The Ivies - Alexa Donne Page 0,83

shopping in Boston. Aka: she lets me pick out my present because she hasn’t figured anything out yet.”

We tap in at the pedestrian security gate and walk mostly in silence back to Bay. Avery’s room is closer to the elevators than mine is, so we say our farewells at her door. She pulls me into a hug, stiff at first, but then we both warm up.

“Message me over the holidays,” she says as we pull apart. “I’ll be desperate for a break from my supplements. Megan will be stopping by in person before the deadline to help us get it all done. I can ask her to proofread yours, too, if you want. We’re paying her enough.”

It’s a peace offering, and I accept. I’ll take as many steps to mend our friendship as she will. I can’t help but wonder if I ever really saw Avery. How much of my perception was clouded by my closeness with Emma? The chip on my shoulder as a scholarship student?

I shuffle along to my room, pushing the heavy door open with my shoulder and flicking on the lights with my other hand. I shed my coat first, dumping it over the back of my desk chair, and collapse onto my mattress to unlace my boots. Then I look across the way at the stripped-bare mattress and blank walls. I pad barefoot to the closet. Empty. The desk drawers are littered with useless detritus—a mostly used Post-it pad, paper clips, stray pens. Emma’s parents have taken everything of value, everything left of her. I knew they would, but it still hits me like a gut punch.

She’s gone, and this is over.

My mother spends all of Christmas and the days after it fussing over me, which is pretty standard for her after long stretches without me. But on the heels of my roommate dying and my nearly meeting a messy end myself, she goes into overdrive. She brings me breakfast in bed. This woman taught me how to cook when I was six and hasn’t made me breakfast in a decade. I’m weirded out but grateful. By day I marathon old TV shows on Netflix and subsist on PB and J and salty snacks, and at night my mom allows me to drink wine with her while we watch movies. We talk about anything but what happened to Emma. Love my mom.

I may not want to talk about it, but I’m not done with Emma’s murder. I devour every article in the Globe, then the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Vulture once the story goes national. The story of the beautiful rich girl murdered by the pervy school counselor is too good not to go semi-viral. It helps that she’s beautiful and white. Catnip for Nancy Grace and company.

I imagine Fitzgerald is losing her shit right now. Claflin’s name is all over the place, and not in a good way. I read between the lines, analyzing the speech patterns in the anonymous quotes to try to figure out who leaked the story wider, and wish it had been me.

Avery thinks it was Seth Feldstein. His dad works for the Sox, so he knows tons of Globe people, according to her.

It’s been strange, bonding with Avery over this. She doesn’t shut me down like Sierra and Margot do. She’s as hungry for answers as I am. We’ve been chatting, exchanging links and theories. “We should start a true crime podcast,” she suggests over messenger. “College admissions love shit like that.” I assume she’s joking.

We don’t talk about the Ivies, or the things we did, or the things I discovered they did behind my back. The blackmail, bomb threats, testing scam, sabotage. The blowup in the atrium, the halfway heart-to-heart in Avery’s car will have to suffice for now. The way I see it, I only need to navigate these “friendships” for a few more months. I need my last semester at Claflin to pass smoothly. Get in and get out. Why not bond with Avery over Emma’s murder in the meantime?

I haven’t heard from Ethan.

I push down the swirl of emotions that kicks up every time I consider his silence. I’ve said my piece, and I’ll have to live with that. Ethan left campus Monday before I could catch him, so I had to settle for a string of long texts in which I tried to explain. That I’m truly sorry to have hurt him, but I won’t apologize for my ambition.