Page 58 of The Ruling Class

I started moving again, concentrating on the rhythm of my steps, the push and pull of my muscles.

I didn’t want to listen to Ivy’s message. What could she say? That weneeded to talk? That she had her reasons for keeping everyone, even the president and Georgia, in the dark? That bringing me herehadn’tbeen a mistake?

That Vivvie’s father hadn’t killed himself because of something we’d done?

Feeling numb, I turned my phone over in my hand. For the longest time, I just stared at it, and then my clumsy fingers found their way to the keypad. I called the number Bodie had given me the day before—for Vivvie.

It rang until the voice mail picked up. I couldn’t find any words, certainly not the right ones.

I hung up.

An hour passed. Maybe two. Every once in a while, the phone rang.Ivy. Adam. Bodie. And then, finally, a number I didn’t recognize. I hesitated. Probably, it was Ivy. Probably, I should just let it ring.

But what if it was Vivvie?

I answered. “Hello?” My throat was dry, and my voice sounded it.

“Tess!” It took me a minute to place the voice. “Tesssssss.” The second time Asher said my name, he stretched it out.

“Asher?” I raised my eyebrows at the phone. “Are you drunk?”

“High on life,” he declared. “And possibly piña coladas.” Then he murmured something incomprehensible. There was a tussling sound on the other end of the phone line. I heard Asher yelp, and a second later, a new voice came on the line.

“Asher is a bit indisposed at the moment.”

Henry.

“Isn’t it a little early in the day to start partying?” I asked, hoping Henry couldn’t hear the hoarseness in my tone.

“Asher has … ups and downs.” Henry chose his words carefully. I thought of Asher, telling me he’d climbed to the top of the chapel because the higher you were, the smaller everyone else got. “Areyouall right?”

So much for hoping I could pass for normal. “I’m fine.”

Henry was too polite to call me a liar. His silence did that for him. “Your sister called Asher’s phone,” he said finally.

“She what?”

“She called to see if he’d seen or heard from you. We gathered that you’d pulled a bit of a disappearing act.” He paused. “Or rather, I gathered, and Asher serenaded her with some kind of eighties medley.”

I tried not to think too hard about any part of that statement.

“She gave Asher your number. God knows how he managed to remember it.”

“Tess?” Asher was back on the phone, sounding slightly—though not significantly—more sober. “Was your sister calling about The Thing?” I heard him stage-whisper to Henry, “There’s a thing.”

Henry’s grandfather was dead. So was Vivvie’s father. My sister thought bringing me to live with her was a mistake, and Asher was getting ready to let the cat out of the bag with Henry. Everything was unraveling—most of all me. I felt useless. Helpless and useless andweak.

“Vivvie’s dad killed himself.” My mouth seemed set on saying the words out loud—like saying them proved something. Like if I forced myself tofeelthis, it might give me some level of power over the pain.

“Poor Vivvie,” Asher mumbled. “First her dad kills Theo, then he kills himself.”

It took exactly three seconds for Henry to take the phone back from Asher.

“Tess,” he said, his voice straining against his vocal cords. “What is Asher talking about?”

My mouth opened, but words wouldn’t come out.

“Tess?”