24. Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Dropped Out

I fully expected to be taken back to campus.

My dorm room, most likely.

Or the provost’s house, although William hasn’t lived there for many months. I would even accept the bell tower, except that Mary is using it now.

Perhaps that’s why we end up at a gorgeous modern home that’s apparently owned by Cormac. It’s all angles and glass, its sleekness a contrast to the craggy shore behind it.

I’m a person who will prefer old things to the new, who wants dusty paper instead of shiny screens, but I can’t deny the luxury of this uber-modern palace. The bedroom I’m in has a balcony. It overlooks a place where rock juts into sky, along with the riotous symphony of crashing waves.

Physically, I feel better after some pain meds and a hot shower. My body throbs gently, a reminder of the ordeal I’ve been through, but it’s manageable.

Emotionally, though, I’m a mess.

I swing my legs out of bed, the cool wooden floor sending a jolt through my system. I’m wearing an oversized T-shirt, one that says Tanglewood University . It’s comforting, a touchstone to something I know in a foreign land.

This place is a world away from the cramped dorm rooms.

The low rumble of masculine voices drifts upstairs as William handles the mundane details of violence and retribution. I turn away from the window, my heart pounding in my chest. I’m safe, I know that, but the fear, the uncertainty, it’s still there. It’s still real. And it’s not going away anytime soon.

The door to the bedroom creaks open.

Daisy steps into the room, her blue eyes filled with concern. She doesn’t say a word, just crosses the room and pulls me into a tight hug. I stiffen at first, still raw from everything that’s happened, but her warmth seeps into me, and I relax, melting into her embrace.

She pulls back, her hands on my shoulders, and looks me over. “You’re okay,” she says, more a statement than a question.

I nod, not trusting my voice.

She wraps a blanket around my shoulders and tucks it in around me, her movements brisk and efficient. I want to tell her not to worry over me, not to fuss, but the truth is that I’m grateful to be the recipient of her care.

“Drink this,” she says, pressing a hot cup of tea into my hands. I take a sip, the heat and sweetness of chamomile tea with honey warming me from the inside out.

She sits down on the bed next to me, her leg pressed against mine. She takes my free hand in hers, her thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand. It’s a small gesture, but it anchors me, keeps me present in the moment.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” she says. “But I’m here if you want to.”

I shake my head, unable to speak.

She seems to understand, chatting about inconsequential things, filling the silence with her warm voice. She talks about her latest engineering project, about the new café that’s opened up near campus, about how Mary is learning everything about the “outside world” through TikTok. I can’t imagine that being my first introduction to regular people.

I let her words wash over me. It’s comforting, this semblance of normalcy. It reminds me that there’s a world outside of the chaos I’ve been living in, a world where people go to cafés and work on engineering projects and learn about social media.

As she talks, she starts to brush my hair, her fingers gentle as they work out the tangles. It’s a soothing rhythm, and I feel my eyes start to drift closed. I’m safe here, with her. I can let go, just for a moment.

Even as I relax, a tension remains in me, a coiled spring.

I have a place to sleep tonight, but what about tomorrow? What about when I have to face the world again, when I have to face the cold reality of my situation?

She seems to sense my tension, her hand stilling in my hair. “It’s okay,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “You’re okay. Don’t think about it.”

I take a deep breath, trying to obey her.

Trying to believe that everything will be okay.

There’s a knock at the door, a sharp sound that cuts through the warmth.

Daisy and I exchange a glance, her blue eyes reflecting the same uncertainty I feel. She moves to the door, her steps hesitant. I clutch the blanket tighter around my shoulders, my heart pounding in my chest.

Daisy cracks open the door. She stiffens. “Absolutely not.”

Then I hear a familiar voice, urgent and pleading. “I need to know she’s okay.”

Carlisle.

My breath hitches, a mix of emotions surging through me. Relief, anger, confusion. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my friend.

Daisy looks back at me, a question in her eyes.

I nod, a small, jerky movement.

With clear reluctance, she steps back to let her in.

Carlisle stands in the doorway, her usually bright and gorgeous appearance replaced with a look of desolation. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her cheeks streaked with tears. She’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.

She looks like she’s been through hell and back.

I’m sure I look worse.

Since Daisy looks ready to rip into her, I head onto the balcony, where there are two chairs that look modern but are surprisingly comfortable. I sink into one of them with a sigh.

Carlisle sits in the other one, leaned forward, hands pressed together as if in prayer.

Praying to the tumultuous ocean, perhaps.

We sit in a long silence that’s surprisingly companionable.

After what happened I would have expected there to be more awkwardness. Instead I might even feel more at ease with her than before. She’s more human to me now. More real. I suppose knowing secrets has a way of creating intimacy.

It makes me wonder if that’s what really started the Shakespeare Society, the human need for intimacy. College is not a place that has a lot of that. Oh, there are lots of people. Too many people, really. People come here from all over the city, all over the state. They even come here from all over the world.

