The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [17]
“Exactly. Poof. Look at that—I’ve already forgotten.” I waved my hands between us as if I were creating a magic spell. My heart was beating fast. Joel had to agree. If we told Tristan, he would be crushed. He would never understand. Heck, I didn’t understand. I’d never had romantic feelings for Joel in all the years I’d known him. But that kiss . . . It was like I had been possessed.
Joel looked into the woods and said nothing. He rubbed his hand over his face and then took a step closer. My heart stopped dead in my chest. Was he going to try to kiss me again? He bent over, cupping his hands. “Step up. Let’s get you back inside.”
I let myself take a breath. It was forgotten. It was going to be okay. I stepped into his hands, and from there up onto his shoulders. I could feel the strength of his hands as they cupped my ankles, holding me steady. My hands scrambled to find something to hold on to. I was still a few inches short of the windowsill. The rocks in the walls didn’t stick out far enough to make any sort of handhold, and I was afraid the ivy wouldn’t hold me.
“I can’t reach,” I whispered down to him.
“Okay, hang on. Step onto my hands and I’ll boost you up farther.” He gave a grunt and then raised his arms up above his head. I hugged the wall and stepped up. His arms were shaking with the effort, and I had the image of what it would be like if I fell and broke something. Luckily, the extra lift was enough and I was able to get a hold of the wooden sill for my room. I pulled myself up. Clearly I needed to do more chin-ups in gym, because my arms were screaming from the effort. My feet scraped on the stone wall searching for a bit of extra purchase. I didn’t as much crawl into my room as fall in. Once I was inside, I leaned back out the window.
“You okay?” Joel asked.
“Uh-huh. You okay?” I couldn’t see his face in the dim light, but I could make out his shape. He nodded. “Thanks for coming to find me.”
“You can always count on me.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I waved to him and shut the window. I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor. It didn’t feel like I could count on anything anymore.
7
One of things I don’t like about Evesham is the shared bathrooms. There are two per floor in the dorms. It’s not like they’re nasty. You couldn’t charge what Evesham costs and get away with chipped tile and laminate counters. The floors are heated, and there’s a wide granite countertop vanity where everyone sits to do their makeup in the morning. It was designed to look like the washrooms they have in Harrods department store in London. My Evesham bathroom was nicer than the bathroom I had at home, and I wasn’t even expected to clean it. Evesham has a fleet of janitors who swoop in and mop and polish it as soon as we’re done in the mornings. There’s never so much as a stray hair in the corner. The problem with the bathrooms at Evesham is that you can never be alone.
I closed my eyes and wished for total silence. It was impossible to block out the sounds of the girls who were singing in the shower and the two girls next to me who were breaking down the calorie count of every food item ever known to man. Another girl was standing behind me spraying clouds of some perfume that stuck to the back of my throat like an oily smear of crushed roses. I opened my eyes to glare at her in the mirror.
“I’m sorry, Hailey.” She waved her hands around to try to get rid of the smell, but all that did was wave it into my face. “I should do this in my room. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She scurried out of the bathroom.
I leaned forward to look at myself closely. My foundation had almost completely hidden the scratch on my cheek. All anyone would be able to see was a faint pink line, and they wouldn’t even see that unless they were looking really hard. I searched my face. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it seemed as if there had to be something else, something I wasn’t seeing, that marked the events from last night. Maybe a giant I KISSED JOEL carved into my