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“But Taylor's all-?work-?and-?no-?play diary was mine,” Kiran pointed out. “That was genius, you have to admit.”
“It was good,” Taylor said. “But I had finger cramps for days.”
“The pictures of Dash were real, however. Unretouched,” Noelle said with a satisfied smile. “I'm a lucky girl, aren't I?”
I tasted bile in the back of my throat. No
t only had they set me up, they had gone to elaborate lengths to do so. This must have taken days to plan and execute. All along they had been plotting and scheming behind my back. I had thought they were my friends, but they had been messing with me from day one. Was anything any of them had ever said to me true?
“I'll never forget your face that first morning after Natasha showed you the slide show,” Kiran said mirthfully. “On my birthday? Every time we handed you another gift you looked more and more green.”
“That was such perfect timing,” Ariana said. 'You really laid on the guilt," she added with obvious pride.
“Honestly, I'm kind of surprised you didn't figure it out,” Noelle told me. “We almost tripped up so many times.”
“Like, oh my God, that morning I found you in our room? I was so not supposed to be there,” Taylor said. “I totally forgot you would be sneaking around, but when I saw you I could tell you'd already been under my bed. And then I threw in that thing about my paper and you were so sweet. 'Everyone here says you're the smartest person ever to go here,'” she said, mimicking my words. Words I had thought would help her. “That was so nice of you, Reed!”
239
“And then all that crap about passwords?” Kiran said. “We totally fed you the info on how to find Ariana's key.”
“But my planner must have driven you crazy,” Ariana said. “Sorry about that.”
Never in my life had I felt humiliation so intense. They had known the entire time. They had been leading me on. That night when Ariana had handed me her bag, she had done it on purpose. I hadn't been clever or conniving or stealthy. I had been duped.
“Anyway, the real test was whether or not you would turn us in if you found something incriminating,” Noelle said. “If we threatened to take away your entire world--i.e., your enrollment at Easton--and you still remained loyal to us, you would pass.”
“And you did,” Ariana said simply. “Now we know we can trust you with anything. Everything.”
A chill skittered over my skin and I wrapped my arms around myself. I couldn't believe this was happening. All that fear, all that sneaking, all that guilt. It was all for nothing.
“What would you have done if I'd gone directly to the dean with that disk?” I asked, staring at the floor. “It's kind of a dangerous game you were playing, isn't it? You could have gotten thrown out of school. All of you.”
Noelle laughed again and this time was joined by the others. “Please, Reed. They'd need a lot more than that to kick us out of school. Danger? No. There was never any danger.”
“Except for you,” Kiran said, pointing at me. “For you there was danger. If those pictures had gotten out, you would have been on a bus back to Croton before you could say 'See ya.'”
240
“They really are quite incriminating,” Noelle added matter-?of-?factly.
I pressed my hands into the bench at my sides and leaned forward, fighting back some serious nausea as they laughed. This was funny to them. It was all very amusing, toying with people's feelings. With their lives. With their futures.
“Oh, Reed, come on,” Ariana said, standing. She glided over and sat down next to me, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and touching my wrist with her other hand. Her fingers were ice cold. “It's all good now. It's going to be okay. Don't you realize what all of this means?”
It means you're all nuts. It means you're all evil. It means I've aligned myself with the devil's minions.
“It means you're one of us now,” Ariana said quietly. “Really and truly.”
“It means you don't have to play Cinderella anymore,” Taylor said.
“Which kind of sucks, because I hate making my own bed,” Kiran added, taking another swig.
“It means you're in,” Noelle stated simply. “For real this time. From here on out. No more secrets.”
Something about these three words sent a thrill of excitement through my heart. Even in all my mind-?twisting, stomach- clenching desperation, I was still psyched at the idea of actually being accepted by these nutcases. What was wrong with me?