Finding Dell (9 page)

“You’re writing up all of us?” Ruby asked from the bathroom. She looked into the toilet where dozens of ink-soaked scraps of paper floated. “This is karma, I know it.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Bernie said. “What if I offer you up a bigger offense, and as a result you forget this minor little infraction.”

“Bernie. . .”

She took three gliding steps to her desk and pulled open the top drawer. She rooted around in the back of the drawer and pulled out a crumpled plastic bag with pot in it. She tossed it on top of her laptop keyboard.

“I’d imagine that writing me up for possession of weed is a bigger offense than a few measly drinks. So you might as well write me up for this and forget about the other girls.”

Helen gasped. Ruby’s eyes were wide and she raised a hand to her mouth to smother a laugh.

“Dammit, Bernie!” Levi walked into the room and gingerly stepped over the empty shot glasses scattered on the rug. He tried to run a hand through his hair in exasperation before he remembered that it was glued into an unmovable style. “Why’d you have to do that?”

“Just putting some selfless good energy into the world, Levi.”

He furrowed his brow and used his pen to poke at the bag of pot on the keyboard. Still shaking his head, he scratched out a line on his memo pad and began to scribble in notes.

“I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. It’s no laughing matter to have a drug possession on your record.”

Bernie, contradictorily to everything I would have done, laughed. She actually laughed, and it was loud and braying. “It’s my
Paso Fino
record,” she emphasized. “Not my criminal record. Lighten up, Levi. In fact, let me stop by your room later after you’ve confiscated this and I’ll show you how to lighten up in just a few tokes.”

Helen’s eyes about bugged out of her head.

“Well, shut my mouth! Bernadette, please stop running your mouth right now,” she drawled in a stern voice.

Levi just shook his head silently as he ripped off the slip of paper and handed it to Bernie.

He pointed the pen at each of us deliberately.

“Never. Again. Got it?”

We nodded somberly. He left the room and shut the door behind him.

A loud flush interrupted our quiet musings.

“I was itching to flush Nic’s phone numbers down the toilet the whole time Levi was in here!” Ruby exclaimed.

We broke into laughter and Helen fell against the wall of the bathroom clutching her hand to her chest as she tried to catch her breath from laughing so hard.

CHAPTER 10

WE WALKED INTO
the dining hall as a group, and when Ruby held the door open for me, I studied her. The little line that creased her forehead when she was upset, or concentrating too hard, wasn’t there. She didn’t look like someone surviving a breakup, but maybe it didn’t feel like losing a battle when you were the one who’d made the choice. I wondered if Will had looked so carefree when we ended our relationship, if he ever looked at the dark-haired girl the way Ruby looked at Dean.

I followed her into the dining hall, through the stately hallway lined with fading photos of racehorses and thoroughbreds, paying tribute to the history of Wild Mare Point. Around the corner, the dining room was packed with people, and many students wandered aimlessly with heaping trays in hand, looking for an empty seat.

“Thanks for saving a table, Levi,” I said as I sat down. Natalie and Bernie shifted their trays to make room.

“I had to fight off a lot of people to save these seats,” Levi said, munching on gooey nacho chip dripping with fluorescent cheese.

Levi pointed a cheese-covered finger at a scribbled diagram in a notebook before him. He pushed the paper toward Ruby, who leaned forward in her chair eagerly.

“The opponent will likely hide their flag over here, near the willow tree, because the basketball court is wide-open,” Levi explained. “Our best bet is to crouch near the picnic tables until someone sees us.”

“I thought we agreed to circle around the lake and hide out by Sweet Bay Beach,” Ruby interrupted. She lowered her brow and tapped on Levi’s makeshift map.

The Wild Mare Point dorms hosted an annual tournament of Capture the Flag every year, also referred to as the Midnight Games because the teams waited until after dark to begin. As the resident assistant of Paso Fino, Levi was determined to lead our hall to victory. He had recruited Ruby to help out, and once she considered herself the competition’s social coordinator, she and Levi had spent the week strategizing behind closed doors and picking out their darkest outfits to blend into the night. She was his only successful recruit; Natalie examined her cuticles while Levi talked, and Bernie gazed dreamily out the window at the lake.

