The Rivals (26 page)

I cringe because even though it’s a lie, he uses the exact words that Maia would use. He has mastered her speech patterns, her vocabulary, the way she strings words together, and he is using this to take her down.

“I never said that!” she shouts at him.

I want to run past the dryers and the washers, run past the tables, and grab her, wrap my arms around her, put a blanket on her shoulders and take her away. Because she shouldn’t even be here. She’s only here because I pushed Beat into a lie. Because I went too far.

But Beat’s not done. Vengeance, or drama, runs deep in him.

“And you even asked me to share my supply too. You said if you were sharing, it would be the
magnanimous
thing for me to share as well,” he adds.

I watch as the word
magnanimous
slices into her like an arrow. Because that’s just the kind of word she would use too, the kind of thing she would say.

She hasn’t met her match.

She has met her vanquisher, and he has learned from the master; he is defeating her by playing her part. He is Maia right now. He is better than Maia.

For a second, just the tiniest hair of a second, I understand why he drugged the seniors last year. Because he has unparalleled talent. Because he deserved the lead. He deserves all the leads, all the roles, all the parts ever. He has charisma, he has presence, he has the council in his hands as he unfurls this beautiful, seductive, magnetic lie.

Maia calls her character witnesses, two other debaters who testify that she didn’t do what Beat said she did. But their words fall flat. The damage has been done.

When the council adjourns, there is no reasonable doubt.

When they return the next morning, the verdict is everything I expect to hear.

They find Maia guilty. They find Jamie innocent.

What they don’t say is the part I know to be true beyond a reasonable doubt—it is all my fault.

Maia is a zombie.

She barely speaks, barely talks, barely looks at anyone. It’s not because she’s mad anymore. It’s because she’s broken.

This is what happens when we take away. This is what happens when we punish. This is what happens when the innocent are found guilty.

Fine, it’s
only
debate. But it’s
not
only debate. It’s Maia’s love. I would be a zombie too if someone took the piano away from me. I would be Theo, homeless, helpless, the inside of me cratered.

Because we are what we love. We are the things, the people, the ideas we spend our days with. They center us, they drive us, they define us to our very core.

Without them, we are empty.

Maia lies in bed, still wearing her courtroom attire hours later, as the sun sinks low in the sky and the evening chill sets in. She returned to the room after the trial and she hasn’t moved from her bed all day.

“Maia, I’m so sorry,” I say again.

“S’okay,” she mutters, the only words she’s said all day.

Her black hair spills out beneath her, a fan around her face.

“Maia, I’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise, I will.”

“S’okay.”

“I will figure out who set us up.”

“S’okay.”

But nothing is s’okay or okay or anything. Because she didn’t just lose. She was humiliated, called out publicly, branded a cheater. But so much worse—a cheater who forced her whole team to cheat, a dealer who made her whole team take drugs to win. Word travels fast at Themis Academy.

And like me last year, her private life has become public. Only, I chose to step forward then. Maia didn’t choose; she just had to defend herself, her secret, the thing she didn’t want anyone to know.

If I ever questioned whether I would be good at leading the Mockingbirds, if I ever wondered if I was cut out for the administration of justice, I don’t have to ask anymore. The answer is clear.

I have failed spectacularly.

One innocent person has been found guilty. One alleged perpetrator was wrongly accused. Score: two screwups for the price of one. Three, if you count the fact that we were played, faked out, clearly set up by someone. Or by several someones. I already have a growing list of suspects and I am adding more by the hour.

Was it Beat? Or Theo? Or Beat
and
Theo? Or Calvin? As remote as that possibility sounds, I can’t discount it. Or perhaps Delaney protecting Theo somehow? Or Natalie, that loose cannon Natalie who’s had it in for me, and for the Mockingbirds, since last year? Natalie, who mocks me when she sees me, who jams her elbows into my body? Or Parker? I can’t help but think Parker is responsible. Parker cried over the evidence. Plus, Parker was tasked with tracking Theo and he came up short. It took me only a few nights to find him dealing. Parker has always been the weak link on the board. To top it off, he’s always questioned me, tried to undermine me. Maybe Parker has been playing me all along. But why? As he asked during our first board meeting before classes even started, what would the
motivation
be?

