The Blood Between Us (12 page)

He narrowed his gaze at me—not entirely certain he’d misheard me the first time. “Get back to class.”

“Yes, sir.” As I turned away from him, I loosened my tie again and headed to Julian’s classroom.

I opened the door, and whatever discussion had been going on ceased. I held my hand out to Julian, my jaw clenched. “I’m here for my phone.”

The look in his eyes was pleading with me to just calm down and realize that he was in the right here. But I was too far beyond pissed for that now. It was bad enough that the entire school was against me. But Julian? That was too much.

He handed me my phone with an air of reluctance, and then I picked up my books and moved out the door. His voice followed me into the hall. “Adrien—”

“Nope.” The door clicked shut to punctuate my response. As I moved down the hall, I thumbed through the school directory site on my phone until I found Marissa’s father’s number.

Clicking the number, I put the phone to my ear. It rang twice before a man answered. “Hello?”

“Yes, Mr. Connelly? My name is Adrien Dane. I go to school with Marissa here at Wills and just heard about her condition. I wanted to make sure she’s okay.”

His voice sounded rough, jagged with worry. “Nice of you to call, Adrien. Marissa’s . . . she’s not great. I’m afraid she won’t be returning to school anytime soon. And frankly, after what happened this morning, I’m not sure she’ll be returning to Wills when she does.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Do . . .” I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “Do they know what caused it?”

His voice shook when he spoke. “It was an accident. A bizarre one that should never have been allowed to happen on a school campus, but an accident all the same.”

An accident. Right. One caused by a certain angry friend by the name of Grace Dane. “Please tell her I hope she feels better soon.”

“I will. Thanks for calling.” The call ended and I started to climb the tower stairs. I didn’t stop moving until I came to my door. Written on it in Sharpie in big, bold letters was the word
traitor
. I stood there staring at it for a good, long time. Is that what I was? A traitor? To whom? Grace? The Wills Institute? The entire student population? Had I committed some grievous offense, some unforgivable sin by leaving behind my parents’ deaths and a sister who hated me and trying to find my own way to deal with my grief? I’d dealt
with my grief by leaving it behind. Why the hell was that a problem, or anyone else’s business for that matter?

I opened the door to my room, slamming it behind me. I could have called the resident advisor and reported the graffiti, but screw it. Screw them. If this was how the student body wanted to view me, then fine. I was a traitor. Hell, Benedict Arnold was a traitor here in the states, but a hero in England. He even got a statue. Maybe I’d get a statue, too. It just wouldn’t be at the Wills Institute. Besides, my time here was quickly shrinking. So was Viktor’s. After that, I was gone. Outta here. Never looking back.

I lay on my bed for the rest of the day, watching as the light moved down the walls to the floor before disappearing altogether. My mind was filled with more noise than anything, swirling thoughts of what to do and what I had done, analyzing and overanalyzing and coming up empty-handed. When it got too dark to see without turning on the light, I left my room and went to see Josh at the radio station.

When I got there, he looked at me with a half smile, half frown that said he’d already heard about what had happened in Julian’s class. “Ahh, if it isn’t Mr. Popularity.”

“Bite me.” I sat on the couch, placing my face in my palms with a heavy sigh. “How do I fix this, Josh? I’ve never been a good student, but I used to love being at this school. Now I’m a social pariah. It’s beyond stupid.”

“You’re not who you were when you were here before, Dane. You’re a different guy, with a different life. You can’t expect to walk in and resume your old life when you haven’t been here to live it.” “Losing Sleep” by John Newman came to an end. Josh turned in his chair and flipped a couple of switches, not taking time to say anything into the microphone. “Swing Life Away” by Rise Against started to play. Josh turned back to face me. “Grace stayed. So while her life is different, too, the whole school has watched that change in her. No one knows the changes in you. So of course they side with her.”

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back in his chair. It sounded like he’d given this entire situation a lot of thought. It was comforting to know that I wasn’t alone in that, anyway. “It may sound stupid, but if you want to fix this and have a relatively pleasant time here, I’d recommend getting involved. Be seen at the parties, let shit go when people attack you. Laugh it off, even if you don’t feel like it. Basically don’t be a dick. And don’t let them push you out.”

I shook my head, dropping my hands in my lap. “I’m not kissing ass just to get accepted.”

He stood up from his chair and took a seat beside me on the couch, giving me a friendly pat on the knee. “I’m not saying you should kiss anyone’s ass. I’m saying that you have
this wall around you that’s made of solid, four-foot-thick ‘screw you,’ and if you don’t knock it down, you’re going to have a very lonely time here.”

