There was another brief, tense moment of silence.
“Did you know Hardwicke keeps records?” John Thomas asked, breaking it. “About medications, diagnoses, mental health risks . . .” he trailed off. “You’d be surprised how many girls at this school say they’re going to summer camp but actually check in to eating disorder clinics. And your little friend Vivvie?” John Thomas continued. “She’s an interesting one.”
Vivvie had told me once that her freshman year had been a dark time. She hadn’t gone into specifics, but I knew antidepressants had been involved.
After everything Vivvie had been through this semester, the idea of John Thomas breathing a word about her to anyone was enough to make me wish that Asher had hit him harder.
Henry laid a hand lightly on my shoulder—a reminder that John Thomas was trying to do to me exactly what he’d done to Asher: bait me into a fight, push me to the edge.
Two can play that game. My better self fought briefly against the urge and lost.
“It’s funny,” I said, meeting John Thomas’s gaze. “I saw your father Friday night. He was looking pretty cozy with a woman who wasn’t your mother.”
“Tess.” Henry could fit a world of censure into a single word. Don’t sink to his level. Don’t play his game.
“Red hair,” I continued. “Blue dress. Enjoys breathing heavily into your father’s hair while he strokes the back of her neck.”
John Thomas’s face went very still. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice taut.
“Why don’t I ask your father about her?” I leaned forward. “I can tell him you let something slip about their relationship one day in class.”
My words hit their target. The look on John Thomas’s face told me two things: he knew about his father’s relationship with this woman, and Congressman Wilcox knew that he knew.
“He won’t believe you,” John Thomas said.
“I think we both know that he would, especially once I mention the way you’ve been shooting your mouth off about Henry’s family.” I leaned back on the heels of my hands. “The congressman is very good at paying attention.” I repeated the words that John Thomas had said to me at the charity event. “You got your information about Henry’s family from your father, and something tells me he wouldn’t be too happy to find out you’re flapping your lips. Knowledge is power,” I said lightly, “and here you are, just giving the congressman’s away. And for what? Some high school election you’re not even going to win?”
I’d only seen John Thomas and his father interact briefly, but that was enough for me to guess that the congressman wouldn’t choose to expend even an ounce of political capital on his son’s petty high school concerns.
“You’ll keep your mouth shut,” John Thomas gritted.
I smiled. “How hard do you think it would be for me to set up a little chat with the congressman?” I asked rhetorically. John Thomas had struck at Henry and Asher. He’d terrorized Emilia. He’d threatened Vivvie. I wasn’t above issuing a threat of my own in return.
“Because the next time you come after one of my friends,” I said, leaning forward, placing my face within an inch of his, “I will bury you. And your own father will be the one to throw the dirt on top, because Henry was right.” I pitched my voice low, barely more than a whisper and all the more cutting for it. “You are a disappointment.”
CHAPTER 25
Henry didn’t say a word about the way I’d used Congressman Wilcox as leverage against his son. In exchange, I didn’t tell Henry that sometimes people like John Thomas just saw taking the high road as weakness.
If I had to dirty my hands to convince John Thomas that attacking my friends was a bad idea, then so be it. If I could have punished him for what he’d done to Emilia, what he was still doing to Emilia—if I could have made him pay without forcing her into something that she had very clearly communicated that she did not want—I would have, tenfold.
Lunchtime came, but I wasn’t hungry. I bypassed eating and ducked into the courtyard. I’d planned on grabbing a table, but my feet kept walking—past the chapel, past the Maxwell Art Center, out to the playing fields. The air was cold in DC in November, but I had Montana in my blood.
The chill didn’t bother me any more than the insults of boys like John Thomas Wilcox.
Letting the wind nip at my face, I thought over what I’d said to John Thomas—and his reaction. Ivy had told me once that being a fixer came with a cost. Given what John Thomas had done to Emilia, given what he’d said to Asher and the way he’d smugly announced that Henry’s father was an alcoholic, pretending like it grieved him to impart the news—
I wasn’t going to feel bad about pushing back.