The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant by Joanna Wiebe

Author:Joanna Wiebe [Wiebe, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939529336
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.

twelve

CONSEQUENCES

I WAS WRONG. I CAN MARCH UP A MOUNTAIN–OR AT least a steep hillside—in these heels, if I’m angry enough.

Fuming, I head to the cliff where I watched Villicus the other day. My motivation for climbing up here is simple: I want to get as far away from that dance as possible, and I don’t want to go home. I just want to escape. To a place where it’s dark and calm. My first thought was the parking lot, but a bunch of kids were making out there. So I marched on and up. To the one place where I can stare out at the enormous sky and hope to feel my mom looking down. Where the echo of my voice might reach her, and she can call on some angels to help me out here—maybe even send a lightning bolt to zap Harper like a Kentucky-fried bitch. But, no matter how I beg, there is no lightning. Only a chilly breeze that grows fiercer the higher I get.

The air is filled with competing sounds. A cover of a My Chemical Romance song pours from the castle; loons and sea lions, which ought to be asleep, sing their lonesome odes below; my breath heaves as I storm up the hill, giving myself hell for wimping out with Harper. At the summit, I unstrap my borrowed shoes—the words Property of Molly Watso written inside them—and look out over the endless black waters. My toes curl into the cool, damp grass. My bare heels rest on a flat patch of icy cold rock. Shoes in hand, I creep to the edge, where Villicus stood, where the pulsating moon beckons me as though it has a secret to share. I peer over the cliff, listening; my head swoons with the waves crashing below. Here I stand, staring down a 100-foot drop, inches away from a fall that will mean death, the ultimate escape from the bitches and freaks at Cania.

“It’s not worth it.”

I recognize his voice without even looking back at him. What’s he doing here?

“What do you know?” I ask. But, heading his words, I stumble away from the cliff, leaving the waves to clobber the black granite, to wear away at it chip by chip. The wind thrusts wide wisps of hair across my face when I turn to see Ben, who is just feet away, cloaked in the dark shadows of darker trees. I’m not in the mood for him. I don’t need to feel like an idiot any more tonight, thanks.

“What are you doing up here?” he asks. He looks gorgeous in his suit, and that only makes things worse.

“I didn’t realize this was private property.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“What are you doing up here?”

He shrugs. “You left the dance?”

Pressing my tongue against the back of my teeth to keep from saying more, I nod. I need to forget about Harper, not rehash it all.

“You weren’t having a good time?”

I shrug.

“You’ve lost the ability to speak?”

I huff. “No. I’m just—it doesn’t matter.

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