Isaac laughed uncomfortably. “Is anything wrong? Are you hiding from someone?”
“Of course not,” Emily lied. Eric Kahn finally went back inside. Emily straightened and started up the path again. She took a deep breath and opened the front door. Bright light accosted them from inside. Here goes.
A string quartet was set up in the corner, playing a dainty minuet. Women in silk and sequined party dresses laughed with men in sleek, dark suits. A waitress glided by Emily and Isaac, carrying a large tray of full glasses of champagne. Isaac plucked two glasses off the tray and handed one to her. Emily took a sip, trying not to gulp.
“Emily.” Spencer stood in front of her, wearing a short black dress with feather detail around the hem and incredibly high sling-backs. Her eyes fell to Isaac’s hand, which was curled around Emily’s. A wrinkle formed over her brow.
“Uh, Isaac, this is Spencer. Her parents are throwing this,” Emily explained quickly, slowly unwinding her hand from Isaac’s. “Spencer, this is Isaac.” She wanted to add, my boyfriend, but there were way too many people around.
“Rick Colbert, the caterer tonight, is my dad,” Isaac explained, holding his hand out for Spencer to shake. “Have you met him?”
“I didn’t handle any of the arrangements,” Spencer said sourly. She turned back to Emily. “So did Wilden tell you the rules? We’re not allowed to go outside. If someone needs to go to their car, tell Wilden and he’ll go for you. And then when you’re ready to leave, he’ll escort you.”
“Wow.” Isaac rubbed his hair. “You guys are really taking this seriously.”
“It is serious,” Spencer snapped.
When she started to turn away, Emily grabbed her arm. She wanted to ask Spencer if she’d told Wilden about Ian’s visit, like she promised she would. But Spencer shrugged her off. “I can’t talk right now,” she said abruptly, and disappeared into the crowd.
Isaac rocked on his heels. “Well, she’s friendly.” He looked around the room, at the priceless Oriental rug in the enormous foyer, the stonework on the wall, and the portraits of old Hastings ancestors all over the gallery. “So this is how kids from your school live, huh?”
“Not all of us,” Emily corrected him.
Isaac walked over to a console table and ran his hands over an ornate Sèvres tea set. Emily wanted to steer him away from it—Spencer always told Emily and the others that it had once belonged to Napoleon—but she also didn’t want Isaac to think she was scolding him. “I bet you live somewhere even bigger than this,” Isaac teased. “Like a nineteen-bedroom compound with an indoor lap pool.”
“Wrong.” Emily punched him lightly. “There are two indoor lap pools—one for me, and one for my sister. I don’t like sharing.”
“So when am I going to see this magnificent house of yours?” Isaac took Emily’s hands and swung them back and forth. “I let you into my house, after all. With my mom. Sorry about that, by the way.”
“Please.” When Emily had picked up Isaac at his house tonight, his mother had fawned over them, taking pictures and offering Emily homemade cookies. Mrs. Colbert reminded Emily of her own mom. They both collected Hummel figurines and wore the same pale blue Crocs. They could probably be BFFs. “I thought she was sweet,” Emily said. “Just like you.”
Isaac blushed and pulled her close. Emily giggled, thrilled to be pressed up against him in his fancy suit, even if he had borrowed it from his dad. He smelled like sandalwood and cinnamon gum, and she had the sudden urge to kiss him in front of everyone.
Then she heard a snicker behind them. Noel Kahn and James Freed loitered in the arched doorway to the living room. Both wore expensive black suits, and their red-and-blue striped Rosewood Day ties were knotted loosely around their necks.
“Emily Fields!” James crowed. His eyes swept up and down Isaac, a perplexed look settling over his face. He’d probably first thought Isaac was a butch girl in a tux.
“Hi, Emily,” Noel said in his lazy, half-surfer, half-richboy voice, his eyes on Isaac too. “I see you brought a friend. Or is it a date?”
Emily took a small step backward. Noel and James licked their lips like predatory wolves. Both were no doubt flipping through their list of snarky things they could say next—Slumming it with the boys tonight? Watch it, dude, Emily Fields is kinky! She might drag you to some lesbian strip club! The longer they remained quiet, the more horrifying whatever they said was sure to be.
“I have to…,” Emily sputtered. She whirled around, nearly bumping into Principal Appleton and Mrs. Hastings, who were both sipping cocktails. She blindly stumbled through the foyer, wanting to be as far away from Noel and James as she could.
“Emily?” Isaac called behind her. She kept running. The heavy library doors were just ahead. Emily wrenched the door open fast and ducked inside, breathing hard.
It was warm inside the library, and smelled like a mix of old books and expensive leather shoes. Emily’s eyes blurred, then readjusted. Her stomach lurched in horror. The room was packed full of kids from Rosewood Day. Naomi Zeigler’s long legs dangled over an arm of one of the leather chairs, and Hanna’s stepsister-to-be, Kate, perched queenlike on the chaise. Mason Byers and some of the other lacrosse boys were loitering near a bookcase, no doubt ogling Spencer’s dad’s books of obscure French photography, which consisted largely of soft-porn shots of naked women. Mike Montgomery and a pretty brunette were sharing a glass of wine, and Jenny Kestler and Kirsten Cullen were nibbling on crusty bread and cheese.
