She Was the Quiet One

11

Rose had promised Mrs. Donovan that she would make up with her sister. But as the days passed, she couldn’t bring herself to fulfill that promise. She was still smarting from that incident in the dining hall on the first day of class, when Bel allowed one of her new best friends to humiliate Rose, and didn’t speak up in her defense. It was on Bel to apologize to Rose for that first, and then Rose would meet her halfway. Okay, Bel had tried to apologize the day after it happened. But that was too early. Anybody could see that. The wound was too fresh; Rose had cut her off and walked away. Now that more time had passed, Bel ought to understand that it was time to apologize again. This time, Rose would graciously accept her apology, and they could make up. But Bel kept her distance, and things between the sisters remained icy.

As angry as Rose was with her twin, she also missed her very much. Odell was a tough place, for all its glory. The pressure was intense, and the competition was crushing enough to pierce Rose’s healthy self-confidence. At Odell, one needed allies, and Rose didn’t make friends easily. Her pleasant rapport with Emma Kim was moving slowly toward friendship, but it would never match the history she shared with her sister. Bel wasn’t a natural soulmate for Rose; they were too different. But she was family, and nothing could change that.

On a chilly evening in early October, Rose walked back to the dorm alone. She’d left dinner early, overwhelmed by the feeling of being alone in a crowd. Emma had disappeared from the dining hall lately because she was rehearsing nonstop for the fall orchestra recital. That left Rose to navigate the Moreland sophomore table on her own. She knew she ought to try harder to make other friends, but she was too proud to put herself out there. So tonight, and too often lately, she’d ended up sitting quietly while conversation swirled around her, feeling left out.

The sharp chill in the air as she walked toward Moreland, the deep shadows cast by the setting sun, the empty paths, pressed on Rose’s heart. When she caught a glimpse of Bel in the distance, climbing the steps to Weston Library, suddenly that incident in the dining hall seemed frivolous. She couldn’t let it destroy her relationship with her only sister. If she and Bel could be friends again, Rose wouldn’t feel so lonely.

Rose hurried up the steps and onto the dramatic main floor of Weston Library, with its three-story atrium and enormous windows. Bel stood by the reference desk, talking to a boy named Zach who was in Rose’s biology class. As Rose approached, Bel actually smiled at her.

“Hey,” Bel said.

“Hey,” Rose replied, surprised at the warmth of her sister’s greeting. Bel had barely acknowledged her in weeks.

“Look, I have to go. I have plans with my sister,” Bel said to Zach.

“Rose is your sister?” he asked.

It made Rose stupid happy to realize that Zach Cuddy knew her name. He was worlds above your average Odell prepster dude, and the only boy she’d met so far who piqued her interest.

“That’s okay, I can wait,” Rose said. “Or maybe the three of us should—”

“No,” Bel said. “I need to talk to you. Now. Come on.”

She grabbed Rose by the arm and yanked her toward the front door. Rose glanced back at Zach helplessly as they exited the library.

“I’m so glad you want to talk,” Rose said, falling into step beside Bel out on the path. “I feel like we’ve been mad at each other long enough.”

The sky was nearly dark, and the yellow glow of the lampposts illuminated the paths. Bel sighed with irritation, her entire demeanor changed from how she’d been a moment earlier.

“So, you’re finally gonna forgive me? I apologized weeks ago, by the way,” Bel said, shaking her head irritably.

Her sister’s tone annoyed Rose. Bel still didn’t get how hurtful her action—or her inaction—had been.

“Put yourself in my shoes. Getting called fat on my first day of school in front of the entire dining hall. It was awful.”

“Come on, she didn’t call you fat, and practically nobody heard her.”

“Don’t minimize.”

“Look, I said I was sorry, and I am sorry. Tessa’s a bitch, but that’s not my fault.”

“If she’s such a bitch, why do you hang out with her?”

“Because she’s Darcy’s friend.”

“Why are you friends with Darcy?”

Bel whirled to face Rose. “If this is going to turn into a rant about my poor choice of friends, then we’re never gonna make up. I miss you, Rose. I want us to be closer. But you have to back off with the judgment stuff.”

“I miss you, too. I’m just worried about you. Those are, like, the most reckless kids in the school, and they’re bound to get you in trouble.”

“Maybe I don’t care.”

“How can that be? I don’t understand that.”

“We’re different, okay?” Bel said, her eyes in the lamplight sparkling with unshed tears. “You have everything figured out. I’m just trying to get through my days. Darcy makes me feel like there’s some fun left in the world, since Mom died. Can’t you understand that?”

