I’d spent so much time worrying about Beck’s mental health. Should I have been nervous about my own? Half an hour after resolving to ignore the Doubt, I’d done exactly what it’d told me to do. That’s not why I did it, I reminded myself. I had perfectly rational reasons for picking APD as my topic. Still, the fact that I was hearing the voice at all had me completely unhinged. My mind was jumpy and frantic, like a frog caught in a jar. Third period passed in a blur of words I didn’t hear. I had to get this under control, fast.
I wasn’t hungry, but I went to lunch anyway, trailing behind a group of girls from my history class who seemed to know one another from summer camp. Someone had opened the dining hall windows, and the noise from inside reverberated off the courtyard walls.
Hershey waved me over when I walked in. She was at the salad bar, heaping lettuce onto a dark metal plate. From the smile on her face, it seemed the morning’s foul mood had lifted.
“I am obsessed with these plates,” she said when I walked up.
I reached for one. It was so cold it made my fingers throb. I turned it over in my hands, wondering what it was made of, and saw a thick, shimmery, uppercase G etched into its surface. My eyes flicked to the plate dispenser and saw another G there. Gnosis hadn’t just donated the classroom gadgets; they’d stocked the dining hall too.
Hershey had moved from the lettuce to the cucumbers. I followed along behind her, mechanically dropping toppings onto my plate. The produce on the salad bar was bright and colorful and fresh, certified organic and sourced from a nearby farm, but I wasn’t hungry for it. The Doubt had stolen my appetite.
“You think he’s single?” I heard Hershey ask. I followed her gaze. Rudd had just emerged from the hot-food line.
“He’s a teacher.”
“He’s not my teacher,” Hershey replied, nudging me with her hip. “And he’s not wearing a ring.”
She waggled her eyebrows and headed to the pasta bar while I looked for a place to sit. Back home, I never ate in the lunchroom. Beck and I always spent our free period off campus, opting out of the social hierarchy. Standing there alone with my tray, I remembered why. I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. There weren’t any empty tables.
“C’mon,” Hershey said behind me, sauntering past me with her tray.
We sat at a table by the window with two girls from Hershey’s section, Rachel and Isabel, and the three of them gossiped about the other members of their section and their faculty adviser’s fashion sense while I picked at my salad.
“Ugh, you’re so good,” I heard Isabel say. She had pale blond hair and wore glasses that I’m pretty sure cost more than my whole wardrobe. “I suck at food,” she explained, gesturing at the half-eaten cheeseburger on her place, wedged between a pile of French fries and a mountain of mac and cheese. “I’m eleven pounds over Lux’s recommended weight,” she said. “Which I know I should loathe and feel motivated to do something about, but I just don’t care that much, you know? I like the way I look. And the way fries taste.” She eyed my salad. “Meanwhile, I’ll bet you picked that without even asking Lux. Which is why you’re, like, half my size.”
I was about to tell her that I actually hated salad when I heard Hershey mutter, “Help, I think I just fell asleep,” under her breath.
“Hey, girls.” Liam smiled affably as he slid into an empty seat next to me. “How’s the first day going?”
“Swell,” replied Hershey, managing to sound both bored and sarcastic. Liam was undeterred.
“Who are your advisers?” he asked. “I’ll give you the dirt.”
“The dirt?”
Liam smiled conspiratorially. “You’d be surprised. Some of our faculty—”
“Showing these young women the ropes, Liam?”
Liam straightened his shoulders at the sound of the dean’s voice, sitting taller in his seat. Dean Atwater had come up behind us. Hershey smirked. She’d obviously seen him coming and hadn’t said anything.
“Trying my best,” said Liam easily, his eyes on Hershey.
“Not that this one needs your help,” Dean Atwater said. I glanced at Hershey, expecting some clever response, but she was staring openly at me. So were the other girls. I looked up at Dean Atwater. He was looking at me, too. “You’re our only Hepta this year,” he said when I met his gaze.
Hepta. It was the Greek prefix for the number seven. I’d looked it up in the student handbook when I saw it in my acceptance letter, in a box labeled “academic designation.” It meant I had a natural aptitude for all seven liberal arts subjects. I’d just assumed it was a common thing at Theden.
“Our class didn’t have one,” Liam said, not even attempting to keep the surprise out of his voice.
“Neither did the class before,” Dean Atwater added. “Which makes Rory quite exceptional.” He put his hand on my shoulder. Hershey’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh,” I said, because I didn’t know what to say. I kept my face neutral, but my insides soared. Quite exceptional. Here. At Theden. Dean Atwater gave me a knowing smile. “You didn’t let history deter you. I commend you for that.”
He gave my shoulder a squeeze and walked off.
“Wow,” said Isabel, peering at me through her navy frames. “My older brother was a Hexa, and my dad acted like that was a big deal.” She and the other girl had been ignoring me before, but now they regarded me with a mix of curiosity and reverence. Hershey’s gaze was sharper than that. She was stuck on the history comment, trying to figure out what it meant.
So was I.
“Yeah, most Theden kids are Pentas,” Liam said, a slight edge in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “An aptitude for five.” I guessed by his attitude that Liam was a Hexa. An aptitude for six.
The table was quiet for a few seconds. All eyes still on me.
Then Hershey pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’ll see you guys later,” she said, then turned and sauntered out. Liam watched her go.
The other girl, Rachel, rolled her eyes at Hershey’s retreating figure. “Envy is so public school,” she said. “I, for one, think it’s cool that you’re a Hepta.” Her smile seemed genuine, so I returned it.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m not sure I understand what it means, or why it—”
Liam cut me off. “It means you were born for this.”
“Born for what?” I asked.
He looked at me like the answer was obvious. “For greatness,” he said.
I left lunch even more determined to silence the Doubt. If I was a Hepta, then surely my brain was capable of overriding whatever little synaptic misfire was causing me to hear it in the first place.
“I need caffeine,” I told Lux as I made my way across the courtyard after my last class. The fact that it was the first day of school hadn’t stopped my teachers from piling on the homework.
“The coffee cart in the dining hall is open until nine,” came Lux’s reply. Instantly its recommendations popped on screen, a vanilla cappuccino at the top of the list. But the line for the coffee cart already was spilling out onto the dining hall steps. I slipped my phone in my bag and started toward it, then stopped. I could get downtown and back in the time it would take to wait for my drink. Plus, I’d avoid having to make small talk with the perfectly nice but painfully chatty girls from my history class who were clustered at the end of the line.
I set off for River City Beans, the place Lux had recommended the day before. What I really wanted was that matcha concoction I’d had at Paradiso, but there was no way I was showing up there two days in a row. Or giving North the satisfaction of ordering his drink.