Levi noticed their disinterest and sighed. “It’s times like these I wish more athletic guys on the floor. Or just more guys in general. Then we might actually have a shot tonight. Instead I’m stuck with a bunch of girls who couldn’t care less about playing, much less winning.”

Natalie shrugged indifferently but I felt the rush of a painful reminder course through me—the reminder of what should have been, of carefree dinners with Will and stealing away into the bushes for a mid-game kiss during the Midnight Games.

“Can I sit here?”

I looked up to see Cam hovering meekly over the table, his
tray balanced in front of him like a protective barrier.

He looked at me expectantly.

In his plaid shirt, stretched tight across his skinny frame, he cut an unthreatening figure. His dark hair was rumpled and stood askew on one side of his heed, and I could see faint pillow creases from a recent nap on his cheek.

While I judged Cam’s haphazard appearance, Bernie said, “Pull over an empty chair and we’ll squeeze in for you.”

I gaped at Bernie’s casual invitation, but she daydreamed behind her large eyeglasses and didn’t notice my expression, so I dropped my eyes to my salad rather than look at Cam. The iceberg lettuce dripped with creamy ranch dressing and I pushed the leaves around with my fork.

Cam pulled a chair up to the edge of the table, where he perched his tray and picked at his food. Bernie made introductions around the table though she skipped me. I hadn’t spoken to Cam since he brought me the azaleas.

“You don’t live in Wild Mare, do you? We’re hosting the Midnight Games tonight and I don’t want to share our strategy with the enemy,” Levi said.

Cam looked up from his food. “I live in Collier Loop now, but Bernie and I lived in Palomino last year. I played, but we lost to Sugarbush.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t win. You strike me as someone who would be comfortable cheating to get what he wants.” I marveled at how biting, how ruthless, my voice was.

Levi coughed and nacho cheese sputtered down his tanned chin. Natalie laughed and Ruby kicked me under the table. Natalie broke the tension when she redirected the subject to Homecoming, which was coming up in two short weeks.

“We’re playing against a technical college in Western Kentucky. I don’t think there will be a contest,” Levi said, grateful
for the distraction. He didn’t handle confrontation well, despite taking training courses in it for his job as a resident assistant.

Levi and Cam got into a debate about the GPA of the quarterback, which was rumored to be below admission standards. Ruby and Natalie stole glances at me, bubbling with an urgent desire to talk about what I’d said to Cam.

To my surprise, Cam’s pale cheeks didn’t turn an embarrassed pink and he didn’t avoid my gaze. His weak but angled jaw was set in determination—
misguided defiance
, I thought—and I realized I was intrigued.

The slate-colored sky began its rapid descent into a velvety curtain of midnight blue, and a rolling fog started to form over the lake, licking at the patches of reeds and cattails on the banks.

When the sky was deemed dark enough, Levi ushered the team from Paso Fino to the courtyard, which opened out to the lake. Three dorms in Wild Mare Point touched the curving lake, excluding only the all-boys dorm of Morgan Hall. Large oaks created a canopy above the clearing, where a basketball court was curiously placed adjacent to the lake, and picnic tables dotted the wooded area. A weeping willow skimmed its long fingers along the water, leaving thin green leaves to float serenely on the lake’s mirrored surface.

I took a stance off to the side, near Palomino Hall. From a distance, I watched the activity, assessing the frantic scrambling with a wary eye.

Dark figures raced around the grassy, wooded area, and I couldn’t identify anyone. I realized I was standing near Paso Fino’s flag, so I took a few steps toward it. A burly figure charged at me out of the darkness. I reached out a flustered arm and brushed him away from me, and he came to a gasping halt a few feet away.

“I didn’t see you there,” he breathed. “I was so close!”

Someone shouted at him in the distance and he trotted off to a makeshift prison near an evergreen. I peered around the inky expanse, squinting to see my team’s jail.

The moonlight was robbed of its reflective light on the lake, swallowed up in a foggy haze, but still I could see the glimmer of Ruby’s light red hair in the makeshift jail.

I jogged slowly while my eyes struggled to see in the dark overhang of leafy branches. Just then, I felt a hand around my wrist. It was a tight grip, demanding. The hand pulled me backward until I stumbled and slid to the dewy grass.

