Her mouth snaps closed and the car goes quiet, my hands tightly clenched around the steering wheel. Well, I was right about one thing. Being on the other side of that judgment shit really does suck.
Christ.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” Her voice is small and low, and I hate it. It makes my fingers flex around the leather. “I just wanted to understand what it was like for you. Why you do it. I thought maybe if I did, I could help you. You know, like how you help me?”
I roll to a stop at a deserted red light a few blocks from the school. It casts her face in a worrying glow when I finally turn to meet her eyes. “You do help me, V. Trust me, it’s been days since I took something. And it’s not…it’s not simple, okay? It’s not something that can be summed up in some fancy term and written down in an article by someone who’s never met me. Yours couldn’t, could it? The way you feel about the pills?”
Her eyes are wide and so guileless that it makes me want to take her back home. “Probably not.”
The light turns green, but I idle there, trying to find the words. “There isn’t one reason. Just sometimes, the only thing that makes me feel good is taking something and getting away with it. I know it’s stupid.”
She puts her hand on my leg. “It’s not stupid.”
“Yes, it is,” I argue. “It feels good for a few hours—maybe even a whole day—but the trouble it causes for me and everyone else? It lasts a hell of a lot longer than that.” I give her a significant look. “I’m trying, V.”
She studies me closely, and I can tell from the sadness in her eyes that she gets it. My family is in pieces. My future is up for debate. I can’t take a jog without being watched. But what happened to her is the worst consequence of all.
The fucked-up part is that, even despite all of those perfectly valid reasons, resentment burns hot at the thought of giving it up. Why should I? Aside from Vandy, it’s not like I have much else going for me. Why can’t I have something that makes me feel good? The idea of a life without that rush seems like nothing more than a dull expanse of tedium. Sometimes I wonder what the point would be.
“I meant what I said before. You can tell me if it gets bad, if you feel like you need to do it. I won’t think any less of you.” She echoes my words from the other night, “I won’t bail.”
“Seriously, I can handle it.” I finally press the gas, rolling over the intersection.
I drive past the main campus entrance to the service road that runs behind the dining hall. It’s darker back there and easier access to the Alumni house, which is settled on a hill at the back of the property. Although everyone on campus is familiar with the house, it’s not frequented by students. It’s strictly for guests and donors.
I park the car and grab my stamp, then walk around to open the door for Vandy. I help her out, not because she needs it, but because she’s my girl. It also gives me a chance to kiss her in apology, soothing the tension from earlier, before taking her hand and slipping into the dark shadows of the campus.
“The Preston House was built by Gerard Preston for his wife, Martha,” Vandy whispers. I’ve conditioned myself to walk at her slower pace. “They bought the property to build a school and lived in the house. The first headmasters lived here, but eventually they turned it into a guest house.”
“You sound like a Preston history textbook.”
“Well,” she looks away, “it’s a required mini-semester in tenth grade. You kind of missed it.”
I tighten my grip on her hand. “Good thing I have you to give me a primer.”
She grins and veers us slightly off course. “You’re right about that, because we learned that there’s an entrance to Preston through an old tunnel that starts in the old water-well shed behind the building. All of these tunnels go back to the Civil War. Like the one that leads from the lake to the bunker.”
We go to the small brick building that I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before. She extracts her key and slides it into the lock, twisting it to the side. The door opens and cool, musty air rolls past.
“Creepy.” I take a look back to make sure no one notices us, and then duck inside. Vandy shines her phone’s light and I notice fresh footprints on the dirt floor. “Guess we weren’t the first ones here.”
Vandy uses her key to unlock a second, barely noticeable door and then, hand in hand, we enter the tunnel and walk the stretch underground toward the house. It’s cool and damp, and the ceiling is low enough that I have to duck not to hit it. It’s a little claustrophobic and I’m glad when we get to a staircase that leads up. The air is cooler up here and at the top is another door. This one leads inside the house—to a dark storage pantry. I push open the swinging door to the hallway and see a dozen frames mounted to the wall.
My eyes scan them tiredly.
Shit. Needle in a haystack.
“Did your class happen to tell you where the Langford room is?” I whisper. The caretaker is in the house somewhere. Asleep, probably. And it’s possible some of the other Devils are here as well. I’m not sure what would happen to any of them if they got caught, but my own fate might as well be spun on an elaborate wheel of misfortune: swift expulsion, arrest, hard time, you name it.
“I’m not sure,” she says, chewing on her lip. “But I think that the guest rooms are named after former Headmasters, and Langford was a headmaster. So pr
obably upstairs?”
“What about the caretaker? Where are her rooms?”
“Off the kitchen.” She snorts. “Like they let the help sleep upstairs.”
She’s right about that, so I start down the hall, away from the faint light of the kitchen, toward the staircase. We pass a formal living room and adjacent dining room. I keep my eyes diverted from the shiny trinkets and collectibles in the antique furniture. It’d be a lie to say I’m not tempted as we pass it all.