“Laney can’t make it,” Hunter said, lips curling into a slight sneer. “She’s busy.”
I folded my arms. Screw this guy. I’d tried to be nice, but he was being a total asshole. “Actually, I can make it that night,” I said, smiling sweetly at Chris. “I’ll definitely be there.”
With that, I whirled around and strode back to my table. Trina and Adam were waiting for me, brows raised and shoulders hunching forward.
“How’d it go?” Trina asked.
“Hunter was a dick again, but his friend was nice. He invited me to a Friday the 13th party in a few weeks.”
“Oh, I heard about that!” Adam said. “We’re going, right?”
“I said I would, yes.”
The bell rang, and we hastily packed up our stuff and headed off to our next classes.
The rest of the day was normal. A few students looked at me for a beat too long, clearly wondering who I was, but most of them were nice. In one of the classes, the desks were big circular things designed for groups, and some girls invited Trina and me to sit with them, chatting and giggling with us as if we were all old friends.
I couldn’t believe it. I’d worried so much about not fitting in at a school like this, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I did fit in, and people actually liked me. It was a far cry from my old school, where I was mostly invisible. Neither popular nor unpopular. Just a shadow wandering the halls.
After the last period was over, I spent some time studying in the library with Adam and Trina, and when they left to go home, I wandered down to the cafeteria for dinner. Some of the other boarders invited me to sit and eat with them, and before I knew it, I felt as if I’d been here for a hundred years. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming.
I didn’t get back to Blair Hall until nine. After I trudged all the way up to my dorm on the top floor, I unpacked as much as I could from my bags. Then I sat down and blew out a deep breath, wondering what I should do next. It was getting late, but I was still buzzing with excited energy, so I didn’t want to go to bed just yet.
I sat up straight when I remembered something Ms. Flores told me earlier this morning. She mentioned an old observatory in Blair Hall, somewhere here on the top floor.
I grabbed a scarf and slowly headed down the hall, trying to find the right room.
“There you are,” I murmured to myself, finally locating the entrance at the other end of the top floor. It was a dimly-lit octagonal room with a domed glass ceiling, and it smelled of old leather and vellum. The walls were covered in star maps, and over by the enormous window which extended down from the glass ceiling, there were several old-fashioned telescopes and astronomy binoculars mounted on tripods. There were chairs and low tables nearby.
An empty condom wrapper lay on the floor under one of the tables, and I rolled my eyes and sighed. Obviously, other students liked to use this beautiful old room as a hookup spot, and they’d forgotten to clean up after themselves last time.
“Not tonight, guys,” I said out loud, striding over to the nearest astronomy binoculars.
I fiddled with the different knobs on the device, trying to figure out how to use it properly. The eyepieces were facing down from the domed ceiling, pointed out the window toward the enormous lake on the other side. When I looked through it to make sure my focus was right, I spotted an island in the center of the water, lit by the bright moonlight.
“Wait, what?” I whispered to myself. I didn’t know there was an island in the lake. It wasn’t on the campus map.
With a curious frown, I turned one of the knobs to increase the magnification so I could get a better look.
I accidentally twisted one of the focus knobs the wrong way, and everything went blurry for a few seconds. “Dammit,” I muttered, twisting it back around.
Everything came back into focus, and with the new magnification, I could see a lot more—towering trees lining the island, silvery water lapping at the shore, an old wooden pier.
A light suddenly flashed in the very corner of the left lens. Eyes widening, I moved the device slightly to the side. There were more lights now, flickering amongst the trees.
“What the hell is that?” I muttered.
I kept increasing the magnification, trying to figure out what I was looking at, but the lights had already disappeared. No matter how much I zoomed in, all I could see was an expanse of trees and bushes.
With a sigh, I brushed the weird lights aside and moved the binoculars all the way up to the sky so I could get some proper stargazing in for the night.
By the time I finished and fell into bed, I was exhausted but deliriously happy. RFA was amazing, and I was incredibly lucky to get a free ride through my senior year. Because of this place, all of my dreams were going to come true.
I just knew it.
* * *
I awoke earlythe next morning, showered in my luxurious new bathroom, and put on my uniform. Then I practically skipped over to the cafeteria for coffee and breakfast. Trina and Adam were already there waiting for me.