Fall For You [The Jane Austen Academy Series #1] (13 page)

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let me give you some advice. If you’re going to ask a girl out, don’t call her a snob in the same sentence.”

“I admitted I was wrong about that! You’re just honest…and direct.” He ran hand through his hair. “I like it.”

“So you like honesty and directness in everyone except yourself?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Lizzie spat.

“I don’t know,” Dante said. “Look, if I didn’t get some signal, then I’m sorry, but I thought we had a good time.”

“It would have been a good time—if any of it had been honest.” Lizzie stepped forward again so they were face to face. “But it wasn’t. And that’s not the only reason. You’re the reason Rick won’t give Anne a second chance.”

“A second chance to dump him?” Dante said, getting riled up. “She’s the one who hurt Rick, not the other way around, and don’t pretend you wouldn’t tell her not to give him a second chance if the situation was reversed.”

“The situation is completely different now,” Lizzie said. “Besides, that’s not your great sin and you know it. You’ve been lying to me. This whole weekend, while you pretended to help me, you were just helping yourself! You were trying to keep me from figuring out the truth—that
your
parents
are the owners.”

In the silence that followed, Lizzie could hear her own labored breathing.

“Georgiana doesn’t know,” he said.

“That’s all you have to say? Do you deny any of it?” she asked. “Ruining Anne’s chances with Rick? Lying to me about the new owners of the Academy?”

“No,” he said.

Lizzie stifled a cry. A small part of her had hoped Edward was wrong—she was wrong—even though it was naïve. And now she had proof, a declaration straight from him, that he’d lied to her and trash-talked Anne. “Then we have nothing else to talk about.”

“Guess not,” Dante said. He walked into the hall and Lizzie followed. She rested her hand against the door.

He turned back to her. “Are you going to print?” he asked.

Was that all he cared about? Of course it was. Whether she’d keep his parents’ precious secret?

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

With that, she shut the door.

Chapter Eleven

Lizzie stood with her palm on the door and felt every fiber of her body shaking with anger.

Of all the nerve. How could he? How could he ask her out? How could he further humiliate her? Had it all been an act?

She flashed back to the weekend. To how he’d jumped in to save her in the lake, how he’d stood so close to her in the library that they were breathing as one, how he’d pulled her against him while trying to get the list.

Apparently Josh Wickham wasn’t the only accomplished actor at the Jane Austen Academy.

She must have stood there for ten minutes, frozen, when she heard laughter in the hall—Ellie’s laughter. She wiped at the tears that were making their way down her cheeks and peeked outside her door.

Across the hall, Emma and Ellie were returning from their weekend trip. They still had their beach bags hanging off their shoulders and their hair was still wet—like they’d just taken a dip in the ocean. They looked so effortless with their matching blond hair, flip-flops, and sundresses that Lizzie felt the deep dig of jealousy in her stomach.

Ellie looked up and waved at Lizzie, a big grin on her face. But as she got closer, she dropped her hand and her smile. “Is everything okay?”

Lizzie wanted to say no. Lizzie wanted to fold herself into Ellie’s arms and cry. But Emma was there, also looking concerned but so Emma-like, so superior and full of advice that Lizzie forced a smile.

“Yeah, I just missed you,” she said.

“Los Angeles was great—I brought you back a gift. Come to our room and I’ll find it.”

Lizzie followed Ellie and Emma and tried to push her feelings into a manageable, compactible ball that she could stow away and ignore. But they kept lashing out.

Anger at Dante for lying to her.

Sympathy for Anne about what was happening with Rick.

Depression that she had actually been swept away by Dante’s blue eyes and big grin.

But it always came back to anger.

She could barely keep track of Emma’s story. “So we followed her around for two hours before we figured out she wasn’t Blake Lively,” Emma said, and the two of them dissolved into laughter.

“Yeah, that’s crazy.” Lizzie forced a smile, but she could tell she wasn’t fooling Ellie. A frown was growing in those familiar eyes. “So, what did you get me?”

Ellie pulled a big, heavy, red-bound book from her beach bag with an exaggerated grunt. “A doorstop,” she said, joking.

Lizzie sat on the edge of Ellie’s bed and balanced the book on her knees. She opened it to the first page. It was a compendium of articles from West Coast newspapers dating back to the country’s founding.

“It’s beautiful.” Lizzie ran her hand over the page. She loved how she could see the old typesetting, back when they used to print the paper using block letter stamps and ink, setting each page of the paper one at a time.

“Emma found it,” Ellie said.

Lizzie looked up at Emma in surprise.

“I was looking through some coffee-table books to find a gift for my aunt,” Emma said. “But when I saw this, I knew you would love it.”

“Thank you.” The ball in her throat made it hard to breathe. To think that the whole time she’d been stressing over Ellie and Emma having a fun weekend without thinking of her…and they’d bought her a gift. What had she done for them lately?

She’d also spent the weekend believing Dante and his lies. How could she be so completely wrong about everything? Were her journalistic instincts off?

“Hey Ellie,” Lizzie asked, “could we grab a bite? Maybe someplace…just…away from everyone?”

“We have lunch plans with Edward,” Emma said apologetically.

“But you should come,” Ellie said. “I’m sure you two will have tons of great stories from the weekend at Rick’s.”

“Oooh, how was it with Anne there?” Emma asked, sitting on the bed next to Lizzie. “I heard she and Rick have history.”

“We should leave them alone,” Lizzie said. “Ellie, can you cancel? Emma, do you mind? I just kind of need some me-time with Ellie.”

“Oh.” Emma stood up slowly.

