Trusting Stone (2 page)

Chapter Two

18 months later

Standing outside the student union, Eden was still blown away by the view of Edinburgh. Even though it had almost been a year since she arrived in the
city
, she still could never get enough of it. She scanned the scenery in front of her, taking in the Gothic and Renaissance architecture, already nostalgic for this vibrant
city
that she was soon to leave. She loved the wide avenues leading off into rambling sides
street
s full of cafes and artisan shops, full of people with accents and fashion so different to her own. Eden had moved to the
city
, if only for a year, to get lost in it and rebuild herself, and that’s exactly what she had done.

The coffee she’d bought from the student union cafe was burning her fingertips through the cheap Styrofoam, too thin to hold the searing temperatures from the scalding yet weak drink. She could have walked one block over and gone to a Starbucks and had a smooth mochaccino, exactly like the ones she enjoyed back in Boston, but she liked this part of the student experience—cheap coffee and hanging out with other
students
who had a much more
laid back
approach to life than what she was used to.

Although only an undergraduate, Eden technically had attended two universities in four short years. Enrolling in the St. Leonard’s exchange program meant she was now also a student at the
University
of Edinburgh. Compared to Boston, Eden loved Edinburgh. Restlessly, she swapped the cup from hand-to-hand, now searching the crowds of
students
and tourists rushing in front of her. She was waiting for her roommate, Mara, and she was running late, as usual.

As part of the exchange program, Eden had been placed in an
apartment
, or flat as everyone here called it, with another international student. Mara was from Spain and she was exactly what Eden needed in a roommate. Initially, Eden had applied for a single
apartment
, hoping she could escape the claustrophobic feeling she had experienced living in dorms, but when the administration staff explained that it wasn’t a dorm but independent living facilities, she decided to give it a try. And while the girls were eager to get along and enjoy their year
abroad
, they respected each other’s privacy. Furthermore, Mara had only spent a week or two in the US and had no interest in finding out about Eden’s past beyond what Eden was happy to divulge.

Mara never asked Eden what school she had gone to, or where she summered, and if she had been to the latest clubs. She never asked her who her father was or whether she could hook her up with business contacts when she graduated. Mara just didn’t care. They helped each other study for exams, cried over bruised egos from harsh professors, applied for internships, and ate cheap Chinese noodles while watching British TV shows they both struggled to understand, regardless of their mother tongues. Eden partook in it all. She could be herself and not be herself. She was different here. Not a socialite, not a debutante, and not the little whimpering junior who had to drop out of school and spend six months in recovery from a mental breakdown. She was free here. And it was all going to end in less than two weeks.

A manicured hand on her arm broke her out of her daze and she hid her disappointment to see that it wasn’t Mara, but another student, Susan Stuart, head of the American
Students
Abroad
group.

“Eden! Hi! I was hoping to run into you.”

“Really? Why’s that?” she said with a fake smile. Eden forced herself to remain polite, despite her annoyance at having to interact with Susan. Eden was aware who Susan’s father was. Susan herself did not see the problem with advertising she was the heiress to Stuart Inc. She was exactly the sort of woman Eden was supposed to have turned into—groomed and styled to perfection with beautiful social graces—most of the time—and more than ready to step into the life her parents had already laid out for her.

“Because we’re having our last party, a real goodbye party next week. It’s at the Acer
Club
. Trey Walker’s parents have arranged for us to have it for the evening.”

Trey Walker was one of the more active members of the ASA group. He was on exchange from St. Leonard’s and exactly the kind of student Eden had spent the last nine months avoiding. She’d met him when she’d first arrived in Edinburgh and had reluctantly attended an ASA function at her parents’ request. He was conventionally handsome and knew it. His looks combined with his hefty
trust fund
gave him a confidence that Eden found repugnant. Susan, on the other hand, was clearly a fan.

“Not sure, I’ll probably be celebrating with Mara.”

“Come on, Eden, you’ve avoided hanging out with us all year. We’ve got loads of St. Leonard’s
students
—well, another four—and you know we’ll bump into each other next year. Please?”

Eden was suspicious of the group for all the reasons that Susan had just mentioned. The group acted like an embassy—all-America was their approach. They ate at the few American chain restaurants in Edinburgh, and had endless care packages delivered from back home with American products that weren’t available in the Edinburgh shops. They looked like they had been plucked out of their American colleges and placed on the Edinburgh campus without missing a beat in their Abercrombie hoodies and Old Navy flip-flops. By default of the program they were all on, she knew that they all had more money than sense. After all, she was paying for this out of her own
trust fund
.

No, these
were
the sorts of
students
who would ask her where she went to prep school. In fact, she had
recognized
a few of the girls from her debutante training sessions and it made her shudder to imagine hanging out with them. Also, there was a part of her that was mortified they might know what had happened to her. Campus gossip moved fast and she couldn’t imagine that her little breakdown and the events that precipitated it would have been kept quiet enough to not reach most St. Leonard’s
students
.

“When is it exactly? I’ll think about it,” she
finally
capitulated. Eden knew that her parents would expect her to go. They had been subtly pressuring for months to connect more with some of the American
students
in the exchange program. After all, several of them were children of her father’s business partners, or potential ones. A part of her also knew that she would need to build the courage sooner or later to face these sorts of events. She couldn’t run from her past forever. Going would also keep her parents at bay. Eden had a hard balancing act of appeasing her parents’ incessant need to keep grooming Eden and her own desire for independence from a lifestyle that had done little to help her when she needed it.

