“Unlucky?” Ivy said incredulously. “Do you realize how many times you’ve cheated death this week alone?” She blew out her lips and shook her head. “From where I’m standing, you’re the luckiest bitch on Earth.”
We all just stood there for a moment, until a bubble of laughter escaped from my mouth and we all started to giggle.
“Since when are you a glass-half-full kind of girl?” I asked.
Ivy lifted her shoulders. “Things change.”
“Man, do they ever,” Kiran said, slinging her arm over my shoulder as Mr. Hathaway and Sawyer walked by, huddled together, and approached Detective Hauer. “I used to think Graham was hot.”
I laughed, turned toward Kiran, and hugged her, then felt Noelle’s arms go around my back. Soon Taylor and even Ivy had joined in on the group hug—one big mess of tangled hair, designer perfume, and chilled skin. I ducked my head inside the cocoon my friends had formed for me and smiled.
Maybe I wasn’t so unlucky after all.
GOOD SURPRISE
“This is definitely one of the best ideas you’ve ever had,” I told Josh a week later, cuddling back into his arms under the shade of our favorite oak tree at the center of the Easton Academy campus. I tore off a bit of the croissant I was holding and reached it up over my shoulder. He opened his mouth and snatched it from my fingers with his teeth.
“Agreed.”
Laid out in front of us was an old-fashioned picnic basket, overflowing with more croissants, fruit salad, one thermos of orange juice, and another of coffee. It was the morning of graduation, and all across the sunlit campus seniors strolled with their parents in suits and dresses, taking pictures in front of dorms and pointing out places of interest. There was this odd sense of finality in the air, mixed with the overwhelming, airy feeling of new beginnings. Flowers bloomed along the stone walks and bees buzzed from bud to bud. Birds chirped merrily overhead as a warm breeze tickled my bare arms. As much as I knew I would miss having Josh here with me next year, I couldn’t help feeling happy, hopeful. I didn’t want that feeling to ever end.
“I have a surprise for you,” Josh said, shifting his weight behind me. I turned my head to look up at him.
“Yeah?”
He extricated a piece of folded paper from his back pocket and handed it to me. I traded my croissant for the heavy paper stock, my pulse giving a little thrill. I had a feeling I knew what this was, and as soon as I unfolded the page, my hopes were confirmed.
Dear Mr. Hollis,
Welcome to Cornell University! We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted off the wait list and we have reserved a space for you in this fall’s freshman class.
“You did it!” I cried, throwing my arms up. My cast caught his chin with a crack.
“Ow!”
“Oh God. Sorry!” I circled my arms around him anyway and kissed the spot I’d bruised. “I’m so happy for you!”
“I know, but you don’t have to beat me up over it,” Josh joked, hugging me back. He buried his face in my shoulder and kissed the tip of my collarbone. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Actually, you probably would have gotten in the first time if not for me,” I said pragmatically.
Josh pondered this, then clutched the back of my hair with one hand. “Possibly. But life would have been a lot less interesting.”
We both smiled and he leaned in to kiss me. I touched my fingertips to his face as we moved in to each other, savoring each and every last touch and sigh and breath. Everything felt crisper this morning. More real. More significant. I suppose that’s how everything feels at ends and beginnings.
Then someone cleared his throat nearby. Seriously nearby. Josh and I both looked up. Headmaster Hathaway glowered down at us. His skin looked almost gray, and his normally coiffed hair had a scraggly look about it. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on the man in a week, and Sawyer had been absent from campus all that time as well.
“Pardon me for interrupting.”
“Headmaster Hathaway,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, couldn’t imagine what he wanted.
“I came over here to say I’m sorry. For what happened with Graham.” He lifted his eyes and looked out across campus toward the Billings construction site. “I had no idea he was so troubled.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked.
“We’re not sure yet,” he replied. “Possibly jail time, definitely treatment . . . it’s too soon to say.”
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Josh offered. “For everything that’s happened to your—”