She Was the Quiet One Read online

  “I’m sorry. I admit, I was there.”

  “Of course, you were there. I saw you! And for your information, Skyler’s not the only one who got hurt, Bel. I had to fight them off, or I would’ve been next. I have bruises to prove it. And now, instead of studying for finals like I ought to be, I have to spend my time testifying in front of the Disciplinary Committee. You know what that means, right? Everybody thinks I’m a rat. Your precious Darcy even threatened me. She threatened my safety. That’s the mess you dragged me into.”

  “I can explain. I was given pain meds for my knee. I didn’t get high on purpose. I took too many, by mistake. Honest, I was like a zombie that night. I had no idea what was happening. Darcy and Tessa showed up to my room, they said go, and I went. It was all them. Swear to God.”

  Rose hesitated. Bel saw doubt in her sister’s eyes, and felt a flicker of hope.

  “You know it’s true,” Bel said, grabbing Rose’s hands. “You came by my room before the attack. I know you did because you left me food, and a note. I was out cold, right? Dead to the world? Please, Rose, you have to believe me.”

  Rose pulled away, sighing wearily. “I don’t believe you. That’s the problem. You sided with those girls against me before, and then promised things would change. But they didn’t. They got worse.”

  “I hate Darcy as much as you do at this point. I’ll testify against her, too. Then we’ll be rats together. Would that help? Would that prove my loyalty?”

  “If you go in there and actually tell the truth? It would be a start.”

  Heath cleared his throat. The girls looked over to see him standing near the closed conference-room door. It was unclear how long he’d been there, or how much he’d heard.

  “The Committee is waiting for you, Bel.”

  “One second.”

  Bel turned back to Rose.

  “Go,” Rose said.

  Then she walked away, a disgusted look in her eye, without wishing Bel luck or even saying good-bye.

  Heath and Bel were alone in the anteroom. He walked over and placed his hands on her shoulders, gazing down into her eyes. Heath was the only person who mattered now. If she could just focus on that one fact, everything else would fall into place, and her life would make sense.

  “Don’t worry about Rose,” Heath said. “She’ll come around. Just say what I told you to say, and everything will work out fine.”

  20

  Rose woke up at five a.m. on Sunday to catch the bus to Connecticut for Thanksgiving break. It was dark and quiet in the dorm room, and she was jittery. Skyler had left last night to fly to her grandparents’ house in Florida, and Rose was afraid to be in the room by herself. With all the fallout from the slipper attack, she’d been sticking close by Skyler, who was the only person at school people hated more than they hated Rose.

  The Disciplinary Committee had taken its sweet time about making a decision, but a week earlier, they’d finally announced that Darcy and Tessa were expelled. Turned out, that decision was not popular among the student body. Go figure—just because the Moreland seniors were nasty and vile didn’t mean they lacked for admirers. In the days since the decision had been made public, stuffed rats had started appearing in Rose and Skyler’s room on the regular, perched in their desk chairs or sitting on their beds. It freaked Rose out that people were sneaking into her room when she wasn’t there, and doing something so sinister. (There were no locks on the bedroom doors at Odell because, supposedly, it wasn’t the sort of place where you needed a lock—right.) In the dining hall, people made squeaking noises when Rose and Skyler walked by. Skyler received an anonymous note that read: Snitches get stitches. And in the middle of the night last week, someone yanked their door opened and threw slippers at their heads as they slept. Whoever did it ran away before they could see her face.

  Rose and Skyler talked it over and decided not to file a complaint about the harassment. If they complained again, things would only get worse. It was hard to know whether they were in actual, physical danger. Emma Kim had told Rose that Tessa Romano had been spotted on campus, even though she was now forbidden to return. That was just gossip, but it had the ring of truth. Unlike Darcy, who lived in Connecticut (not far from Grandma, actually), Tessa was a local girl. A townie, from a family that owned several restaurants in town. Rose had heard through the grapevine that Tessa would be enrolling in the local high school after Thanksgiving break, which meant she’d be a mere ten-minute drive from the Odell gates. Close enough for a drive-by attack. But there was no actual evidence that Tessa was planning to retaliate. That was speculation, or gossip. And as for the things Rose did have evidence on—the rubber rats, the nasty notes—she didn’t know who was behind them.

