Page 24

Chapter 24

A MODEST PROPOSAL

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

I slam the door to Room 503 behind me with the force of a billion newtons.

Jasper shrieks where he sits on his bed and startles, tossing his book. The cover slaps the poster of him on the ceiling and then falls back to his lap. Yet another P.M. Laframboise collection. He’s this obsessed with the guy? Come on. I bet even I can write better than that strawberry shortcake.

“What’s gotten into you, Charlie,” Jasper mumbles.

Gripping on to the baroque—French country— whatever wallpaper, I heave out breaths after marching up five flights, but not as many as I expect. Xavier’s training is paying off. “I’m irritated. Wanna know why I’m irritated?”

“Why?” Jasper asks. His bedside lamp buzzes beside him, even though it’s only afternoon, and the ambrosia design pattern of his quilt is spread smoothly over his legs. His hair is still left down and frizzy from last night. He looks sleepy. A bit cute.

What the FUCK, CHARLIE?

“You know how we were both supposed to have single rooms?” I say ten times shriller than I want to, thanks to my revolting thoughts.

Jasper nods, shoulders stiff.

“And we thought there was a mix-up?”

Another nod.

“There was more than a mix-up. There was a catastrophic, what-the-fuck, how-could-you-do-this mix-up.”

“What was it?”

Tossing my workout bag, I make my way through our room, which Jasper must’ve cleaned. His optimal love-letter-writing environment has been wiped since last night. Thank Saint Valentine. “They insist we signed up to be roommates together. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“F-fascinating.”

“How is this fascinating? Now we’re stuck together because of some story they came up with out of nowhere.”

“Yes.” Jasper lifts a triumphant fist. “Lamentably so!”

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing!”

“You’re hiding something.” Which reminds me. “Why didn’t you tell me you have a private room in your aunt’s instructor quarters? Why didn’t you go there when I asked? No—on the first day of classes?”

Jasper makes an odd bleating noise. “Well. You see.” He pauses.

“Seriously, Jasper?”

He just bites his lip.

I storm toward the bathroom. “Be that way.”

“Wait—!” He hops off his bed and pulls my wrist back, spinning me around to face him. “Don’t be upset with me.”

I stare at our touching hands, my chest bursting with butterflies. Flu. Bubonic plague. “I’m not upset with you.”

“I mean about what I’m preparing to say.”

“Okay?”

“Over the summer, I may have helped my aunt with administrative stuff. And I may have noticed you requested a single despite your lack of a payment. Instead of flagging it, I roomed us together. Also, I synced our class schedules.”

One million arrows to the heart.

Yet all I feel is numb. My body can’t feel what my brain knows I should. I slip my hand out of Jasper’s grasp. I step back. “Why did you do that?”

“Do you have any siblings? Cousins?”

“You’re seriously trying to change the subject?”

“I’m not.” He goes to his bed, pulls out a box beneath it, and lifts up a pocket-sized brown-leather notebook. It’s different from his JFG one. I’ve never seen it.

“What is that?” I ask.

He returns, handing me the notebook. “I’ve been searching for someone I met a few years ago with your last name. It’s a unique name, so I hoped you two were related.”

I open the cover and flip through the pages. The daily entries date back to two years ago in smeared handwriting, starting from the June we met. I stop at the middle.

round and round

the carousel of love

we go

spinning, spinning

never catching up

always chasing

you

Slowly, I look up at him. “These are from Love Is a Broken Party Clown .”

“The first drafts. I’ll be honest, these—” Jasper takes a sharp, almost nervous breath. “These are all about a long-lost love of mine.”

He thinks I have a sibling.

Because he’s looking for me. From two years ago.

More than that. I’m his what ?

My body sways for the millionth time today. I shove the journal into his chest, gripping the doorframe instead to stabilize myself. “You trapped us in a room together, hoping I’d be able to connect you with some relative? Without knowing if I had one?”

Jasper’s eyes flood with the same naivete I could only dream of having since he drained mine back at camp. “Does this mean you do? Please, will you tell me?”

Weeks of Jasper following me around. Weeks of him trying to get me to like him and steal my trust. Weeks of putting me through the stress of having a roommate. Of him being my roommate.

This fear. For weeks .

I’ve let him betray me again.

