“You don’t need to be roped into this,” I said.
“I already am. I want to know what happened to her. Whatever’s going on, something isn’t right here.” He looked to the boys, both of whom were completely transfixed on his and my conversation. “I think we can all agree that neither Mandy nor Jane had any reason to kill themselves. The only possible cause is stress over their theses, but that doesn’t make sense because they were already done with the projects. Something else is linking them and I want to know what. Before it happens again.”
His statement was met with silence.
“Wow,” Ethan said after awhile. “I feel like I should give you a standing ovation.”
“Shut up,” Chris muttered, chucking a tot at him. “This isn’t funny.”
“You’re right,” I said. “What we’re about to do is pretty against the rules. If we’re caught, we’ll be suspended. Or worse.”
Chris just grinned. “Please, I was an only child. I’m the master of slinking around unnoticed.”
I rolled my eyes.
“When are we doing this?” Ethan asked.
“Dinner,” I replied quickly. That was the one part of the plan I had down—the actual logistics were easy. It was convincing my cohorts that I’d thought would be the hard part. “When it’s dark and everyone’s distracted.”
“Legit,” Ethan said. He looked to Oliver. “You in?”
Oliver sighed. “I have trio practice at five thirty. If I miss it they’ll be pissed.”
“Seriously?” Ethan asked.
“Seriously. Besides, you’ve all seen horror movies. The black guy always dies first.”
“Since when was this a horror movie?” I asked.
Oliver looked me dead in the eye. “Since our friends started dying.”
? ? ?
We agreed on a plan of attack and parted ways after breakfast. I headed back to my room to change into something that wasn’t pajamas, and the boys went off to do whatever boy things they had to do. Elisa was already in the room, lying on her bed with her legs crossed and a book in hand. It was surprising to see her there, working. I kind of expected her to still be in mourning.
“How was Cassie?” I asked.
“Managing,” she replied. She looked over the book at me. “How were the boys?”
I shrugged. Saying planning to spy on Jane’s death scene seemed a little too blunt. “Managing,” I said instead.
My plans for today were pretty straightforward: Since we had an unexpected day off, I was going to spend most of my time working. I’d probably focus on finishing some small silversmithing pieces for the coming week, what with the painting studio closed. I just wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to talk about art or Jane or gods or anything else; I wanted to get shit done, bury myself in my work and hope that I found my way out on the other side. No tutorial with Jonathan. No hanging out with friends. Which meant starting in on the American Civ reading—I’d hold off on art until later, as a treat. It would be a day of solitary productivity. I needed it.
Which is why, when my room phone rang and I answered, I was surprised at how happy I was to hear Chris on the other end.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Fine,” I lied. “Where are you?”
“Lobby,” he said. And sure enough, I heard some girls giggle on the other end of the line. “What are you doing today?”
“Working.”
“Sounds fun.” Once more the line was interrupted with giggling. “Hey, do you wanna come down and talk? They’re watching something in the lounge and it’s pretty hard to hear.”
What do we have to talk about? I wanted to ask. But then, like a light switch, the idea of doing more work just to distract myself seemed unbearable. Didn’t I deserve a break? Chris knew nothing about me or my past, which meant we could have some nice idle conversations about music or movies or whatever normal kids talked about.
I needed the normalcy. Probably more than I needed a good grade in silversmithing.
“Um, yeah, sure.” So much for being smooth.
“Bring your coat,” was all he said.
“Okay, down in five.”
“Awesome. Gives me just enough time to get enthralled with this show. . . .”
“Who was that?” Elisa asked when I put down the phone.
“Chris,” I said. And she did the obligatory OooOoo. “Shut up,” I said, throwing an old sock at her.
She just giggled and went back to her reading. I ran around the room, putting on my boots and grabbing my keys and coat and wallet and oh hell I should have just put it in a purse but too late now and then went for the door.
“Have fuu-unnn,” Elisa taunted.
“You’re incorrigible,” I replied.