Simon was dreaming he was back in Brooklyn, playing a gig with Rilo Kiley to a club full of screaming fans, when suddenly his mother wandered onto the stage in her bathrobe and said, in a flawless Scottish accent, “You’re going to miss all the fun.”
Simon blinked himself awake, confused, for a moment, why he was in a dungeon that smelled of dung rather than his Brooklyn bedroom—then, once he got his bearings, confused all over again about why he was being awoken in the middle of the night by a wild-eyed Scotsman.
“Is there a fire?” Simon asked. “There better be a fire. Or a demon attack. And I’m not talking about some puny lower-level demon, mind you. You want to wake me up in the middle of a dream about rock superstardom, it better be a Greater Demon.”
“It’s Isabelle,” George said.
Simon leaped out of bed—or gallantly tried to, at least. He got a bit tangled in his sheets, so it was more like he tumbled-twisted-thudded out of bed, but eventually he made it to his feet, ready to charge into action. “What happened to Isabelle?”
“Why would anything have happened to Isabelle?”
“You said—” Simon rubbed his eyes, sighing. “Let’s start over again. You’re waking me up because . . . ?”
“We’re meeting Isabelle. Having an adventure. Ring a bell?”
“Oh.” Simon had done his best to forget about this. He climbed back into bed. “You can tell me about it in the morning.”
“You’re not coming?” George asked, as if Simon had said he was going to spend the rest of the night doing extra calisthenics with Delaney Scarsbury, just for fun.
“You guessed it.” Simon tugged the blanket over his head and pretended to be asleep.
“But you’re going to miss all the fun.”
“That is precisely my intention,” Simon said, and squeezed his eyes shut until he was asleep for real.
This time he was dreaming of a VIP room backstage at the club, filled with champagne and coffee, a gaggle of groupies trying to break down the door so that—in the dream, Simon somehow knew this was their intent—they could tear off his clothes and ravish him. They pounded at the door, screaming his name, Simon! Simon! Simon—
Simon opened his eyes to creeping tendrils of gray, predawn light, a rhythmic pounding at his door, and a girl screaming his name.
“Simon! Simon, wake up!” It was Beatriz, and she didn’t sound much in the mood for ravishing.
Sleepily, he padded to the door and let her in. Female students were most definitely not allowed in male students’ rooms after curfew, and it was unlike Beatriz to break a rule like that, so he gathered it must be something important. (If the pounding and shouting hadn’t already tipped him off.)
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong is it’s nearly five a.m. and Julie and the others are still off somewhere with your stupid girlfriend and what do you think is going to happen if they don’t come back before the morning lecture starts and who knows what could have happened to them out there?”
“Beatriz, breathe,” Simon said. “Anyway, she’s not my girlfriend.”
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” She was nearly vibrating with fury. “She talked them into sneaking out—for all I know, they drank their weight of Lake Lyn and they’ve all gone mad. They could be dead for all we know. Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care,” Simon said, noting that he was alone in the room. George also had not returned. His brain, muddled with sleep, was functioning below optimal speeds. “Next year I’m bringing a coffeemaker,” he mumbled.
“Simon!” She clapped her hands sharply, inches from face. “Focus!”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little alarmist about this?” Simon asked, though Beatriz was one of the most levelheaded girls he’d ever met. If she was alarmed, there was probably a good reason—but he couldn’t see what it might be. “They’re with Isabelle. Isabelle Lightwood—she’s not going to let anything bad happen.”
“Oh, they’re with Isabelle.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I feel oh so relieved.”
“Come on, Beatriz. You don’t know her.”
“I know what I see,” Beatriz said.
“And what’s that?”
“An entitled rich girl who doesn’t have to follow the rules, and doesn’t have to worry about consequences. What does she care if Julie and Jon get kicked out of here?”
“What do I care if Julie and Jon get kicked out?” Simon muttered, too loudly.
“You care about George,” Beatriz pointed out. “And Marisol and Sunil. They’re all out there somewhere, and they trust Isabelle as much as you seem to. But I’m telling you, Simon, it doesn’t seem right to me. What she said about the Academy wanting us to screw up and get into trouble. More like she wants us to get in trouble. Or she wants something. I don’t know what it is. But I don’t like it.”
Something about what she said rang true more than he would have liked—but Simon wouldn’t let himself go there. It felt disloyal, and he’d been disloyal enough. This week was his chance to prove himself to Isabelle, show her that they belonged in each other’s lives. He wasn’t going to screw that up by doubting her, even if she wasn’t here to see it.
“I trust Isabelle,” Simon told Beatriz. “Everyone will be fine, and I’m sure they’ll be back before anyone knows they were gone. You should stop worrying about it.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. Something!”
“Well, I am doing something,” Simon said. “I’m going to go back to bed. I’m going to dream of coffee and a shiny new Fender Stratocaster and if George still isn’t back by morning, I’m going to tell Dean Penhallow that he’s sick, so he won’t get in trouble. And then I’ll start worrying.”
Beatriz snorted. “Thanks for nothing.”
“You’re welcome!” Simon called. But he waited until the door had slammed shut behind her to do it.
Simon was right.
When Robert Lightwood began his lecture that morning, every member of the student body was there to hear it, including a very bleary-eyed George.
“How was it?” Simon whispered when his roommate slid into the seat beside him.
“Bloody amazing,” George murmured. When Simon pressed him for details, George only shook his head and pressed his finger to his lips.
“Seriously? Just tell me.”
“I’m sworn to secrecy,” George whispered. “But it’s only going to get better. You want in, come along with me tonight.”
Robert Lightwood cleared his throat loudly. “I’d like to begin today’s lecture, assuming that’s all right with the peanut gallery.”
George looked around wildly. “They’re serving peanuts today? I’m starving.”
Simon sighed. George yawned.
Robert began again.
1984