Page 9 of The Pawn

“Wonder where the gay porn is.”

I look at Wally finally, blinking out of my fugue state, aware that Mom is strolling along with Lukas absorbing every word, that Tanner has disappeared into the stacks with some redheaded girl who flagged him down.

The look of concern on Wally’s face is unmistakable. “Was I that far gone?”

“Nah. I’ve gotten used to you disappearing on me.” He squeezes my shoulder and navigates me around the end cap to a tall bookshelf, eyeing Lukas’s path but keeping our distance from him. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Live his life.” There’s an earnestness in his eyes I don’t know how to accept. “Silas is dead, Brenna, but you’re still alive. You don’t have to slot yourself into the empty space where he used to be. You can live your own life.”

“I’m not living his life.” I don’t know how to explain it to him. Wally is all soft angles and easy forgiveness, simple charm and an old pickup truck. He doesn’t understand this world and doesn’t want to, for which I’m glad, but it makes him feel so far away. “I’m living my life. And... my life has brought me here. To Coleridge. I don’t expect you to understand it, Wally, but that’s the way it is.”

He’s studying me now, gaze sharper than I remember it ever being, seeing right into the heart of me somehow. “Are you here to figure out the truth?” Breathing in through his nose, he adds, “Because Brenna... you might not like it.”

I stiffen. Voice low, I hiss, “He didn’t rape that girl.”

“I’m sure,” he says quickly, though I sense some bit of hesitation in his voice, a quiet unspoken doubt. “But something bad did happen here. Something that didn’t sit right in... in his soul. And it killed him in the end. I don’t want it to kill you, too.”

I open my mouth to tell him that I’m not that weak, and stop short suddenly, feeling like I’ve been slapped in the face. I didn’t realize until just now that some part of me thinks of what Silas did, the choice he made, as weakness. I don’t want to think of him that way. I know it's wrong.

So I settle for saying, “I’ll be fine. I’m not... I just want to know, Wally.” I look up into his eyes, letting all the raw, empty desperation come out in my words. “I have to know. I can’t sit or settle until I do. If this is the last place he was happy, if this is the reason why he left us, then this is where I have to be. Maybe not for two whole years, but at least until I feel... peace.”

Wally squeezes my shoulder. “Okay.” He pushes a stray bit of mousy brown hair behind my shoulder. “Okay.”

And that’s that.

Up ahead, Mom calls our names, sounding impatient. She’s waiting with Lukas by a low table covered in what look like little sculptures. As I get closer, I realize that they’re architectural models, tiny delicate pieces slotted together, little fake trees glued to them. A sign in the middle of the table announces that they’re designs for the new buildings, all submitted by legacies.

Legacies. That’s what so many students here are. It’s what so many of them leave behind: a ghost of themselves, a tall story or a rumor. Seldom do their dark high school pasts catch up with them in the real world.

“Tanner.” Lukas is calling for his best friend with annoyance in his voice. “Tanner, get over here. At least pretend like you care.”

Lukas catches my eyes and frowns for some reason. I look away from him, purposefully standing on the far edge of the table, feeling unsettled.

As Tanner slowly joins us, an errant smudge of lipstick standing out on his collar, Lukas clears his throat. “Alright. Next up we’re going to tour the study rooms, but first I wanted to talk about the new building coming to Coleridge by 2021...”

I tune him out yet again, letting my eyes wander across the group study tables, which are fairly empty on a day like today. The few students sitting at them mostly seem to be gossiping in low voices, their books strewn forgotten in front of them, heads together and shiny well-styled hair reflecting the overhead lights.

It would be a relief if part of the Coleridge tour includes walking by a hair salon, because it’s the only thing that explains how perfect all these girls’ blowouts are or how artfully tossed every guy’s hair is.

One student isn’t gossiping with anyone, though. Sitting all on his own, a book open on a clear stand in front of him, wearing white gloves to turn the pages of what must be a rare old tome, is a student whose face sends a surge of anticipation through me.

Blake Lee, the third of four elite boys who are sure to run the halls of this school just as they ran the halls of their last school. Full name Blake Woo Bin Lee Garrison, though no one seems to refer to him by the Garrison name. His dark brown, nearly black hair is swept impatiently to one side, the black frames of his stylish glasses pushed up on a seemingly perfect nose. With perfect skin from his entertainment mogul Korean mother and the sharply masculine bone structure of his famous actor-turned-director father, Blake has exactly the stylish good looks and nepotistic blood to do anything he wants in the entertainment industry.

But instead of living the high life in Hollywood or moving to Seoul to become the Korean idol his mother’s entertainment business could make him overnight, he’s here in Connecticut, staring at the pages of a rare book before classes even begin and a single piece of homework is assigned.

There must be something there, some reason why his rich Korean family hasn’t turned him into an international sensation or his American father cast him in his latest blockbuster hit. Only a secret he wants no one to know could keep him out of that kind of limelight.

A secret I’ll find out even if no one has already.

“He’s taken, you know.” I nearly jump out of my skin at the Southern drawl in my ear, too close to comfort. “His mother has his future wife all picked out.”

Tanner, of course, has been watching me watch Blake. Thoroughly caught, I search for an excuse. “I just wanted to know who was reading a book in the library before classes even start.”

“Mmmhmmm. I’d set you up with him, but you're not his type.” Tanner’s eyes take me in from head to toe, and I fight not to burn with anger and shame. “Unlike me, Blake over there doesn’t like to play games with girls who like hurting people. He's not a fan of unstable basket cases. And that’s exactly what you are.” A smile curls up just one corner of his mouth, fake as it is cruel. “Not that there’s any shame in that. We all have our moments of insanity, don't we, Cooked Meat?”

I’m about to reply when Lukas calls out, “Hurry up, you two. We’ve got an appointment at the end of this.”

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