Rites of Spring (12 page)

Where do you go when this is made obvious to you? Other than back to Ohio? Part of me wondered if it was too late to book a flight. I wanted to be far, far from campus right now. I wanted to climb into my dad’s lap and hug my mom and act like I was still a teenager, instead of an adult who should have
so
known better. I wanted to hide, to flee, to pretend that I’d never even heard of Connecticut, let alone chosen it as a setting for such a humiliation.
How could he love her more?

One thing was certain, I could not go back to my fellow knights yet. They were waiting for me just outside the library, but there was no way I could face anyone in my current state. There would be plenty of time to explain Dragon’s Head’s new strategy—after I dealt with my own state of mind. I pulled my coat’s hood low over my face and rushed back inside the Reading Room. Out in the main hall, I turned right, toward the back, rather than toward the front entrance. There was a back way out, near the law school.

A security guard stopped me. “Library’s closed, miss,” but as soon as he saw my face, his expression softened.

“I just want…” I gasped. “The back door.”

“Closed after midnight.”

“I just want to leave. I don’t have anything to check out…just…”

The guard relented and I rushed by him, practically sprinting on my way out the back. I shoved hard on the door and burst through into the cold alleyway beyond. I plopped against the nearest wall, heedless of the rain as it mixed with tears on my face. Great wracking sobs seemed to echo around the empty street, bouncing off stone walls and cobblestones. Yeah, there was no way I’d do this in front of the other knights. I imagined the patriarchs that had come before me weeping dignified tears over a lost comrade in war, or the death of a brother or a spouse. I couldn’t see them acting so stupid. No, this kind of behavior would be reserved for the Bugaboo of the group.

“Why?” I said to the buildings around me.

How could I question his choice? Maybe it was best. For if I did love him, if I really did, wouldn’t I have fought for him long before this? Wouldn’t I have fought for him when we tried dating last spring, or when I saw him again this fall, or even the first time he told me he still cared about me? Wouldn’t I have told him to stay with me that night, to really be with me, to tell Felicity right away that they were through for good?

If I’d really loved him, then I would have done what Felicity had. I would have picked him over Rose & Grave, I’d have put him first last spring, have shared my troubles with him rather than with the society brothers I’d only just met. I’d have called him back this fall instead of getting caught up in yet another society drama. I’d have run to him from the first moments of Dragon’s Head’s “little campaign of persuasion.” Wouldn’t I?

Eventually the tears dried, but I spent several long minutes just standing there, slumped, catching my breath, adjusting to this new reality, the one where I’d again added to my seemingly endless list of romantic mistakes.
Chalk another one up, Amy. Not only are you crap at having a boyfriend, crap at having a one-night stand, and crap at having a no-strings-attached fling, you’re also crap at being the other woman. Pack it up, go home, commit to celibacy. You’re one hundred percent, unequivocally awful at being with a man.

I took a deep breath.
There. Fine. Now you know.
I looked up.

And saw Poe standing in the doorway across the street. I could make out little more than a glint of his gray eyes, the line of his jaw, his sharp cheekbones in his thin face, but still, I recognized him. His defiant stance, arms crossed over the chest of his worn wool jacket. I knew that pose. It was like the first time we’d met, when he’d interrogated me. Only worse, because here I was, as raw as hamburger, ready to crumble. My eyes began to burn, but whether it was a fresh batch of tears or suppressed rage, I couldn’t tell.

Why was he here? Why was he always, always, always around? Didn’t he have a life? Didn’t he have anything better to do?

“I take it the parley went poorly?” he asked, coming toward me.

“What are you doing here!” I snapped.

He rolled his eyes. “Amy, there are two exits to the library. I guessed—and rightly so—that your club would forget that, and I wanted to make sure there was no funny business on this side.”

“How did you even know this was going on?” I resisted the urge to run a hand across my no-doubt snotty nose.

“I have friends in the tomb.” Of course. He and Hale had always been buddy-buddy. He held out a small white square. A handkerchief. When I took it, he added, “I thought I’d only get involved if they tried something.”

“Otherwise you’d just sit here and spy?” I swiped at my face with the handkerchief. Of all the people to catch me at my most vulnerable, why the hell did it have to be Poe?