A hundred defensive thoughts ran through my mind—most prominently “screw you,” which only served to prove that he was right. I took a deep breath and blew the thoughts away in an attempt to take Josh’s advice. When I looked at him, I simply said, “Okay.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Okay?”

“Where do I start?”

A smile touched his lips. “There’s a small party in the art barn on Friday. Just a dozen or so people. Come with me, maybe smile at a few people, hold your tongue once in a while, and we’ll see what happens.”

He hesitated a moment before he said, “Grace will be there. But if you want everyone to stop hating you, you’ve gotta learn to be in the same room with her. Without that angry wrinkle permanently creasing your forehead.”

Josh was right. I knew he was right, but hated that he was. We both stood and I grabbed his hand after we high fived, pulling him into a hug. I said, “Thanks, man.”

As we parted, he said, “No problem. That’s what friends are for . . . right?”

I walked out of the room, feeling lighter and heavier at the same time.

As I reached the ground floor of the library, I caught a glimpse of Grace as the back door closed behind her. It wasn’t like her to be by herself at night. She should have been hanging out with her friends in the common room or at the dining room holding court after dinner. She was up to something, and it was about damn time I found out what.

She didn’t see me, and I waited a moment before following just to make sure it stayed that way. Then I opened the door and stepped outside, quietly closing it behind me. She was moving across the courtyard, her steps hurried and determined. I moved along the hedges beside the main building, hiding in the shadows. She stopped momentarily and pulled out her phone. Her thumbs moved over the glowing screen, but I couldn’t tell what she was writing or even whether it was a text message or something else.

Before she started moving again, she looked around, as if suspecting that someone might be following her. I held my breath. Finally, she moved forward again and rounded the end of the building. I took two slow, deep breaths and followed her . . . but when I turned the corner, she was nowhere to be found. Whoever had been texting me was right again—Grace was sneaking around at night. Where was she going? What was she doing? And who else besides me had been following her?

A type of bond that occurs when two atoms share a pair of electrons with each other

I closed my notebook and slid it inside my top drawer. I was no closer to turning any of my three hypotheses into theories, and here we were in the middle of the first week. Time was getting away from me faster than I liked.

Quinn rushed through the door in a whirlwind, grabbing his backpack from the back of his chair. I looked up at him to ask what the hurry was, but he cut me off with a breathy “I’m late!” before disappearing out the door once again. I was late, too, but I didn’t think it mattered all that much. What was five minutes in the grand scheme of things?

Slipping my already-knotted tie over my head, I grabbed my books and headed out the door to the first class of the day. If I was honest with myself, I was kind of looking forward to it. But then, the idea of blowing anything up had always given me a delightfully tingly sensation at the base of my skull. Besides, Caroline had surprised me with her potassium suggestion . . . and I didn’t often get surprised. In hindsight, I should have thought of it first. It was so obvious. But I hadn’t. And she had. It made me wonder what else was rattling around in that head of hers—a curiosity I hadn’t felt before about anyone else, whether male or female or whatever other gender someone identified as. She was unusual. And I liked unusual things.

Not that she was a thing.

The door was already closed by the time I approached Mr. Meadows’s classroom. I knew it would likely mean another demerit to be late to class, but I was allowed ten before things got serious, and there was no way I was going to be at Wills long enough to use up all ten. Besides, like I gave a crap how red Meadows’s face would get when he laid eyes on me. After the way he’d treated Caroline on the first day of class, I didn’t mind bugging the crap out of him.

Mr. Garrow stopped me in the hall just long enough to snarl at me. He said, “Tie, Mr. Dane,” just as I opened the door to the class, and all eyes turned to me. I moved slowly,
confidently to my spot at the table beside Caroline and took a seat.

I pretended not to hear him. Who cared if my tie was tight and straight anyway? Besides Garrow, I mean. I was wearing it, which was all that the handbook demanded of me as far as the tie situation was concerned. I liked to think of my loose tie as a middle finger I wore around my neck. And it seemed like Garrow did, too—his offense felt like an acknowledgment that I had just metaphorically flipped him the bird.

“As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted,” Meadows—a hippie who likely sang along to tunes about peace, love, and harmony, I might remind you—continued, “I want each of your tests to be thoroughly documented both on paper and on film. Start small, people, and use the least amount of chemical interaction required to blow your bathtub to smithereens. Safety first. And each test requires the presence of a staff member. That being said, the remainder of your class time today will be active lab. If you have any questions at all, I am at your disposal . . . as are the materials in the supply closet. All chemicals must be approved for sign out. Other than that, as you are AP students, I trust your judgment.”