  Rose’s hair was still wet, and it was pitch-dark out as she dragged her suitcase from Moreland to the parking lot in front of the library, where several buses sat belching exhaust into the damp, chill air. Odell ran buses to New York, Boston and the closest airports every school holiday. The New York bus stopped in Westport, where Rose would get off. (Spring Hill, Grandma Martha’s estate, was a fifteen-minute drive from there.) Presumably Bel would be on the same bus, although Rose was no longer on speaking terms with her twin. No longer? Better to say, yet again, since Bel kept doing things that made it impossible to stay her friend. Standing outside the conference room that day, Bel had led Rose to believe that she would tell the Committee the truth about Darcy and Tessa, and back up Rose and Skyler’s claims about the attack. Rose had actually been stupid enough to believe that. But Skyler’s father had seen the transcript, in which Bel claimed to be so doped up that she had no memory of the entire night. Bel lied her ass off, basically, because she was a goddamn coward. She left Rose and Skyler twisting in the wind, the lone rats. So much for sisterly loyalty, for being on the same team. It was one betrayal too many. Bel could be bleeding on the ground now, and Rose would walk by without stopping. No, she would stop—long enough to look down and laugh. That’s how hurt she was, that’s how furious. That’s how much she hated her sister.

  Hate was not too strong a word.

  Rose stood on line at the side of the bus, waiting to put her suitcase in the luggage hold. Without warning, somebody bumped her hard from behind. The impact sent her feet skidding out from under her on the slippery sidewalk. If the girl behind her hadn’t grabbed her arm, she would have landed flat out on her butt.

  “Thank you,” Rose said. “Sorry!”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” the girl said. “That was weird, it was like he went out of his way to bump you. What’s his problem?”

  They stared after the boy who’d bumped Rose, who was now boarding the bus. His Frankenstein-like head looked familiar. That was Brandon Flynn, Darcy’s boyfriend—wasn’t it?

  “Are you okay?” the girl asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Rose said, nodding, not wanting to cause a fuss. But she knew now that the bump was no accident, and it unnerved her.

  Rose climbed the stairs onto the bus. It was a luxury long-distance bus, with a bathroom in the back and plush seats and television screens that showed movies the whole way. Rose had her earbuds, so if nobody talked to her, she would zone out watching movies and try not to mind.

  Rose was moving forward, scanning the seats for friendly faces, when she tripped over something in the aisle and went flying. She landed on her hands and knees on the narrow strip of floor, the breath knocked out of her. Her backpack swung around and clonked her on the head. For a split second she was stunned, but then she got to her feet, praying nobody had noticed her flame out like a total klutz. No such luck. Brandon Flynn sat in an aisle seat right next to where she’d fallen, smirking. Zach Cuddy, the cute boy from her bio class, sat across the aisle from Brandon. Rose was mortified because she’d developed a serious crush on Zach. He was tall, dark and handsome, except with glasses, and smart as a whip. Her idea of the perfect man. She talked to him every chance she got, and found herself blushing like an idiot, palms sweaty and heart
racing. Perfect Zach had now seen Rose trip like a bumbling idiot while the jerk who tripped her sat there laughing. Zach probably knew why that asshole tripped her, too. It was a small school, and gossip traveled like fire in the wind.

  “What the fuck was that?” Zach Cuddy demanded.

  Rose’s heart stopped, but Zach’s words weren’t intended for her. He was glaring across the aisle at Brandon Flynn.

  “Mind your business, Cuddy,” Brandon said.

  “You tripped her. I saw it.”

  “I did not.”

  “So, you’re a liar as well as a thug?”

  They both jumped to their feet. Brandon was built like a jock, as tall as Zach, but thicker and more muscular. Rose stood in the aisle between them, quaking in her UGGs. She glanced up to the front of the bus, but the driver was outside, handling the students’ luggage, and there was no other adult in sight. All around them, kids were getting up, leaning into the aisle, craning their necks to ogle the confrontation.

  Emma Kim sat one row behind. She stood up, too.