“I was afraid to interrupt you by moving. Seemed the lesser of two evils.” He stood there for a moment, hands in pockets.

“The greater being?”

“Leaving you here alone.”

“Well, you can go now,” I said, then realized how ungrateful that sounded. Even if he’d been sneaking around.

“That’s the thing. I can’t.” Hands still in pockets, eyes still downcast. “Malcolm would probably kill me if I didn’t, um, see to his little sib in her time of need.”

“Then don’t tell him.” Malcolm was in Alaska and hadn’t written me in a month. So much for big-sib solicitation.

“And then there’s that whole pesky oath of constancy I took. I’m supposed to stand by you.”

“You
would
think of that.”

He looked up, met my eyes with his serious, gray stare. “So would you, Amy.”

What a time to remind me. I hated my society oaths in this moment. I felt fresh tears and made use of the handkerchief again. I sensed his hand on my shoulder, and suddenly we were crossing the street to the alcove at the law school, and sitting on a sheltered bench, and he was…
patting me,
or something, landing awkward little strokes along my upper arm that were no doubt meant to be comforting.

“Calm down,” Poe said. “The parley was supposed to make things better. What did they say?”

“That it’s over,” I sniffed.

“In exchange for what?”

I shook my head in misery. “Nothing.”

“That’s not true.” He peered at me through the shadows. “What did you have to give them?”

“Nothing!” I repeated. “They got what they wanted without my help.”

“They found the statue?”

“No. It had nothing to do with the statue.” I hung my head. “You’ll be happy to know that I’ve been acting like the brain donor you always say I am.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” he said. “A troublemaker, yes, but that’s different.” He let his arm drop to his side.

Well, I’d been causing trouble for Brandon and Felicity, that was for sure.

Poe cleared his throat. “Am I better off not knowing?”

Everyone in the world was. It was too humiliating. “Yes.”

“Those attacks were…personal.”

“Yes.”

“I thought as much. It’s not the usual society feud M.O. Was it an academic or romantic rival?”

Right. Because it was always school or love for an Eli student. Were our troubles as simple as that? I took a deep breath. “I thought I was heading toward something important with this guy, and I was wrong, and Dragon’s Head used it to get to me. That’s all.” It was enough.

“George?” The word exploded out of his mouth.

“Does
everyone
know about that?” Guess it was silly of George to think that leaving it out of the C.B. would accomplish anything.

“We didn’t become Diggers due to a lack of perception, Amy.”

“Well, you aren’t experts, either. That’s been over for months.” And while it had been going on, I knew exactly what I’d been doing. My heart stayed clear of entanglements with Eli’s most notorious playboy. No, when I decided to get my heart broken, I took the road less traveled.

“Oh,” Poe said. “Forgive me if I’ve failed to keep up with the latest in your love life.”

“No one asked you to,” I snapped, then instantly regretted it. He’d been attempting a wee bit of civility, which was pretty much a miracle when it came to Poe. I shouldn’t wreck it. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little sensitive at the moment.”

“At the moment?”

I bit my tongue. “It’s just been demonstrated to me, yet again, that I’m doomed when it comes to romance. I’ve got to prepare for a life alone.”

Poe took a deep breath. “Listen, I have severe doubts that this is any of my business, but in the interest of fulfilling my duty, can I give you some advice?”

Advice from Poe. Romantic advice…
from Poe.
Okay. If nothing else, it would be entertaining. I nodded.

“I don’t think that the way college dating works has any bearing on the real world. If you don’t have a good experience for these four years, it doesn’t mean you should start fitting yourself for a habit and enter a convent. I didn’t have a girlfriend in college, and I turned out okay.” He paused. “Okay,
you
don’t think I turned out okay…”

I laughed in spite of myself. “I think you turned out fine,” I said, mostly because etiquette demanded a denial. Mostly. Because really, who was the one in real trouble here? The guy who seemed comfortable with his desire to hang out alone, in the dark, in secret, or the girl standing in the rain, sobbing?

He shrugged. “Thank you for saying so, at least.”

