Page 43 of The Other Side
Alexander was considerably harder to locate. He only attended Montgomery Prep for part of 2010, his Junior year, before transferring. Coincidentally, his arrival lined up with the completion of the swimming pavilion Thomas Roberts had donated. I recalled thinking that Chance’s upper body reminded me of a swimmer’s physique. And the time frame put the elusive Alexander Roberts perfectly within the range that would match up with Chance’s age.
There wasn’t anything listed in the index for him, and nothing in the athletics section, other than photos of the grand opening of the swimming pavilion. But my persistence paid off.
Buried in a collage, I found a photo of a cute, but scrawny boy with braces, sitting in the library, and the caption beneath listed the boy as one Alexander Roberts. It was lucky that the photo was printed in color; otherwise, I might not have recognized those angsty blue-grey eyes.
Alexander Roberts was Chance Harper.
“I found him!” I cried, scrambling to my feet and bounding out of the records room to show Jolene.
“You did!?” She clapped excitedly from her desk.
I spotted the time on a cat-shaped clock resting next to her computer. It was quarter to one. “I have to go! I’ll be late for class!”
“Wait, who is he?” Jolene asked.
“Alexander Roberts.” I grinned. “Can I take this with me?” I lifted the 2010 yearbook in front of me.
“As long as you bring it back.”
I nodded, tucking the book under my arm. “I don’t suppose you’d do me a favor and see if you can find anything about him online?” I pleaded.
“Sure,” she agreed in earnest.
“And don’t let anyone know what you’re up to, in case they’re in on it,” I warned her under my breath.
“Our secret.” She beamed, happy to be included.
“I’ve got some tutoring after school. Will you still be here around dinner?” I asked, walking backward toward the stairs.
“Yes, the headmaster has me transcribing old board meetings, which is taking forever.”
“I’ll bring you food from the kitchen, and thank you!” I gave Jolene a small wave before ascending the stairs, feeling a sense of euphoria in my vindication.
Over dinner I’d brought down from the dining hall, Jolene recited every piece of information she could find on the ghost that was Alexander Roberts. Except he wasn’t a ghost, he was an exceedingly handsome pain in my ass.
He was Thomas and Cindy’s oldest child and only son. He had one younger sister, Amanda, who was my age. His father seemed to revel in the spotlight, but his mother and sister were phantoms similar to him, although I was able to locate a few images of his parents together at charity functions.
There was so much information on Thomas Roberts that it was next to impossible to find anything on Chance, or Alexander…whoever he was.
“The Roberts moved to London for two years around 2010 after Thomas opened up a new UK branch of his business,” Jolene said after slurping her soup. “That must have been why he transferred.”
“Makes sense then, how he ended up going to college at Oxford, and why we can’t find much information on him stateside.” I sighed. We didn’t know much more than we had at lunch.
I needed more.
I fully realized my vendetta had gotten out of hand, but I think I had convinced myself that if I discovered his secret and confronted him, he’d finally be honest with me about everything. And if nothing else, at least I would have the satisfaction of knowing that I hadn’t let another person pull the wool over my eyes and make a fool of me.
“Come upstairs with me.” I tugged Jolene up by the wooly sleeve of her witch sweater.
“What? Why?” she whined, but followed me anyway.
I led us up the side hallway to the back door of the dining hall and opened it a crack. I’d noticed before that Chance liked to eat his dinner with a few of the other faculty members who preferred the noisy dining hall to the confines of the stuffy faculty lounge, where the more elitist of the teachers sequestered themselves during meals.
I spotted Chance in the far corner, intently listening to a story that Dr. Stephen Albert, one of the math teachers, was regaling him with.
“I need twenty minutes,” I told Jolene. “Keep an eye on Chance and keep him occupied if he tries to leave before then. Text me if you lose him.”
“What are you going to do!?” she asked in a hushed whisper, eyes wide with concern.
