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Greg Harmsford is sitting in his usual desk by the windows. I take a seat on the other side, staring at the back of his head, flexing my gloved hands.
While Mr. Lewis rattles on and on about trade agreements, I think about what it would be like to shove a sharpened pencil into Greg’s ear. This is the kind of rumor that people start about new girls, I remind myself. They’re never based on anything but wishful thinking.
Once we’re dismissed, I head toward the door, passing Greg. He smirks, raising his eyebrows like he’s daring me to start something.
Okay, that’s weird.
“Hey, Cassel,” he says, his smile getting wider.
I bite the inside of my cheek and continue into the hallway. The copper taste of blood fills my mouth. I keep walking.
As I stalk toward Probability & Statistics, I see Daneca, her arms full of books.
“Hey, have you seen Lila?” I ask her, my voice strained.
“Not since yesterday,” she says with a shrug.
I clamp my gloved hand on her shoulder. “Do you have any classes with her?”
Daneca stops and looks at me oddly. “She does a lot of remedial stuff.”
Of course. Being a cat for three years might leave you a little behind on your schoolwork. But I’ve been too much in my own head to notice.
I get passed three more envelopes in statistics. Two of them are betting on Lila and Greg. I hand both of those back with such a dark look that no one asks me for an explanation.
She’s not at lunch, either. Finally I walk into her building and head up the stairs, figuring that if I get caught, I’ll come up with some explanation. I count over the number of doors, assuming that, like in my dorm, everyone gets one window to a room.
Then I knock. Nothing.
The locks are simple. I’ve been breaking into my own room for so long that I don’t even carry my keys half the time. Just a quick pin twist and I’m inside.
She’s got a single, which means her father must have made a pretty hefty donation. Her bed is jammed up against the window and there’s a tangle of light green sheets dragging on the floor. An overstuffed bookcase that she must have brought with her sits against one wall. A totally forbidden electric kettle, and a tiny scarab-green iPod glittering in an expensive-looking speaker system, wires connecting it to headphones, all rest on top of a low trunk. She’s also brought in a vanity with a mirror that sits against the wall where a roommate’s desk usually goes. The walls are covered in black-and-white photos of old movie stars: Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, and Ingrid Bergman. And Lila’s pasted-up quotes near them.
I walk up to the picture of Garbo, smoldering behind a Vaselined lens. The paper near her says, “I’m afraid of nothing except being bored.”
It makes me smile.
I relock the door and turn to go down the steps, when I realize that the dull hum in the background—a sound I barely even registered—is a shower running in the hall bathroom.
I head toward it.
The bathroom is tiled in pink and smells like girls’ shampoos, tropical and sugary. As I push open the door, I realize that there is no excuse that can explain my being in here.
“Lila?” I call.
I hear a soft sob. I stop caring about getting caught.
She’s sitting in the middle shower stall, still in her uniform. Her hair is plastered to her head and her clothes are soaked through. The water is pounding down so relentlessly that I’m surprised she can breathe. It runs in rivulets over her closed eyes and half-open mouth. Her lips look blue with cold.
“Lila?” I say again, and her eyes open wide.
I did this to her. She was always the fearless one, the dangerous one.
Now she looks at me like she doesn’t believe I’m really here. “Cassel? How did you know—” She bites off the question.
“What did he do to you?” I say. I am trembling with fury and powerlessness and sick jealousy.
“Nothing,” she says, and I can see that familiar, cruel smile of hers, but all of its mockery is turned inward. “I mean, I wanted him to. I thought maybe it would break the curse. I’ve never really—I was just a kid when I changed—and I figured that maybe if I slept with someone, it would help. Obviously it didn’t.”
