The Perfectionists

Chapter 22

THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, AUDREY SLUMPED into film studies, her head down. That was the bitch about school: No matter what happened, no matter who you got in a fight with, who broke up with you, or whether a teacher tried to molest you at his house, you still had to go to the same freaking classes every day. Face the same demons and humiliation. You couldn't run and hide, no matter how badly you wanted to.

Case in point: There was Mr. Maraj pacing up and down the aisles, his fingers laced cockily in his belt loops, a look of superiority on his face. "So," he spoke to the class, "how is The Postman Always Rings Twice different from the other movies we've seen in this unit?"

Silence. When Jay passed Audrey's desk, she intentionally looked down. To her horror, he paused next to her. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body.

"Miss Rose?" She flinched at the sound of her name. His voice sounded ice-cold. "What do you think?"

Audrey looked up through the long curtain of her hair. "Um. One of the things that struck me was how fatalistic it is," she mustered. "In And Then There Were None, the whole point was that the judge had to punish people because otherwise they'd never be punished. So it's about humanity scheming to have some control over its own circumstances. But in this movie, it's almost like fate has set a trap before any of the characters even meet. Cora and Frank are punished because they're, like, doomed to be punished."

"Because they're, 'like, doomed'?" Mr. Jay sneered. "Very articulate. Anyone have a less obvious point to make? Colette, what do you think?"

Audrey sagged in her chair, the droning of her classmates suddenly very far away. All she wanted was to find some way to prove Jay had murdered Ben so that he would go to jail—and so that she and her friends would be safe.

But then she noticed something sitting on her desk. It was a folded-up piece of paper, seemingly dropped there a moment ago. Audrey glanced around at her classmates, but no one was looking at her. The only person whose gaze was upon her, actually, was Jay's. He glared at her from the front of the room, his eyes dropping to the paper on her desk.

Audrey's stomach lurched. He'd written it.
She slipped the piece of paper to her lap and opened it up. She recognized his scrawl from his comments on her papers.

Some people know to keep their mouths shut—I guess you're not one of them. I'd be careful if I were you.

And PS: If you show this to anyone, I'll know. You don't want to mess with me.

Audrey's mouth dropped open. She looked up at Jay again, but he was facing the board, chalk in hand. Was that a threat? How could the cops not have found those pictures? She thought back to that moment at his house, when he'd caught her glancing at his phone. He must have known she'd seen them and deleted all the evidence.

Finally, the bell rang, and Audrey shot up, desperate to be out of that classroom. She had to get as far from Jay as possible.

"Hey! Hey, Audrey, wait!"

Even though she knew it was Chad , Audrey didn't slow down. Chad caught up with her in the hallway, gasping for breath. "Hey, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she said.

"What was with Jay today? He was being a dick. The stuff you said was totally right on." She shrugged. "I guess he was in a shitty mood."

"Hey." Chad caught her arm and stopped her hard in the middle of the hall. His eyes searched her face. Suddenly, Audrey couldn't fight it anymore. Tears sprang to her eyes, her lower lip trembling. She started to turn away from him, but he touched her elbow.

"Hey," he said softly, giving her a sympathetic look. "You want to get out of here?"

She hesitated. She wasn't sure she was in the mood to hang out with anyone. Then again, the thought of staying on campus—where she risked bumping into Jay, or worse, Detective Peters—sent a roiling wave of nausea through her. She wiped her tears impatiently away. "Okay," she said. "Let's go."