“Yay!” Susan started jumping up and down and jostling Eden, forcing the coffee to spill. “Listen, you won’t regret it, it’s going to be epic. Here.” She handed Eden the invitation. The embossed card with gold inlay looked excessive and decadent, just like everything in her previous life. It weighed heavy in her hand.

“I said I’d think about it. I haven’t
finalized
my plans, so don’t get too excited,” she explained. Despite Eden’s dislike for Susan’s approach toward life in general, the girl had been nothing but kind to Eden at every chance and she
suddenly
felt bad watching Susan go from pleased to disappointed with her statement. Susan was simply a product of her upbringing and Eden felt a hint of guilt at her judgmental aversion of her.

“Don’t worry, Susan, I’ll look at my schedule, okay? I’m sure I can figure it out.”

“Oh, you won’t regret it. It will be great. Call me and maybe we can meet up beforehand.”

Looking past Susan, Eden saw Mara approaching and gave her a wave. Susan glanced back and Eden tried not to react to the look of annoyance that flashed across Susan’s face.

“I’ll be in touch, alright?” Eden wanted this conversation to be over.

Susan hesitated. “Not to be a bitch, but it’s invite only…”

Eden understood immediately—Mara was not invited. Elite American
students
only. Ugh, and there it was—the exact reason she knew she should avoid Susan.

“Sure, no problem, message received,” Eden responded with another forced smile.

“Okay, great, later!” Susan squeezed her arm and practically hopped back into the student union, leaving Eden holding the invitation. She stared down at it, already regretting her promise to Susan.

“Ah, the lovely Susan Stuart. What did she want?” Mara said as she reached for Eden to kiss her on both cheeks. Mara made no effort to hide her disgust. She knew how Eden felt about the ASA, and the members seemed to get under Mara’s skin as much as they did Eden’s. It didn’t help that whenever they bumped into Eden and Mara together, they effectively ignored her or else talked to her like she was an idiot.

“Nothing I want to talk about. Come on, let’s go get those packing boxes and face the inevitable!”

Mara moaned. She knew it had been the plan for the day, but she was obviously reluctant to face reality. “Let’s just ignore the packing and instead go and get drunk on Guinness and call it cultural exploration. Doesn’t that sound so much better, Eden?”

“One, you know I don’t like to drink, and two, stop avoiding the inevitable. I don’t want to be hysterically packing my stuff into black trash bags the day before I fly out. And neither do you.
And
you have so many goddamn shoes, Mara, we need to start now if we even want to make a dent in them.”

Mara pursed her lips and pretended to pout. “What am I going to do without you in Madrid, Eden?”

 
          
Eden shrugged and hooked her arm through Mara’s as she pulled her into the crowd. “I don’t even want to talk about it, Mara, or I’ll start to cry.”

****

The next two weeks flew by. Eden and Mara finished their last exams and spent their final days in a whirlwind of packing and celebrating, despite Eden’s attempts to get the
apartment
ready earlier. Mara’s parents had surprised them with a two-day
spa
package at the elite luxury Zone One
Spa
, located at the top of one of Edinburgh’s most exclusive hotels. Mara had been telling her parents throughout her time there about the amazing support Eden provided, and her parents in turn wanted them to enjoy their last days together.

On the surface, Mara came across as a serious, committed student. She rarely went out with the other
students
and went above and beyond on her assignments. But to Eden, Mara was quick-tongued, sarcastic, and often had Eden in hysterics. At first, Eden had wrongly assumed that Mara’s dedication to her studies had something to do with not wanting to waste her parents’ money.

“God no, nothing to do with that. My parents could care less if I wasted their money, they have more than enough,” Mara had explained
one night
a few months after they’d met. “I’m just insanely competitive! But you know, that’s not an attractive trait in a woman, so my parents taught me to control it through being humble instead. Or as I see it, meek. You can imagine what a joy that was to learn!”  It was after that revelation that Eden
realized
she and Mara had more in common than she initially thought. Mara had clearly undergone the same social training as Eden and resented it in the same fashion.

The
spa
day ended on Friday afternoon and Eden wistfully
realized
that this would probably be the last time she and Mara would hang out together for who knew how long. They would be on separate flights home by Sunday evening. Eden tightened the robe across her stomach. She wasn’t used to being this bare in front of other people, even though it was just Mara and a few
spa
assistants. She wasn’t embarrassed about her body, in fact she knew she was lucky to have the sort of body that most women desired—petite and slender but still curvy in all the right places. Although, if she let herself acknowledge it, she wished she had been more well-endowed up top. Her mother had always pointed out that anything larger than a C-cup came across as slutty and she shouldn’t complain.

But besides her own insecurities about her breasts, Eden knew she should count herself lucky when it came to how she looked. She just didn’t know what to do with it anymore. Eden, who used to secretly love the envy she induced in her peers, now couldn’t even stand to look at herself naked. She had been working on her body confidence with Dr. Shepherd, but it had been something of a stumbling block for her.