"Cammie," she said, moving to sit beside me. "I'm not glad you lied to me. I'm not glad you broke the rules, but there is one part of this that has made me very proud."
"The computer stuff?" I guessed. "Because, really, that was all Liz. I didn't—"
"No, kiddo. That's not it." She reached down and took my hand. "Do you know that your dad and I weren't sure we wanted you to go to school here?"
I've heard a lot of crazy things in my life, but that one took my breath away. "But… you were a Gallagher Girl…. I'm a legacy…. It's …"
"Sweetheart," Mom stopped me. "When we came here, I knew I'd be taking away everything that isn't inside these walls. I didn't want this to be the only life you know." She smoothed my hair. "Your dad and I used to talk about whether this was the best place for you."
"But what… how did you decide?" I asked, but as soon as I had said the words, I knew it was a stupid question.
"Yeah, kiddo, when we lost your father I knew I had to get out of the field…"
"And you needed a job?" I tried to finish for her.
She shook me off. "I needed to come home."
When did I start crying? I really didn't know. I really didn't care.
She smoothed my hair and said, "But the thing I worried most about was that you'd spend your childhood learning to be hard and strong and never learn that it's okay to be soft and sweet." She straightened beside me, forced me to look into her eyes. "Doing what we do, it doesn't mean turning off the part of yourself that loves, Cam. I loved your father…I love your father. And you. If I thought you would have to give that up … to never know that… I would take you as far away from this place as we could go."
"I know," I said. Not a lie.
"Good. I'm glad you're smart enough to know that," she said, then pushed me away. "Now go on. You've got tests to take."
I ran my hands across my face, searching for stray tears, then I stood and headed toward the door. But before I could leave, she stopped me.
"It would have been okay, you know, kiddo? To mark that other box."
I looked back at her, and I saw not the headmistress or the spy or even the mother, but the woman I'd seen crying.
And just when I thought I couldn't love her more.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."
Josh spun around at the sound of my words. Still, his fingers were perilously close to Gilly's sword. "We're pretty good at keeping things protected around here," I said, inching closer.
He put his hands in his pockets. That was probably the safest place for them, but the gesture reminded me of the first night we'd met. I longed for that dark street, for the chance to do things over.
"So," he said. "A spy, huh?" His eyes never left the sword. I couldn't blame him. I didn't want to look at me, either.
"Yeah."
"That explains a lot."
"So they told you?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yeah, I got the grand tour."
Somehow, I found that really hard to believe, but I wasn't exactly in a position to say, Did you see the nuclear powered hovercraft we keep in the basement, so I just nodded, too.
"Josh, you know you can't ever—"
"Tell anyone?" He looked at me. "Yeah, they told me."
"I mean, ever, Josh. Ever."
"I know," he said. "I can keep a secret."
The words stung. They were supposed to.
There we were, in a room dedicated to secret lives and secret triumphs. He could see it all from where he stood. My sisterhood was bare to him. I was exposed, but there was more between us than ever before.
"I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry I'm not… normal."
"No, Cammie, I get the spy thing," he said, spinning on me. "But you didn't just lie about where you go to school." His voice was harsh, but wounded. His eyes seemed almost bruised. "I don't even know who you are."
"Yes, you do," I said. "You know everything that matters."
"Your dad?" he asked.
I froze. "It's classified—what happened—I couldn't tell you. I wanted to, but—"
"Then just tell me he died. Tell me your mom can't cook and you're an only child. Don't…make up a family. Don't make up another life." Josh looked over the railing along the Hall of History, into the towering foyer of the Gallagher Mansion, and said, "What's so great about normal?"
I might have been the genius, but Josh was the one to see the truth. For a while there, I had needed another life, a trial life—normal on a temporary basis. The problem was looking into the wounded eyes of someone I cared about and telling him that I would never be free to really love him, because … well… then I'd have to kill him.
Then, I realized where we were—what he was looking at. JOSH KNOWS! I mentally screamed. There doesn't have to be any more lying. He's inside. He's one of us (kind of). He's…
But Josh was heading down the stairs. I bolted forward, yelling, "Wait, Josh. Wait! It's okay now. It's…"
When he reached the floor, he stopped and pulled his hand out of his pocket. "Do you want these?" I saw the earrings lying in his palm.
"Yes," I said, nodding, biting back tears. I flew down the stairs, and he shuffled them into my hands so quickly I never even felt his touch. "I love them. I didn't want to—"
"Sure." He walked farther away from me. I probably know a dozen different ways to subdue a guy Josh's size—not that I would have used any of them. (Okay, so I thought about it…)
Oh my gosh, he's leaving, I thought—not knowing whether to feel sad at his loss or thrilled with the fact that we were letting him walk out that door—his memory of our secrets intact. Surely they're not going to let that happen, I wondered, unless they trust him … unless he's been cleared … unless someone decided that he didn't need to drink the tea and go to sleep and wake up feeling like he's had a crazy dream he can't remember.
Unless it's okay for me to love him.
He reached for the door, so I blurted, "Josh," knowing that if the Gallagher Academy was going to take a chance on him, I had to at least try to make things right. "I… I go to Nebraska over winter break. My grandparents live there— my dad's parents. But I'll be back."
"Okay," he said as he reached for the door. "I guess I'll see you around."
It was fast—like blink-or-you'll-miss-it fast—but Josh smiled at me—quickly, sweetly, and that was enough to let me know that he'd meant it when he said he'd be seeing me. More important, it proved that he'd be looking.
I was just starting to imagine what it was going to be like—a new year, a new semester, a new start with no secrets standing between us, but then he stopped and said, "Oh, tell your mom thanks for the tea."
He opened the door and walked outside. I stood in the middle of the empty foyer for a long time. After all, in the movies, the dramatic good-bye is often followed by the good-bye-er flying back through the door to sweep the good' bye-ee into a very dramatic, very sexy kiss. And if there was any dramatic, sexy kissing potential in my future, I wasn't going to sway from that spot.
I felt something soft and warm rub against my leg and looked down to see Onyx wrapping her tail around my ankle. She purred, consoling me, sounding like a very lucky cat, and I knew things had come full circle.
Behind me, girls started rushing down the stairs toward the Grand Hall and a few last-minute study sessions before the first day of finals, but as they passed me, I knew what the main topic of conversation was going to be over breakfast. (You think regular girls love gossip—try Gallagher Girls!)
Still, I didn't mind their stares. Instead, I stood swaying in the current of bodies that was floating off to start the day, but I didn't budge until Bex appeared beside me.
"Hey." She shoved a book and a bagel into my hands. "Come on," she said with a tug at my arm. "We've got our COW final, you know. Liz made flash cards."
I followed my friend up the stairs, and I got lost in a sea of girls who were dressed like me, and were trained like I was, and who were entrenched in my same world.