“Yes, Dean?”
“Alex will be rooming with you this semester. I’ll have his things sent up.”
“Very well, Dean.”
“And Alex,” he says, before finally letting us go, “do try your best to stay out of any more trouble. Wouldn’t be fitting for Bleakwood’s first scholarship recipient to go and get himself expelled, now would it?”
Rafael starts pacing across the room as soon as the door shuts behind us.
It’s a surprisingly spacious dorm. Two long diamond-paned windows look out on the drive leading up to the school. From all the way up here, it’s a wonder I made it up to Bleakwood for the last of orientation at all. Though even still … I can’t decide if turning down a ride from this so-called Brotherhood was the wrong thing to do.
“What … was … that? Were those ashes?”
“The urn? Oh, no. Not anymore. They stopped putting real ashes in those ages ago.”
Rafael stops what he’s doing and lets out one of his trademark sighs. “What are you even doing here, Alex?”
I stop mid-sentence, stricken. I shouldn’t feel offended, but I do.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means … ” he drawls, “you don’t seem like the type that got in here because your great-great-grandfather was a founding member or something, and you don’t seem all that interested in studying … so why are you here?”
I’m taken aback.
“I … I … ”
Why am I here?
I was never one of those girls who dreamt of going to some all-girl’s boarding school and giggling into the night under scratchy sheets, but I certainly never dreamt of sneaking into a boy’s school. I’ve had enough of boys. My whole childhood was rough-and-tumble with enough brothers to make me pretty convinced, at least for a little while there, that I would turn out to be a lesbian.
And then I hit puberty, kissed a couple girls on the schoolyard, and realized that Jack Frazier, designated-middle-school-hottie, was the dreamboat for me.
Rafael is staring me down like my life, or more likely his life, depends on the answer.
So, for lack of a better option, I tell him the truth.
“I found a brochure about the school in the trash can,” I say, shrugging. “I think one of my brother’s picked it up on a college tour and threw it out. I didn’t realize it was a school for boys, so when I saw the essay competition … I just figured it wouldn’t hurt to sign up.”
“Uh, huh.”
Rafael stops pacing and squints at me again.
“So, what … you just happen to apply to an all-boys school, and you just happen to win the first ever scholarship, and you just happen to get marked by an ancient fraternity on your first day? What’s next? You just happen to murder your new roommate in your sleep?”
“I’m not a serial killer!” I blurt.
“That’s beside the point,” he snaps back, going back to pacing. “This is not what I signed up for when I agreed to help you.”
The floors here were not made for anxious walking back and forth. The stone rasps underfoot as if complaining of mistreatment. Enough of this, and Rafael is going to wear a path into it.
“So then,” I say, “Why did you?”
“I don’t know? Karma? I’m used to being the outsider? I know what it’s like to never be able to fit in because of something you can’t help?”
Rafael shakes his head again. “I should just go turn you in now. I can’t risk the blowback on this.”
“No, wait! If you do that … I … I … ” My mind is reeling. I can’t be sent back now. Not after all that. Not after everything, as little as it may seem right now, I’ve done to get here. It’s that desperation that makes me blurt out, “If you do that, I’ll tell them that you knew all along! I’ll tell them you helped me.”