“No news,” he says as Peyton and Damian wander out in matching robes.
“You know, Cooper. I promised to go back to Eastbrooke, but I never promised to go to class.”
“Not go to class?” Aiden asks. “How’s that going to work?”
“I’ll sneak onto campus, but I won’t check in. I’ll call the school and say that I’m staying with my family and will be there later or something.”
“Will you just sit in your room all day?”
“I’ll just sneak in with Damian and stay with Cooper. I can’t go to class. I don’t even have my uniforms. They’re all at my loft and I can’t go back.”
“You can wear mine,” Peyton suggests sweetly. “My parents are meeting us at school with all our stuff.”
“It’s not just that. I don’t want the other students to know I’m back. I can’t deal with that right now. I can’t deal with homework or teachers. I’ll go crazy. Besides, it’s silly. I’ll be going back to Malibu in six days.”
“I thought it was seven?” Cooper asks.
“Seven started yesterday.”
“Technically, when you agreed to seven days, it was today.”
“Fine. Whatever. It’s silly to go to school for even a few days when I know I’m leaving.”
“It will give you something to do,” Aiden suggests, kissing my nose. “Keep you busy. And it won’t be bad. The first two days of classes will be getting back into the swing of things. We won’t have homework. There’s a basketball game on Friday night and a dance. Saturday we’ll hang out and watch football. It will help pass the time.”
“Brooklyn is lying on the floor somewhere, helpless, Aiden,” I snap. “I’m not going to a damn high school basketball game and pretending I give a shit about it.”
Aiden gives me a glare, gets up, and walks out of the room.
Cooper watches him go and says to me, “I’d like you to be enrolled in school. If you want to pretend to be sick, you can.”
“Thanks. Um, Cooper, can I talk to you in private?”
“Sure, let’s go downstairs to the lobby.”
“That’s not exactly private.”
“Why don’t I take my brother and Damian down to the restaurant for breakfast?” Peyton offers.
I give her a hug and say, “Thank you.”
“We’re all trying our best to help you get through this,” she says quietly. “Especially Aiden.”
Her words just add to my guilt.
And my guilt is piling up higher than the Empire State building.
They clear out and Cooper sits on the edge of a chair. “Shoot.”
“I can’t do it. I can’t wait seven days. We need to come up with a new plan to present to Garrett. Or I just need to go myself. I’m stronger than Vincent thinks I am. I’ll attack him when he doesn’t expect it, like you taught me to. It worked on the guy in the club. Or I could take a gun, a knife, and some pepper spray.”
“Keatyn, he’d check you for weapons. And a wire. And trackers. He’s not stupid.”
“I think he would be so shocked I showed up that he’d forget.”
Cooper just stares at me.
“Okay, he probably wouldn’t.”
“Wait! I know. What if I Skype him? Garrett said if I could record him confessing that the police could arrest him.”
“They can’t arrest him if they can’t find him.”
“I’m a mess, Cooper. And every single time I look at Aiden, I just feel guilty. Like I’m somehow cheating on Brooklyn.”
“I don’t know all the background on the two of you. So, before you got sent to Eastbrooke, you and Brooklyn were dating?”
“We spent the summer together in Europe. When we got back, he found out that his dad had gotten him a few sponsors and he was going out on tour. He was leaving me. He thought we should date other people.”
“You were young. You were going to be apart for long periods of time. That sounds like the mature thing to do. My high school girlfriend and I did that when we went to different colleges.”
“How’d that work out for you?”
“She met someone else. Fell in love. A year later she was pregnant and getting married.”
“Do you wish you would have stayed together?”
“I don’t think it would have mattered, Keatyn. She fell in love with someone else. If our love was meant to be, she wouldn’t have.”
“I fell in love with Aiden. Does that mean I’m not meant to be with Brooklyn?”
“Was it the same situation? Were you and Brooklyn dating each other but also free to see other people?”
“We weren’t dating each other. I thought we were over.”
“What do you think now?”
“I feel like I’m holding a live grenade and if I make the wrong move, everything around me will explode.”
“You need to try and be patient. At least for the next few days. Garrett said there are a lot of properties to check and that it’s going to take them the majority of the next three days just to do it right. Last night, Garrett told you something that made you agree to wait. What was it?”