I started to say all this, to ask the questions I need answered, but Mom straightened in the window seat. I felt her pull away. I found myself whispering Zach's words, "Someone knows."
Around us, the school was waking up. I heard laughter through the Hall of History. So I asked the other question that, so far, didn't have an answer. "Why this year?" I asked. "Why now?"
"I think you know the answer to that, sweetie."
And I guess I probably did because I said, "Josh."
"I don't know if you realize it, Cam, but what happened last semester…what happened between you and Josh … it scared a lot of people. It made us reexamine a lot of things."
"Do you mean security?" I asked. "Because I could really point out a blind spot or two they've missed."
"No, sweetie. Something bigger. We've spent millions training you girls with the best curriculum in the world. And yet you don't know much about half of the world's population." Which was true. "The trustees and I felt it was important that Gallagher Girls learn how to communicate with, and trust the men you'll have to work with some day."
Trust. We stake our lives on it, but it's a subject that not even the Gallagher Academy can teach. When do you let your guard down? Who do you let in? And I knew at that moment, as I sat beside my mother, bathing in the warm spring light, that those were the questions a good spy never stops asking.
Mom looked at me—and I could have sworn she was seeing straight through me. "If you hurry, you can catch him."
"Catch who?"
"Zach," Mom said. "The boys…the Blackthorne trustees want them to take finals with their classmates." My mother must have sensed my confusion, because she said, "They're leaving."
"You're already packed," I said when I reached him, because, really, there wasn't anything else to say—or too much—I'm not sure.
He smiled. "We've all got baggage."
A crisp, clean breeze blew through the open doors. Breakfast was waiting. And classes. And finals. But the entire school seemed to be frozen in space and time. The boys carried suitcases and backpacks, while our world got ready to return to normal—whatever that's supposed to be.
I pointed to the bruise on his face. "That looks bad."
But Zach shook his head. "It isn't. He—"
"Hits like a girl?" I teased.
But Zach didn't smile; he didn't laugh. Something else hung in the air between us as he said, "Not the girls I know."
I thought about the boy I'd met in D.C.—the kid who'd teased me all semester—and I tried to reconcile those images with the boy who stood before me.
Zach was still cocky; he was still tough. But on the other hand, he'd offered me candy once when I was hungry, and I couldn't help thinking that maybe that made him sort of knightlike after all. That maybe it wasn't his fault his armor was kind of tarnished.
A semester was gone, so I didn't let myself think about what might have happened if things had been different. After all, trust is a hard thing for any girl—especially a Gallagher Girl—and this is the life I've chosen. These are questions and doubts that will probably follow me for the rest of my life.
I turned slowly, started to walk away—toward my friends and my future and whatever was supposed to come next.
"Oh, and Cammie." At the sound of his voice I spun around, expecting to hear him crack a joke or call me Gallagher Girl. The last thing I expected was to feel his arms sliding around me, to sense the whole world turning upside down as Zach dipped me in the middle of the foyer and pressed his lips to mine.
Then he smiled that smile I'd come to know. "I always finish what I start."
He stepped toward the open door and the warm spring sun that was just waiting to burst into summer, a new season. Another clean slate.
"So this is good-bye?" I asked.
"Come on, Gallagher Girl." Zach turned to me. He winked. "What would be the odds of that?"
He walked outside and got in the van, and as far as I could tell, he never looked back—
Because neither did I.
I didn't think about the rules we'd broken or the time we'd wasted. I didn't dwell on the questions that had seemed so important once and were now fading like a long-lost note in a heavy rain.
There are secrets in my world. They stack side by side like dominoes, and last September they'd started to fall—all because I'd said hello to a boy. Now I was saying good-bye to another one. But now, at least in Zach's case, I finally knew the truth. Well…most of the truth.
And it had set me free.
The whole summer lay ahead of us—time to rest, time to wait. And when the future comes—no matter what comes with it—I'll be smarter. I'll be stronger. I'll be ready.