Chapter 8 COURT INTEREST
Justin Court POV
Nikki was still talking.
I walked beside her through Founder's Hall toward the east staircase and let her voice become background noise, which was a skill I'd developed over two years of dating her and had genuinely never needed more than I needed it right now.
"...completely classless, I mean did you see the state of that suitcase, it looked like something from a thrift store, which, fine, but you don't bring that in here, there are standards, and the way she spoke to me, Justin, are you listening—"
"Yes," I said.
I wasn't.
I was thinking about the way the scholarship girl had looked at me when I'd crouched down beside her. Not grateful. Not scared. Just assessing. Like she was running calculations on whether I was useful or dangerous and hadn't landed on an answer yet.
Nobody looked at me like that.
People at Thornfield looked at me one of three ways. The first was the way underclassmen looked at me—carefully, with the awareness that the Court name had weight and weight could fall on you. The second was the way my peers looked at me—as an equal, or as competition, depending on the context. The third was the way teachers and administrators looked at me—with the particular warmth reserved for students whose families had a building named after them.
That girl had looked at me like none of those things.
She'd looked at me like I was a variable she was still solving for.
"Justin." Nikki stopped walking. We were at the foot of the east staircase and she had her hand on my arm and her eyes were doing the thing they did when she wanted my full attention and wasn't getting it.
I looked at her.
She was beautiful. That had always been true. The kind of beautiful that Thornfield produced in quantity—polished and precise and calibrated for maximum effect. I'd been with her since sophomore year because she was smart and strategic and understood the social architecture of this place better than almost anyone.
I'd never once been surprised by her.
"You can't do that," she said. Her voice was quiet now. The performance was gone. This was the real Nikki, which was somehow less warm than the performed version. "You can't step in like that. It undermines the point."
"I asked if there was a problem. That's it."
"You crouched down next to her. In front of everyone." Her fingers tightened on my sleeve. "That's not nothing. That's a signal."
"What kind of signal?"
"That she has protection. And she can't have that. Not this early." Her eyes were steady and serious and completely certain. "She's a scholarship student, Justin. She's going to need to understand how things work here. That's better for everyone, including her. You know that."
I did know that. I'd grown up knowing that. The Court family had been at Thornfield for four generations and in four generations I'd absorbed a very clear picture of how the school actually functioned underneath the academic reputation and the manicured lawns and the endowment fund.
There were students who were here to be shaped into something useful. And there were students who were here to learn that they were background. That distinction got made in the first week, mostly in Founder's Hall, mostly exactly the way Nikki had just made it.
I'd always understood that. Had always been fine with it.
"Okay," I said.
Nikki studied my face for a second, looking for something. Whatever she was looking for she apparently found it, because she relaxed and the performance came back on like a light.
"Good." She kissed my cheek. "Orientation in twenty minutes. Don't be late."
She went up the stairs.
I stood at the bottom and waited until I couldn't hear her heels anymore.
Then I turned and walked back toward the main hall.
I told myself I was going to the water fountain near the front entrance. I told myself that was the only reason I was walking back in the direction I'd come from.
I passed a junior I recognized from the soccer team.
"Hey," I said, casual. "The scholarship girl that just came in. Auburn hair. You know her name?"
The junior blinked. "Uh. Wilson, I think. Annabelle Wilson."
"Thanks."
I kept walking.
I didn't do anything with the name. I wasn't going to do anything with the name. I just wanted to know it, which was a different thing.
At least that was what I told myself.
I got to the water fountain and drank some water and looked down the east corridor where she'd disappeared and thought about the way she'd tilted her head at Nikki and mirrored her own move back at her without even flinching.
Nikki was right. Annabelle Wilson was going to have a hard year.
The thing was, Nikki was usually right about those things and I had always been fine with that.
I wasn't sure I was fine with it this time.
I wasn't sure why.
I straightened up, smoothed my blazer, and went to find the orientation room.
Annabelle Wilson.
I kept it filed away, in the back, under things that didn't matter yet.
The yet was new.
I didn't examine it too closely.