps Xavier made me do around Pragma Recreational Center’s field a few days ago. Which may have ended in me collapsing on the grass and Xavier promptly deciding we would wait until I healed to start our first weight training session. No, I am not good.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I say anyway, picking at my salad bar concoction, the only food I can stomach lately. The table Luis chose is two rows from the center, lined with teardrop chandeliers. From what I can tell as I sit down in Dix for the first time instead of awkwardly loitering around the perimeter, it’s a neutral zone of popularity. The back, toward the check-in clerks, is for the less so. The front, where a maroon curtain frames headshots of seemingly influential Valentine men of the past, is apparently for foots like Cody, who laughs at a table swarmed by others in Valentine gift shop sweatshirts. Someone as outgoing as Luis probably belongs over there, but generously met me in the middle.

I wonder where Jasper sits.

Even though Dix’s indoor tables are smaller than the outdoor picnic-style ones, allowing Luis a closer view of me minus the bouquet centerpiece separating us, I haven’t shaken my hair over my face or kept my hands off the table runner. I trust Luis a little lately. Considering his lack of seriousness toward life that contradicts Jasper’s approach, maybe he could help with my letters in a way that won’t make me die. “Question.”

“Bring it.”

“If you got a love letter from someone, what would you want it to say?”

“I’ve never thought that far.” Luis tugs on a curl, though, like he definitely has.

“Really? About getting a letter?”

“Getting confessed to at all. In this place, it feels impossible to date other guys, let alone if I could pull any. A love letter is, like, my step ten while it’s everyone else’s step one. Actually, no—first step is making sure Valentine doesn’t smite me. It’s like we’re being watched at all times. Like.” He points his chopsticks at the front of the hall. “Why’s bro here?”

I follow his chopsticks toward the framed old men again, where at the center is a six-by-six painting of Saint Valentine, draped in gowns.

“He is everywhere,” I mutter at my salad.

“My guess is, on paper, they wouldn’t kick me out, you know? But there’re other ways of phasing someone out. Suddenly, me sharing a room with another guy is a prob. Living in any res hall is a prob. PE is a prob. Principal Grimes calls me into her office to explain that there may be schools that suit me better, and I’m done.” Luis tosses a hand. “At least, my theory.”

“I get you.” My grip on my plastic fork tightens so much that it bends. I loosen my fingers.

Luis eyes my permanently screwed-up fork. “Thought you might.”

Thought I might what ?

I guessed that Luis clocked me as something when we first met, but this confirms it. Fear creeps in, wondering if he’s figured out what exactly that something is—and if he’s not the only one. Still, the fear is milder than expected, knowing it’s Luis. He may count as my people. Our issues are similar, at least.

“If I got a love letter,” Luis starts again through more noodles, “then I’d want it to be heartfelt and stuff. Something I could read at the wedding years later.”

Never mind.

The conversation topic is my fault, but I’m already squirming in my chair. I reach for a napkin in the dispenser instead of looking at him, only to grab a trading card with a horse on it. Furrowing my brow, I stick it back in. “You’re not joking?”

“Nah.”

“I assumed you’d want a purposely bad pickup line.”

“Okay, not too heartfelt. I’m in love, love, love; oh, please, baby, oh —is cringe.”

I grimace. “Don’t say that again.”

“Exactly. So, no cringe, but I’d make it count. Especially if it were for the mixer. It’s the one thing that keeps us alive while we pull all-nighters and fail tests through the year. The love letter’s gotta match the fanfare.”

“How did this mixer become this big of a deal, anyway?”

Luis shrugs. “Why are the Buffalo suburbs decked out in so many blow-up inflatables and flashing lights around Christmas that you total your car? Why do we watch the Superbowl’s ten minutes of gameplay when it’s three whole hours long? Stuff gets hype.”

I force myself to meet his eyes again. “You really think heartfelt is the most logical?”

He smiles like this topic isn’t uncomfortable at all. Is this how most are about the cursed L-word? “My brain says I should care more about something like this. You get a lifetime to tell jokes, but you only get one chance to confess your true feelings.”

We finish lunch and exit into a downpour, knocking the temperature down enough that goose bumps dot my arms. He leaves for the residential hall, but I head toward the weekly grade ranking board, the grip on my umbrella tightening by the second. Classmates rush past me so quickly that their raincoats flutter behind them, and their boots splash gross puddle juice on my slacks. Icy gunk seeps into my socks, but my stress won’t let me care.

