Page 10 of Kept

Mom gave me a weird look. “Are you okay?”

I hung up my dripping coat and messenger bag, already packed with what I needed for class tomorrow, and kicked my shoes into the closet. “Yeah, just tired. I didn’t check the weather and I wasn’t expecting a downpour on the way home.”

I wasn’t sorry in the slightest for turning down Rhett’s offer of a ride. I had no idea what Mom would say if I showed up late with the guy who’d tutored me.

“Luckily for you, I’m making minestrone.” She tasted the soup and I set the tiny table, just big enough for two. “Mmm. Just like Grandma Fawkes used to make.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better today.” I hugged her, pressing my cheek to her frail back. Those days seemed to come fewer and more far between lately.

This had been our little ritual since Mom had gotten better. She liked to cook and feed me, telling me that no matter how old I was, I was still her baby; and besides, I’d dropped out of school to take care of her, so a few meals were in order. I think she just liked to feed people.

We ate our soup together in companionable quietude, each reading a book while eating. Like Mom’s insistence on cooking, it was another little tradition of ours. She used to swear I read books in the womb.

I washed up dishes, kissed Mom, and sorted out her nightly medications before heading to my room. It was a cute cottage room, with whitewashed walls and a picture window looking out on the woods, along with an attached bathroom.

I showered and dried my hair, trying not to think about the potential of seeing Rhett tomorrow after he’d seen… well, all of me. Trying not to think about the warmth of Professor Spears’s branded against my back. Besides, Rhett wasn’t really Rhett anymore. He was Professor Harlow, a world above me.

I definitely wasn’t thinking about them as I tousled my hair and laid out my clothes, another skirt with a blue blouse. Not at all.

* * *

The next morning,the parking lot was already full of cars by the time I hoofed it back to school. Very expensive cars. The first one I passed, a classic Cadillac, could only be considered midrange against the rest of them.

I self-consciously adjusted the buttons on my blouse. There was no reason to be nervous. I’d memorized my classes, the layout of the school, every book I’d need. I had covered every base as thoroughly as a commander in wartime, prepped for the battle of making this scholarship count.

The click of my heels on the marble floor was lost amid the rush of other students. One thing was for sure: I’d been right to put some money away for a wardrobe. Students in Bourdillon meant business. Virtually no one wore street clothes, or maybe business casualwastheir version of street clothes.

Several eyes flicked my way, and away again just as quickly. I knew I stood out like a sore thumb in department store clothes, but I wasn’t the only scholarship student who’d ever passed through these halls.

A head full of bright blue hair dove into the fray in front of me. All I could see of the woman was her hair, a beacon of vivid cerulean, and ears lined with silver hoops. She was the only student I’d seen so far who didn’t fit the polished, clean-cut mold.

I followed that beacon all the way to my first class of the day, Information Sources and Services. She flopped into a desk in the back next to a guy with sandy hair, whose eyes landed on me and lit up.

I quietly took a seat at the front and pulled out my planner, going over for my agenda for the day as others filtered in. Soon most of the seats were filled, and delicate chimes filled the school to announce the first hour.

The blue-haired girl slipped down next to me as the professor, an older woman with judiciously injected Botox treatments and blonde highlights, strolled in. “Come with me,” she whispered. A silver barbell flashed in her tongue as she spoke.

I glanced over my shoulder. The sandy-haired guy raised a hand, jerked his head.

I quietly gathered my things, followed Baby Blue to the back, and took the seat next to her.

“Rachelle Reid,” she whispered, extending a hand, and I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Reid Industries was one of the largest textile manufacturing companies on the east coast. “And Sean Armstrong.”

Sean looked at me sideways, like he’d burst into fire if he looked me fully in the eye. “Jane Fawkes,” I whispered back.

Then the professor started speaking, going over the syllabus, and I cracked my planner open again. Rachelle was twirling her hair into a pile on her head and securing it with ballpoint pens, not paying attention to a word.

She pounced on me at the end of class, looping her arm through mine like we were old friends. “You must be the SCS winner,” she said. “We’re going to be besties, I just know it. Sean was the SCS winner four years ago. He got in as a freshman, lucky kid.”

Sean fell in on my other side, boxing me in between the two of them. He was tall but compact like a born athlete. “This is your final year?” he asked.

A flutter of hope took wing in my chest. Maybe I wouldn’t be as lonely as I’d thought. “Yes. I’m finishing my library science degree.”

“Good. You can take over from Clarke,” Rachelle muttered. “She refused to check out theKama Sutrato me last year. I can’t imagine why, it wasn’t like I was going to do anything unseemly with it.”

She putunseemlyin air quotes, and there was a tinge of bitterness to her tone under the brightness.

“So, where are you from, Jane? You’re going to eat lunch with us. They’re serving prime rib today, it’s the best you can get around here. You’re not a vegetarian, right? Please don’t be a vegetarian. It’d make me very sad.”

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