Private 8 - Revelation (2 page)

"No. You guys. You can't just--"

"Sure we can," Noelle said with a smirk, stepping over outstretched legs and designer shoes to stand before me. "The residents of Billings decide who lives in Billings, remember? And we decided we don't want a backstabbing bitch living here." My grip on the love seat tightened. I couldn't breathe. I stared into Noelle's cool brown eyes, searching for the punch line. Waiting for her to laugh and tell me she was just messing with me like she had so many times in the past. We were friends. Practically sisters. And yeah, I had messed up, but didn't a person even get a chance to beg for forgiveness before... this?

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"No," I said finally. "No. I don't believe you."

I tore my eyes from Noelle and looked around again. I looked at Tiffany, who had always been so levelheaded and good-natured. Who had always been a voice of reason. She simply turned her face to the side, giving me a view of her perfect cheekbone and smooth cocoa skin. I glanced at Rose--sweet, don't-rock-the-boat Rose--but her eyes were trained on her lap, her red curls hiding her face. Portia rolled her big green eyes when I looked her way, and the Twin Cities studied their perfectly manicured nails. Only Constance and Sabine looked at me, silently begging for forgiveness.

The reality washed over me. It was true. They had all turned on me. They had voted to kick me out of the dorm I had just saved for them--the dorm I had raised five million dollars for in order to keep Headmaster Cromwell from shutting us down. The dorm I had lived in all last year--longer than many of them. This was my home. And they were taking it away from me.

"Who voted me out?" I asked, my voice clear as a bell.

I was angry and desperate and grasping at straws, but I needed to know. I needed to know exactly who had turned on me. And I couldn't just surrender and slink out of there with my tail between my legs. I refused.

Noelle scoffed at my question. Everyone else exchanged troubled glances. Disbelieving glances. Like asking them to tell me which of them were traitors was so very gauche. As if I cared about gauche right then. "Who voted me out?" I said again. "I want to know."

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Missy Thurber's hand was the first to go up. Shocker. Girl and her Chunnel-size nostrils had always hated my guts. But then, ever so slowly, more hands started to rise. Lorna's, Shelby's, Portia's. Even Kiki, Rose, Tiffany, and the Twin Cities had voted against me. People who a week ago I would have counted among my good friends. Only three sets of hands stayed firmly planted in their owners' laps.

Sabine, Constance, and Astrid had taken my side. That was it. That was all I had. Three real friends.

The burning dread in my gut slowly hardened into heavy, cold, sorrow.

"Sorry, Glass-Licker," Noelle said with a tilt of her head. "Looks like you're going back to where you've always belonged."

Back to where I always belonged? Was she kidding? She was the one who had always told me that I belonged here. She was the one who had insisted that Billings House needed me. How could she possibly look me in the eye and say that?

Noelle started by me, brushing my shoulder with hers. Indignant anger flared beneath my shock, and I heard myself speak.

"I don't think so."

Everyone in the room sucked in a breath. I wasn't even sure that I still wanted to live there, knowing they had all turned against me. But I wasn't about to give Noelle the satisfaction of seeing me go down without a fight. Not a chance. "Excuse me?" Noelle said incredulously, swinging around to face me.

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"That whole 'Billings decides who lives in Billings' rule doesn't apply anymore, remember?" I said, summoning all my courage to square off with her. "Not since Headmaster Cromwell overruled it at the beginning of the year. I'm not going anywhere."

Noelle's eyes cut through me like tiny little knives. She didn't even have to speak for me to know she'd already found a way around this.

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" she said, looking down her nose at me. "But when I single-handedly delivered the Crom a check for more than five million dollars to use as he pleases, he pretty much intimated that I can do whatever I want around here."

Single-handedly? As if I hadn't worked my ass off on that fundraiser.

"And what I want is you out," she finished, her lips curving into a smirk. "Don't make it worse by getting all pathetic and whiny about it."