What would anyone’s motivation be?

What scares me is not that I don’t know who’s behind the setup but how many valid options there are, how many students might want to take us down.

And how I played into their hands.

But I have to find a way to fix the mess I made. And that mess isn’t just Maia. It’s Jamie too. So I pay her a necessary visit.

McKenna is with her. If I had a younger sister who’d been accused of masterminding a drug-using cheating ring, I probably would be all mama bear with her too. I probably wouldn’t let the big, bad Mockingbirds talk to her without being there either. I’d spit it back in my face and be all,
I told you so. I told you she was innocent
.

McKenna doesn’t say that. Neither does Jamie. When I visit them, Jamie invites me into her room, and McKenna offers a chair. I sit down and begin. “I want to offer my sincerest apologies for the accusation that prove to be false,” I say, though it’s more a recitation. I practiced before I came over, reviewing the section in our notebook on how to handle accusations that prove to be unfounded. I suppose it’s no different from a real court. Some are found guilty; some are found innocent. And I suppose too that having a mechanism in place in case the accused is found innocent keeps things fair, so we don’t simply favor the victims all the time.

Still, none of this makes it any easier to say the words that come next.

“We are truly sorry for all that you went through. I will remove your name from the book, restore all your points, and announce that you will indeed stay on in the VoiceOvers as a member in good standing, which will signal to the student body that you were found innocent,” I continue. I have this strange sense of déjà vu, but it’s not that I’ve been here before; it’s that I somehow
knew
I would be here.

“I would also like to offer you an advisory post on the Mockingbirds,” I add. “You would essentially become a de facto board member, and in this capacity you can help us better consider the rights of the accused. Would you like to join us in this post?”

Jamie nods enthusiastically, and I find myself thinking, yet again, how young she is. There’s this softness around her, a sweetness almost, that doesn’t fit the evidence I saw, the stories I was told.

Then again, nothing fits.

“I’m excited to join the Mockingbirds,” she adds, and she’s smiling brightly, back to the Jamie I had dinner with, the Jamie I asked to mentor.

McKenna gives her a cutting look, then speaks for the first time. “Thanks, Alex. For handling this with such grace. I know it can’t have been easy,” she says.

I wish she’d just be a bitch to me.

The next day at lunch I feel like I am eating sand as I stand up and say, “Maia Tan has an announcement to make.”

She isn’t stoic or tough or cool. She’s dead. She’s a shell as she delivers words I know have to be eating her alive.

“I’m withdrawing as Debate Club captain effective immediately and for the rest of my time here. If you want to know why, the answer is in the book.”

Then she walks out. I don’t follow, though I desperately want to. I want to do all the hard work for her, to bear the burden. I want to turn around and shout at the top of my lungs, “I did it! I was the supplier! I’ll take the punishment.”

But she would never let me. See, that’s the difference between us. She would never have put me in a position where I might have to take the fall. Last year she stood by me, shoulder to shoulder. She went to bat for me, and she knocked it out of the park.

When it was my turn to protect her, I struck out.

As she leaves, heavy, empty, gone, I begin the next part of what I have to say, the part about Jamie staying in the VoiceOvers—crystal clear code for her being innocent—then the part about her becoming one of us. I finish and I’ve just had a brief taste of what it’s like to be on the other side. To be the one standing up in front of the crowd, admitting she was wrong.

It feels awful.

As I walk away I catch a brief glimpse of Carter seated next to that red-haired girl, his arm draped around her, a smug smile on his face.

That evening, I sit alone on the steps outside my dorm, trying to figure out how I can prove Maia’s innocence, how I can prove she’s
not
responsible. It’s late and it’s cold, but I’m not alone. Because Martin texts me to tell me he has some info, then joins me a few minutes later.

