Secrets, Lies, and Scandals Read online

  He needed to realize.

  She was the best student. Always. In every class.

  She was Kinley Phillips. She had a reputation. A good reputation.

  But Dr. Stratford was nowhere to be found. The only person she was getting face time with was Tyler Green, resident burnout. The kind of guy who did not give girls good reputations.

  “Why are you in this class, anyway?”

  Tyler flipped a yellow number two pencil through his fingers. “Trying to make up some credit.” He shrugged. “I need to graduate.”

  Kinley raised her eyebrows. They made a crooked line across her forehead. “You’re still eligible to graduate?”

  Tyler smirked. “I’m not stupid. I’m a delinquent.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  Kinley felt daring all of a sudden. She was talking to a guy. An actual guy. She was almost flirting.

  She had never done that before. It wasn’t exactly in line with her goals.

  Tyler put the very tip of the eraser in his mouth. “Obviously. Stupid is easy. Delinquency . . . is an art. It’s all about the things you do wrong versus the things you’re caught doing wrong.”

  Kinley’s lips pursed. It made an odd sort of sense, actually.

  Around them, the other students started to file in. Because it was a course that could be taken for college credit, they’d been assigned one of the larger classrooms—one that could fit almost forty students. The administration had assumed that a college-level course would attract a few more students looking to pad their applications. With the added fact that the class was taught at the high school, thirty minutes away from the college campus, it was a win-win.

  Almost.

  There was a catch: it was a Stratford class. Everyone knew about Stratford, which meant only fifteen students had actually signed up.

  Fifteen brave, stupid souls.

  One—a tiny, mousy girl Dr. Stratford had picked on—hadn’t shown up since the first day.

  So fourteen. Fourteen total students.

  Hardly any competition for Kinley Phillips.

  Tyler scratched on the desk with his pencil.

  “So your . . . lifestyle. You’re saying you’re a regular van Gogh,” Kinley said. “Breaking rules as art.” Her eyes followed his pencil on the surface of the desk. She couldn’t tell what he was drawing. His arm was carefully angled in front of it.

  Tyler grinned. “I’d say I’m more of a Pollock, really. I just throw shit at a wall and see what sticks. Oh, and I’m not opposed to copying others’ work.” He glanced purposely at Kinley’s notebook.

  Kinley laughed. Actually laughed. Here she was, the Goody Two-shoes of the entire school, and she was getting along with Tyler Green, who, upon closer inspection, was sort of cute. If you could overlook the stupid rock band T-shirt and ripped jeans. He could actually look good, cleaned up. She imagined him in a crisp blue button-down with a proper haircut.

  He’d be perfect.

  She bit into her bottom lip. She’d never had a boyfriend. Hadn’t even had a boy show interest, unless you counted Marcus Canter in fourth grade, when he told her she was pretty before sneezing a bucketload of green phlegm all over her.

  And it was weird, but . . . well, she kind of liked the attention. For something other than getting the highest test score.

  “Kinley? Kinley Phillips? Care to join the class?”

  Kinley’s head snapped up. “Yes?”

  Dr. Stratford stood at the front of the room, the full intensity of his focus upon her. He was not a normal professor type: his mess of hair, a tangled mass of gray with tinges of brown dye, sat atop his head like someone had placed it there. Half his face drooped. And his eyes were strange and too light. They were also staring directly at Kinley.

  Kinley’s head spun. When had he even arrived? How was it time for class already?

  “I apologize, sir. What was the question?”

  He cleared his throat loudly, and for the second time that day, she was reminded of Marcus Canter. “Roll call, Ms. Phillips. Now, should I mark you as present? Or absent, as you clearly don’t seem to be here for class?”

  Kinley didn’t flinch. She looked him in the eye, ignoring the heat creeping up from her neckline. “Here, sir. I apologize.” She bent her head.

  Dr. Stratford just snorted. “Teller, Ella?” he asked. A girl in the front row slowly raised her hand, as if not to attract too much attention.

  Kinley scowled. Damn it. She shot a look at Tyler. He’d been distracting her when she should have been paying attention. That was what happened to girls who got caught up with boys like Tyler. Or boys in general.

  It was too bad. She’d liked talking to him.

  Professor Stratford finished calling roll, and then stepped behind the desk—a desk that normally belonged to Mr. Tanner, a teacher with thick glasses who pretty much everyone liked. He opened the desk and pulled out a huge tome that looked at least a billion years old.