They leave their families, their friends behind in pursuit of…what?

Higher learning, perhaps.

Powerful career prospects. Maybe.

But on some level, we came here, all of us, seeking a new family, one who made more sense than the one we were born to. And the secret society, while toxic, while dangerous, while absolutely terrible, did provide that for some people.

What is the alternative?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that humans weren’t made to be alone. I know that now, now that I’ve fallen in love, regardless of whether that love is doomed.

“So,” Carlisle says, her tone droll, “anything interesting happen to you lately? Like, did you try out a new mascara? Or did they serve something besides meatloaf at the Hathaway cafeteria on a Wednesday?”

Despite everything, a smile touches my lips. “Oh, you know. Same old, same old.”

She snickers. Then sighs. “Is there someone I can kill for you? Because I feel like that might make you feel better. And it would definitely make me feel better.”

“No murders,” I tell her.

“You’re too nice. I’ve always thought that about you.”

I shake my head with a small grin. “I’ve learned how to be bloodthirsty, actually, but I already have a knight who slayed the dragon.”

She sobers. “You think you know why I wanted to be friends with you.”

“It’s because I was the only person here who wasn’t worshipping at your feet, who was ignorant enough not to know who you were. And everyone likes a little variety in their life.”

“The reason why I wanted to be friends with you is because you’re an interesting person, a nice person, a good person.”

I shake my head. It’s not that I think I’m evil. I’ve looked into the face of that recently enough that I can’t make that mistake. But being insulted and knocked around by your parents your whole life will do a number on the brain. It will make you believe that you don’t deserve anything—not true friends, not good grades. Not even a scholarship.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me, but it’s true. Though I did have an ulterior motive.”

“Ha,” I say.

“It’s not that you didn’t care about me. It’s that you did care about me. As a human. All those people, the ones who follow me around campus, who ask for autographs, who post my pictures online, they don’t care about me. They don’t even know me.”

Shit. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, but most of them don’t like me. They actually hate me.”

My heart clenches. Everyone loves Carlisle Storm. That’s why they’re so obsessed with her, right? Then again, it’s possible to be obsessed with someone you hate. The certainty in her voice gives me chills. “There are going to be assholes,” I try.

She shakes her head. “I’m not even talking about the trolls or the religious fanatics who tell me I’m going to hell. I mean all of them. The ones who want to be my friend, especially. They hate me because I shouldn’t have this fame, and they know it. The fact that my voice sounds a certain way, the fact that I look a certain way, the music they play on the radio, it was all given to me. I didn’t earn it.”

My brows draw together. What she’s saying feels important. It feels vital, but I also don’t understand it. “I’ve never seen you on tour, or in the recording studio, or rehearsing, or writing songs, but I don’t imagine that it’s easy.”

She shrugs. “There are a hundred more talented people in the music department, people with more range, with stronger voices, with more creativity.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re right, though. It’s not easy. Sometimes I just want to give it all up. But then my mom calls me and reminds me that it’s not actually an option.”

My heart clenches. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I don’t want your sympathy. I don’t deserve it. That’s my point.” She tugs on one of her long black curls, a nervous habit. “I’m only bringing it up to show you that I value our friendship. And if I’ve lost it over this, then that’s nothing less than I deserve. But you were never just someone who I knew, who I liked because you didn’t read the gossip or listen to pop music. You aren’t a friend of convenience. You’re someone I care about greatly, someone I—” Her voice cracks. “Someone who I’ll miss for a long time, if this is the last time we see each other.”

Tears prick my eyes. Am I supposed to stay mad at her? I can’t seem to find any anger inside me, not when what she’s saying feels like the truth, not when I’ve seen the alternative. Making mistakes happens to anyone, but most people double down. There are people who live their entire life with lies, even as they smile to your face. Even as they stab a gilt dagger in your back. And I know what kind of person I prefer.

I want friends who make mistakes.

Who apologize.

I don’t want people who are secretly plotting to kill you.

“Don’t talk like that,” I tell her, my voice husky. “This isn’t the last time we’re going to see each other. Of course not. Just because we’re going through a rough patch doesn’t mean we’re not still friends.”

“Damn it,” she says, wiping her eyes. “You’re being too nice again.”

“I just…wish I could understand you better. I know what the gossip accounts have cost you, how painful they’ve been. How could you become one of them? I understand the way it started, but why keep it going?”

She looks out at the ocean, which roars in windy abandon. It’s gorgeous to look at. Terrifying to consider being asea. That’s what the world of fame looks like to me. “God,” she says. “Do professors make more than I thought? This is an incredible view.”

“He might do work on the side. I mean, the literature professors do that, too, but it usually doesn’t pay as well. Maybe engineering pays better.”

“Like I said, it started as a joke. I would post and then forget about it. But then they’d come after me again, and I don’t know, it just felt like if I posted, half as a parody, half as self-flagellation… It felt like I was controlling the narrative somehow.”

