10
ALPHA ACADEMY
JACKIE O
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH
7:23 A.M.
Charlie opened the front door to Jackie O and let it slam behind her. Why had she hesitated back in Shira’s office? Her roommates treated her like she was more invisible than an extra on Perfect Storm. Who was she trying to protect?
Starting up the winding glass stairs, Charlie’s aPod sounded from inside her pocket. Four gold text bubbles stared back at her.
Taz: broke my arm this a.m., But at least I didn’t break my bro’s heart.
Melbourne: Your children would have been nearly as beautiful as me.
Sydney: How could you do this to us?
Dingo: You have been dingoed for the last time!
Charlie sniffled and selected a fresh uniform from her closet. There was a time when she would have given anything not to be Dingoed anymore. His pranks had gotten increasingly bigger-budget, more elaborate, and more dangerous. But now she missed the boys like a soldier misses his gangrenous foot.
Charlie leaned down and strapped on her clear gladiator sandals. She had just fastened the last strap when a song Darwin had been composing popped into her head. Singing along with the memory, she wished he knew how much she missed him. Longed to tell him she had done it for them, for their future. Hoped she’d prove herself to Shira soon, so she could tell him.
She hummed for another moment or two before realizing that the tune wasn’t in her head. It was outside the house. And that could only mean one thing: Darwin was trying to win her back!
Charlie raced down the corkscrew staircase and bolted for the door. Technically, she wasn’t allowed to tell Darwin. But maybe she could explain everything by spelling it with twigs and leaves. Or speak in clicks like the Bushmen they’d befriended in Tanzania. If Shira was going to play dirty, so could she.
Bursting outside, Charlie found her legs outrunning her level head. She followed the music to the side of the house, and when she couldn’t contain herself any longer she blurted, “Darwin, I’m so ha—”
Her voice trailed off as soon as she saw that a girl was sitting behind him on the blanket. He wasn’t singing his way back to Charlie. He was replacing her—at her own picnic.
“Darwin, shhhh,” Allie was pleading. “Someone might hear you.”
“Who? Everyone’s at breakfast.”
“Not everyone,” Charlie said flatly.
Darwin gasped, his face funneling through hurt, confusion, and guilt before landing on triumph. He had already moved on.
For a moment, the only sound in the garden was the fizzing glass of bubbles and pomegranate-extract on the blanket, Darwin’s favorite breakfast concoction. The silence hurt more than a pimple, but Charlie couldn’t bring herself to pop it.
Allie J’s eyes flitted between the two of them, as if trying to decipher one of those optical illusion pictures that, after a stare-down, reveal a hidden image. Or in this case, a clear one.
“What are you doing here?” Darwin hugged his guitar like it was his best and only friend.
“I live here,” Charlie snapped. She had never taken him for the kind of guy who would try to make her jealous.
“You know each other?” Allie J asked. Her mole seemed to be missing, but Charlie couldn’t be sure. Anxiety often blurred her vision.
“This is the ex,” Darwin explained, a hint of shame in his voice.
Hearing him say the words made their breakup painfully real in a no-turning-back sort of way. She wasn’t even his ex anymore. Just the ex, drained of any personal meaning.
“Brown-nose?” Allie J sounded genuinely shocked. “Darwin, that’s who you were so up—” She stopped and changed course. “You dated her?”
“Why is that so surprising?” Charlie snapped.
“Who cares?” Darwin began packing the uneaten food. “It’s over now.”
“Clearly,” Charlie’s voice trembled.
“What was he supposed to do?” Allie J butted in. “Suffer? Just sit around and mope while you move on with your life?” Her voice began to tremble too, as if a fresh wound was talking for her.
Yes! Charlie wanted to answer. Darwin was supposed to be in mourning, just as she was, his heart cryogenically frozen the moment it broke, waiting for Charlie’s return so it could thaw. Of course, he had no idea that she’d done it in order to ultimately keep them together. But shouldn’t their history guarantee a future, even if the present sucked? Feelings didn’t turn on and off like aPods or transfer over like frequent-flier miles—even when the first-class upgrade came in the form of Allie J.
“She’s right.” Darwin sided with Allie J. “You dumped me. On Skype!”
“Maybe she just wasn’t that into you?” Allie J joked.
No one laughed.
Two quails scuttled across the yard, like a giddy couple on their first date. Charlie willed Darwin to put the pieces together. Her mom’s speedy exit. The boy ban. Her sudden admittance. But he just stood there, looking at Allie J like she was a Brita pitcher—taking in all the negative and pouring out purity and rainbows.
“I better head to class.” Darwin stood.
“Same.” Charlie’s eyes clouded with a 100 percent chance of rain. She turned and ran inside Jackie O without another word.
There was only one thing left to say. But not to Allie J or Darwin.
To Shira.
After the first tear fell, Charlie grabbed her aPod and typed a name. Turned out snitching was easier than she’d thought.