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I am back at Wallingford just after dinner. My hall master, Mr. Pascoli, gives me an odd look when I try to hand him the note my mother wrote me.
“You’re fine, Cassel. The dean already explained that you might be out for a few days.”
“Oh,” I say. “Right.” I’d nearly forgotten about the deal Dean Wharton made with Sam and me. There was so much about to happen back then that taking advantage of it was a dim hope. Now that I am at Wallingford again, though, I wonder what I can really get away with.
I wonder if I could stay in bed and just sleep until I wasn’t tired anymore, for instance.
Probably not.
I don’t know what I expect when I walk into my room, but it’s not Sam, lying on the bed, his left leg wrapped with gauze. Daneca is sitting beside him and they’re playing what appears to be a very intense game of gin rummy.
Clearly Sam is already getting away with having a girl in our dorm room. I admire his gumption.
“Hey,” I say, leaning against the door frame.
“What happened to you?” Daneca asks. “We were worried.”
“I was worried,” I say, looking at Sam. “Are you okay? I mean—your leg.”
“It still hurts.” He lowers it gingerly to the floor. “I have a cane for right now, but I might have a limp, the doctor said. It might not go away.”
“That quack? I hope you got a second opinion.” The wash of guilt I feel makes the words come out harsher than I intend.
“We did the right thing,” Sam says, taking a deep breath. There is a seriousness in his face that I don’t remember being there before. Pain shows. “I don’t regret it. I almost ruined my whole future. I guess I took it for granted before—everything. The good college, the good job. I thought what you were doing seemed so exciting.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I am. I am very, very sorry if that’s what he thought.
“No,” he says. “Don’t be. I was stupid. And you saved me from getting into a lot of trouble.”
I look over at Daneca. Sam is always too generous, but I can trust her to tell me if she thinks I’ve done something wrong. “I never wanted you—I never wanted either of you to get hurt because of me.”
“Cassel,” Daneca says, in the exasperated affectionate tone she reserves for us when we’re being complete idiots. “You can’t blame yourself for Mina Lange. She’s not someone you brought into our lives. She goes to school here, remember? You didn’t make this happen. And you can’t blame yourself for—for whatever else you’re thinking of. We’re your friends.”
“That might be your first mistake,” I say, half under my breath.
Sam laughs. “In a good mood, are we?”
“Did you see?” Daneca asks me. “Proposition 2 isn’t going to pass. And Patton resigned. Well, he was arrested, so I guess he had to. You must have seen it. He even admitted that your mother hadn’t done anything wrong.”
I think about telling Daneca the truth. Of all the people I know, she’s the one who would be the most proud of me. But it feels unfair to get them involved—no matter what they say, especially since this is something far bigger and more dangerous than anything I’ve been in the middle of before.
“You know me,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not much for politics.”
She looks at me slyly. “Too bad you didn’t see it, because if I am made valedictorian of our class, I’d love to have help writing my speech, and Patton’s is the perfect model. It sets the exact right tone. But I guess if you really don’t care about that kind of thing—”
“You want to tell everyone that today’s the day you speak from your heart and confess all your crimes? Because I didn’t think you had all that much to confess.”
“So you did see it!” Sam says.
“You’re a liar, Cassel Sharpe,” Daneca says, but there’s no heat in it. “A lying liar who lies.”
“I guess I heard someone talking about it somewhere.” I smile up at the ceiling. “What do you want? A leopard can’t change his spots.”
“If the leopard was a transformation worker, he could,” Sam says.
I get the sense that maybe I don’t have to say anything. They appear to have put a theory together on their own.
