Aurora’s nose turns red. “Oh, um,” she says, “I want to go to art school. So does Raj.”
“Graphic design,” he says, “and marketing. Aurora’s doing fine art.”
“If I get in,” she mutters.
“Of course you’ll get in,” Sophie says firmly. “You’re very talented—”
Aurora blinks. “But you haven’t seen any of my—”
“And you’re a BEP Explorer. Done deal.”
Have I mentioned how much I like Sophie? “What about you?” I ask her.
She smiles almost shyly and adjusts the scarf covering her hair. “Oh, well, I want to study politics and international relations. Not sure what I’ll do with it yet, but…”
It’s a good degree, I think. Stable job opportunities.
“The world is at a crossroads,” she says. “Nation-states can’t effectively combat global problems, but climate change and waning resources are some of the most pressing issues we have. I don’t know. Just…someone needs to do something.” She shrugs. “Lots of someones.”
Well, spit in my eye and call me a shallow bastard.
“Celine?” Sophie asks.
Here we bloody go. “I’m studying law,” Celine says.
“You’re going to be just like Katharine,” Thomas murmurs dreamily. I really wish he’d get a grip. （For his own good, obviously.）
Celine smiles, not in the cautious, begrudging way she does with me, but like a pageant queen humbly accepting her bouquet. “Nooo. Oh my God. I do admire her a lot… That suit against Harkness Oil?” Celine shakes her head in worshipful awe. “But I have a long, long way to go before I could do something like that.”
A crease forms between Thomas’s ginger eyebrows. “Didn’t she lose the Harkness Oil suit? Am I remembering wrong?” He is clearly tortured by the fact he’s had to question the almighty HowCelineSeesIt.
“Oh, technically she lost it.” Celine nods. “It was unwinnable. But that’s not the point. The point is someone embarrassed them. Someone took a billion-pound company to task and drew the world’s eyes to their behavior. And the victims did get settlements out of court. She helped people and she changed public perception—which has such a huge impact on long-term governance, you know?”
Sophie is nodding wisely. “It’s all about chipping away at big structures.”
“Exactly,” Celine agrees, and the two have an eyeball-based communion of the soul right over my head.
“So, you want to go into human rights law like Katharine?” Aurora asks.
Celine’s blissed-out expression shutters with a blink. “No. No, I’m…going to try corporate law.” She studies her nails, and I think maybe I’m not the only imposter in this room.
“Huh,” Sophie says after a moment. “So—” Her phone vibrates in her hand, three times fast, and she breaks off with a frown. “Shit. Guys.”
“What?” I crane my neck to read over her shoulder. She tilts the screen in my direction.
Mary: don’t be mad but I told Allen about the party and I think he snitched
Mary: just heard Holly & Zion in the hall
CELINE
If I weren’t so busy panicking, I’d be flattered by the fact that Sophie turns to me first. “Do you think we have time to go back?”
Absolutely not. We are screwed screwed screwed, doomed to zeroes on the Matrix at best, and my stomach is sloshing around like an ocean of nerves. “No,” I manage. Why did I think this was a good idea? WHY? I blame Bradley.
“All right.” Sophie looks grimly around the room. “Everyone and everything under the bed.”
“Seriously?” Thomas huffs. “Under the bed?”
“Got a better idea?”
“It’s just a party!” He scowls.
“Cheer up,” Aurora cuts in. “This is an experience. We’re living life on the edge.”
Raj shakes his head and points at her. “We’ll talk about your secret daredevilry later.” When she giggles—giggles—in response, he grins. “Or we could talk now. How do you feel about motorbikes?”
“I—”
“Guys,” Brad says mildly. He has none of Sophie’s authority, and he’s not glaring at anyone the way Thomas is, but for some reason Raj and Aurora snap out of it and everyone gets their shit together. In a whirl of panic, we rip banners off the wall and stuff crisp packets into dark and dingy corners. Sophie drops a cupcake and mutters, “RIP, man. We barely ate ye.” Then she brushes it, crumbs and all, under the bed, and Brad very quietly goes into cardiac arrest. Everyone’s laughing and nervous and breathless right up until the moment we hear a door creak down the hall and a low, rapid-fire murmur that sounds disturbingly like Zion.
They’re close. Too close. And I’m convinced this place is obviously occupied and smells like a gin factory. Raj is still wrestling with all the blankets we laid out. I’m stuffing chocolate out of sight and wondering if Brad brought any scented candles （I wouldn’t put it past him; he’s very particular about his space）， when I notice everyone’s finally leaping for their hiding places. And I realize that, duh—
I’m not going to fit under a bed.
They’re already low to the ground, I’m pretty sure the mattresses sag when you sit on them, and we have to crawl under in pairs. Long story short, that narrow dark space does not look like a Celine-sized space and—
“Cel,” Brad whispers.
I whip around to find him standing by the open window. “What are you doing? Get in bed—”
“Get out here,” he says.
It’s dark outside. Dark on dark on dark, in fact: black night, plus blacker shapes that could be trees but could also be seventy-foot-tall murderers; the jury is out. “Are you taking the piss?” I demand.
There’s another murmur from the hallway, louder this time.
I jerk closer to Brad, closer to the cold-as-space window.
“I know why you’re here,” he says. “I saw your dad on the leaflet. You can’t get thrown off the program.”
“What?” The blood in my veins turns to liquid mortification. My pulse is slow. My tongue has weight. “I…don’t…It’s—”
“Get out,” he says, pushing me through the window, his hand on my hip.
There’s a knock at the door. My feet touch damp grass. Then the window snaps shut, and I very much realize that I am outside. In the dark. Barefoot. In my pajamas.
He’s locked me out here. He doesn’t have to let me back in. I could lose toes to frostbite or…or have to walk around to the front of the building and get caught sneaking inside, and it would all be revenge for every time I implied Bradley was shallow or snide or just not good enough, and maybe I’d even deserve it. Maybe I’d deserve it because—
“Yeah?” I hear Thomas say, his voice thick with faux sleep. These windows must be paper thin.
Holly’s voice is soft from the other side of the door. “Okay in there, guys?”
“Yeah,” Thomas repeats.
“I heard you might be having a little shindig,” Zion says lightly, as if a warm and encouraging tone will lead Thomas to confess all.