Page 71 of Saint Céline
Her face went pale enough that the anger left it.
“How would you know that?”
“They would have to be idiots not to notice. I know they care a lot about you.”
She swallowed. “They don’t know anything.”
Céline looked at me then with a mixture of fear and fury that made the room feel suddenly smaller. “You stay away from them.”
“I have no interest in your friends.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
She studied my face, searching for the trap. There wasn’t one. Not there, at least. Whatever else I was becoming where Céline Martin was concerned, I had no desire to frighten the girls who had somehow made her feel safe enough to confess anything. If anything, I found myself unexpectedly grateful to them for the fact that she had not carried the incident alone.
Céline’s voice dropped. “You don’t get to make my life smaller.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t, and I won’t let anybody else either.”
The answer unsettled her because she had expected resistance.
Then I added, my voice lower now, carrying the weight of everything I had not yet said aloud, “But I do think you’re going to outgrow parts of it right now. And when you do, I intend to be there to watch.”
Her jaw tightened. “You mean Thad.”
“I often do.”
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know enough.”
“I love him, I’m going to get married to him.”
“Go,” I said abruptly.
Her brows drew together. “What?”
“Leave before one of us says something unwise. Mentioning Chad’s name just ruined my mood.”
Céline looked at me, and for a second I thought she might step closer just to prove she could.
She opened the door and stepped into the hallway without another word. When it closed behind her, I remained still for several seconds, listening to her footsteps fade beneath the sound of rain.
18
Selena (Past)
By the end of my first few years at Bellamont Academy, people had stopped asking where in France I was from. The lie had held long enough that the details no longer mattered to anyone but Katherine. She had drilled the story into me with such relentless focus that I could now answer the most basic questions without hesitation.
My supposed mother had worked between Marseille and Paris. I had moved around too much to feel attached to one city. My accent had faded because I learned English young. The story was vague enough to survive curiosity and specific enough to sound expensive, the kind of background that made people nod with polite understanding instead of digging deeper.
But the real reason people stopped asking was simpler than any story we had invented. They liked me. After that, truth became less important than the way I made them feel when I walked into a room. At Bellamont Academy, people onlyquestioned what made them uncomfortable. If they liked your dress, your laugh, the way you leaned in when they spoke, they stopped worrying about the rest. They let mystery become charm because charm was easier to enjoy than suspicion.
Katherine noticed before I did.
“You’re doing it again,” she said one afternoon while we sat in the library during study period, her red pen moving across my biology worksheet with sharp, precise strokes.
