The Devil & Me

Chapter Seventeen: Apocrypha

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I started the first day of the term utterly alone. Luce was avoiding me, while I was avoiding Cassius, and Grace and I had spent so much time apart that I didn't know where to begin with her. If I did meet her, I guessed I should thank her for sending Cassius to come get me. Although that might open up a Pandora's box of questions.

Instead of a first-period class, they sat all of us seniors in the auditorium to tell us about the upcoming college application season. Our counselors would schedule several meetings with us to help us whittle down a list according to our ability. Then, recruiters would come to the school on their tour of private schools across the country.

I slipped lower into my seat, legs crossed in front of me. They projected several schools that Fortuna students tended to go to. The most elite private colleges of course. Some of the "public" elite schools in the South and on the West Coast. And of course, the school of Fortuna's blue-bloods, Cornelius. Everybody who was anybody went to Cornelius. The principal had gone. All the senior faculty. Most of the parents of the full-paying students. I wouldn't be going there. Not while I was living. I wanted out of New England, snowy winters, and isolated backroads. I had a couple of schools in California on my list, a couple in Texas, some in Maryland and Virginia. I didn't have to get into the "perfect school." I didn't need a school that everyone wanted to go to. I needed a nice scholarship somewhere where I could go unnoticed, somewhere where I could be a blade of grass in a rolling plain of faces. And that was certainly not Cornelius.

I left the presentation and headed toward my next-period class. By the door of it, I saw Cassius turning his head, scanning. I stopped, before thinking better and slipping into the next stream of walking traffic. If I had stood there like an idiot, he would have seen me quicker. But still, I had to get to class, and by the looks of it⁠⁠—and the passing minutes⁠⁠—he was willing to wait beyond the bell for me. Couldn't I go one day without dealing with any of my problems? Was that too much to ask?

Yes, when they're problems of your own making.

I turn back around. He was still there. I stepped out of the shuffling lines to try and cross the hall. Instead, I ran into a body headfirst. I stumbled, but I didn't fall. Some books did though, though after I opened my eyes and patted myself down, I realized they weren't mine. I blinked and realization dripped in. The other Ambrose Devil⁠⁠—Liliana stared at me with narrowed eyes and a red mouth folded slim.

"Excuse me," she said. She hustled around me and I glanced over what had fallen on the ground. Not one, not two, but three books. I frowned and looked closer, folding my body. They were leather bound and...old looking. I lifted my head. Was she going to come get them back? I couldn't see her at all in the thinning crowd. I gathered the books up and set them, one by one, in my bag.

Finally, when that was done, I went back to class. Cassius was still there, checking his watch and staring down the hall in the opposite direction, but when my shoes squealed across the floor, he looked my way. He lifted himself from the lockers.

"I haven't been able to find you anywhere," he said. He reached for me and I stayed still as he held my arms. "I knocked on your dorm."

"I haven't been in the dorms too much. You know. Roommate trouble."

He searched my face and paused a moment, before saying. "I have a single." He paused again. "If you want."

I could imagine a lot of the things we would end up doing in the single. His eyes grew hotter, and I swept my hands as if to dust them away.

"No, I'm okay. I want to make up with her quickly."

"But she doesn't like me."

"She doesn't have to."