When I looked up, Cam was framed by the white flowers of a night-blooming jasmine bush and the heady scent clouded my mind. With an extended hand, he pulled me to my feet, the sleeves of his sweatshirt riding up to reveal bony wrists that gleamed white in the moonlight. I stumbled forward in surprise and took a clumsy step toward Cam as I realized that his hands were now framing my hips, pulling me closer to him.

Cam pulled me past the shrubs until his back was against the wall of Palomino Hall, with bricks the color of baby fawns. His thin arms encircled my lower body and he leveled his gaze to my alarmed eyes.

“I have feelings for you, Madeleine Hewitt.”

Cam jutted his head toward me and kissed me fiercely on the lips while still holding me in place by my hips.

Startled, I pulled away, tottering as he released his grip on me. The air seemed to go still for a moment; the shouts of Capture the Flag sounded underwater while the cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine became overpowering.

“What are you doing?” I whispered harshly. “You don’t even know me!”

His expression changed from one of proud exhilaration to
guilty wrongdoing. Time sped up and I heard the water lapping against the bank of the lake and stealthy scrambling from the Midnight Games once again.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

I felt the crease in my forehead grow deeper as I moved a step closer to Cam, locking my blue eyes on his dark brown eyes.

“Bernie says differently.”

“We’re going to break up.”

I raised my brows.

“But you’re still together.”

“I’m planning to break up with her over Thanksgiving.”

Not taking my gaze off Cam, I pursed my lips and summoned my most menacing whisper. “I am not second best.”

My heels slid in the wet grass as I scrambled away from Cam, running blindly through the Capture the Flag game. I ran past the basement vents that leaked the fresh scent of warm laundry into the foggy night, to the brightly-lit lobby of Paso Fino.

I fumbled to find my key until a hand grabbed my arm and I turned with tear-streaked cheeks to see Natalie.

I was surprised to see her. She had been icy toward me all week. Maybe it was the harsh words we exchanged on our walk home from the bookstore or the way the other girls so casually excluded her, but she seemed to barely tolerate me lately. Not that I’d been much better toward her, admittedly. Every interaction felt pinched, tense.

But now, she led me away from the lobby door to sit on the parkway grass. At the curb, I doubled over at the waist as I tried to catch my breath, which came out in heaving gasps. Natalie’s hand unclamped my arm and touched my back softly to get me sitting up. She rubbed my back and whispered reassurances while my I struggled to return to normal.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Cam kissed me and then he lied about having a girlfriend.”

Natalie placed her hand over my own, effectively burying my hand to stop the tremors.

“You disappeared from the game, but I saw you run out from behind Palomino. Then I saw Cam and he looked upset, so I knew something had happened between you two. Besides, you’re my hip, so I know when something’s wrong.”

As freshmen, Natalie and I were inseparable—attached at the hip—and the phrase became a nickname. Hearing the name now made my heart ache for our old, effortless friendship. We sat in silence while the tinny refrains from Capture the Flag carried from the lakeside courtyard.

After a few minutes, Natalie let go of my hand and stood up, brushing grass off her tanned legs. She gestured toward campus and suggested we walk the perimeter of Wild Mare Point before going back to our room.

“So, tell me exactly what happened,” Natalie said after we had walked a considerable distance from Paso Fino and the site of the forced kiss.

“I can’t believe he tried to pretend like he didn’t have a girlfriend!” she exclaimed after I finished explaining.

“It’s pathetic.”

“Dell, I think he really likes you,” Natalie said, giving me a sidelong glance.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter if he likes me or not, or even if I like him. He has a girlfriend back home, so if he’s unfaithful to her, he’d do the same to me. You say that yourself all the time.”

We passed through a crosswalk onto the brightly-lit walkway that curved around campus.

“Normally, I wouldn’t suggest speaking to him ever again.
Cheaters are pathetic. But you guys just met. Maybe you should give him some time to sort out his relationship. If he didn’t have a girlfriend . . . would you consider dating him?”

I stepped around a broken beer bottle and hesitated, my voice sounding squeaky when I finally spoke. “I can’t. I don’t want to give up yet.”