Bel’s words hit home. Bel had been much closer to their mother than Rose had. Rose had resented their bond, and had felt left out. But Rose shouldn’t let that lingering resentment blind her to Bel’s real grief. Bel had taken their mother’s death much harder than Rose had. Rose reacted by trying to think about Mom as little as possible, and being grateful for her new life, where she could have a substitute mom like Mrs. Donovan. A better mom, really. Whereas Bel thought about their mother constantly. Rose had to admit, Bel’s reaction was the more normal one. It worried Rose sometimes, how little grief she felt. It was almost like there was something wrong with her.

“You’re right,” Rose said. “You and I experience Mom’s death differently. I take all my sadness and put it into succeeding here.”

“Is that the explanation? Because you seem so fine with everything that, sometimes, I wonder if you really loved Mom.”

Sometimes, Rose wondered that herself. But she would never admit to such a socially unacceptable emotion as not loving her own mother.

“God, what a mean thing to say,” Rose said. “That hurts. Don’t you get it? We can both feel grief, but show it differently. I’m doing my best to understand your way, and that you’re acting out—misbehaving—because of sadness. Meanwhile, instead of trying to understand me, you accuse me of not loving Mom? That’s low, Bel.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I need to try harder to see your perspective.”

“Thank you. I would appreciate that.”

“Let’s be friends again, okay?” Bel said.

“Yes. That’s all I want. I’ll get off your back about Darcy, too, promise.”

Bel smiled tearily. “Okay. Deal,” she said, and held her arms out.

They hugged for a long time, right there in the middle of the path. Rose had to swallow hard in order not to cry, which made her feel relieved. At least when it came to Bel, Rose still had a heart.

“Hey,” Rose said, disentangling herself. “I have Oreos in my room. Want some?”

“You know I do.”

They linked arms, and walked back to Moreland together.

12

By mid-October, Bel’s schoolgirl crush on Heath Donovan had morphed into something more powerful, and more dangerous. After their iced-coffee date at the Art Café, she just couldn’t shake the memory of their embrace. She still felt his arms around her, and wanted to experience that again. But how? She’d sit in English class and stare, letting his voice wash over her. Bel worried that kids in her English class would notice, and tease her. Or worse, that Darcy and the Moreland seniors would find out. If the seniors realized she was mad for Heath, not only would they mock her relentlessly, but they’d force her to play their tawdry game, which she absolutely refused to do. She didn’t even like hearing about it anymore. What they were doing was childish and degrading. What Bel felt for Heath was real. Bel now understood that Heath knew how she felt, and was glad of it. This amazing realization dawned on her in English class, on a stormy afternoon in late October, as they discussed one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Rain sluiced against the mullioned windows as Heath read aloud to the class from a poem about summer, and love.

“‘If happiness were like the flowers of June,’” Heath quoted, in his beautiful, resonant voice, “‘then I would take the best of them, roses and columbine, the lilies, and bind them in your hair . . . I think of you as the day wanes, and as the sun sinks deep into the ocean, and as the stars turn round above.’”

And just then, as the clock on the wall ticked to the beat of Bel’s heart, Heath looked up and caught her eyes. He’d been gazing down at the page, then those incredible blue-green eyes flicked up and settled on Bel, at the precise moment he spoke of binding flowers in her hair. Their gazes met, and held. Everything else faded away, and she was transported with him to a field on a perfect June day. She could smell the grass, as she had that afternoon they sat together on the patio, when she told him her troubles, and he comforted her. She could feel the breeze, and feel his arms around her again, his breath on her hair. And she finally understood that Heath Donovan wanted her to love him. Otherwise, why—out of fifteen students in the room, seven boys, eight girls—why would he look directly at her at the very moment he said those words? This wasn’t just a foolish crush. It wasn’t a one-way street. She meant something to him, too.

There were other signs.

Bel had joined the cross-country team at Heath’s urging, and he was teaching her how to run. (Okay, he was teaching all the girls on the team, but he paid special attention to Bel. She wasn’t imagining it.) There was so much more to running than she’d known. Form, pacing, strategy. Appreciation for the terrain. The sprawling Odell campus was situated in a valley ringed by rugged hills. The nature preserve, and its hiking trails, were their own private wilderness to train in. After a brutally hot Indian summer, the weather had turned wet and raw, and Bel’s afternoons were spent slogging through the muck on the trails with twenty other girls. They had practice five days a week, rain or shine, and meets on Saturdays. At first, it was torture, and she did it only to be near Heath. But as the weeks went by, calluses formed on her feet, muscles hardened in her legs, and she got faster, until she was keeping pace with the best girls on the team, and with Heath himself.

