Page 100 of Riot Rules
“It’s just a turn of phrase. She’s eighteen years old. I’m just saying—”
He narrows his eyes, but not with any malicious intent. He looks like he’s preparing for the worst. “You didn’t answer my question just now. Did she ever tell you that she loves you?”
“You really need to know?”
He waits.
“Yes. She did.”
Andre nods sadly. He slides to the end of the bench and gets up, taking his coffee with him. “Doesn’t matter that she’s only eighteen. I would have asked her, anyway. But I won’t, becauseshe’sstill in love withyou.” He slaps a hand on my shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “I hope you get another shot with her, man. And I really hope you treat her better next time. You’re right. She does deserve to be happy.”
46
CARRIE
ANDRE: Hey, sweet girl. Hate to do this but I’m on the road back to Albany. My workload just tripled and driving to and from campus is making life impossible. I’ve had a lot of fun hanging out with you, though! I really hope things go well for the rest of your senior year. Have a coffee for me next time you’re at the café. A x
I stare at the text message—text message?!—trying to make sense of it. Is he fuckingkiddingme? Things have been moving slowly with Andre, but I didn’t think he’d break up with me.What the hell is happening right now?
I re-read the message a thousand times, pulling it apart word by word, trying to decipher the hidden code within the few short sentences, trying to fathom what it really means. ’Cause it can’t be this simple, surely? We have so much in common. We love the same things. He makes me laugh. He told me he was in love with me for fuck’s sake! What is it with guys telling me they’re in love with me and then bailing?
I lock my bedroom door and reschedule the lunch date I had penciled in with Pres. For the rest of the afternoon, I cry—wearily, in a weird, resigned way—and I watch garbage reality TV shows on Netflix. All the while, my mind is spinning its wheels, trying to figure out what went wrong with Andre. But that’s the problem. Nothing went wrong. He knew I wasn’t ready to have sex with him yet, and he was okay with waiting. Iknowhe was. He was never pushy. He was a perfect gentleman whenever we hung out.Hepursuedme. He wanted to spend every waking moment with me, and when we did hang out, it was nice.
I begin to look for other explanations. External explanations. And that’s when Lord Dashiell Lovett’s name crops up in my head. He basically told me that he was still in love with me in English, which is possibly the most evil lie he has ever told. It took me hours to recover to a point where I felt like I could breathe again after that. He’s certainly arrogant enough that he would meddle in my affairs. But why would he bother? Does the bastard not think he’s done enough? The more I mull it over, the more I’m convinced that he’s had a hand in this.
By the time I visit Elodie’s room in the evening to tell her what’s happened, I’m certain of it. ThisisDashiell Lovett’s fault. Elodie’s sweet and wants to hang out, but I’m in no mood for company. I tell her that I want to spend the evening alone, sulking and finishing off some assignments, but when I get back to my room, I can’t think. The words printed inside all of my textbooks swim around on the page, giving me a splitting headache.
By the time it goes dark and the lights from the observatory go on, mocking me from the ridgeline out of the window, I’m officially livid. If Mara were here, she’d know exactly how to teach Dashiell a lesson. She’d already have her revenge mapped out with bullet points and everything.
Thinking about my wayward friend makes me miss her for the first time in forever. It’s been easy to stay mad at her. It still stings that she left without one word of goodbye. And one postcard since she left?One? It would have been nice of her to call. Let me know that she’s getting on okay.
Lying there on my bed, I suddenly remember Mara’s diary. It’s still sitting at the bottom of my bag. I’m glad Elodie trusted me enough to hand it over, even though her curiosity over the Mara mystery is growing now because of it. I still feel guilty as hell for not coming clean and telling her everything that happened with Mara, and Wren, and Fitz, but Fitz’s threat wasn’t something to be taken lightly. He wouldn’t hesitate to land the boys in shit with Harcourt and the cops. It’s perverse, this rotten need to protect Dashiell that still exists inside of me. But what the hell am I supposed to do? The lingering emotion I feel for him is like a cancer, making me sicker and sicker over time, causing excruciating pain, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t cut it out. Believe me. I’ve tried. Should I just let Fitz report the boys to the cops and let them all be kicked out of the academy? Could I sit by and watch without a scrap of remorse as Dash is shipped back to the UK?
Fuck, I can’t think about this anymore. I get up and grab my bag, opening up the zip and emptying its contents on my bed. Mara’s diary is the last thing to land on the comforter. It sits there, the light from my bedside lamp casting a warm orange sheen across the tan leather binding.
It’d be wrong to read it. That’s what I’d normally think, if this were someone else’s journal. But Mara surrendered the right to her secrets when she abandoned her diary at Wolf Hall, and me and Pres along with it. No, I don’t feel too guilty about the thought of flipping through the pages of the book. I study the tarnished leather for a while, wondering at its contents. Mara’s phone was turned off shortly after she bailed. The texts I send her never go through. The few times I’ve tried to call, the number is never in service. I try and reach out to her every couple of weeks anyway, just in case, but nothing ever comes of it.
Maybe…
I open the diary and I begin to read. Mara always talked about going to Los Angeles. Could be that she mentioned something about that in her diary—where she wanted to go. Where she planned on staying…
I begin to read.
An hour goes by.
And then another.
By the time I close the journal and set it on the bed, I am thoroughly, thoroughly worried.
I pick up my phone and do something I haven’t done since last July.
I text Dash.
47
DASH
Stella: We need to talk.
