"You should really talk to him," Brigit prompted. "The guards don't like us, so they get kind of mean when we keep them waiting. Something about us being overprivileged snobby bitches."
"Okay," Ariana heard herself say. Her voice sounded very far away. Like it was coming through the heating vent beneath her feet after traveling through five stories of pipes. "I'll be right back," she told Soomie. She slowly made her way to the phone, unable to breathe the entire way. This was it. This was how she was going to get caught.
"What's the matter?" Brigit asked, her blue eyes wide as she held out the phone. "Do you think it's an ex-boyfriend or something?"
Ariana didn't answer. Couldn't. She grabbed the phone from Brigit and held it half an inch from her ear, as if it might scald her. Her other hand clung to the hammer.
"This is Briana Leigh Covington," she said.
183
"Yes, Miss Covington," a clipped male voice replied. "We have an Ashley Hudson,here to see you."
Ariana's butt hit the tiny wooden seat in the booth and pain radiated up her spine. Hudson was here? Why the hell would he be coming to see Briana Leigh? And what was he going to do when he saw her--the girl he knew as Emma Walsh--instead? This was even worse than Teo. Ariana pressed the butt of the hammer's handle against her forehead and closed her eyes, her mind racing.
This isn't happening. . . . this is not happening. ...
"Miss Covington?"
"One sec," Ariana said.
She was surprised to realize that part of her wanted to see Hudson. Was dying to, actually. A friendly face--the face of a person who actually cared about her--would be a welcome thing right then. But how was she going to explain the fact that she was even here?
"Are you okay?" Brigit asked from outside the booth. "OMG, it is an ex-boyfriend, isn't it? Is he hot? Can I meet him?"
Ariana shot Brigit a look of death. She didn't mean to, it just happened. Luckily, Brigit didn't seem to notice. She was probably too busy formulating her next battery of questions.
Questions. She was sure Hudson was going to have thousands of them. But maybe it was better to attempt to answer them now and get rid of him for good. Clearly, ignoring his texts and phone calls was not going to work.
"Fine," she said into the phone, eyeing the hammer as she spoke. "You can let him in."
184
EMMA, ANA, LOVE
Ariana shoved open the front door of Cornwall Hall and paused when she saw Hudson standing there on the stone patio between the parking lot and the entrance, reading the plaque set in the stone border around a cherry tree. She had a moment--one moment before Hudson saw her--in which to take him in. His floppy blond hair, slightly floppier than the last time she'd seen him, the way he stood with his shoulders just slightly rounded, unaffected and unpretentious, the line of his perfect jaw. She didn't realize until that moment how much she'd come to care for him in those couple of weeks they'd had together. She took that one moment, savored it, then said her own, private good-bye.He didn't know it yet, but it was time to move on.
Finally, he turned. His face registered total shock, followed quickly by pure glee. Ariana's heart shattered as he raced forward and took her up in his arms.
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"Emma! What are you doing here!?" he said into the thick blanket of her hair.
Ariana released herself from his grasp, making sure not to inhale his scent, which might physically hurt her, and looked around. No one in sight, thank goodness. No one had heard him call her "Emma."
"I transferred here over the summer," Ariana explained, sticking to the story she'd made up in the stairwell on her way down. "That's why you couldn't find me at Easton."
Hudson held both her hands in his, a bright smile lighting his handsome features. He was wearing a light blue oxford shirt, open over a faded burgundy Harvard T-shirt, and jeans that had seen better days. There was a small coffee stain on one thigh, and they were wrinkled beyond belief. Had he just driven all the way down here from Connecticut? Ariana was touched by the thought.
But no. She couldn't let herself feel. This was good-bye. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.
"Couldn't stay away from Briana Leigh, huh?" he joked.
Ariana smirked at the irony of the question. "Something like that."
"This is unbelievable," he said, squeezing one hand as he released the other. He tugged her toward one of the stone benches on the patio outside the dorm. "I honestly can't believe you're here! I was starting to think I'd never see you again."
If only, Ariana thought. "So ... why are you here?" she asked.Hudson laughed as he sat down in the sun. "Well, when I didn't find you at Easton I tried to think of how else I might get in touch