These Games We Play

chapter sixty six : The toolbox

Oren retrieved the key from his toolbox, but he didn't give it to me. He gave it to Zara, then told me to get ready for school.

"Have you lost your mind?" I asked him. "I'm not going to school."

"It's the safest place for you right now," Oren said. "Alisa will agree with me."

"Alisa's doing damage control from the interview," I retorted. "I'm sure the last thing she wants is me out in public. No one would question why I might want to stay home."

"Country Day isn't public," Oren told me, and a few seconds later, he had Alisa on speakerphone, and she was echoing what he had said: I was to put on my private school uniform, put on my best face, and pretend that nothing had happened. If we treated this like a crisis, it would be seen as a crisis. Since I'd promised to keep Alisa in the loop, I told her everything, and she still didn't change her mind.

"Act normal," she told me. I hadn't been normal in weeks.

. But less than an hour later, I was dressed in a pleated skirt, a white dress shirt, and a burgundy blazer, with my hair tousled just so and my makeup minimal, except for the eyes. Preppy with an edge, for all the world to see-or at least all the denizens of Heights Country Day School.

I felt like I had on my very first day. Cam and Lia got out first. No one looked directly at me, but the way they were not-looking at me felt far more conspicuous. Jameson and Xander slipped out of the car after us, and each of them took one of my sides. Lia and Cam next to them. This time it felt different, this time it wasn't just Cam, Lia and I the three new girls who had grown up dirt poor, it was us and the Hawthorne's against the world.

☆☆☆☆

I made it through the day bit by bit, and by lunch, I was done. Done with the stares. Done pretending everything was normal. Done trying to put on a happy face. I was hiding-or making an attempt at it-in the archive when Jameson found me.

"You look like someone who needs a distraction," he told me.

A few feet away, Oren crossed his arms over his chest. "No."

Jameson shot my bodyguard his most innocent look.

"I know you," Oren replied. "I know your distractions. You're not taking her skydiving. Or parasailing off the coast. No racetracks. No motorcycles. No ax throwing-"

"Ax throwing?" I looked at Jameson, intrigued.

He turned back to Oren. "What are your feelings on roofs?"

☆☆☆☆

Ten minutes later, Jameson and I were back on top of the Art Centre. He rolled out the turf and teed up a ball.

"Keep away from the edge," Oren told me, and then he turned deliberately away from us both.

I waited for Jameson to ask me about the postcards. I waited for him to flirt with me, to touch me, to Jameson Hawthorne the answer out of me. But all he did was hand me a club. I lined up the shot. Part of me wanted him to come stand behind me, wanted his arms to wrap around mine. Jameson on the roof. Grayson in the maze. My mind was a mess. I was a mess. I dropped the club.

"My mother was Kimberly Whitlock's sister," I said. And so, it began. It was hard to put into words everything I'd learned, but I managed. The more I said, the easier it was to see Jameson thinking. The more he thought, the closer to me he came.

"What do you think Toby left in Jackson that's worth so much?" he asked. "And where in Jackson?" Jameson studied me like my face held the answers. "How long did Toby's amnesia last? Why stay 'dead' once his memory returned?"