“It’s not you,” Lizzie said. “I just can’t be around Edward right now.” Because he reminded her of how stupid she was.

“What’s wrong with Edward?” Ellie asked.

“Nothing—everything! I just want everything to go back to the way it was before the stupid new owners and the stupid new students and Bergie and everything else.”

“Well, it won’t,” Ellie said. “And you’re not exactly rejecting change. You’re the one who gave in to a new roommate, remember?”

“I had no choice!” Lizzie shot to her feet, clutching the book to her chest.

“Yes, you did—you think I don’t know about the managing editor trade? Emma told me.”

“Maybe I should leave,” Emma said.

“Yes!” Lizzie yelled, just as Ellie said no.

“This is your room, Emma,” Ellie said. “You shouldn’t be the one leaving.”

Lizzie felt a sharp pain in her chest. Was Ellie throwing her out? Was she picking Emma over her?

“Ellie,” Lizzie said helplessly.

“Emma’s done nothing wrong,” Ellie insisted. “You’re the one who didn’t want to room here.”

Lizzie bit back a retort. Perfect Emma would never do anything wrong—except pollute Ellie’s mind against Lizzie by telling her Lizzie had chosen the managing editor position over their friendship.

Although she had done that….it was her fault, not Emma’s.

But she knew Ellie would forgive her if only she didn’t have Emma whispering in her ear. If only they still had their own rooms, and there were no boys, and no stupid owners.

She opened her mouth to tell Ellie she did want to be her roommate, but she thought back to that first day. To before Bergie had offered her the managing editor position. She’d been obsessing over Ellie’s klutzy mess and how she always had sand in her hair and the way she never unpacked or threw anything away. Even now, glancing around the room, she saw gum wrappers on the bed and empty soda cans that probably had been sitting out all week.

Had she ever really wanted to live with Ellie? Really?

She’d already been wrestling with doubt, even from day one. She had pushed Ellie away. It was her fault. She clutched the book tighter, blinking away tears.

“Lizzie, wait,” Ellie said.

“No, it’s okay.” Lizzie cleared her throat. “You were right.”

After a few moments, Lizzie turned and walked out.

* * *

Lizzie wandered the hall, not sure where she was headed, clutching the book to her chest. In her daze, she bumped into a few students, excusing herself and continuing on her way.

Maybe the person she’d been wrong about wasn’t Ellie and wasn’t Dante.

Maybe the person she was most wrong about was herself.

She thought she was a journalist, a person of integrity, when really she’d sold out her friend for power. It went against everything in the Jasta code of ethics, everything the school had been founded on.

Lizzie pulled the book tighter to her chest as she rounded the corner from the boarding hall into the classroom wing. She looked down at the book, then thought back to the Jasta founders.

An idea sparked.

She headed straight to the Journalism room. Even though all academic classrooms were closed during the weekend, except for the occasional room being used by a student club, as managing editor of the
Gazette
, Lizzie had a key.

She let herself inside and headed straight for the microfiche. Emma’s gift had given her an idea—she had to go back into the history of the Academy to save it. Unfortunately, the Jane Austen Academy had not yet gotten around to upgrading all their archives into the digital age, and most of the early
Gazette
articles, as well as the Academy’s founding documents, were still on the ancient, old-fashioned films that had to be viewed under a special microscope-like reader.

She set herself up in front of the microfiche reader, snagged the first index-card sized microfiche with the first-ever edition of the
Gazette
, and slipped it under the lens. She pulled her chair closer, rested her eye on the viewing lens, and began to read.

“What are you doing here?”

Lizzie looked up from the microfiche lens to find Anne standing in the doorway.

“Anne! Are you okay?” Before Lizzie knew it, she was walking to Anne and hugging her. She felt Anne nodding against her shoulder. She pulled back. “What happened? Where did you go this morning at Rick’s?”

“For a walk.”

She and Anne strolled back to the front counter and sat on their stools.

“Just a random walk?”

“Through Merrywood,” Anne said. “Since Rick got here, my head’s been so turned around with what he’s been doing here and what that means for us. Whether things could go back to how they were—I think that’s why his rejection hurt me more than anything else. It’s just more of a sign that things are changing and I can’t stop them. This isn’t my school anymore.”

“Yes, it is,” Lizzie said with determination. “That’s why I’m here. I’m not denying that things are changing. They are. But not everything has to change. We just have to make the new students love the Jane Austen Academy for the same reasons we do. For the same reasons the first class of students did. That’s what I’m doing—looking back at the first
Gazette
. We need to remind ourselves of what this institution stands for so we can all be proud of it.”

“But what does it matter, if the new owners don’t care?”

“We make them care,” Lizzie said.

“How can we if we don’t even know who they are?”

“Well, yeah.” Lizzie smiled. “About that…”

Chapter Twelve

“Are you ready?” Anne asked.

Lizzie surveyed the busy lunch room. It was packed, a student in every chair. An uncharacteristic drizzle had set in during morning classes, so no one was eager to eat their lunch on the lawn. Instead, they crowded around the long tables, fitting their trays on top of one other as they found a place to squeeze in.

“Yes,” Lizzie said resolutely. She took a deep breath. She scanned for Ellie and Emma, who sat across from each other at the end of a table across the room. She found Dante, Rick, and Edward sitting together nearby. Anne gave her an encouraging nod as she hugged the pamphlets close to her chest.

Lizzie strode to the centermost lunch table and jumped up on it.

“What the—” The students at that table reared back. One pulled back her tray. Another reached for his milk carton.

“May I have your attention, please,” Lizzie yelled over the din.