They all turned to look at Emily. And when Isaac burst into the room behind her and placed his arm on Emily’s bare shoulder, their eyes feasted on him, too.
It was as if an evil magic spell had stunned Emily into suspended animation. She’d thought she could handle her peers, but with everyone together like this…everyone who knew her secrets, everyone who had been there the day A circulated that picture of Emily and Maya kissing. It was just too much to take.
She couldn’t even look at Isaac when she turned around and shoved her way back out the library door. Noel and James were still leaning against the wall, passing a bottle of Patrón back and forth. “You’re back!” Noel cried gleefully. “Who’s that dude you’re with? If you’re playing for our team again, why didn’t you ask me out first?”
Emily bit her lip and kept her head down. She had to get out of here. She had to escape. But she couldn’t find Wilden, who could escort her back to her car, and she didn’t want to go outside alone. Then she saw the Hastingses’ powder room right off the kitchen. The door was slightly open, and the light was off. Emily scampered inside, but when she went to shut the door, someone’s foot was in the way.
Isaac pushed his way in. “Hey.” He sounded annoyed. “What is going on?”
Emily let out a small squeak and shot to the very corner of the room, her arms tightly around her chest. The powder room was bigger than most master baths, with a little seating area, an ornate mirror, and a separate room for the toilet. Underneath the heavy, cloying smell of the jasmine candle on the vanity was a slight tinge of vomit.
Isaac didn’t follow her to the corner. He remained by the door, his posture very straight and guarded. “You’re acting kind of…crazy,” he said.
Emily settled down on the peach-colored chaise and picked at a tiny run in her stockings, too nervous to answer. Her secrets throbbed painfully inside of her.
“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” Isaac went on. “Is it because I told that Spencer girl my dad was the caterer? Should I not have said that?”
Emily pressed her palms to her eyes. She couldn’t believe Isaac thought her weird behavior was his fault. Again. A feeling of dread slowly settled down around her shoulders like a sheet. Even if she managed to divert this disaster, there would be another one, and another one. And finally, at the end of all that, there would be A…Ian. And now that Ian had escaped, he was capable of anything. Let this be a warning, he’d written after Maya had shown up at the Chinese restaurant. Ian had Emily right where he wanted her.
Unless she made things right.
Emily looked up at Isaac, her throat tight. She just had to get this over with quick, like pulling off a Band-Aid. “Do you remember that girl in China Rose?” she blurted out. Isaac looked at her blankly, shrugging. Emily took a deep breath. “She and I used to be…a couple.”
Everything else tumbled out at lightning speed. She talked about how she’d kissed Ali in her tree house in seventh grade. And how she’d fallen for Maya instantly, intoxicated by her banana gum. Emily explained the A notes, how she’d tried to date Toby Cavanaugh to prove to herself that she liked guys, how a picture of her and Maya kissing had been passed around at a swim meet, and how the whole school knew. She told Isaac about Tree Tops, the gay-away program her parents had forced her into, and that the real reason she’d gone to Iowa was because her parents couldn’t accept her sexuality. She also said she’d met a girl named Trista in Iowa and had kissed her, too.
When she finished, she glanced up at Isaac. He looked green and was tapping one foot steadily and nervously…or maybe angrily.
Emily lowered her head. “I understand if you don’t ever want to speak to me again. I didn’t want to hurt you, though—I just thought you’d hate me if you knew. But even though I didn’t tell you all this, everything I told you about how I felt about you, that I wanted you to be my boyfriend, that I really liked you, all of that—it’s all true. I thought it wasn’t possible for me to like a guy, but I guess it is.”
The little room was silent. Even the party seemed to have quieted down. Isaac ran his hands along the edge of his tie. “So, does this mean you’re…bi? Or what?”
Emily dug her nails into the chaise’s plushy silk cushions. It would be so much easier if she just said she was straight, and that the stuff that had happened with Maya and Ali and Trista had been confused mistakes. But she knew that wasn’t true.
“I don’t know what I am,” Emily answered quietly. “I wish I did, but I don’t. Maybe I just like…people. Maybe it’s the person, not necessarily their gender.”
Isaac’s eyes lowered. He let out a small, deflated sigh. When Emily heard him turn, her chest throbbed with despair. In seconds, Isaac would turn the knob, walk out the door, and be gone forever. Emily pictured Isaac’s mother standing in the front doorway, eagerly wanting to know how their fairy-tale date had gone. Her face would fall when Isaac told her the truth. Emily’s a what? she’d gasp.
“Hey.” Hot breath tickled the top of her head. Isaac loomed above her, an unreadable expression on his face. Without saying a word, he wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay.”
“W-what?” Emily gasped.
“It’s okay,” he repeated quietly. “And I accept it. I accept you.”