Free Tap & Gown by Diana Peterfreund Page A

who seemed even less tolerable with Arielle nearby, offering to take me away.
    “It’ll only take a minute.”
    “Okay.” Topher looked unconcerned as I left the table and followed Arielle to a quiet nook just beyond the dining hall. We sat in a pair of leather armchairs. Arielle tucked her legs beneath her.
    “What’s up?” I asked her.
    Arielle traced a pattern on the leather armrest. “I was wondering … do you think I should join Quill & Ink?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you want to?”
    “They interviewed me today,” she said, meeting my eyes now. “Seemed really nice, very enthusiastic.”
    Was she trying to make me jealous, or honestly looking for advice? I couldn’t tell. “Maybe it would be fun,” I said.
    “But you didn’t join them.”
    “No,” I admitted. “I didn’t.”
    Arielle nodded, slowly. “So I wanted to know if you think I should.”
    Oh, I got it now. Are you going to tap me, Amy, or should I just go ahead and join Quill & Ink?
    She cast a glance back into the dining hall. “He’s a real asshole, you know that, right?”
    I was quickly figuring it out, yes.
    “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
    “Oh,” I said. “I’m not—it’s not—I have a boyfriend.”
    But that wasn’t what she meant and we both knew it. I liked Arielle more in this moment than I ever had before. She was the only one on my list of potential taps who I hadn’t had to lie to. It was refreshing to play the game this way—innocently, like the way Lydia teased Josh and me. Both Lydia and Arielle were barbarians, but they knew the score.
    “I hooked up with him once,” she said. “Freshman year. Huge mistake, and he hasn’t ever let me live it down.”
    “I’m sorry.” Now, how to say this without breaking my vows? “He doesn’t seem like the kind of person I’d trust to know private things about me.”
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    Maybe that would do it.
    Arielle raised her eyebrows.
    Yep, that did it.
    “So,” she said again, “do you think I should join Quill & Ink?”
    I sighed. Arielle would be a decent choice. She was smart, and fun, and more witty than I’d given her credit for during the week she’d been following me around like a puppy. But if I was really doing right by Rose & Grave, the best choice was Kalani. Kalani was true Digger material. She was the superstar; the student with the best potential for future success and stardom. She would be a feather in the Rose & Grave cap. And it wouldn’t be fair to lead Arielle on. Not when she had other opportunities. “Yes,” I said. “I think you should.”
    1*No, no, it really couldn’t happen. The confessor realizes this now.
    I was taking notes on the couch in our common room that evening when the phone rang. Lydia was over at Josh’s for the night, Jamie wouldn’t be out of his study session for at least an hour. Perhaps it was my mother trying to finalize commencement plans.
    I clicked the Talk button. “Hello?”
    “Amy?” said a voice I knew too well. “It’s Darren.”
    My throat went dry and my hand grew so clammy the phone almost slipped from its grip.
    “Darren?” I whispered. “How did you get this number?”
    “My dad got it from the caretaker at the tomb,” he said. I breathed a bit easier. Of course. “He said I have to call you and … apologize.”
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    Oh. Apologize for drugging me, kidnapping me, almost drowning me. How does a fourteen-year-old kid even begin to prepare a speech for something like that? “Where are you?”
    “Uh …” He hesitated. “I’m not supposed to tell you the name. It’s against the rules.”
    A rehab facility, probably. Troubled teens, delinquents. A place parents could send their children before the law took over. At least Gehry was adhering to that part of the promise.
    “My stitches are supposed to be coming out tomorrow,” he said. “They had to shave off a lot of my hair.”
    I glanced down at my wrist, to where the scabs had mostly peeled away, leaving