I sigh and glance at the driver. I’m in a ride share and thankfully the guy driving isn’t chatty. He’s just leaving me be as he takes me somewhere I’m surprised to be going.
It’s been a week since the cabin.
I’ve been going to class, eating meals, and doing my best to turn in assignments. I do all the things a functioning person does, but I’m barely aware I’m doing them.
Mom is worried and keeps asking me what’s wrong, but I don’t know where to begin. I came back from the cabin, walked past her barely managing a “hey,” and went straight to my room.I love her so much for not following me up the stairs, but she’s a counselor, and I can feel the pressure building. Whenever I see her there’s this constant feeling like I need to spill my guts, but for the first time, I’m not yet ready to open up to her.
What Aubrey did hurt me that deeply. I just can’t deal, or maybe I’m trying to ignore and still in denial.
My phone buzzes with another text from Aubrey. The preview starts with:June please let me explain I swear on my life?—
I take the plunge and finally block the number. She’s been texting every day, swearing it wasn’t her and begging me to call. Accepting her pleas about innocence would certainly be easier than dealing with my hollow chest, but I also don’t want to listen to her lies. The phone was in her luggage, tucked underherclothes. She’s the one who was spreading rumors and sending me nasty texts, and she has motive: she’s pissed that I got into the exhibition earlier this year and she didn’t.
It’s really insane how she’s trying to pretend she’s not guilty.
The car slows, and I peer through the rain at Dorien’s house. I’m shocked. I knew his family had money. But knowing it and seeing this massive house are very different experiences.
The house sits back from the street behind manicured hedges. There’s a massive arch in the front with a chandelier hanging above the front door. I’ve never seen a chandelier outside, but there it is. Everything about the exterior says, “I was designed by an expensive, talented architect.”
It’s gorgeous.
“Thanks,” I say to the driver, and get out.
I pop my umbrella and hug my backpack to my chest. Rain drums on the nylon above me and I stand on the sidewalk, looking up. In all the years our mothers have been friends, I have never once been inside Dorien Kael’s house. It doesn’t match him at all. This house is modern and luxurious and belongs topeople who walk around wearing name brand clothes and spend their weekends on yachts. Dorien shows up to school in black leather and the same ripped jeans he’s been wearing for five years.
I walk up and ring the doorbell. He opens the door and his eyes move over my face impassively. He steps aside. “Umbrella,” he says.
I hand it to him. He tosses it near the door where it lands on the marble with a wet thwack. Water is already pooling.
“Wait.” I point at the growing puddle. “It’s getting the floor all wet.”
He shrugs. “There are maids for the maids in this house. It’ll get cleaned.” He’s already walking deeper into the foyer. “Also, I don’t give a shit if I ruin my parents’ stuff.”
I follow, sneakers squeaking on marble. Pretty much every area of floor is marble, covered by lush, giant rugs in several places, like the living room. The lighting is recessed. I glance at a grand piano, there are chandeliers and sculptures, and there’s even a Picasso on a wall…
This is where Dorien grew up? Part of me wonders if he’s actually lying and he broke into this mansion. But there are family photos on the walls with him in them.
“Are your parents home?” I ask. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them.”
He laughs, dry enough to sand wood. “No. I don’t know where they are, but they probably won’t fly back until next month.”
As we pass a sitting room, I think about the few times I saw his parents when we were kids. His mother would ask me about school and check her phone before I finished answering. His father shook my hand once at a barbecue and immediately turned to someone else. They seemed like kind people, but I also got the feeling they never gave Dorien much attention.
Guilt curls through my stomach because I wasn’t there for him during all those lonely years. We spent our entire teens avoiding each other, exchanging polite hellos when he came to hang out with Carter. Thankfully, he had Carter, who likely dragged him out of this mausoleum every chance he got.
He leads me up two flights to the third floor. When he opens the door to his studio space the first thing I see is a tarp covering the entire floor. The room is the opposite of the rest of the house. There’s metal shelving crammed with chisels, rasps, and sandpaper. A worktable built from sawhorses and plywood. His black leather gloves are folded on a side table.
This room has been lived in unlike the rest of this house.
He points toward a corner where different-sized blank canvases lean against the wall. “Take what you want,” he says. “I also have plenty of acrylic. I know you prefer that.”
I set my backpack on the worktable. “Thanks. I brought paint, but I could use a canvas.”
I start sorting through the sizes. Behind me, I hear him move some things around. I glance over my shoulder and he’s already working with a fresh lump of clay. He seems focused, but when I turn back around I can feel his attention on me.
“Just go ahead and ask,” I say without turning around.
The sounds of movement behind me stop. I haven’t told him about Aubrey either. Cinna is the only one who knows because I told her not to tell the group yet, but Dorien has noticed I’m different. He notices everything, and my silence this week must’ve been concerning even by his standards.