  “He’s right, I saw you do it,” Emma said. “You tripped her on purpose. That’s bullying, Flynn. You want to get expelled, like your skanky girlfriend?”

  “Shut up,” the senior said. “Enright’s a snitch, she deserves what she gets. You want some, too, Emma? Come and get it.”

  Brandon Flynn had just admitted to tripping Rose intentionally, and called her a snitch in front of the entire bus. There was no way out of this nightmare. As much as Rose might want to deny it, everybody in the school knew she’d told Disciplinary Committee what Darcy and Tessa did. She might as well stand her ground, and keep her self-respect.

  “I’m not afraid of you!” Rose said, right to his ugly face, as loudly as she could. “You want to hurt me? Just try it. You’ll wind up expelled, too.”

  “Attagirl, you tell him what’s what,” Zach said, and took her arm. “Back off, Flynn. This girl is not afraid of you. Rose, come sit with me, in the back where the company is better.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Emma said, gathering her things. “I refuse to sit near a bully.”

  “You’re gonna regret crossing me, Cuddy. I know where you live,” Brandon said.

  “He just threatened you,” Rose whispered.

  “Yeah, he pulls shit like that on the regular. He’s like the worst of the jock thugs. I hate his guts,” Zach said, guiding Rose toward the back of the bus.

  “Should I be worried about him coming after me?”

  “Like Emma said, he’s a bully. If you stand up to him, hopefully he backs down. And you did stand up to him. I thought you were gonna punch him out.”

  Zach smiled at her. He had a lovely smile. She was even more smitten with him now that he’d stood up for her.

  “I wanted to punch him. I can’t believe he called me a snitch in front of everyone,” Rose said, her hands still shaking from the encounter.

  “Brandon Flynn’s a douche, anyway. Nobody gives a shit what he thinks,” Zach said.

  “He’s just mad because Darcy got expelled, and no other girl is stupid enough to date him,” Emma said.

  As they made their way down the aisle, Rose spotted Bel about halfway down, leaning against the window and pretending to sleep. The sight of her sister made her angry all over again. Bel wore dark sunglasses and had a black pashmina draped over her head like some reclusive movie star hiding from the paparazzi. Her belongings were piled on the seat beside her so nobody could sit there. Who the hell did she think she was, some tragic celebrity? Granted, Bel’s best friends had been expelled—her only friends, as far as Rose could tell. But that was her own damn fault for being friends with assholes. Rose’s life at Odell had become a living nightmare because of what Bel and those girls did. Meanwhile, Bel got off scot-free. She hadn’t been punished at all, and nobody seemed to blame her. It wasn’t fair.

  They found a row in the back where all four seats were empty. Zach slid into the window seat on the left, and Rose sank down beside him. Emma took the aisle seat on the right, and leaned across to them, smiling.

  “Anybody want breakfast? I raided the New last night,” she said, pulling fruit and granola bars from her backpack, and handing Rose an apple.

  Emma thought of everything. She was so cool, so self-assured, in her baggy sweater, black leggings and white sneakers with no socks, despite the cold. If only Rose had been assigned to room with her instead of Skyler, none of this would’ve happened. Nobody would dare pull a prank like that on Emma. She carried herself with too much dignity. People didn’t like Skyler, that was the problem, and Skyler’s bad karma had rubbed off on Rose. As soon as she thought that, Rose got mad at herself for victim-blaming. The people responsible for this epic disaster were the ones who’d pulled the prank: Darcy, Tessa—and Bel.

  “So, I heard,” Emma stage-whispered conspiratorially as the bus pulled out of the driveway and headed to the main road, “that ever since Heath Donovan got appointed acting dean of students, he needs to make a name for himself. So he’s taking a really hard line. Skyler’s parents weren’t satisfied with just expelling Darcy and Tessa. And Bel got away with everything. The Stones want the school to go after the boys who shared the video, too, or they’re gonna sue. Donovan’s agreed to do it, to prove how tough the school is on hazing.”

  “That video was a Snapchat. Snapchats disappear after ten seconds. They can’t prove who shared it. They can’t even prove it was sent. Right?” Zach said, with a sick look on his face.

