Page 36 of The Academy
“You don’t have to pretend to beworried,” Davi says. She scoops water into her mouth, rinses, spits. “I know what you think of me.”
Charley blinks. “What do I think of you?”
“You think I’m shallow. You think I whore myself out for clicks and follows.”
“Maybe that’s what you think about yourself.”
Davi turns to her. “She was my best friend, you know. My bestfuckingfriend—and I didn’t know there was anything wrong. She was engaged in life, she played the guitar and sang, she was with Dub. Did she have moments? Yeah, but we all have moments.”
Charley nods. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d known her.” Everything Charley has heard about Cinnamon Peters makes Charley believe she would have liked Cinnamon better than anyone else in the school.
“Paradox,” Davi says. “There’s no way you would have known her. If she were alive, you wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re right.”
Davi pulls a pack of mints out of her pocket and crunches one between her teeth. “I just really want to know why you think you’re superior to the rest of us.”
Charley tilts her head. “You have over a million followers on TikTok, Davi. Your parents own a fashion label. You live in London and have an accent that I’m sure everyone in this dorm tries to imitate when they’re alone. People at this schoolworshipyou.” Charley pitches her rinsed plastic cup into the recycling bin a little harder than she means to. “I donotthink I’m superior.”
“You don’thaveto be weird, is the thing,” Davi says. “I can help you with your clothes, your hair, your makeup. I can turn you into a total smokeshow.”
Charley nearly laughs. Becoming a “total smokeshow,” which she understands to mean looking like a clone of Davi and her minions, is the last thing she wants. Does this make her superior?
“I’m good, thanks,” Charley says. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Davi turns back to the mirror and wipes under each eye. “Never better.” She sighs. “If you could just not…”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” Charley says, though she considers texting Beatrix at home.I caught Davi Banerjee puking in the bathroom.But Charley would feel disloyal sharing this even with Beatrix—and the barbacoamightbe the reason.
Charley heads back to her room and closes the door. When she checks her phone, she sees a text from East.You’re the fucking best, Charles.
In that moment, she feels strangely bonded to Davi. They both have secrets.
There’s no better sport, Simone Bergeron decides, than American football. When time runs out on the clock—Tiffin 14, Northmeadow 10—Tiffin students rush the field. Simone watches Taylor Wilson jump into Hakeem’s arms. This is exactly what Simone dreamed boarding school would be like: teenagers in love celebrating a big win on a crisp autumn night.
“Good luck to us getting everyone in for dorm checks,” Rhode says.
Simone doesn’t care about dorm checks. Some of her girls asked if they could swing by the Grille for a milkshake on the way home and Simone saidoui,as long as they returnedtout de suite.
At halftime, Rhode plunked himself down next to Simone in the bleachers, and the cluster of third- and fourth-formers who were sitting with Simone scattered. They all fully believed that Mr. Rivera was scheming Simone. Simone wanted to call the girls back—Please stay!—but that would have made things awkward, and they wouldn’t have listened anyway.
Rhode nodded at the cup of hot cider Simone was holding.
“I have something for that,” he said.
Simone wasn’t sure what he meant; she was too busy thinking about how to make a graceful exit—she could go sit with Mrs. Spooner and Honey Vandermeid a few rows below—when Rhode pulled a silver flask from the pocket of his quilted jacket and poured something into Simone’s cider.
“What are youdoing?” she hissed. She looked around, but they were sitting pretty high up and everyone’s attention was on the field. “What is that?”
“Bourbon,” Rhode said. “The good stuff, Buffalo Trace.” He took a swig from the flask himself before tucking it back into his jacket. “It’ll take the edge off.”
Simone wanted to say that she wasn’t feeling any edge, the night was perfect, she’d been looking forward to drinking her cider once it cooled. She wanted to say that they were teachers, and new teachers at that; they couldn’t just drink on the job. She still felt chagrined about their night out at the Alibi back when school first started.
But instead, Simone took a sip of the cider, which made her throat and chest blaze like an orchard fire. She nearly shared this image with Rhode—he might appreciate it as a writer—but in the end she just held out her cup for more.
When the game ends, she’s not drunk-drunk, just slightly out-of-body. She joins the throng of kids heading toward the Teddy and the dorms. As she tosses her cider cup in the trash, she considers ending her night with a glass ofvin rouge—she keeps a bottle stashed inside one of her Hunter boots in her closet—though she’s certain that if she indulges, there will be some kind of emergency in the middle of the night for which sobriety is required. She can’t be sporting blue teeth and a headache. Her college days are, for better or worse, behind her.
She shepherds the girls into Classic South. It’s up to the floor prefect, Madison J., to make sure everyone checks in; Simone will be contacted only in case of emergency. Her night is therefore over, though she should review for class the next day; they’ve finished up with Native Americans and moved on to the original thirteen colonies, and Simone is on shaky ground.
