a safe place, would be ruined. They’d become characters for Mr. Robins and Wyler to take to their School Board meetings: a twisted Show and Tell. She could almost make it work by typing up fake notes for Mr. Robins, but now the evidence would be impossible to deny. Devon felt her neck getting hot. Her palms started to sweat at the thought of Matt being exposed, of Isla’s twitches and ticks and tears being used as textbook material, of Cleo being labeled as a liar.
“I don’t get it. Why do you have to do that?” Devon asked.
“We don’t need to go into all the boring details, but suffice it to say, boarding school students are legally under the guardianship of the school. In loco parentis, as they say. Because this is all new and untested thus far, our insurance would prefer if we handled the program this way going forward. I’m sure you understand.” Headmaster Wyler nodded his head at Devon, as if confident she would not push back.
“We’re going to tell them we’re filming the sessions, though, right?” She asked the question in a way that didn’t make it sound like a question, but an assumption.
Headmaster Wyler shot a look at Mr. Robins, who sat up straighter in his chair and cleared his throat.
“For the moment, we’d like you to say nothing. These sessions are going to be used for research purposes only, so there’s no real need to alert your subjects. Not to mention, we’d hate to tamper with our results by alerting them to the presence of a camera. Getting authentic emotions is imperative. Otherwise, how can we gauge our success levels? You understand, don’t you? It’s for the good of the program.”
“But.…” Both Wyler and Mr. Robins were watching her closely. Devon realized that this wasn’t a discussion. What she thought didn’t matter. The fact that they’d even told her about the cameras was lucky. She could have been filmed this whole time and these two wouldn’t have had the conscience to tell her. But, no … they told her as a warning that they were now watching her as closely as her subjects.
First they’d needed her to sit in that chair and get her peers talking. The scale of power was tipped ever so slightly in Devon’s favor. Wyler and Robins could take away her status in a second, but they knew students would talk to a peer in one way, and an authority figure in another. For all the backlash and attitude she got from Matt, Isla, and Cleo, they were still talking to her. The same might not be true if Mr. Robins sat in her chair, and he and Wyler knew it. She had to be smart with her ounce of power.
“Whatever you think is best for the program,” she said with a warm smile.
CHEMISTRY WAS KILLING HER. Devon let her pencil drop to her desk and rubbed her eyes. One more molecular equation might cause blindness. She stood up and stretched her back out. Her eyes drifted to the single rose resting in a water bottle near her bed. Yellow petals with blood red tips. The makeshift card that came with it; a piece of green Keaton paper scrawled with “I’m sorry. Let’s start over. —G” in one line across the bottom.
When Devon had returned to her room from classes, she found the rose and note lying on her pillow. Grant was trying to make peace with her. Devon knew she should accept it. He had gotten mad when she asked him about knowing Eric Hutchins. Who could blame him? Hutch’s death affected everyone here, and in a million different ways. She had to stop treating all her friends like they were subjects ready to be dissected. Grant was just trying to be supportive. Maybe she should have been the one delivering apologies.
“Hey, George Whore-well,” Presley called out, throwing herself on Devon’s bed. “How was your weekend?”
Devon slumped in her armchair. “The Queen returns,” she said, relieved at the distraction. “My weekend was blah, I want to hear about yours. I’m sure it was much more interesting.”
“It was. Pete’s parents were great. They took us out for dinner. His mom and I played tennis.”
“Blah, blah, boring. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Let’s just say there are two kinds of people in this world, the ones who are on the pill, and the ones who aren’t. And some are having way more fuuuu-n.”
But Devon’s hearing was stuck on ‘two kinds of people