Heath ran alongside them on practice days. He was that kind of coach: He didn’t spare himself, even in the worst weather. He’d start at the front of the pack and slowly drop back, checking on each runner or group of runners in turn, giving them pointers, boosting their spirits. Bel made sure to run alone. She wanted to be certain that, whenever Heath caught up with her, they would have privacy. She’d get ten or fifteen minutes alone with him on a long run—more than he gave any other girl. They’d set a pace where they could comfortably maintain a conversation. The gray skies and whistling wind would drop a cloak of intimacy over them as they ran. Other girls might be in sight, but they were out of earshot, and Bel could say anything. She looked forward to these runs as if they could save her life, and in a way, they did. Bel told Heath all her troubles. He was the only person on earth she could talk to; with everyone else, Bel put on an act, full of snark and bravado. None of her friends or even her own sister suspected how lost she felt inside. But Heath knew the true her.

Out there in the woods, just the two of them and the wind, Heath listened like he really cared. He told her things about himself, too, personal things. As successful as Heath Donovan had been during his student days at Odell, he’d felt like an outsider then, as Bel did now. Heath got into Odell on a tennis scholarship, and he came late, not till junior year. As soon as he got there, his parents split, and money was tight. He couldn’t keep up with the rich kids—not even with Mrs. Donovan, who was his girlfriend then, and later became his wife.

That was the only time he mentioned his marriage. He didn’t speak of his children to Bel, either, even though she could see him with them in the dining hall on any given night. She understood this to mean that he was being sensitive to her feelings. She couldn’t bear that he belonged to these other people and not to her. Heath understood that, so he didn’t shove it in her face, and for that, she was grateful.

If there was a doubt in Bel’s mind that Heath knew her feelings, and maybe even felt something in return, it was put to rest the day she blew out her knee during practice. It happened just a couple of days after the moment that their eyes met in class. (Bel was still floating from that.) They were out for a six-mile run, the trails slick from days of rain. The weather had turned dramatically colder. Bel was running by herself, wondering when Heath would catch up with her, when her foot flew out from under her on a steep, icy stretch of trail. She hurtled downward, trying desperately to arrest her fall, and landed hard against a granite outcropping with her leg twisted underneath her. A bolt of pain shot through her right knee, so bad that it took her breath away.

Lucy Ogunwe, one of the faster girls on the team, came up to Bel from behind, and bent over her, panting.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

Tears flooded Bel’s eyes. She was too stunned to reply.

“No worries, Donovan’s right behind,” Lucy said, nodding toward the trail above. “Hey, Coach, Enright fell,” Lucy called out to him. “I think she’s hurt.”

Heath ran up to them, taking in Bel, crumpled on the ground, clutching her knee, the sheen of ice all around her.

“Do me a favor,” he said to Lucy. “Go back and tell the girls behind you that there’s an ice patch here. Tell them to slow it down to a walk. Stay safe.”

“Got it,” Lucy said, and set off in the direction Bel had come from.

Through a scrim of pain, Bel realized that Heath had just sent Lucy away. They were alone now. He knelt down beside her.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked, tenderness in his voice.

“My knee.”

“Can you sit up and lean back against the rock? Here, let me help you,” he said.

Heath put his hands on her waist and gently lifted her to a sitting position. The motion tweaked her knee, and she cried out.

“Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said.

The endearment was too much for Bel. Something came loose inside her. As Heath bent over her, his face mere inches from hers, his eyelashes wet with rain, she reached out and laid her hand on his cheek.

“I love you,” she said.

He stopped dead, looking at her so intently that she felt like he must see straight into her soul.

“Are you part of that ridiculous game? I know about it, you know. I’d be very disappointed in you, Bel.”

Despite his words, Heath didn’t move away, or shake off her hand. The warmth of his cheek under her cold fingers spurred her on.

“Never,” she said, her words tumbling out in a rush. “I hate those girls. They’re childish. What I feel for you is real, Heath. It’s not a game. I know you feel it, too. Please, tell me you do.”

His eyes, as they locked on hers, were troubled. “I’m married. You’re a kid. You’re my student. It can’t be,” he said.

That wasn’t a denial. He wanted her. She could see it in his eyes. Bel’s lips parted, and she leaned in, desperate to feel his mouth on hers.

“Tessa,” Heath said, snapping back abruptly.

Tessa Romano had just come over the top of the hill. Tessa was the sturdy redhead with freckles and a potty mouth who’d caused so much trouble in Bel’s relationship with Rose. Bel couldn’t think of a worse girl to discover them like this. Tessa didn’t really like Bel. Of all the Moreland seniors, Tessa was most likely to spill her guts to Darcy the second she got back to the dorm.

“What have we here?” Tessa asked, her eyes lighting up luridly.

“Bel took a fall and hurt her knee,” Heath said, his face going stony, as if a mask had dropped over it. “Come here, please, and give me a hand. Let’s see if we can get her to her feet without her putting weight on the right leg.”