  “Oh, an expert can recover a Snapchat with a special search,” Emma said, nodding knowingly. “Besides, they know it was sent. Some boy who got the Snapchat told Skyler about it. He was like, Hey, bitch, my dorm saw you naked.”

  “What dorm?” Zach asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Which dorm was the kid from, who said he got the Snapchat?”

  “Cushman. Why? That’s not yours, is it?”

  “No. Not mine. Absolutely not.” Zach looked relieved. “Seriously, though, what kind of idiot would tell Skyler he saw her naked?”

  “An expelled one, now,” Emma said, smiling ruefully and tossing her glossy black hair. Rose couldn’t imagine being so cavalier about something so dire, but then again, Emma had nothing to fear. She had no personal involvement in the incident, unlike Rose or—judging by the expression on his face—Zach.

  “Expelled? Jesus,” Zach said.

  “Why are you worried?” Emma asked suspiciously. “You didn’t view the video, did you?”

  “You know, if someone sends you something, and you open it, that’s not a crime.”

  “You viewed it?” Rose asked. “Why would you do that? It’s an invasion of privacy. Skyler’s more wrecked over that than over the attack.”

  “I never said I saw it. If I did, I wouldn’t confess. I’m not a moron.”

  “Oh, come on, Cuddy,” Emma said. “You saw it. It’s obvious. At least tell me if Rose was as epic as they say. I heard she beat the crap out of those seniors.”

  Emma winked at Rose.

  “I stuck up for my roommate, that’s all. You would’ve done the same,” Rose said.

  “For Bel?” Emma said. “Nope. She’s one of the bad guys. I don’t even like rooming with her.”

  Rose was uncomfortable discussing her sister with Emma, so she steered the conversation to their plans for the break. While it was a relief not to be talking about the investigation, she was anxious for more information. Was it really possible the boys who watched the video would get expelled? If that happened, Rose’s life at Odell would go from living nightmare to living hell.

  21

  “Come into the parlor, dear. There’s something we need to discuss,” Grandma Martha said, poking her head into the hallway as Rose passed by the parlor door.

  It was the Monday morning of Thanksgiving week, Rose’s second day at Spring Hill. She’d been on her way to the kitchen to scrounge breakfast from the housekeeper. Grandma’s estate sat on twenty manicured acres in the Connectic
ut countryside, and consisted of a charming old clapboard-and-stone manor house, as well as a stable and paddocks, a pool, pool house and tennis court. The house was gracious, spacious and elegant, but sadly it wasn’t large enough to sneak down for breakfast without being discovered.

  Rose stepped into the parlor, a beautifully proportioned room with tall windows, expertly decorated. It was a cold, gloomy day outside, but a fire crackled cheerfully in the fireplace. Grandma’s lawyer, Warren, whom Rose had met on several occasions, sat on the sofa in front of the fire, looking dapper in gray slacks and a navy blazer. Grandma was elegantly turned out as well, in a pretty blue dress and pearls, leaving Rose—still in her pajamas, hair not brushed, with morning breath—at a distinct disadvantage.

  Grandma took a seat beside Warren. They both wore disappointed, long-suffering looks, like parents about to deliver a scolding to a misbehaving child. Rose wracked her brain and couldn’t think of a single thing she’d done wrong. Her grades were excellent, and she’d never been in trouble. She’d only been the victim of trouble. Bel was the one who needed lecturing, not Rose. Yet, Bel wasn’t there.

  “You remember Warren Adams, my attorney,” Grandma said.

  “Of course. Good morning, Mr. Adams. Nice to see you again,” Rose said, and shook his hand.

  “Likewise, Rose. Please, have a seat,” he replied.

  Rose sat down in an armchair, folding her hands in her lap and looking at them attentively. Odell had taught her that a simple display of manners would get you far in this life. People might not be good at Odell, but they were polite, and they got away with murder on a lot of fronts because of it. Something to remember, and use to her advantage when possible.

  “Your grandmother received some troubling legal news, which she’s asked me to advise on,” Warren began. “It’s about your roommate, Miss Stone.”

  Terrible thoughts flooded Rose’s mind. Skyler had hung herself, she’d slit her wrists in the bathtub. Or she’d decided to withdraw from Odell and leave Rose as the lone target of retaliation.