Page 20 of The Confidant
Like she was upset about something.
“Is something wrong?” I asked as we walked up the stairs to the main level of the school.
She was happy that they’d won the game, right? She’d played really well tonight.
“I’m fine,” she said. Then, with what I could tell was a forced smile on her face, she added, “We won, so that’s awesome.”
“Yeah…” I studied her expression. “You did…”
We made it to the top of the stairs, and I opened the door that led to the school’s courtyard—our usual shortcut to the dorms. A foot of snow covered the lawn, but there was a narrow walkway that had been shoveled to make it easier to walk through.
We were about halfway across the lawn when Scarlett said, “It seemed like you and Addison had a good time tonight.”
My heart thudded against my ribcage. After Mack’s initial texts, I’d completely forgotten his warning about Scarlett looking upset at seeing Addison and me sitting together.
I’d been so wrapped up in our conversation and the exciting game that I hadn’t realized Scarlett might still be watching us whenever she was on the sidelines.
“The game was fun,” I said cautiously, worried that if I said the wrong thing it might make things even more uncomfortable.
“Yeah?” she asked, glancing sideways at me, her breath showing in the cold night air. “Did you and Addison talk about anything interesting?”
“Uh, not really.” My heartbeat ramped up. “Just getting to know each other a little better.”
Was it terrible that I could tell a girl I barely knew about the hard things I’d been going through the past eight months, but I couldn’t tell my best friend?
Yes. It was terrible.
It sucked, actually.
I was dying to tell Scarlett what had been going on and why I’d stopped coming to church with her. But every time I thought about telling her I’d lost my faith, I just saw the same look she’d gotten in her eyes when I’d told her that my brother, Bash, was leaving The Fold.
The shock. The fear. The worry for my brother’s soul.
The way she stayed away from Bash—not ever being alone in the same room as him if she didn’t have to. As if apostasy was contagious.
How intense she’d been when she warned me not to listen to my brother about anything he had to say against The Fold.
How it was all just propaganda and lies—that looking into anything was like playing with fire.
“It’s so crafty, Hunter,” she’d said. “Even the most elite have been sucked in by it. Not the people you’d expect either. Like, really smart and powerful people have been pulled away by the anti-Fold lies. So it’s better to just never even open the door a crack.”
But I had looked through the crack in the door, and before I knew it, my whole world had been blown apart. And it had been impossible to shut that door again and ignore the things I’d learned.
Since there was no going back to where I’d been before, the only way to keep her from treating me like she’d treated Bash was to let her believe I was just being lazy.
Because if I was seen as lazy instead of an apostate—one of the most dangerous threats to the church—I could at least still be her friend.
Staying just friends with Scarlett was better than not having her at all.
7
SCARLETT
“Just tellyour dates that we’ll be heading up to the ski resort around nine o’clock and that they should be prepared for a full day of fun.” I looked at my girl friends sitting around the table with me in Cambrielle’s home library on Saturday morning as we finished up our planning meeting for the Valentine’s dance. “Any other questions?”
“Do they need to bring their own snow gear?” Addison asked from her chair next to Elyse, her notebook and pen sitting on the table since she’d been taking notes the whole time. “Or is there a place up there to buy them?”
“Hunter should have a ski suit and everything he needs,” I said, trying to sound neutral aboutthatwhole situation.
