Page 38

Chapter 38

HIS LAST BOW

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13

SECOND-YEAR LISTINGS

1. Jasper Grimes (100/100)

2. Robert Walker (99.92)

3. Bingo A. Dixon (99.73)

4. Nicolas Burton (99.08)

5. Kamari Barrera (98.99)

6. Charlie von Hevringprinz (98.90)

My knees give out, and I collapse in front of the board. A startled yelp comes from somewhere. Someone tries to grab my arm. Robby, maybe.

Sixth.

I’m leaving Valentine.

“Charlie?”

P.M. is kneeling on the pavement beside me, his brow tense in a way that doesn’t suit his soft face. He holds out a hand. “Let me help you up.”

I don’t take it. “What am I supposed to do?” A crack cuts through my words, but I barely notice. No sleep. Constant studying. Xavier’s training.

For nothing.

“Sorry,” I say, lifting my glasses to scrub my face. “I don’t even know you.”

“But I know it’s unfair. I faced this too.”

“You never ranked?”

P.M. takes my hand to pull me up himself, and I’m so disoriented that I let him. He won’t meet my eyes, though, like he regrets revealing what he just said. “I left before I could find out. But I knew I wouldn’t.”

“So, that’s why you left?”

He sighs deeply. “I suppose there were many circumstances at play, and they all merged in an unfortunate way.” He looks to the top of the list as a way to deflect, indicating he won’t share more than that. “Six is still impressive, Charlie.”

“Thanks,” I force myself to say.

Because P.M.’s words should help. I fought longer than him and got closer than he ever believed he could. But six doesn’t keep me at Valentine, and now I can only think about how the one person I want to talk to isn’t here.

I flick my head to the left, where the Gothic turrets of the library rise into the overcast sky. Yesterday, Jasper and I agreed to pull an all-nighter tonight to finish the mixer letters by tomorrow, starting at the library and then moving to our room. It’s possible he’s being reprimanded in the office after his class outburst, but as the principal’s nephew, also doubtful.

I make my way to the library and my usual STRIP Time desk. It’s empty. With finals being over, the other nearby desks are too. No Jasper.

“Charlie, I need you more than anything.”

My stomach flips. I whirl around on my heels.

Luis stands before me, holding a stapled packet far away as if it’s poisonous. His curls are the frizziest I’ve ever seen, proving he’s been tugging them for hours. “Bro. It’s my score. Calc final. Help.”

Why did I think that was him ? In what world? “What’d you get?”

“You think I’m looking? I need you to tell me how bad it is.”

“You know the ranks are up now, right? You can go see where you fell.”

“We worked on calc together, V.H. This is history.”

I try to push aside my own problems eating away at me. Luis has relied on me for too long for me not to.

The moment I take the packet, Luis covers his already squinted eyes. Although the exam isn’t mine, my heart skips a beat. At our first tutoring session, Luis’s parents demanded that he get an A. For that, he’d need to score at least a 95. I slowly check the paper.

On top, circled in black ink, is a 97.

Luis peeks through his hand. “How bad?”

I hand the paper back, a smile creeping up my face.

He deflects, chopping the air with a hand. “I can’t look!”

“You can!”

“Not!”

“But you got a 97!”

Luis takes the paper and stares in shock.

I can’t help but keep grinning at the reaction I’ve seen plenty of times, even before I started STRIP, back in Queens. The one that constantly makes me think I could do this for the rest of my life. “Looks like your hard work paid off.”

Luis slings an arm over my shoulder, pulling me in so snugly that I nearly choke. “ Our work paid off. The whole student population has been saved because of you.”

A sudden heaviness travels up my legs and builds pressure behind my eyes, weighing me down with more exhaustion.

What did Luis say?

Right. “I wouldn’t say that,” I respond uncertainly, fighting it off with a few blinks. “People don’t come to my tutoring anymore.”

“They’ll come back. Who could resist you? Oh, guess who has a date to the mixer?”

Well, not me. “You?”

“Yep. Michael asked me . You know, I used to hate this mixer since my friends would ditch me for their dates every year, but now it’s my era to ditch. My orange bow tie is gonna kill this year’s pumpkin-Halloween-whatever theme. Anyway, can you believe it?”

I really can’t, considering the campus we’re standing on. Even more so, how happy I am for Luis’s love life. Once again, how tired am I? “You deserve it.”

Someone at our side clears their throat.

Jasper, playing with his repaired silver bracelet instead of making eye contact. In his cross-body bag, the knit scarf I gave him peeks out of the top, like it’s actually become part of his daily list of things to pack. Once I leave Valentine, I suppose that’ll be all he has left of me. “I apologize for the interruption. STRIP is holding a meeting now, but I can—”

The rest is lost to me. The heaviness from before takes over my body, and the world narrows into white.

Pressure hits the small of my back, sparking me alive again.

I blink up at Jasper’s face, hovering above my own. His hand still presses against me, holding me upright. “Charlie? Charlie.”

“What?”

“You were passing out.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?” Jasper’s a mesh of high staccato notes, and his blue eyes race around my face. “You slept last night after I went to bed, didn’t you?”

“I’m fine ,” I say more aggressively than I should. I straighten myself to no longer need his support. Luis is gone. Was I passed out for more than a few seconds? “Why are you late? Did you get in trouble?”

Jasper clenches his jaw. He sets his cross-body bag on the table, turning his back to me and whipping out his journal so hard that he could be slapping cockroaches with it.

Okay.

As I unzip my own backpack, I recall everything that happened right before I fainted. No more STRIP for me. No more Mr. Stern. No more Dix. No more Valentine. No more trying to fix this awkwardness between me and Delilah—I’ll be so far from her that I might even lose her as my best friend for good. Next term, a new STRIP face will be needed. I should’ve warned them, should’ve already packed, should’ve never thought otherwise.

“I didn’t rank,” I mutter.

Jasper stops moving, but he doesn’t turn around to face me. That’s probably for the better. I’d rather not see the pity on his face.

“I’m sorry,” I add, staring at the textbooks in my backpack that I’ll no longer need. “You’ll need a new face. But I can still help with the mixer.”

“Our writing plans are canceled today,” Jasper says with such a strangely charged rasp to his tone that I stiffen. When he finally turns, there’s no pity like I expect. Only an expression so tense that a vein pops on his forehead.

He’s angry? At me? Because of what I said?

I stare back at him, thrown. “But we only have one day left till the mixer.”

“I’ll take care of your ten remaining letters.”

“You have to write twenty more yourself, though! That’s impossible—”

“ Charlie ,” Jasper says strictly. Coldly. It makes me realize how much admiration he used to exude when saying my name, now that it’s gone. “Go back to our room. Now.”