Page 67 of An Academy for Liars

The Drayton Registrar’s Office

At the bottom of the letter was a telephone number, along with a list of her spring-semester classes, which she didn’t even bother to read.

Lennon crumpled everything in a closed fist, her heart hammering against her sternum. She knew that Dante had been distancing himself ever since their near kiss—that, he’d made painfully clear—but she’d never actually suspected, or even considered, that he would pass her off to Alec Becker, Ian’s advisor, of all people. He’d abandoned her, he’d really done it, and he hadn’t even had enough care or decency to do it himself, so he’d passed the task off to some admin at Drayton, as if she wasn’t important enough to warrant an actual conversation.

And maybe she wasn’t.

The hurt came then, her cheeks warming with it, and then the anger after that. The last time she’d felt this betrayed had been the night, months ago now, that she’d found Wyatt screwing Sophia in their shared bathroom. But that betrayal had felt somehow more…familiar. Expected even, in its own way. If she was being honest with herself, she had never really expected things to work out with Wyatt. But with Dante it was different. Why was it different? Had she really been dumb enough to assume that he not only shared her feelings, but could reciprocate them in such a way as to actually amount tosomething like a relationship? Dante didn’t even seem like the type, and maybe that was exactly why she wanted him so much.

She hated herself for that. Almost as much as she hated him.

“What does it say?” her mother asked, nodding at the letter, just as nosy as she ever was. But she wasn’t the only one watching. Carly was gazing at her from across the living room with a knitted brow, sensing trouble, and even her father had torn his gaze away from his football game to watch the scene unfold.

Lennon shoved the crumpled letter into the pocket of her pajamas. “Nothing,” she said. “Just junk mail.”

That night, while the rest of her family was sound asleep, Lennon picked up the landline phone on her nightstand and dialed the number at the bottom of the crumpled letter. She decided that if Dante wanted to be an asshole, she would follow suit.

A woman’s voice answered after three long rings. “This is the Drayton Registrar’s Office. Is this Lennon speaking?”

“Yes. I need to speak to Professor Lowe,” she said, and just saying his name over the phone was enough to get her heart racing. She’d rehearsed the conversation several times in her head before she’d actually worked up the courage to call. She’d honed her strategy, refined her threats, decided that she would adopt a tone of cool detachment, just like his.

“Professor Lowe isn’t in right now.”

Her heart sank. Surprisingly, stupidly, she hadn’t planned for this. “Well, then could you give me his home phone number? I really need to speak with him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option.”

“Fine,” Lennon snapped. “Then let me just leave a message. Will you relay it to him?”

“If it’s an urgent matter—”

“It is. Tell Dante I won’t be returning to school next semester if he’s no longer my advisor. Tell him I’ll withdraw.”

A long and staticky pause. The voice changed slightly, going deeper, the syllables stretched like a slowed recording. “Thank you for your call.”

The line went dead.

Lennon should have gone to sleep after that, but instead she lay awake, fueled by the weak hope that Dante might return her call. An hour passed, then two, and still nothing. She got up and went to the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea and turned on one of her mom’s old period pieces, a stylized regency where everyone wore shapeless pastel dresses and little ringlet curls around their ears.

Lennon was a half hour into the movie when Carly entered the living room, dressed in an overlarge sweatshirt she’d owned since they were in middle school. It was a wonder that it was in such good condition, given that it was so old. But it was pristine, like all of Carly’s belongings. Everything she owned or loved or tended to was all the better for it—boyfriends, pets, plants, it didn’t matter. Lennon was the one exception to this rule, and she knew that it bothered Carly.

“I have melatonin if you want some,” said Carly, sitting down on the couch, an awkward distance between them.

“I don’t need it,” she said, which was a lie.

On-screen, the heroine of the movie ran through a forest of dead trees, her white nightgown billowing behind her.

“You know, as a kid, I always fucking hated this movie,” said Carly. “I was sick with jealousy because you and Mom loved it so much and I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t even admit it was kind of good until I rewatched it as an adult. And even then, it was hard.”

“Wait, you were jealous ofme?” This was new. It had always beenCarly and her mom’s closeness that Lennon was jealous of. Perpetually the outsider looking in through the window of their relationship. They were the ones who were more alike, resolute and reliable, so steady and sure of themselves in a way that Lennon decidedly was not.

“Of course I was jealous,” said Carly, not looking at her. “Mom might like me better, but she loves you more.” Lennon opened her mouth to challenge that statement, but Carly cut quickly to a new topic of conversation before she had the chance. “So, are you going to tell me what you’re actually studying at that school?”

“The human condition—”

“Yes, you said that over dinner. But I want a straight answer. What are you really studying?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

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