Page 7 of House of Hearts

“I’d tell you to ask them, but seeing as how they’re all dead and buried, I imagine that would be difficult,” he drawls.

His damnably long legs stretch out by my side, and I bristle when they brush against mine.

“There’s four standing mausoleums in the center, but the only one people seem to care about is Anastasia Hart’s. ”

Recognition flares at the name. I’ve stalked the Lockwells long enough to know they’re direct descendants of the original Hart family. They own the school because their forefathers built it. “One of the founder’s daughters?”

“Bingo. Want a prize?” he deadpans. “My dearly departed great-great-great-ancestor is something of a bogeyman at this school. Truthfully, the maze is only locked to keep people away from her grave in particular.”

“I’m…” I hesitate to say I’m sorry because no one in his family deserves an apology after Emoree’s death. “Why would anyone want to break in, anyway?”

His lip quirks into a devilish smile. “You’re a smart girl. What do you think?”

I’m sure that velvet voice has conned a fair number of girls in his life.

“Glad you could deduce my intelligence from our stilted thirty-minute conversation. I’m flattered.”

“You got in on the Whitlock academic scholarship. Believe me, they don’t hand those out like candy. You’re the only recipient this year.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m starting to feel better.

The lightheadedness has tapered off, and my thoughts have veered away from girls falling.

Once again, Calvin has proved himself usefully irritating.

“Fine, let me guess. Students here are so bored with their pampered lives that they’re willing to risk expulsion or a slap on the wrist in order to break into private property? ”

He grins wider like this is all a fun little game to him. “That and…” The humor drains gradually off his face. “People want to see her ghost.”

Funny how a single word can spring you back in time. “Ghost” has me crisscross applesauce in Em’s room on Halloween night in eighth grade. We were cutting holes into two old bedsheets and slipping the makeshift costumes over our heads.

“Guess how I died,” Em sang with a twirl. She spun like a macabre ballerina, and her outfit billowed in dramatic flair.

“Peacefully in your sleep?” I ventured with my eyes still glued to my own work. Unlike Em, who sheared through her gown with reckless abandon, I was drawing my eye holes with a bottle cap.

She groaned. “Boring. Try again.”

“Heart failure?”

“Bo-ring!”

“How is that boring?” I huffed. “They say high blood pressure is a silent killer.”

“Ghosts don’t appear for no reason! Something really bad has to happen to bring them back.”

I bury the memory where it belongs. “You don’t honestly believe in ghosts, do you?”

He shoots me a glare, and I can tell he’s scowling harder to make up for his flushed cheeks. “And if I do?”

“Believe what you want.”

“Thank you for your blessing. I don’t know how I’d ever live without it.”

We sit in silence for an agonizingly long second before I attempt to breach the gap between us. I don’t know why I’m even offering an olive branch in the first place, but I blame the awkward tension. “Why do you believe in them?”

A contemplative look washes over him, and his eyes lift to the stairs above us. “For my sanity.”

“I don’t think seeing a ghost would have a lot of people feeling sane,” I say. He squints at me, and I wave away his expression. “I’m not calling you crazy. I’m only saying a lot of people would lose their mind if they saw one.”

He takes a breath and doesn’t look at me.

“I’d rather be haunted by someone I lost than be haunted by silence.

Nothing is worse than the quiet. It’s…” He abandons the thought with a sigh.

“You don’t even realize how much space someone took up in your life until they’re not there to fill it.

So yeah, I believe in ghosts because I’d rather there be something left behind than nothing at all. ”

My fists clench at my sides. I don’t trust this guy as far as I could throw him, but he’s spoken like someone who’s seen grief of his own. “I know what that feels like”—I swallow—“to lose someone close to you.”

I’ll never forget the day. I remember wanting to rip off my own skin and run away from my body. Instead I found myself retching into a toilet, hands on white porcelain, purging out the pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if my own heart went spinning with the flush.

He studies a spot on the floor. “What’s your reason for not believing in ghosts?”

The question sizzles beneath my skin. It reminds me of the church sermon before the funeral—a weathered Bible, a geriatric priest, a promise of forever in a Hallmark heaven. There’s a reason for everything, one we don’t understand yet, the priest had said, like it was that easy.

“I believe in what I can feel and touch and see,” I say, hugging my knees to my chest. I shouldn’t be telling him all this.

Especially not when his own brother is the one who stole everything from me, when I’m only here in the first place to drag him and his family down, and yet the words find their way out all on their own.

“People die every single day. If ghosts really exist, don’t you think they’d be everywhere?

Besides, I don’t need to be haunted by a poltergeist. I’m already haunted by the past—everything I should have done differently.

How I could have stopped someone from dying if I had only tried harder. ”

He looks away like he doesn’t want to stare my grief in the face. I don’t blame him—it’s tough for me to look head-on, too. When I found out Emoree died at midnight, it made perfect sense. The clock kept ticking, but my world stopped.

We sit in silence for a moment before Calvin finally stands up. He dusts off his already-clean pants, brushing his vulnerability away like specks of dirt.

“Are you feeling better? Your panic, I mean.” He hoists me up.

I’m not lying this time when I say, “I’m okay.”

Surprisingly, the conversation did its job. I’ve managed to cram all the bad emotions into a ball and banish them to the far corners of my mind. I’ll revisit them later, but for now I can at least make it down the stairs. Which is when he grabs my hand.

“Don’t leave yet.”

I spin on my heel. “Why not?”

He actually looks a bit shy. “We’ve spent all this time up here.

Alone. Listen, I’m known for a lot of things, but I don’t want to be known as the guy who sat up in a dusty old tower talking about ghosts with an absolute stranger.

For everyone’s sake here, can we pretend that we were up here making out or something? ”

I blink at him. “I thought that idea was repulsive to you?”

He blanches but doesn’t deny it. “I wouldn’t actually kiss you. I’d pretend. It’d be a win-win for us both.”

“I don’t see how on earth I’d be winning here.”

He lowers a hand into his pocket and offers me a playing card. I accept it with trembling fingers and trace the court jester’s painted face. A juggling fool stares back at me, hollows for eyes and a cartoonishly wide smile.

The Joker.

“You’re new here, but in case you didn’t know, I’m kind of a big deal. You usually only get these if you’re a freshman, but an exception can be made since you’re a transfer.” He rubs the back of his neck. “This will get you into the party at HOH Saturday night.”

I tuck that information away neatly into my brain. Joker Night is this week already, huh?

I’d rather die than have Calvin think I was champing at the bit for clout. I’d love nothing more than to storm off and tell him I don’t need this, but I’d be a damn liar.

Swallowing down my reservations, I gingerly accept the card and bury it in my pocket. “Whatever, fine, I don’t care.”

He leans forward to bridge the gap between us. He’s so close I can count every eyelash. “First, you need to look the part.”

I brace myself for a lot of things: for him to kiss me and for me to stiffen like a possum playing dead.

I don’t brace myself for the brush of his thumb across my lower lip.

He pushes in, applying enough pressure to get the blood rushing to my mouth.

Anything to make my lips look swollen. Then he messes up his own hair before shaking a hand through my straight locks.

“There. Now you look like you’ve spent time with me. ”

I stumble back to the staircase railing, and I’ve suddenly grown wobbly-kneed. “G-got it.”

“And, Violet?” He winks. “Make sure to tell everyone how good of a kisser I am.”