“ One week works, Tutor Jasper. ” I punt a chunk of gravel, imagining I’m aiming for the back of Jasper’s stubby ponytail. “ That’s fine, Tutor Jasper. What is wrong with you, Charlie?”

No way can I finish nineteen letters in one day—and make them meaningful enough to have them read at a wedding—like Luis suggested. My true feelings . I don’t have any when I have zero experience in the art of romance.

Well, a little.

My mind flashes with memories of the only person I’ve kissed, looking two years younger than he does now, and my heartbeat thrums quicker. Jasper doesn’t count as experience in the art of romance when he broke my heart. He’s left me with negative experience.

Voices pull my attention. By Laney’s Bean Shack, raincoated bodies swarm the grade ranks beneath the awning. Two instructors use stepladders to hang listings. A third sits with a basket on her lap. The numbered enamel pins.

My name is high enough on the ranks to make out above the crowd.

28. Charlie von Hevringprinz

Relief shoots up to my head and down to my toes. Halfway to the top five.

I have to tell Mom.

I rush through the Halo, shielding myself against the wind with my umbrella until I’m slamming open the office door. Ms. Lyney startles behind the counter, but the lifelike stuffed gnomes on the shelves stay still. She gawks at the umbrella dripping by my thigh, then the sopping coattail of my basic, non-Valentine-branded raincoat.

“May I contact my mom?” I ask through a gasp for breath.

Even though communication with family is minimal, according to the guidelines package, Ms. Lyney simply searches up my name to dial Mom and holds out the phone. My flushed face and dramatic entrance must’ve screamed emergency enough.

I set my umbrella by the door and take the phone. After two rings, Mom picks up.

“Hello?” Her voice warbles more than normal on that one word alone, which means she definitely saw the Valentine caller ID. Like she’s already expecting the worst.

My chest sinks. Maybe, because of what I’m hiding, she always will be.

“It’s me,” I say.

“Charlie! What a surprise.” A pause. “Did something happen? You’ve caught me painting spiders and ghosties on the bookshop windows, and I can’t easily sit down at the moment.”

I try to focus on the good news. My improved grades, even with STRIP taking up half my time and Jasper breathing down my neck at every other moment. Proving to her that I can handle this place, even if I’m on the boys’ side of campus. “I’m ranked twenty-eight out of the second-year class now, and still with two months to go.”

“That’s a jump!”

“Yeah. I think I’ll only get higher from here.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Mom says. “This must’ve been a huge challenge, especially with everything else you’re adapting to there. Have you thought about taking the train down for a weekend sometime soon?”

A piece of me wants to be thankful for the recognition. Even if Mom wasn’t in my exact shoes when she was an Excellence Scholar, she understands the pressure of the ranking board. Of excelling. But take the train down for a weekend leaves a sour taste in my mouth, like she’s still waiting for me to give up.

And she doesn’t even know the half of it. Right now, she thinks I have a single room to myself. Instead, I have a Jasper because the check I gave her never got delivered.

How did it never get delivered?

My stomach twists as I stand there, clutching the phone.

“Charlie? Charlie?”

“Do you remember what address was on the letter for my single room check?” I ask.

“Check?”

“I gave it to you on your way to the store one morning,” I say. “The office said they never got it, so now I’m in a double room. With another guy.”

There’s a long pause.

My heart drops. This has to be my fault. The academy’s. If it isn’t—“Mom.”

“Oh, Charlie, I think—let me see.” Shuffling sounds come from over the line. Probably all the paperwork swarming her cash register. “It’s right here. I’m so sorry. It slipped my mind.”

“Are you serious?”

“I can send it today. Or can you pay for it now with your card?”

A confusing mixture of betrayal and understanding swirls in my gut. Mom never takes a day off. She’s exhausted. I know this.

But this was so important.

“Yeah,” I lie weakly, even though there are no more single rooms. How can I say otherwise? She’ll only worry more. “I can try with my own card.”

“Good. I’m so sorry, Charlie. Really.”

The clock on the wall between the gnomes catches my eye. Five minutes until STRIP Time. And—end me—Jasper’s love letters . “I need to go. Love you.”

“Love you, Charlie. I’ll make this up to you whenever you visit.”