Chapter1
Lily Beachem
The only reason we’re friends at all is because I pulled them both out of the river.
The sun is at its peak, and the part within my hair burns, a permanent ultra-violet line slowly being tattooed onto my scalp. At least two more trips to my car to go before I’m done. I think I have too much stuff. My belongings are a mere fraction compared to my roommates, though. Morgan’s family came in two vehicles, one of them a truck—the fat kind with a king cab and doubled-up wheels in the back. Brooklyn hasliteralhelp,as in people who call her “Miss” and have uniforms on,hauling her things up the walkway and into our dorm room for our final year at Welles Academy.
Our worlds are miles apart, and it’s foolish to think we’ll be able to exist in this small room together for an entire year. My blankets and pillows are knotted up in a black trash bag. Their expensive bedding is new, the tags still dangling from the packaging. Their families are seeing them off, while mine doesn’t see the reasons why I’d want to come to a place like this. I don’t fit in here. I never have. Anika wanted us all to be together, but that was when there were four of us instead of three. She was the nucleus. She brought the harmony.
I miss Anika.
My doubts haven’t slowed since the three of us agreed to follow through with the original plan at the end of last school term. I got caught up in the moment, I guess. Moved by the instant bonding that comes with trauma and a promise to the only friend you’ve ever really had. A summer apart, though, made me realize the three of us were acting out of guilt more than anything. My small-town home in Ohio is a joke compared to their Boston penthouses and sprawling homes on the Cape. But being here in Ashwood, just outside of Boston, is better than being at home. A world built on guilt trumps one crawling with shame.
“Look, someone actually wrote Triple B on our white board,” Morgan says when we reach the landing just outside our door. She lifts the cloth tacked next to the board and erases it with a faint laugh at the memory. I force a tight-lipped smile on my face, one I imagine looks just like the fake smile Brooklyn is wearing, and then head into our room toward the small corner that is mine.
Our last names had always put us in groups together whenever we had to line up for ice breakers and social events, and that’s the only reason we knew each other at all before last semester.
Lily Beachem.
Morgan Bentley.
Brooklyn Bennett.
Triple B,as some of the first form boys called us during physical education our seventh-grade year. They were making commentary on our breast sizes more than our names, even though triple B is not a bra size, and if it were, none of us were hardly enough to fill an A cup. That was before the guys of McKinley Hall had even seen a set of boobs other than in the pages of the magazines some of the older boys snuck into the dorms after trips back home.
Those boys who teased us in their crackling voices while wearing baby-faced grins turned into men wearing suit jackets and ties over washboard abs and smelling of expensive booze they’d snuck in for underground parties. Triple B had disappeared by the time we reached fourth form, when students were no longer forced into proximity with one another based on things like alphabetical order. We chose our own friends. And until last year, I had one, barely. Angela Fischer and I were roommates and more academic arch-nemesis than we were friends. I suspect she liked living with me because she could keep tabs on my progress in all things academic—to make sure her papers and projects were always just a step above. She will, without doubt, be graduating top of our class, and there have been nights I thought she would hold a pillow over my face if it came down to me or her just to make sure she wore the gold honor cords at convocation.
I’ve never been able to figure out why she was so threatened by me. I don’t really care about being valedictorian, or even performing in the top percent of our class. That honor comes with duties like public speaking and mentoring younger students and serving as a prefect. I didn’t want to live with first and second forms when I was one, let alone now that I’m a sixth form. So, while Angela spent our time together worried about ways to defeat me, I put all my effort into doing just poorly enough on my studies to never edge her from the top.
Being above average is enough for me. It’s where I thrive, just off the page out of the spotlight. I don’t exactly fit the “Welles mold.” I don’t own a piece of Burberry or Chanel or Louis Vuitton, and I’m basically academically ambitionless. I’m on the swim team, and if I applied myself, I’d probably dominate. I’d rather just enjoy the silence that comes from the water, though. Don’t get me wrong—I am full of potential. I just don’t want to go to any of the destinations that potential leads to. It’s quite a thing to be so smart that one can outwit the system and fly perpetually under the radar.
That’s what led me to Anika Rothschild, the girls of Hayden Hall, and the night that would change my course forever.
Anika was everything I idolized. She was bold and maybe a little pushy, but in a way that people responded to. We were all fighting for our places in this maze built of limestone, tradition, and rules; meanwhile, Anika acted as if there weren’t any walls around her at all. Her hair was a different color, cut and style every few weeks. Platinum rings pierced her ears in seven different places, and she had a septum ring in her nose that she merely pushed out of sight while in class whenever one of our instructors made mention of her dress code infractions.
If I had the tiniest bit of Anika in my bloodstream, maybe I wouldn’t have run to this place—and away from my problems at home—to begin with. But I wasn’t Anika. I was Lily. Quiet, shy, reserved, timid, awkward Lily with curves and breasts she was desperate to hide under school uniforms and thick tights, and headbands meant for little girls.
It was Anika who brought us all together. We all admired her for our own reasons. And I spent my entire summer wondering what would have happened if our bond was allowed to grow naturally, free of the brute force thrust upon us the night we all got in that car and crashed into the Solemn River. Trauma has a way of forging connections that go against the grain. I am nothing like Morgan, and she is nothing like Brooklyn, who is nothing like either of us. We are three opposites on the friendship color wheel, yet here we are, entering our sixth and final form at Welles Academy, moving our things into the big corner room to live together.
As friends. Just like Anika wanted.
“My brother can help carry the rest of your things from the car.” Morgan spins and falls back on her bed, her gorgeous auburn hair splaying out and her Welles skirt flaring above her knee-high socks. I would give anything to look like that—not her body or hair or skin, just the way she’s always put together. I’m in constant shambles. Even now, my uniform skirt is too big for my waist, leaving it to sag on my hips, which means I must wear a blouse one size too big to make sure it stays tucked in.
“Thanks, but I’ll get it. I think I’m going to visit the pool for a little while. I’ll grab the rest of my things on my way back up.” I flatten my hand on the slick fabric of my suit, scratching my fingertips along it but opting to push it deeper in the drawer. I’m not ready to put it on and get in the water. Not yet.
“Do you want us to come?” Brooklyn’s words are uncertain, matched by the flashing glance Morgan shoots her as she lifts on her elbows. They don’t want to do this with me, which is fine because I don’t want them there.
I smile.
“I’m okay. Thanks, though.”
I wait for Morgan to fall back against her bed and for Brooklyn to return her attention to setting up her desk, arranging the tiny, framed photos of shared moments between her, Morgan, and Anika together. I’m not in a single shot. I wasn’t part ofthemyet.
Pausing just outside the door, I draw in a deep breath to fill my lungs. They haven’t felt full in months, not since that night. The room remains quiet behind me, and I get some satisfaction from the fact Morgan and Brooklyn can’t easily talk without me.
I opt for the stairs, knowing the elevators are going to be packed with parents and fourth and fifth forms moving in. Minus a few slamming doors to the floors below and the occasional rush of footsteps ducking into the stairwell to avoid the crowds like I am, I’m alone. Off the grid, in a space on the fringe—exactly how I like it.
Maybe I’m not ready to visit the pool. Coach doesn’t expect me on a timeline. Everyone’s giving me grace. They get it.