“I don’t have any family like that,” I spit out, my adrenaline spiking. It overtakes any and all logic that’s been holding me back from letting out what itches on the tip of my tongue—what would make Jasper realize, once and for all, how he hurts me over and over while remaining untouched. “Because that person you’re looking for is me .”

Silence settles between us, the only sentence I promised to never speak at Valentine hanging in the air.

The synapses in Jasper’s allegedly genius brain aren’t getting there, his brow pinched. “What are you saying, Charlie?”

“Sorry that I’m so unrecognizable to you now compared to when we were at camp, but two years tends to change a person.”

His face shifts. First, his eyes, racing as he searches my blazer, my slacks, and my now-sharper face. Then his mouth, which he covers with a trembling hand. He stares at the notebook in his grasp. “But—Wha—Hhh—?”

“Use your words,” I grumble, crossing my arms. “You’re supposed to be good at those.”

“This is an academy for boys,” Jasper says.

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So, things change.”

“Right.” Jasper’s gaze clouds as he looks toward the rug. “Things change.”

“You said you were searching for your long-lost love,” I say.

“I. Well.” His face pales despite its usual constant pink glow.

My expression must look no better. If he believes I’m his long-lost love, then he’s delusional. He spent that same summer writing love letters to three others.

“Why didn’t you say who you were?” Jasper asks so quietly it’s barely audible. “The whole time we’ve been in this room?”

Of course that’s his first question. He could never understand. I pace the bedroom. “I don’t know—why do you think I need a room to myself despite you messing that up for me?”

“You’re a light sleeper?”

I groan. “Seriously, Jasper?! Are you really Rank One?”

Jasper winces. “You like privacy?”

“I need privacy. You know the academy’s motto. It literally has traditional in it. You could tell someone. Your aunt. If you do, I could be—”

Jasper clutches my wrist, stopping me in place, his bracelet cold against my skin. “I won’t do that.”

His typical showy self has vanished. All that remains is something so stern and sincere that it shocks me into silence.

I instinctively turn away, blocking my face, and find somewhere else to look. Anywhere else. The last time I trusted Jasper, I got burned, yet my shoulders are already lifting. Maybe I won’t get kicked out. At least, not because of him.

It’s an illogical thought. An impossible one. Especially when this news of him intentionally trapping us in a room contradicts our deal. Has Jasper been giving me this much homework in hopes I’d never finish and fail?

“Were you ever going to fulfill your end of the deal?” I ask him flatly. “Or did you plan to keep us trapped here together forever?”

Jasper hesitates.

I scoff.

“No, I always keep my word, Charlie, I swear. But I did admittedly want to buy a little time. If we were no longer going to be roommates, then I wanted you to see me as a friend first. But people kept getting in the way, like Luis Per—” He stops. “So we’d keep in touch about your famil—” He stops again. “ You. I promise, I plan to get us separate rooms.”

He’s so desperate for me to believe him that he’s tongue-tied.

Him. The famous poet.

“You never came to the beach like we promised,” Jasper keeps going, gripping my dress shirt cuff tighter. My arm tenses. “On the last day of camp. Why?”

“Gee, let me think,” I snap back, shooting daggers at his touch. “Maybe because I got busy with kayaking lessons. Or maybe because you pretended to care about me while chasing after three other people all summer.”

Stuttering noises shoot out of his throat. “Who told you that?”

Another scoff rips out of me. Unbelievable. “Asking who told me isn’t exactly what you should say in this situation.”

“Right. You’re right. You’re right. I can explain—”

“You don’t need to. On the last day of camp, those girls came up and showed me the letters you sent them.” Recalling the memory surges more anger through me.

Jasper’s brow furrows. “Love letters? I never sent any love letters.”

He’s still lying.

“Jasper, I saw them with my own eyes.” I yank my wrist out of his grasp, and the fact that I didn’t sooner has me kicking myself. Where is my brain ?

“But I haven’t even told you my side—”

“Stop talking, Jasper!”

Jasper Grimes falls silent for the first time in sixteen years. Everything about him shrinks despite his typical presence filling up a room with ease.

“You’re moving into your aunt’s quarters,” I bark. “Today.”

His eyes go wide. “But the mixer—”

“You think I care anymore? No more lessons. No more deal. We’re done, Jasper.”

Jasper’s stunned gaze morphs into something emptier. He picks up his JFG bag, and his footsteps creak along the floor as he leaves.