He looked down at my hands, which were currently twisting the life out of his handkerchief. I didn’t know anyone our age who used handkerchiefs. And, oddly enough, rather than seeming like another example of his weirdness, it suddenly felt to me like something grand, old-fashioned, a little refined. As that thought occurred to me, I stopped wringing it, lest it tear in my fists. I held it up.

“Uh, keep it,” he said.

“That’s nice of you,” I said.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s covered with your snot.”

Did I say refined? I meant rude.
Rude.

And that thought must have shown in my posture, because he backtracked. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Though it’s true.”

“Yes.” He looked at me. “You get offended by some things that blow my mind, and then, sometimes, when I’m
trying
to offend you, you don’t even notice.”

“I notice. You can tell, because I bite back.”

“Note to self,” he said. “Pre-emptively, I’m not trying to offend you right now. If I do, it’s accidental.”

“So ‘Brace yourself’?” I translated.

“I was just wondering, how much of this—” he gestured to the handkerchief and my tear-streaked face, “—is a result of losing this…guy, and how much of it is just losing?”

“What!” I hadn’t braced for
that
.

Poe, being in for the penny, decided to go for the pound. “Maybe your heart is really broken. That’s possible. Or maybe it’s February, and you haven’t seen the sun in weeks, and it’s cold and icy every day, and you are trying to write a thesis and look your future in the face, all while hiding from a bunch of assholes who are turning this campus into a war zone for you. And now they’ve won.”

The lump in my throat got so huge I could barely breathe. I definitely couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond to Poe’s outlandish…accusation. How could he be saying that my feelings weren’t my feelings? How could he be saying that Brandon and I…that it wasn’t…

“I just find it surprising that you are in the midst of a huge romantic crisis but, as far as I can tell, it came out of nowhere.”

“Out of nowhere!” I shouted past the lump. “What do you know about it?”

“Nothing.” His voice was perfectly calm.

“Exactly,” I agreed, then ran out of things to argue. “You have no idea what I’m dealing with.”

“You’re right.” The pause that followed his words seemed full of unspoken thoughts, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more of this patriarch’s advice.

Slowly, it dawned on me that I was sitting in the dark, with Poe, discussing my love life. How weird would it look if another Digger were suddenly to walk by here, looking for me, and discover this little tête-à-tête?

“I should go,” I said.

“Do you want me to walk you back to Prescott?” He obviously didn’t disagree with me. Guess “sharing time” was over.

“It’s out of your way,” I said. Poe lived off-campus in the opposite direction.

“It’s not a problem.”

“It’s pouring rain. You don’t even need to be out here.”

“I vastly prefer a society plot to hanging out in my dump of an apartment.”

One word remained unspoken—“alone.” I blinked at him. I don’t think I’d ever heard him speak like that before. The standard Poe qualities of bitterness and sarcasm were there, but this was casual and matter-of-fact. It’s like he had nothing to hide, as if he’d figured: I’d seen his apartment (maybe I was the only one who had), I knew what it looked like, so why bother putting up a front? Or maybe he was hoping I’d disagree with him, defend the “dump”? Or maybe he decided that letting me glimpse his feelings was only fair payback for my big revelation of the evening. Who knew? But he did have my sympathies. How many nights had I been glad that I had Lydia waiting for me, fun and funny and not at all like Poe’s pet snake?

“Do you…want to grab a slice of pizza or something?” I blurted out.

He hesitated. “You want to be seen in public with…” a microsecond pause, “…your face looking like that?”

I cocked my head to the side. “The real question is, do you want to be seen in public with a face like this?”

“I’d consider it.” He stood, his expression still wary.

I pasted on a weak smile. “Are you sure they don’t do deliveries to the law library?”

“Yes, but I think I have a bag of stale Doritos in my study carrel.”

“Pass.”

So I had pizza with Poe. (Er, Jamie. But really, I have a hard time reminding myself of that.) And we didn’t talk much at all. Just ate. It’s surprising how ravenous heartbreak makes you. Also surprising is how long I’d been at Eli without discovering some of the truly bizarre items on the menu at one of our most classic restaurants. White clam pizza. Who knew? Total revelation.