The Academy

Chapter Twelve

The Beaumont Ball was announced just a few days after Tatum's grandmother Gertrude told me about it.

It was now already nearing December, and Boston was growing colder and colder. Much colder than it had ever been in Alabama.

"I see you aren't used to this weather," Tatum said, laughing at me as I clambered into his car, wearing a sweater, a parka, thick sweatpants, furry boots, and a cable-knit beanie over my ears.

"Not at all." Of course, Tatum's car was burning up, so I had to shed the beanie and parka as soon as I had stepped into it. "It's freezing."

It had begun to snow a few days ago, and now it was everywhere. All of the streets were filled with it. It was packed on top of roofs. Everywhere I looked, there was cold, white snow. There was even some on the floor of Tatum's car. Actually, I was the one that tracked it in, and he didn't seem to mind it.

It was too cold to walk anywhere, especially to Serenity or Torn Pages, so Tatum offered to drive me there. I had finished all the books I was reading—if there was a better pastime in the winter than sitting in your warm dorm room with a good book and a latte, I hadn't heard it—and needed some new ones, so a trip to Torn Pages was in order.

At Torn Pages, I purchased five books and Tatum got one. It was fun to joke with him about his slow reading—I could finish multiple books in the time it took him to finish one.

In Serenity, he bought me a vanilla latte while I began on my first book, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I had heard amazing things about it, and when I saw a used copy of it at Torn Pages for only five dollars, I knew it was a sign that I had to buy it.

"You know," I began, placing a bookmark in between pages twelve and thirteen, "the Beaumont Ball is in two weeks."

"I bet you're going to take some super-hot Pentry boy there as your date," he teased with a Tatum-trademarked grin, nudging me in the arm with his elbow.

"Actually, I'm thinking about just going with friends."

Tatum's smile faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Are you serious?"

It was my turn to laugh. "Of course not. Would you like to go to the Beaumont Ball with me?" I asked, using dramatic hand gestures.

He took one of my hands, kissed the top of it, and said, "I'd be honored."

"I've got a problem."

I spun my desk chair around to face whoever was at my dorm room door. It was Aspen.

Aspen and I didn't talk much, so I wasn't very close to her. Somehow, I even talked to Carlisle more than I talked to Aspen, which was very weird to me. Aspen was just so stereotypically perfect that it actually made her seem uninteresting most of the time.

Marisol was out on a date with Warren, who, after two hours of crying last night and trying to decide if she should date him again, was given a thousandth chance. They were probably at Ophelia's, where most of their dates were located.

"What's up?" I asked.

"May I come in?" She finger-combed her long, blonde hair, as she always did when she was nervous.

"Yeah."

Aspen sat down on Marisol's bed and wrapped one of her pink blankets around her. "I honestly don't know why I'm coming to you, but I feel like you're a trustworthy person."
I couldn't think of how I should reply to that, so I just said, "Uh, thank you." The way I said it made it sound more like a question than a statement.