My face burned like I'd been in the sun for four days straight. She was loving every minute of this. Loved humiliating me in front of everyone. Loved seeing me suffer. I hated her so much in that moment, I wanted to tear her hair out. And yet, I still wanted her to change her mind. Still wanted her to put her arm around me and tell me everything was going to be fine. I still wanted her approval. The fact that I had potentially lost it forever might have been the most devastating realization of all.

"Come on, ladies," Noelle said to the room. "I brought back some gifties from the city."

15 Just like that, everyone was out of their seats, happily bustling for the door. They all slipped around me as if I were a muddy puddle they were trying to avoid. I just stood there. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to. And after what they had done to me, I wasn't about to get out of their way. It was a small defiance, but it was all I had.

"Noelle, please don't do this," I said under my breath, stepping up to her once the room was all but empty. I didn't want to beg. I didn't want to explain myself while my blood was still hot with anger. But I sensed this could be my last chance. "I was drunk. I thought you guys were broken up. I am so, so sorry."

For a split second I saw the depth of the hurt Noelle was feeling reflected in her eyes and it stopped my heart. I had destroyed her. My best friend. The person who had been there for me through some of the worst moments of my life. I had hurt her beyond all repair. All of this, this huge scene, was just her way of protecting herself. Her way of saving face. My guilt compounded exponentially. I deserved her punishment. I did. But did it have to be this?

Suddenly, she turned her head to the side and blinked. When she looked at me again, the imperious stare was back.

"It doesn't matter what you thought," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Dash was and is mine. And even if we had been broken up, you don't go there. Not with a friend's ex."

I blinked and Noelle smirked.

"Yes, Reed. I know you're dying for an update, so here it is. Dash

16 and I are still together and we're always going to be together," she said. "One moment of weakness on his part is not going to change that. Especially when you so clearly threw yourself at him."

That was beyond untrue. Dash had been the one to invite me to one of the secluded tents on the roof at the Legacy. Dash had been the one to initiate things once I got there. But clearly either he or Noelle had decided to rewrite history so they could move on with their life together. Somehow, all the blame was being laid squarely on my shoulders.

"But don't worry. Fair is fair," she told me, lifting her chin. "You're not the only one being punished. He will be groveling for a long, long time."

"Noelle, I'm sorry for what happened," I said, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans. "You're right. I stepped over the line. And I'll do anything to make it up to you. But Noelle, come on. This is between you and me. You didn't have to drag the whole dorm into it."

A smile slowly twisted its way across Noelle's face. "I didn't. The vote wasn't even my idea."

I blinked, stunned. "What?"

"Have you forgotten everything, Reed? This is what Billings is all about. We take care of each other," she said lightly. "Even when it means deciding between two sisters and turning our backs on the one in the wrong."

My heart felt sick. Sick and black and sour. How many times had she told me this in the past? That she would always take care of me, always watch out for me, because that was what Billings was all about.

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But now I no longer had a right to that privilege. Now she was taking that all away. "One hour," Noelle said, tapping her gold watch once. Her tone was so final it weakened my knees. "The clock's ticking."

Then she turned her back on me and was gone.

18

PUSH BACK

Packing. I was packing up my room. I was no longer welcome in Billings, the only place I had ever really wanted to live. As I shakily removed my clothes from the dresser and placed them in my larger suitcase, I realized my heart had never felt this heavy. It might as well have been made out of lead."We tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn't hear of it," Astrid said in her thick British accent. She was slowly, reluctantly, folding up my bedding and stashing it in a large green garbage bag someone had fished out of a supply closet. This was how low I had sunk. Garbage bags as luggage. "It's a bunch of bollocks if you ask me. Everyone trips up now and again, right? We're only human."

"I think a lot of the girls wanted to vote for you to stay, but everyone's afraid of Noelle," Constance added. Hovering by the closet, she tugged on a lock of her red hair over and over and over again, eyeing me nervously like I might be on the verge of a breakdown. At least

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Constance was speaking to me again. After the fund-raiser she hadn't even been able to look at me, unable to believe I had backstabbed Noelle. Apparently the thought of me getting booted for it, however, had seemed unfair punishment to her. Neither she nor Sabine had done anything to speed along the process of moving me out. Clearly they were still having as hard a time with this as I was. "Is there anything we can do?" Sabine asked, sitting on the end of her bed, her green eyes probing mine.

