Lauren Miller - Free to Fall

This was her thing, I’d learned. Doing the thing Lux said not to.

“I’m experimental,” Hershey added, and smiled. North swallowed a laugh.

He turned back to me. “So what about you?” he asked. His voice was teasing. “Do you like to experiment?”

I blushed and hated myself for it. “I’ll have a vanilla cappuccino,” I said, glancing at my phone out of habit, even though I knew without looking what Lux would have me order. It was always the same.

“Okay, first, that’s the worst order ever,” North replied. “We roast our own beans, and everything is single origin, so if you’re gonna have coffee, don’t kill it with vanilla. Second, if you like sweet stuff, our spiced matcha latte is a way better choice.”

“I’ll have a vanilla cappuccino,” I repeated. “I don’t like tea.”

North shrugged. “Your call,” he said, punching in our orders. We scanned our handhelds to pay and moved to the other end of the counter to wait for our drinks.

“I’m totally going to hook up with him,” Hershey whispered, barely out of his earshot.

“Ew.” I made a face, but inside I felt a surge of envy. Not because I had any desire whatsoever to hook up with the smug, tatted-up barista, but because Hershey was the kind of girl who could. I glanced over at North as he steamed the milk for our drinks. The espresso machine he was using looked like an antique. It had to be the noisiest and least efficient way to make a cappuccino ever.

“One coconut latte, and one vanilla cappuccino,” North declared, setting two paper cups on the counter. His expression was neutral, but his mouth looked funny, like he was biting the inside of his cheeks to keep from smiling. I smiled politely and reached for the cup with VC scrawled on the side in black marker. No printed drink stickers here. I felt like I was in a time warp. Hershey took a sip of hers and shuddered.

“Ugh. Gross.” She smiled at North. “Perfect.”

“Happy to disgust you,” he replied, then glanced at me. “Yours okay?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said, and took a sip.

The second it hit my tongue, I knew what he’d done. The fiery bite of the cayenne laced with the ginger. He’d made me the matcha drink. I hadn’t been kidding; I didn’t like tea. And I hated ginger. But this wasn’t like any tea I’d had before, and mixed with all the other ingredients, the ginger was kind of the best thing I’d ever tasted. I took another sip before I realized North was watching me. It was too late to pretend I hated it. Still, I refused to acknowledge the told-you-so look on his face.

“Well?” he prompted.

“This is a really crappy cappuccino,” I deadpanned.

North let out a laugh, and his whole face lit up with it.

“To be clear, the fact that I’m drinking this doesn’t prove your point,” I told him.

“My point?”

I rolled my eyes. “That I shouldn’t let my handheld make decisions for me. You thought I missed that not-too-subtle subtext?”

“An Academy girl? I’d never sell you that short.”

“Even without Lux, I never would’ve ordered this,” I pointed out. “I hate two of the four ingredients.”

“Ah, but there are seven ingredients. And so what if you hate two of them? The fact that I hate Russian dressing doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of a good Reuben sandwich. Ours is amazing, by the way.”

“We’re talking about sandwiches now?”

North pressed a button on the espresso machine and the steamer shot out a short burst of hot air, blowing a piece of hair in my face. I pushed it away irritably. There was something unnerving about this boy, and I didn’t like feeling unnerved.

I started to say something else, but he’d turned and headed back to the register.

“Flirt much?”

I jumped. I’d completely forgotten Hershey was standing there.

“I was not flirting with him,” I retorted, glancing over my shoulder to make sure North hadn’t heard her. He was busy with the next customer.

“Whatever. Can we go now? I want to change before the assembly.” I started to remind her that this little expedition had been her idea, but she was already halfway to the door.

BACK AT OUR ROOM, Hershey changed into an off-white minidress and bronze flats, and pulled her hair into a sleek low ponytail. I looked about twelve years old standing next to her in my navy sundress and espadrilles. I fought the creeping, sinking disappointment that kept wrapping itself around my ribcage. Of all the roommates I could’ve been matched with, I’d ended up with her.

We made it to the auditorium a few minutes before the assembly was supposed to start. While Hershey went to get our name tags, I stood near the entrance, taking it all in. The pictures I’d seen hadn’t done the room justice. The ceiling was painted to look like a summer sky and rose into a steeply pitched dome. The floor was polished marble and was inset with the Theden logo.

A lanky blond guy in seersucker pants and a navy blazer stepped up beside me. His hair was parted and combed flat, and he was wearing penny loafers. Like, with actual pennies in them. “Hey,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Liam.” Even though his preppy getup would’ve relegated him to the social fringes back home, I could tell that he was popular here. Maybe it was his posture or the confidence in his smile. Or the fact that people kept calling out his name and slapping his back as they passed.

“I’m Rory,” I said, caught off guard by the attention and the hand-shaking. No one my age had ever shaken my hand before. Then again I’d never stood in a room that looked like this one either. Liam’s palm was rough and callused against mine, but his fingernails were neatly clipped and buffed to a shine, like he’d gotten a manicure. The rest of his appearance followed this rough versus polished pattern. He was dressed like he belonged on a sailboat, but there was a scar at his hairline and the bluish-yellow remnants of a bruise beneath his right eye. Sports wounds, I guessed, since Liam had both a water polo pin and a rugby pin stuck to his blazer.

“So what do you think of Theden so far?” he asked. “It’s a little surreal, right?”

“A little?”

Liam smiled. “It’s easier to get used to than you’d think,” he said. “I grew up on the south side of Boston. Less than a hundred miles from here, but it feels like a world away.”

The south side of Boston? I’d been expecting him to say Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard or some other place where rich kids were hatched and groomed. “So you weren’t a legacy?” I asked.

“Hell, no. Whatever the opposite of being a legacy is, I was that. You?”

“My mom went here,” I told him, feeling like an impostor. It was true, but it didn’t mean what he thought it did. My only connection to this place was a woman I never knew who, for reasons I’d probably never understand, didn’t even want me to know she’d gone here.

Hershey came up behind me and slipped her arm through mine. “Who’s your friend?” she asked, sizing Liam up.

“I’m Liam,” he said. His eyes slid down her legs as he extended his hand.

“Hershey,” she replied, not bothering to shake it. She turned to me. “We should go in,” she said. “I don’t want to sit in the back.”

“You can sit with me if you want,” Liam said. “I’ve got seats down front.”

“Great.” Hershey flashed a plastic smile. “Lead the way.”

“So what’s his story?” she whispered as we made our way toward the auditorium. “Is he as boring as he looks?”

“He’s nice,” I hissed.

“We can go around the side,” Liam said as we stepped inside the auditorium. The rotunda was impressive, but this was breathtaking. The heptagonal room was lit by crystal chandeliers, and its marble walls were framed on all sides by rows and rows of gold pipes. I’d read that there were more than fourteen thousand of them, making the Theden Organ one of the largest in the world, and the only one of its size that was still operational.