“Oh, Carlisle.”

“I think I was trying to understand my enemies. I was becoming them, just so I could learn not to hate them. I didn’t want that feeling to eat me up inside.”

I think back to Thorne’s terrible ambition, the way she was so desperate to succeed that she would hurt anyone to get ahead. She used men, she hurt women, even as she understood that she perpetuated the cycle of privilege. Where did that drive come from? Hatred? Was she so bitter about the fact that women get fewer opportunities in this field—and in most fields, if we’re honest—that she felt justified doing anything to succeed? Even illegal, dangerous, harmful things? Even murder?

No. That’s giving her too much credit.

It’s like Ms. O’Connor said. You can’t always argue for the best possible interpretation. Sometimes people are just wrong. Sometimes they’re just cruel. That’s the part of Shakespeare you never wanted to face.

It would be easy for me to hate Thorne, but Carlisle is right. It would eat me up inside. It would turn me into some other version of Thorne, one who’s bitter.

I can’t let that happen.

I’ve worked too hard to escape the Society.

I can’t become what they are, what they were.

“Did it help you understand them,” I ask, “in the end?”

She nods, looking thoughtful. “Weirdly enough, yes. What happens when you start posting and people are following you is that people start talking back to you. Comments and DMs. They started sending me information. Gossip about me, that I knew was a lie, but how would other accounts know that?”

“They should verify their sources.”

“And then there was the gossip about other people. Gossip is just a term for news, when you think about it. I got this tip about how a guy on the football team had roofied this girl who was still in high school. The coach was trying to cover it up. Sports is big money for the university, so they were hoping it went away.”

“Oh God.”

“I asked around. Used my position as Carlisle Storm to get information that I might not have had otherwise. And then I posted it. Everything blew up from there. Things started happening. The player got suspended. The coach got fired. The school made a stern statement.”

“That’s incredible.”

“It didn’t permanently fix anything, of course. There are more players to do horrible things and more coaches to cover them up. But it was…something. Something that mattered. Something in the right direction. It was more than I could do without the account.”

I can understand the allure too well.

“I kept posting. Some of it I would find myself, but most of it came through other people. And this part was a surprise—the number of people who want me to post about them. They’ll share their own gossip as part of a popularity game.”

“Wow.”

“Some people offered to pay me to post stories. Or to sponsor ads. I didn’t take it, of course, but it took on a life of its own. And that was important, too. It was an identity. A secret one, something that belonged to me and me alone, something that could not be judged, objectified, or monetized by my mother. No one could complain that Tanglewood Tea looks like it gained five pounds. They didn’t speculate if I was sleeping with someone as a PR stunt. The secret made it feel safe.”

“I understand.”

She looks unconvinced. “Do you?”

“I understand wanting to be safe.”

“I couldn’t actually be in that many places, at parties and things like that, and be inconspicuous, so most of what I posted came through other sources. I did work to verify them, but even so, it wasn’t a guarantee that everything I said was one hundred percent true.”

“It was true in my case,” I say softly.

She flinches. “Yes.”

“I looked up the post again. I saw the way you worded it, the way you tried to protect my name, keep me out of it. I know that you were thinking about what was best for me. And that, in your own way, with your own power, you were trying to keep me safe, too.”

“I failed.”

“You can’t save the world, Carlisle. What happened to me is the result of evil people. What you did could protect other students, ones who don’t have the power to say no. I don’t want you to stop posting because of what happened.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

“No, you’re doing real good in the school. This is important.”

“I’m done at Tanglewood University. So I can’t exactly post the gossip.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dropped out.”

“What?”

“I’m going on tour.”

I blink. “But you said you hate touring.”

“It’s what my mom wants, what she always wants.”

She’s younger than me, having been homeschooled so that she could perform as a child. That’s how she got into college two years ago. “Aren’t you eighteen now?”

“I don’t have the heart to keep telling her no.”

Damn. I wish I didn’t understand that. It doesn’t actually matter, when you’re a child, how unreasonable your parents are. You just want them to love you. Even if that means working in a diner and giving them all your money for a cancer that was never real.

And, apparently, even if that means going on a worldwide tour you hate.

“Maybe you can come and finish your classes after.”

“There’s really nothing here for me. You’ll have graduated by then.”

“You wanted your degree.”

“I wanted the dream, the college experience, like Glee mixed with The Queen’s Gambit, but it was never that. It wasn’t even just the students who hated me. It was the professors, too. They’re musicians, too, of course. They resented that I had the fame, even though they’re the ones teaching me. I need to stop putting myself through that.”

“I know you’re not ready to hear this right now, but I’m telling you, education is a right. You deserve one. You deserve to be here as much as anyone.”

She shakes her head, her lower lip trembling.

“Maybe later,” I whisper.

I meant what I said. We all deserve this. Scholarship or not. Pop star or not. Those who want to learn should always have a place at Tanglewood University. That’s what the people who started secret societies don’t understand. We already belong.