“I think we should find someone else to give the tour,” she says, glancing over my shoulder at the middle-schoolers shifting awkwardly while they wait in the hall.
“Was it Astor?” I blurt, unable to keep the venom from my tongue. “Or one of the others? Was it Wills?”
She doesn’t give me time to finish listing the many people who want to make my life miserable here.
“No,” she says, pointing at the group of twelve-year-olds over my shoulder. “It was them.”
So much for a distraction. My brief moments of respite from the drama of it all is ripped from my hands as I’m sent back down the hill to man the empty tables. Ms. Mason says it’s to keep an eye out for stragglers … but I saw the lists. No one else is coming.
One word from Blair—not even Astor—and I can’t even be trusted to walk a bunch of kids around school grounds.
There’s no point in going back really, but I’m so blinded by rage that I can’t think of anywhere else to go … and then I spot him.
Blair is back at the tables, lingering around looking over something. Alone.
He glances up a moment, and I know he spots me. But then he just looks back down, and something in me snaps.
My broken heart gives way to anger that starts to bubble up, and I just can’t seem to hold it back. I don’t want to hold it back, and I go marching straight up to him.
“What in the hell is your problem, Blair?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, without looking up at me. His voice is too loud. It’s for show. But it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t stop me.
“Hit it and quit it, is that how it is for you?” I snap. I know there are others close enough to hear, but I don’t care. It’s not like I have a reputation to ruin anymore. He’s made sure of that. “Isn’t that enough? Do you have to start … start tormenting me too? Around everyone else?”
He’s stopped scribbling in the little book. He waits a second and then, with a quick glance to the side to see no one else is looking, he grabs my arm and pulls me down the hill and into a small shack nestled into the trees. The insides are crammed full of landscaping equipment; mowers, weed-whackers, scythes … that sort of thing. He turns me to face him in the dim light and I can see agony in his eyes.
He’s bitter and angry, and maybe even a little sad.
“I had to do that! Okay? The others … they knew something was up. I could feel it.”
“And that gives you the right to publicly humiliate me?” I ask. I shake his hand free of my arm and step back as much as I can in the cramped space.
“It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” His trying to plead his case only infuriates me further.
“It means something to me,” I say. I’ve started to shake all over. “I was so stupid. I see that now. You’re always going to take Astor’s side. No matter what. But there’s a problem with that.”
“Yeah?” He isn’t angry. His face is blank, his hands balled into fists at his sides. I’ve never seen him stand so still.
“The problem is … you’re not only betraying me, but you’re betraying yourself too. I think that might be even worse, because that means that neither one of us matters to you.” I am burning with anger at him. “You hurt me today, Blair. You really, truly hurt me today. I know that I did it all wrong last year, but this year I am one hundred percent genuine; no lies, no deceit, just all me, out there in front of everyone without my mask. You on the other hand, are full of lies and deceit this year, and you’re wearing two masks. One for each face.”
Blair’s eyes tear up and he can’t be still any longer. He opens his balled-up fists and closes his palms on either side of my face, bringing me to him. He kisses me for a long moment, and I want it so much; I’ve been aching to feel him this close to me again. But this isn’t fair. This isn’t right. Did nothing I say just now mean anything to him?
I have to stick to my resolve and show him that at least one of us respects me. I push him away and he shakes his head as he wrestles with himself inside.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Bunny. I had to do it. Or I thought I had to. Today when I saw you, you just looked so beautiful, and I was sure that Astor and Wills were going to see me looking at you like I want you. I couldn’t hide it … so I hurt you.” He begs me, staring into my eyes, and I get lost in the green sparkle of his teary gaze. “I’m so sorry, Bunny. Forgive me, please.”
My heart is going to get me in so much trouble.
His hands are in my hair and pressing into the side of my face. I can imagine them moving lower, getting frenzied, reaching to pull me in once more. It would be easy, to fall back into him.
“Is it all over then?” I ask, barely daring to hope. “This whole stupid charade?”
Blair looks at me in misery, and his hands drop away from my body. “No, Bunny. I can’t do that. This is the way things are, and it’s the way that things are just going to have to be. We’re … we’re just from two different worlds.”
“Oh bull!” I snap bitterly at him, and all the tenderness in me is gone. “You just don’t have the guts to stand up to Astor! You’re such a coward!”
My words have stunned him into silence. Never thought I’d see the day that Blair Rashnikov couldn’t think of the right thing to say.