Page 101 of Let the Game Begin

The thought did occur to me—of just going back home, ending this absurd situation, and stopping whatever was happening with Neil. But how could I leave him behind? He was becoming increasingly important to me. The questions I constantly asked myself about him and his past, the secret room that housed those mysterious boxes, the ghost of Scarlett, his strange behavior, the disgusting package from an unknown sender… All of it was urging me to stay put and illuminate some of the darkness that now surrounded me.

I was in too deep by then, there was no escape.

***

“Okay, so: William Shakespeare was an English poet and… Why the hell do we need to know this stuff again?” Adam grumbled, drawing our attention to his expression of boredom.

“Maybe because otherwise you wouldn’t pass Professor Smith’s exam, genius?” Julie cut in.

“Quiet over there!” The librarian was getting tired of constantly chiding us and was about to throw us all out.

After classes, we had decided to stay on campus for a few more hours to study, but we kept getting distracted.

“You’re always such an idiot, Adam!” Cory said derisively.

“Everyone, stop it! Let’s just go back to studying!” Julie grumbled again. “Moving on. Alyssa, how many sonnets did our Shakespeare pen?” our resident nerd continued, pointing her pencil at Alyssa, who was sitting next to me.

“Umm…fifty? Like iambicpentameter?” she answered uncertainly, which made me smile. I appreciated the effort at a mnemonic device, but it apparently hadn’t helped her learn these particular facts.

“No, Alyssa. It’s actually one hundred and fifty-four. I’ve told you that several times now,” Julie answered in exasperation, brushing her long red hair over one shoulder.

“You know you make a sexy professor, right?” Adam leaned closer to her and touched her cheek, making her blush. I could never understand how those two even communicated with each other. Or how, sometimes, twocompletely different souls were so deeply compatible with each other that it made for passionate, long-lasting union.

I thought again of Neil, how distant he’d grown and how dissimilar—completely opposite—we were in so many ways. Alas, he and I were nothing close to compatible.

“Cut it out,” Julie said in a quiet voice, so as not to get us another scolding from the librarian.

“I’m never going to pass this exam!” Alyssa whimpered in frustration.

“Alyssa, sweetheart, you know there are alternative ways to pass,” Jake advised her, giving Cory and Adam a knowing glance. The three boys began to laugh—by “alternative” they surely meant…

“Oh yeah, you give Smith a handy and you’ll pass with flying colors, guaranteed.” Cory winked, always ready to be explicit about such things.

Everyone burst into laughter, except me and Logan. I didn’t like that kind of joke precisely because there were actually people at our school who would sell their dignity to pass a test. Alyssa, though, was definitely not that kind of person.

“Cory, you’d better shut your trap and get to studying,” Logan snapped in irritation, gripping his pen tightly.

He and Alyssa had been going out with each other more and more often lately, though they hadn’t made anything official.

“Feeling territorial?” I whispered mockingly in his ear, and he cocked an eyebrow at me like I was talking crazy.

“No, I’m just trying to study and keep getting distracted by their bullshit,” he explained, before bowing his head back over his book.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” I answered sarcastically. If he thought he was fooling me, he was sorely mistaken. I had a woman’s intuition about that kind of thing, and I knew that he really liked Alyssa, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

“Looks like someone’s jealous… So, you two fucking?” Adam asked abruptly, having come to the same conclusion about Logan and Alyssa that I had. Alyssa looked completely embarrassed.

“You should mind your own business. You don’t see me asking you and Julie about what you’re getting up to,” Logan shot back with a harsh look. Julie lowered her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek, clearly uncomfortable.

“Alas! Julie hasn’t given it up to Adam yet,” Jake said, laughing along with Cory.

“Shut up, you moron!” Adam admonished, throwing a wadded up paper ball at him.

“So this is how you all study, huh?” Kyle came up behind his cousin Cory, resting his hands on his shoulders. He was wearing the same long black coat over his tall, slim body, and his dark hair was gathered into a messy knot at the nape of his neck. A silver ring gleamed in one ear, and his enchanting blue eyes focused immediately on mine. He smiled at me, and I smiled back easily.

“Hey, Nabokov,” he teased me.

“Do you really think we get much studying done with these idiots?” Alyssa grumbled as Kyle’s gaze continued to burn into me. He watched me with a marked persistence, which made me hugely uncomfortable. Only one person looked at me with that much intensity, and his golden eyes were the only ones I wanted on me.