I looked at Caroline and said, “So. Potassium.”

“Potassium.” She nodded. “I’ll handle the paperwork, if
you don’t mind. Documenting experiments has always been my strong suit. Equations? Not so much.”

“Fine with me. I figured we could do any small tests on the soccer field. Less chance of damage to school property.” My pause was one filled with uncertainty. “I hope.”

“What should we blow up first?”

“I think we should listen to Meadows, start small. Coffee can?”

Caroline chewed on the end of her pencil for a moment before rolling her eyes. “Oh, come on. Let’s at least use a trash can. Bigger is better, don’t you think? Especially if our end goal is to destroy a bathtub.”

A smile touched the corners of my mouth. I was pretty certain I liked Caroline. Anybody who thought bigger was better when it came to chemical reactions was all right in my book. “Trash can it is.”

“Now we just need to calculate how much water and potassium we’ll need.”

“Slow your roll. First we need the dimensions of the trash can. Which means we’re going to need to obtain a trash can. A metal one. We want something sturdy.” I glanced at her notebook. “Are you taking notes?”

“Of course.” She picked up her pencil and jotted down everything we’d discussed so far. The outside of her notebook was covered with stickers and random doodles. Mostly
things like hearts and rainbows, but also an inked tribute to some band called Rancid.

An enigma. That’s what Caroline was.

When she’d finished writing, I said, “So there’s this party Friday—”

“Not interested.”

“You don’t have to drink or anything.”

“No, I mean in you. I’m not interested.” She looked at me briefly and shrugged. There was no feeling in it. Not even a tiny amount of regret. “In you. Sorry.”

I blinked in wonder. Was I really so dull? Was the idea of hanging out with me for even a few hours so repulsive? Not to be arrogant or anything, but I thought I had some pretty interesting ideas about the way the world worked. And for the most part, I liked what I saw when I looked in the mirror. Well . . . maybe not first thing in the morning, but still. “Why?”

“Why am I sorry or why am I not interested?”

“Both, I suppose.”

She set her pencil down and met my eyes. “I’m sorry because it’s the polite thing to be when you turn someone down for a date. And I’m not interested in being an accessory to a great mind, when I have one of my own.”

I shook my head, confused. And a little more than annoyed. “Yesterday you were questioning how you managed
to get into AP Chemistry. Today you’re a great mind?”

She shrugged and made an additional note on the page. “It’s called experiencing a moment of self-doubt. Everyone does it on occasion.”

Exasperated, I stumbled over my breath for a moment before speaking. “I just . . . don’t understand. It’s just a party. Could be fun.”

“You don’t want me to come have fun with you, Adrien. You want me to help you prove to people that you’re not the jerk they all think you are.” She bit the end of her pencil again and seemed to examine me before adding, “And I’m not yet convinced that you aren’t.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I just sort of sat there, dumbfounded. Maybe I wasn’t the only one forming hypotheses about the people around me.

I could understand how she might get the impression that I was some kind of jerk. But that wasn’t the only reason I’d asked her to go with me. Honestly, I found her interesting. I just wasn’t getting how she couldn’t seem to reach that conclusion about me.

She went on as if nothing at all had happened. “We need a trash can. Maybe the kitchen staff can hook us up?”

Through a fog of hurt feelings, I muttered, “Yeah. Maybe. I’ll ask at lunch.”

“Good.”

I leaned closer and said, “Let me get this straight. You’re not attracted to me at all? Not even a little?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.” She didn’t even do me the courtesy of pausing to pretend she needed a moment to mull it over before she closed her notebook with a snap. On the front was a sticker that read
Luna Lovegood is my spirit animal
. She said, “I think you’re attracted to yourself enough for the both of us.”

After a long time filled with silence and note taking, the bell rang and my mood plummeted with its shrill sound. It wasn’t like I was crazy attracted to Caroline or falling madly in love with her or anything. I just thought she was interesting. So where was the harm in spending more time together? And where would she get the impression that I was arrogant? Just because I generally liked myself and had confidence in my abilities meant that I was stuck-up? It was ridiculous. She was being completely unreasonable. This was one problem I was pretty sure even the scientific method couldn’t help me understand. So maybe it was better that we didn’t attend the party together after all.

The conversation with Caroline occupied my thoughts throughout the rest of the day, carrying me from one class to the next. I made halfhearted notes on each subject, and by the time I sat down in the circle in Julian’s class, I was just ready for the day to be over.

Julian stood at the center of our circle, hands clasped behind his back. His tie was perfectly straight again today. I had the urge to loosen its knot and pull it off-center. He said, “What is communication?”

