Page 32

Chapter 32

PROMISE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4

Ms. Lyney leaps out of her chair, her red hair bow flopping against the peak of her head. “Everything okay with your mom?”

I summon my best puppy dog face by the office door, debating the quickest way to dial Delilah. This visit is vital, but it’s cutting into my daily eight-hour study session for finals, and I already have to stay up an extra hour at least to make up for it. “Actually, no. I really need to contact Delilah again about scheduling time off for—you know. The finale of—Um.”

“Gnome in Love.”

“ Gnome in Love. Yes.” My attention drifts toward the counter, where a flyer advertises the winter mixer in an orange-and-purple font, bordered by ghost clip art. It’s Halloween in November–themed, apparently.

Mr. Stern pops out of the back room. He points at a shelf of gnomes. “Ms. Lyney, isn’t that your favorite reality show?”

Ms. Lyney swivels to face him. “Why, yes, it is.”

He shakes his head, but a teasing smile peeks through. “Fabricated love. A disgrace to our storytelling ancestors.”

“It’s not fabricated . It’s about a young woman meeting a room of men dressed as gnomes to see which she falls for.”

“You can’t simply shove two people in a room and expect them to fall in love.”

I raise my hand. “Am I allowed to speak with my friend now?”

Only ten minutes pass before I’m handed a phone. Once I’m in the back room, Mr. Stern is gone, and I can tuck myself into a corner.

“That was fast,” I say.

“I was already in the office,” Delilah whispers over the line. “I got caught.”

My blood runs cold.

“No way,” I mutter. “How did they spot you?”

“One of the bags was ripped. Probably some animal. I was kneeling there longer than I should’ve to clean up the mess. A residential retainer saw.”

Ripped. Is that what happened when Jasper and I tossed that last bag over together? His bracelet and my ring tore it apart? How many times can I completely mess everything up?

“I’m sorry, Charlie.” The exhaustion in Delilah’s voice only makes my heart sink deeper. “The mixer is a flop now.”

“Who cares about the mixer?” I say too sharply, the guilt already consuming me whole, but I try to calm down so she doesn’t feel bad for me too. With the awkwardness that’s been clinging to our friendship lately, another issue is the last thing we need. “Are you okay?”

“I talked to the vice principal. I told them I wrote the letters and was just trying to send Xavier a bunch of ooey-gooey junk. They bought it.”

“Really? So you’re not getting kicked out?”

“A week of detention for now. They didn’t want to touch those letters with a ten-foot pole, so they thankfully threw them out before they read them.”

This should be a relief, but I only feel more defeat. Technically, I got exactly what I set out to get. A room to myself. But now STRIP is losing everything they care about.

Jasper is. Our last few months together were for nothing. Every tutoring session. Every argument. Every sleepless night.

All our letters, dumped in the trash.

We’re back at the start.

“THOSE DIRTY ARACHNIDS,” Blaze shouts, standing atop the fountain ledge in the Halo.

Robby yanks Blaze down and slaps a palm against his mouth. Now that it’s November, the water has been sucked out of the basin, and the ugly cupid statue at the center has stopped shooting a steady stream from his bow and arrow.

Beside the two, Jasper’s and Xavier’s eyes are wide, too shocked to speak.

I shove my hands into my coat pockets as I stand before them, unsure what else to say after conveying the bad news from Delilah and the letters beyond a wall we can’t cross. A poster pole next to us advertises the Halloween in November mixer date, cruelly reminding us of its impending arrival in ten days.

“What’s Delilah’s punishment?” Xavier asks, his deep bro-voice in its frailest state yet. Even his muscles look deflated in his knit sweater.

“Detention,” I say, the shame from our call still eating away at me.

“Milady needed your lucky spoon,” Blaze says, patting Xavier’s chest.

Xavier covers his face in his palms. “I’m the ex from hell.”

I take in the dejected faces I’ve caused. If only I’d never screwed up the equestrian center gate and ruined STRIP’s safe delivery method. If only I’d never fought with Jasper and torn the bags. An Excellence Scholar is expected to be perfect, yet all I am is the opposite.

I have to fix this for them.

“How convenient; you’re all in one place,” an abrasive voice shouts our way. Foot Cody, walking alongside the quiet, shy Eli and five others I vaguely remember from past one-on-ones. Witnessing such social-food-chain opposites hanging out together spikes my nerves.

There’s only one reason why they would approach us like this. They figured out what happened to the letters.

How? This fast?

“How can we be of service, patrons?” Jaspers says, rising off the fountain ledge. There’s a rare cautiousness to his voice. He came to the same conclusion.

Cody smirks. Unlike everyone else, he only wears a flimsy dress shirt despite today’s temperature being the coldest so far all season, probably in an attempt to prove something. “You can stop calling us your patrons. Especially now that you’ve screwed us over.”

“You have no evidence this was our blunder—” Blaze shouts—a seemingly default monologue of his—but that’s all he gets out before Robby covers his mouth again.

“It was, though,” Eli says, wringing his gloved hands. “Our residential retainer heard about someone at the sister academy getting caught with tons of letters. The academies can read them now, right? Our names?”

“Incorrect, Eli,” Jasper responds, smiling. There’s no dimple. “You’re safe.”

“How do you know?”

“The student who picked up your letters took the blame. Isn’t she kind? She says the sister academy never read your letters as well.”

“We’re just supposed to believe you?” Eli says. “We’ve been compromising so much after you obviously lied about these letters only being written by you.” He flashes a cold look my way. “It’s obvious Charlie is helping you.”