“You were onto something with those signs,” he says.

“The creepy cartoon dogs?”

Martin nods. “I did a little recon on my own, and I found out what they’re about.”

“You did?”

“This dude a floor below tipped me off. Said there are some students trying to start their own group. That’s what the dog signs are all about. Been recruiting quietly for the last couple weeks.”

“Like a rival justice system?”

“Evidently.”

I pause for a second, considering this. A rival justice system. Another underground secret court. Isn’t one enough? Isn’t one more than enough? But then I think of D-Day, of the Faculty Club, of Ms. Merritt, and how one or two or all the underground justice systems in the world will never be enough. They will always be pale facsimiles of how right and wrong, good and bad, should be handled. And neither of them can do what really matters: rebuild, repair.

I think of Theo, the broken boy who got off scot-free. I want to confront him, shake him down, get him to fess up. But he’s not even here. And I’ve done the shakedown. I’ve done the spy thing. They didn’t work. Nothing I do works.

Besides, Theo’s already lost the thing he loves most. Our justice doesn’t work for him.

“Some days I wish I was just in public high school,” I say.

Martin leans back on the steps, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I don’t think it’s a picnic there either.”

I suppose we could kiss and make up right now. I suppose now would be as good a time as any. We’re not fighting. We’re not even distant anymore. We’re just us, sitting here alone on the steps in the dark. We might as well be boyfriend-girlfriend again. But I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can let myself feel good, feel something, feel hands, kiss lips, run fingers through hair, escape, escape, escape into him. Not when Maia feels nothing right now.

And not when there are other things I need to do first. Like tell the truth.

“It’s all my fault,” I say, and the admission at once embarrasses me and frees me. I have been carrying this around for the last few weeks, and now I am letting it go.

“What do you mean?”

“I lied to Beat. I set him up. I told him I knew it was Theo and I needed him to back me up, otherwise I’d take the immunity offer away.”

“You did?”

I nod. “I’m the reason he lied about Maia. I’m the reason he brought those others in to say it was Maia. I totally and completely subverted everything we stood for.”

“Wow,” he says under his breath.

“Do you hate me?” I ask, and I don’t feel so lightweight and unburdened anymore. Because I can’t stand the thought of Martin hating me. Not being with him is hard enough.

“God no,” he says.

“What do you think?”

“What do I think?”

“Yeah.”

“I think we all messed up.”

“
We
? You don’t have to take the fall for me. I’m a big girl. I can handle it. I know what I did. I did it because I wanted to nail the right guy. I did it because I’m not so sure this whole honor code means more to me than anything else.”

“I’m pretty sure none of us are perfect. We all made mistakes. Parker sucked at following Theo. I spent more time talking about the case than doing legwork. You, at least, were trying. Besides, who ever said an underground, unofficial justice system was easy?” he says, and his lips curl up in a small smile. I smile back as he adds, “But whatever went wrong, let’s try to fix it.”

Let’s.

It’s not quite a
let’s get back together
. It’s not even close. But for now I will take it.

I bake Jamie cookies.

Trust me when I say the kitchen is not my forte. But Amy gave me an awesome recipe—one cup brown sugar to a half-cup white sugar makes all the difference—and I managed to pull off an excellent batch, along with help from T.S.

“Aren’t you just a little Holly Homemaker?” T.S. teases when I drape Saran Wrap over the cookies.

“Just don’t tell anyone I baked, okay? I don’t want word getting out that I have a shred of domesticity in me,” I say.

“The internationally renowned world-traveling concert pianist would never deign to use a stove when she performs around the world.”

I point a thumb back at myself. “This girl is ordering up room service all the way,” I say, then head across the quad to Jamie’s room.

She opens the door when I knock, since she’s been expecting me.

“Cookies!” she says, and then claps her hands together. She takes the plate and reaches for one. She bites into it and then says, “Dee-lish.”