Grace raised her hand, and I suppressed a laugh at the notion that my sister had any real idea what communication was. “Communication is the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior.”

Julian nodded. “A textbook definition, Grace. But at its core—what is communication?”

“The need to connect?” I didn’t care if my answer was wrong. I just knew that that was what communication was to me—something that Grace and I had clearly never had between us.

Julian pointed at me with an approving gleam in his eyes. “Precisely. In this marvelous age of technology, communication is both changing forms and breaking down in many ways. While a new form of communication is born every day on the internet, other tried and true forms—languages, for instance—are slowly dying off. Did you know that there is a small village in Asia where the people used to communicate by whistling? Only about twelve people still know how to do it, where it used to be the primary form of conversation. Speaking of conversation, some might argue that the art of polite face-to-face conversation has even suffered
across the globe in recent years. But at its essence, communication arises from the need to connect with our fellow human beings. A simple look, a touch, a word can express so much. It can unite humanity, or tear it apart completely. I want you to keep that in mind as we move forward in this class. The importance of communication in all its forms.”

Communication was important. But part of communication was listening, and Grace and I had stopped listening to each other a long time ago.

For the first two years after I was adopted, I’d hung on Grace’s every word. I’d wanted a sister who’d guide me and be my friend. Even from the start, she’d never seemed thrilled to have a brother, but at least she let me tag along. Then came the day that Scruffy died.

Scruffy was a mutt—a rather ugly dog that Dad had brought home against Mom’s wishes when Grace and I were in the third grade. He was a sweet dog who loved to play catch. If it was a ball or a Frisbee, or anything ball- or Frisbee-shaped, and you threw it, Scruffy would go after it.

Grace and I would trade off who had to put Scruffy’s toys away each day. Back then, we were pretty good about doing things like that without being told. But one evening, after a long day of running around outside, Grace reminded me that it was my turn to pick up Scruffy’s toys. I told her I already had, but I hadn’t. I was tired and just wanted to go
inside. That night one of Scruffy’s balls rolled out into the road. A truck hit him, and he died.

Grace never forgave me. I think from that day on, she felt like her worst fears were confirmed. She couldn’t trust me. I wasn’t a part of her family.

Julian seemed more confident today, or maybe he was just pleased with his approach to teaching. His mood seemed lighter than it had, that was for certain. “We’ll begin preparation for your project by developing interview questions. Spend today developing fifty or so questions to ask your partner that will help you better understand their background. Write your questions down, but keep them to yourselves for now. On Tuesday, you’ll begin interviewing one another. Now if you’ll all switch seats so that you’re seated by your partner . . .”

Grace and I exchanged looks. She wasn’t going anywhere. As I begrudgingly took the seat next to her, I drew in a breath and said, “Let’s just try to get through this without killing each other, shall we?”

The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. “That much I can manage. Depending on how much of an asshole you plan to be, that is.”

Forcing a falsely charming smile, I set my notebook and pen on the desktop. “No more than the usual.”

“Thanks for the warning.” She sighed and immediately
went to scribbling down questions.

From out of the side of my eye, I watched her. It was the first time in four years that I had looked at her—really looked at her. And what I saw made my heart ache. Before I could catch myself, I said, “You look like her, y’know. More than I thought you would.”

“Like who?” She didn’t look up from her paper. Anything I had to say to her was less important than whatever she was writing. Or anything else in the world, for that matter.

“Mom.”

She paused, loosening her grip on the pencil. Probably out of shock that I would admit such a thing. “Is that a compliment?”

I shrugged. It was. But there was no way I’d ever admit that to her. “Just an observation.”

She kept staring at her paper, so it was hard to be sure, but I could swear I saw a glimmer of tears and remembrance in her eyes. In my mother’s eyes. “Thank you.”

I shrugged again, as if what I’d said had been nothing at all—maybe even just a joke. “Thank genetics. I had nothing to do with it.”

We both went back to work in silence, the air strange and heavy between us. She had to be questioning my motives. The truth was, I didn’t really understand why I’d said it. Maybe it was the shock of the moment. Maybe it was the ache
that seeing those eyes had sent through me. I missed my mom. And it pained me that even a small part of her would live on forever in Grace. I had nothing from our parents—nothing tangible, nothing physical. I was just an abandoned boy, adopted by strangers and then abandoned again. Even with a sister, I was totally alone.

At the end of class, Julian called us up front. He sat on the corner of his desk, looking much more like the relaxed, casual Julian I knew outside of the classroom. “Viktor and I would love for you both to join us at a dinner party this Saturday. Adrien, our dinner parties tend to be relatively upscale, so please dress for the occasion.”