The Secret Girl Page 43
On Friday, I have my tutoring session with Church, but he doesn't show up at the library, so I entertain myself by digging through the old yearbooks and trying to get a feel for the deep history at the academy. In one of them, I find some scribbled notes about secret tunnels beneath the school.
Huh.
Not sure if I believe the note or not. In any case, you couldn’t pay me to go looking for them. I hate closed, dark spaces.
I leave about thirty minutes later, Mr. Dave glaring daggers at me as I go. When I get back to the dormitory, I settle in my room with a book called Broken Wings, curled up in my bed until darkness takes over the sky outside my window.
I always try to time my showers around midnight, late enough that there's usually nobody in the bathroom, but early enough that I'm not a zombie in the morning.
This time, I take back all the extra soaps and shampoos I stole before. Sorta feel like an asshole now as I put them back on the shelves and sigh. I did take them to California with me, but Monica never gave me the chance to offer them up. My heart clenches painfully, and I sigh, putting my forehead against one of the shelves.
I miss my best friend more than I do my boyfriend. Is that messed up? No. No, that actually makes sense. Cody was just there, handsome, familiar, easy.
Pushing off the wall, I head into one of the personal stalls, changing out of my clothes and undoing my bindings, letting the white bandage curl on the floor by my feet.
The shower water is hot and feels so damn good, running over my skin and taking away my worries and fears along with it as it swirls down the drain. The marble bathroom is so lush and cozy, and without the laughter of boys in here, it feels private and comfortable.
I use my favorite shampoo, the lilac-rosemary one that I like so much, that I've also come to discover is Church’s scent of choice. It's not like there are a ton of options on the shelves as far as scent goes, but it's interesting that we've both settled on the same one.
As I turn off the shower, I hear a rattling sound, like someone's trying to get into my room. What the hell?
“This room's occupied!” I call out, wrapping a towel around myself and padding over to my phone. If I text my dad right now and tell him I'm nervous, he'll chain me to the bed in the guestroom. So while I'm not going to overreact, I'm prepared.
Whoever's on the other side of the door stops, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
But a moment later, the door comes flying open as Church kicks it in, his faux smile gone, his cruel, cold face locked on mine as he lifts up his phone toward me.
“I told you to leave the Jenica thing alone,” he says, stalking toward me as I back up into the shower area, my back to the white subway tiles, still warm from the water. “You'll wish you'd listened to me when every guy in the school has a picture of your micropenis.”
“Please, don't,” I whisper, pulling the towel tighter around myself. I'm so scared right now I'm fucking shaking. “You don't understand what you're doing.”
“My warnings are promises, dickface.” Church reaches out and snatches the towel, ripping it back with so much force that even though I try to hold onto it, it flies off, whipping between us and putting up a temporary shield.
As it flutters to the ground beside me, and Church's phone flash goes off, I see his amber eyes widen in shock.
There's this still, quiet moment between us, the only sound the drip-drip-drip of the shower head.
“What the … what …?” Church backpedals so hard and fast that he ends up tripping over my shower caddy, landing on his ass on the marble floor, eyes so wide they look liable to fall right out of his face. “You … you … you're …” He doesn't look like such a psychopath now, more like a confused teenage boy.
Slowly, I reach down and pick up my towel, my lips pursed tight, and I carefully curl it around my body while he sits on the ground and gapes at me.
“Please delete that photo,” I whisper, but my voice is hard and fierce.
He doesn't move though, just sits there and gapes at me while I lean down, take his phone from his hand, and delete the picture before I give it back. “Now get out.”
“You … you're ….”
The door opens and the twins rush in, breathing hard as they squeeze into the small room, looking between me and Church.
“Damn it, Church,” they say in unison as Tobias moves to grab my robe from the hook.
“You're such an idiot,” Micah tells him as Tobias offers up the robe, and I slip into it, belting it at the waist. “I told you: it's not Charlotte's fault. We told her about Jenica.”
“Charlotte …” Church whispers, reaching up to push some of his blond hair from his face. “Charlotte.”
“Yes, Charlotte,” I say, lifting my chin up in defiance. “Are you happy now? You were right: I do have a Micropenis. It's called a clitoris, and it has ten times as many nerve endings as your tiny dick. Now get out.”
The twins grab their president under the arms and drag him from the room, kicking the door closed behind them, so I can get dressed. Things are awkward enough, so I put my uniform on instead of my pajamas, before I come out and face off against the blond dickhead in front of the row of empty pedestal sinks.
“You're a girl,” Church says again, arms crossed over his chest. He squints at me. “How? Why? What are you even doing here?”
“If you didn't notice, dumbass, my dad's the headmaster,” I spit back at him. “And the school board wants a mixed population now. They wanted to use me as their experimental girl student, and I said no. Explanation enough for you? Try being a teenage chick in a school full of super rich jerks. How well do you think that'd go down?” I glance between the twins and their glittering green eyes before I look back at Church. “Especially with what happened to Jenica.”
Church frowns, and groans, putting his head in his hand, the elbow of one arm resting in the palm of the opposite hand.
“Jesus Christ. Who else knows?”
“Just us,” the twins say together, tucking opposite hands into their pockets, so that they're mirror images of each other. “Well, and whoever it is that's leaving her notes.”
“Notes?” Church asks, lifting his face up to look at me. He looks … disturbed. “What sort of notes?”
“Charlotte,” the twins drawl, holding out their hands toward me, and I sigh.
“I gave them to my dad. They were left on the community corkboard, addressed to Eve, from Adam. Someone else knows.” Church just stares at me and then swears under his breath.
“What else did they say?” he asks, and I guess we're not going to talk about the fact that he saw me naked. Good. Because I don't want to talk about it. Ever.
“Um, get out? We don't want you here? Basically …” I trail off and cross my arms over my chest. Church's eyes follow the movement, and I swear it feels like he's looking at the curve of my chest. I suddenly very much miss my bindings. “Probably the same guy who chased me with a knife.”
Church glances at Micah, and then Tobias. It's quite clear they're sharing some silent secrets here.
“We should get some private security detail up here,” he says, and my brows go up. Um, what? He wants to get private security detail … for me?