Jasper’s mouth opens as he looks to the rest of the STRIP members, but he finds no rebuttal. He remains silent.

Cody sneers way too happily. “Bro’s right. What’s stopping us from visiting your aunt right now and telling her about STRIP’s true business?”

Unspoken Guideline 16: Jasper was right. Classmates simultaneously want to befriend the top five and want them gone—and even the shyest and meanest will team up to make that happen.

There must be some way to convince them to hold off from ratting out STRIP and everything it brings into an otherwise stressful academic environment.

“So, you don’t want to keep your dates to the mixer?” I ask the crowd, an idea coming to me. I walk toward the poster pole, gesturing at the mixer advertisement drowning in cheesy Halloween-themed clip art.

Eli crosses his arms. “Of course we do.”

“Then I’ll make this up to you. I’ll rewrite and redeliver your letters.”

A shocked, choking noise launches out of Jasper.

Everyone else stares, perplexed. I can’t blame them. This promise might be impossible. But I refuse to let the other members to get kicked out because of me.

“The mixer is next week,” Eli says. “Besides, the deal was Jasper would write them. Not you.”

“Well, I know, but.” I falter.

“Then I will rewrite the letters,” Jasper interjects. He’s nervously pressing out the wrinkles in his blazer as he looks at me. “And Charlie will help me redeliver them.”

A small bit of warmth finds its way into my heart.

“How will you redeliver them?” Eli asks.

“At the mixer itself,” I say.

“How is that safe? Nearly every instructor will be chaperoning. What if they spot the letters and figure out we were all behind your guys’ last failed attempt? They could figure out everything that’s been going on for over a hundred years.”

Technically, this is still dangerous. The administration could connect us back to Delilah if we’re caught. But I was hoping they’d overlook that at the promise of a new and shiny attack method. “We have a plan.” The lie feels filthy on my tongue, but I have to. We need this one last chance. “Hopefully, this is a good enough offer. Otherwise, everyone’s tradition—and only way—of communicating with the sister academy will vanish forever, right? If we fail, report us.”

Eli’s mouth twists. “Until the mixer.”

As the crowd leaves, Jasper faces the rest of us. “Apologies, everyone, for not disclosing Charlie’s involvement with the love letters. I wished for this to remain as hidden as possible from our patrons.”

“I already knew,” Xavier says.

“For I, too, did,” Blaze says.

Robby points a thumb at Blaze. “Blaze told me yesterday.”

Jasper’s brow spikes high. Slowly, his focus drifts my way.

“Sorry,” I say through a wince. “It kept accidentally coming up.”

“You really think you can rewrite hundreds of letters from scratch?” Robby asks Jasper.

“During finals?” Xavier adds, equally skeptical.

“No,” Jasper says, “which is why Charlie will still help me write.”

I trade confused looks with everyone. “But they don’t want my letters.”

“They think they don’t want your letters,” Jasper says. “I, however, know you are more than capable. And you wish to help. Therefore, you will.”

I do want to help, especially when Jasper is calling me a talent. But knowing him, those could just be flowery words he doesn’t mean, and ones I shouldn’t trust. Besides, today alone, I’ve lost multiple hours of finals study time to STRIP. To get back on track, I’ll have to pull an all-nighter. If love letters get added back to my schedule, I’ll never sleep again if I want to rank. Would that even be enough?

“Even with two people, I’m not sure if we’ll finish in time,” Robby mutters.

“The reason we took so long last time is because Jasper had to teach me first,” I say, but I’m not sure if I’m trying to convince them or myself more. “We can do this. The two of us will just have to… spend a lot of time together.” I look to Jasper.

He nods, but his stare is vacant. Uneasy. Why? Does he think we can’t do this?

The bell tower chimes twelve times. The lunch bell.

After goodbyes, Robby, Xavier, and Blaze wander toward Dix.

Jasper stays at the fountain, pulling me aside by the coat cuff. “I apologize, Charlie. For all of this. That’s why I feel especially bad asking something else of you.”

“What is it?” I say, nerves prickling in my chest.

“I told you that I planned to move back in with my aunt, but I fear she’ll notice what we’re up to. She may see my journal. The letters.”

“You can’t write in the crypt after classes?”

“We’re on a time crunch. I’ll need to work through the nights, and my aunt will notice if I stay out past curfew. Won’t you need to work the same?”

“I guess,” I say, not following the logic, but I’m too overwhelmed with the weight of what I’ve promised to think any more. “You’re back to Xavier’s, then?”

Jasper’s blue eyes bounce around the maple trees in the Halo. “Being closer to you over the next ten days could help us complete these on time.”

He’s asking to be roommates again.

“Oh,” I say.

“I know how much of an ask it is to return to the room.” Jasper’s cadence is quicker now. “But our futures at Valentine depend upon this, do they not? I won’t be a distraction, I promise.”

My smile comes out more like a grimace. Because only months ago I would’ve done anything for a private room. Especially during the week before finals.

But since Jasper moved out, all I’ve been distracted by is the lack of him there. No more page turns. No more buzzing lamps. No more eleven pillows shuffling through the night. Every noise I once loathed is all I want to hear.

“I can survive until the mixer.” My heart makes me say it, and I’ve never wanted to dig a hole out of my chest more. There’s no way I can survive rooming with the one person who could never return my feelings. “But promise you’ll leave the moment we’re done.”

Jasper’s mouth twitches in a way I can’t read. “I promise.”