They got on either side, and Bel draped her arms over their shoulders. Leaning on them, she managed to stand up and hobble down the steep slope. Every step was a blur of pain and anxiety. What must Heath think of her now, that she’d been so undisciplined, in such a risky situation? Would Tessa tell people? Could Heath get in trouble? He must hate her now.

Thirty awful minutes later, they reached the bottom of the hill. Heath had called ahead, and they emerged from the woods to see a security department car waiting on the road to whisk Bel to the infirmary.

Heath helped her into the back seat. “I’ll call the infirmary later to check with the doctors. You’ll probably need to go on the injured list. Would you like Tessa to stay with you?”

I want you to stay with me, she thought. But she couldn’t speak the thought aloud. If people started to talk, he might never spend time with her alone again.

“I’m fine,” Bel said curtly.

Heath closed the door with a sharp click, and the car drove away.

At five-thirty, Bel was alone in her room back in Moreland, lying on Emma’s bunk, because she couldn’t climb up to her own. She could hear girls passing by in the hallway, on their way to family dinner in the Commons, the old part of the dining hall. Family dinner was this awful thing that happened once a week, where kids had to dress up and sit at tables with faculty members. If Bel’s injury had an upside, it was that she’d gotten excused from attending tonight. She was supposed to keep her leg elevated and a cold pack on her knee for the rest of the evening. The pain pills the doctor had given her dulled the ache in her knee, but not the sick feeling in her heart. He’d almost kissed her; they’d been that close. But now, their bond was shattered, their great love affair over before it started.

Suddenly the door banged open, and Darcy stormed in, blond hair flying, her pretty cheerleader’s face red with pique.

“What the fuck, Enright. When were you planning to tell me you have something going on with Donovan?”

Shit. Tessa must have told Darcy what she saw, and Darcy had a big mouth. This story would be all over school the second Darcy walked into the dining hall. If Bel wanted to protect Heath from the fallout, she needed to convince Darcy that nothing had happened out on the trail this afternoon.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protested, widening her eyes innocently.

“Don’t give me that BS. Tessa saw you with him in the nature preserve this afternoon. She said you were practically in a lip-lock.”

Bel pointed to the bandage and ice pack on her knee. “Uh, hello, you see my injury? I fell and blew my knee out. Mr. Donovan helped me up. That’s all Tessa saw. He had to put his arms around me to lift me. He’s the coach. He’s not gonna leave a runner lying on the ground.”

Darcy looked at Bel’s knee and frowned. “That’s not what she said. She said he pays all sorts of attention to you. The other girls are jealous.”

“Well, she’s lying then—exaggerating anyway.”

“Tessa’s been loyal as a dog for three years at this school. You, I’ve known for like five minutes, and you expect me to believe you over her? Sorry.”

“I swear, Darcy, nothing’s going on. I would never horn in on your contest. Not without your permission.”

“I should hope not. I don’t need anybody cock-blocking me, especially not you, after all I’ve done for you. If I thought you were trying to steal my prize—”

“I would never. Tessa has a wild imagination, and she misinterpreted, that’s all. Swear to God.”

Darcy put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know who to believe. What you’re saying makes sense on the surface, but I get the feeling you’re holding out on me.”

Bel placed her hand over her heart. For a skeptic and a liar herself, Darcy was surprisingly susceptible to flattery. Bel laid it on thick. “Believe that I’m your true friend, Darcy. There’s nothing but love and gratitude in my heart for you.”

“Okay, then prove it.”

“How?”

“It’s almost November, and the Moreland seniors haven’t pulled any good pranks yet. We need to keep up our reputation, and I have something radical in mind for tonight. A revival of a prank my mom’s gang used to pull back in the day. You’ll see.”

“You want me to help with that tonight? You see the shape I’m in. I’m not mobile.”

“Aww, your widdle boo-boo huwts? Tough titties, Enright. Take a Vicodin or smoke some weed, whatever you need to do, but you’re not getting out of this one. Time to earn your keep. If you want the benefits of hanging out with me, you have to do some dirty work.”

That gave Bel a chill. Darcy at her worst could be savage.

“What exactly is this prank?” Bel asked.

“It’s a surprise,” Darcy said, snarkily. “Be at my room at midnight, and you’ll find out.”

She turned on her heel, and was gone.

Bel laid her head on the pillow and wished she’d never come to this damn school. The two things that had kept her going had both fallen to shit today. Her friendship with Darcy was supposed to be easy and fun, but now it just seemed sick and twisted. And her love for Heath—which just a couple of hours ago she believed was reciprocated—would never amount to anything now that her conduct had exposed him to gossip and ridicule. Everything was ruined, and she couldn’t face it.

Her glance fell on the bottle of pain pills on the dresser.