Anything they could do. Like what? Plead my case to Noelle for me? Tie her down and make her listen? Build me a time machine so I could go back to the Legacy and not hook up with Dash?

"Help me pack?" I suggested with a sad smile.

Sabine and Constance looked at each other and seemed to come to a grim agreement. Constance turned toward the closet and Sabine got up to help her take the sweaters off the top shelf.

"God, I hate Noelle," Sabine said. "Someone should really give her a nice kick in the--"

At that moment the door to our room swung open and Noelle strode in. Sabine's mouth snapped shut and we all froze. Had she heard what Sabine had been saying? If so, she showed no sign. Her attention was focused on me.

"I want all your Billings things back," she said, her arms crossed over her chest.

I blinked. "Billings things? What Billings things?"

Noelle rolled her eyes. "The Chloe bag, to start. And any other gifts the alumni stashed inside of it. What did they give you? Cash? A credit

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card? Whatever it is, I'll take it now." She held out a hand and flicked her fingers, like I was just going to drop it all in her palm. This was a test. I could feel it. Noelle was trying to see just how far she could push me. I knew from experience that I had to push right back.

"No," I said, lifting my chin defiantly.

"Excuse me?" Noelle replied, her eyes narrowing.

"No. I'm not giving you the bag or anything else," I told her. I couldn't give in to her. Couldn't show weakness. Not if I ever hoped to win back her respect. "Those gifts were given to me. They're mine."

"They were gifts given to you when you were president of Billings," Noelle said, taking a menacing step toward me. "You no longer live here. You have no right to--"

"Sorry, but I think I have every right to keep the things that were given to me as gifts," I said, trying to be blithe even as my heart pounded in my temples. "They didn't come with a disclaimer."

To punctuate my point, I picked up the gorgeous leather Chloe bag and dumped it into Astrid's garbage bag along with my bedding. Noelle glared at me for a long moment, then sighed, like I was just so juvenile.

"Fine. But I will be taking back the disc," she said. "That cannot remain in the possession of a nonresident."

My face prickled with heat. No one else in the room knew about the disc.

"Disc? What disc?" Sabine asked, her green eyes suddenly curious. "Noelle," I said through my teeth. "I haven't told anyone about the--"

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"It's this disc that was given to Reed by the alums," Noelle said loudly, addressing Sabine. "It's chock-full of inside info on all of us--on anyone who has ever lived in Billings. She's had it all semester, Sabine. I'm surprised she didn't share it with you, of all people."

Bitch. Total bitch. It wasn't enough she was throwing me out. Now she was trying to drive a wedge between me and Sabine.

"Inside info?" Astrid asked tentatively. "What kind of inside info?"

"Like stuff about our families and stuff?" Constance said, wide-eyed.

"Like stuff about our past?" Sabine added.

The tension in the room was palpable. All three of them were completely freaked by the idea that I might know their secrets. Noelle, meanwhile, smiled like the Cheshire cat.

"I haven't read any of your files," I said, looking around at Sabine, Constance, and Astrid. "I wouldn't do that." Then I paused and glanced at Noelle. "To you guys, at least," I added in a leading way.

I had never looked at Noelle's file, either, but why not let her think I had? She deserved a touch of paranoia considering what she was putting me through. But of course her smile didn't falter.

"The disc, Reed," she said. "You know you have no right to it now." There was no point in arguing this. I could tell she wasn't about to give up. And now more than anything I just wanted to get her out of my room. I turned around and grabbed my portable CD case, then flipped to the John Mayer CD in the back. From behind it, I extracted the Billings disc, which I'd placed there after looking at my own file

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last month. As I turned around, Sabine, Constance, and Astrid all stared at the disc as if it were a nuclear bomb. I looked down at it. This tiny thing held so much power. Did I really want to give it to Noelle right in front of them? Was I really going to sell out the only people who had been faithful to me in this whole mess?