We sit in silence for a minute.
Finally, I punch Dana on the arm and give her permission to ask what everyone always wants to know anyway.
“So,” she blurts, “how much is it?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Loads of zeros. Like … nine of them.”
Dana nearly chokes on her own spit. One of the machines she’s hooked up to beeps wildly for a moment as she finds her breath.
“If I had water in my mouth, I would have done a spit take,” she says. “Pardon my French, but holy shit Teddy. Are you for real?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m still waiting for it to settle in myself.”
Shaking her head, Dana just gapes at me. “Oh my god. I can’t even comprehend it. You must be feeling so out of place right now.”
“You have no idea. The hair, nails, and clothes … that’s all aunt Ellen.” I stop for a second and consider whether or not I should bring up what happened at lunch today. I can’t blame my aunt for struggling to take everything in right away, but it left me feeling weird.
“I’m sensing something happened?” Dana asks, and I cave.
I tell her about the shopping, the lunch, the booze, even the pills. When I get to the car, she just grins and shakes her head.
“I was wondering how you got up here so late,” she says.
I grimace back. “That’s probably the weirdest part. I guess they got the car for Sadie’s sixteenth birthday, and she died the day before it was delivered to the house, so no one ever drove it. It’s just been sitting there. I feel like I’ve lost my whole life, but that’s not so bad. I guess my old life was probably worth losing. It’s so bizarre. Everything is just so … weird.”
“I bet.” She’s still reeling with disbelief, much the same that I was when I found out. Heck, I still am. “Does anyone else know?”
I nod and look down a moment in thought. “Everyone knows. The whole school knew before I came back from the funeral, and everyone has been treating me so strangely. It’s like the school is split; half of the students want to be friends with me and hang on, and the other half are clinging to Astor and Victoria. If I was going to guess, I’d say their side is the lesser half.”
Dana chuckles softly. “I bet this pissed Victoria off to no end.”
“She’s mad about everything right now.” I think about her boyfriend and decide to tell my best friend the truth. The one thing I omitted. “Something else happened.”
Dana’s brows lower worriedly. “You can’t be serious. There’s more? I’m missing everything.”
“When I came back to the school, Astor came to the room and … he made it seem like we could finally be together, so we were.”
Her eyes open wide and she gasps as realization hits her. “You slept with Astor?” She stares down into her lap with a vacant expression a moment. “I’m gone two weeks and look what happens.”
With the faintest nod, I too look down, but in bitterness and shame. “Yeah, I did … but it was a mistake. Ever since our falling out the whole school is divided. It’s like the parting of the Red Sea.”
“And I’m missing all of it.” Dana sighs, leaning back into her pillows. I can see that she’s getting tired, even though she’s trying not to let on. I get up quickly, shaking the bed a little and having to stop and steady it a moment.
I’ve already stayed too long, but Dana looks sad to see me go.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’ll be back soon enough. Then you can help me kick Victoria and Astor’s asses all the way out of school.” I smile at her as I stand up. “Just think of it. The last of the Hawthorne legacy, tossed out of his own school.”
Dana snorts. “Now you really are dreaming.”
She hugs me back, and we say goodbye before I head out. January can’t come soon enough. Dana needs to be back, and then there will at least be some kind of normalcy to my increasingly bizarre life.
I’m going to need true friends by my side more than ever.
Chapter 7
I spend a fitful night sleeping in one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever had the pleasure to lay on. The Whites are one of those families who still eat breakfast together, so I roll out of bed and join them downstairs. I’m still in my pajamas with bedhead sticking halfway up to the ceiling, but both of them are dressed to the nines.
Ellen White strikes me as the type that never looks anything less.