  “Today,” he said, “we’re going to talk about guilt. Specifically, Freud and his approach to guilt. Which I find to be a bit stupid and outdated—but then, so is Freud.”

  Dr. Stratford, Kinley thought, was definitely a teacher who was passionate about his subject matter.

  “Now, last class, we discussed the psychic apparatus. Can anyone remind us what this consists of ?” He looked around at the class. “Kinley? Do you remember, or were you too busy being desperate with that boy there?”

  Kinley stared, her heart beating strangely in her chest. Desperate? This was the first time she’d ever spoken to Tyler.

  “No? Okay. Well, then. Let’s try Ivy in the corner there. Ivy, would you like to take a break from staring out the window?”

  “I know,” Kinley interrupted, her voice a pitch too loud. “The psychic apparatus consists of—”

  “Stop,” Dr. Stratford said, slamming his wrinkled hand on the desk. “Just stop. You had your chance. I wanted to know what you knew, not what you had time to google on your phone while I asked someone else.”

  Kinley’s mouth dropped open. This was not how teachers spoke to her. Teachers loved her. She was a dream student. She was a pet.

  Tyler leaned over and nudged her. “Don’t worry about it,” he whispered. “He’s an asshole. Everyone knows it.”

  Kinley ignored him. She felt her face burn ever hotter. Her father would be so disappointed. He did everything right. He was a leader. He’d even written a book, and CNN had invited him in-studio to represent minority visions on modern culture. Her fingers reached for the ends of her braid—a nervous habit.

  While Ivy struggled in the corner over the difference between id and ego, the door opened and a tall, sort of youngish-looking boy shuffled in and shut the door quietly behind him. Kinley couldn’t remember his name.

  Stratford’s head jerked around, and he actually sniffed like he smelled blood. Hot, fresh blood.

  Kinley said a silent thank-you. Stratford was going to lose it on this kid. He didn’t tolerate tardiness. And hopefully, that meant he’d forget about Kinley’s little mistake.

  “Say, Mr. Byrne? Mattie, is it?” Dr. Stratford said, pulling his focus away from Ivy. “Listen, young man. Since you haven’t sat down yet, I don’t suppose you’d do me a favor?”

  “Um, sure.” Mattie waited at the door. The collar of his shirt was flipped up on one side, and his hair stuck up a little bit, like maybe he’d just woken up from a nap.

  “Across campus, you’ll find my office. It’s temporary, and it has Mr. Tanner’s name on it. I’m afraid I left my coffee over there, and I could really use it right now.”

  Dr. Stratford smiled, but there was something off about it. It was toothy and hungry and fell short on one side.

  Mattie sort of smiled back, clearly relieved. “Sure, Dr. Stratford.” He opened the door and stepped backward into the hallway.

  Dr. Stratford stared after the student for a half second, and stroked the few stray whiskers he had growing out of his chin.
r />   He crossed the room, pulled a heavy ring of keys out of his pocket, and locked the door behind Mattie.

  Kinley chanced another look at Tyler, and she knew exactly what he was thinking: thank God it wasn’t them.

  There was something about Stratford. About the way he looked at you. It was condescension, sure. And no matter who he was looking at, there was a distinct and undeniable overtone of disgust. But beneath it all, barely lingering below the surface, was pure, unadulterated hatred.

  It was clear to Kinley then. It was clear to all of them, really. Stratford hated students. All of them. In fact, it was pretty safe to say he hated teaching. He was probably only there because he enjoyed torturing students, one by one, as payback for some horrible way in which he’d been wronged in the past.

  Kinley looked back toward Dr. Stratford, in case the professor thought she wasn’t paying attention.

  “I trust that will convince the rest of you that being late is something of a capital crime in my classes. Now, where were we? Ah yes. Guilt. What a beautiful, pointless thing. Let us discuss the struggle between the id and the superego.”

  And he went on that way for a few minutes, until suddenly the doorknob rattled and Mattie’s face appeared in the little window in the doorframe. He pulled on the door again, and knocked twice.

  Kinley felt a little bad for him. She’d spoken to him, for just a second, outside the school on the first day, when he’d picked up a pen that had fallen from her notebook. He’d seemed nice enough.

  “The id, of course, develops first, and, some argue, is humanity’s natural state.” Dr. Stratford crossed the room and, without so much as a glance at Mattie, pulled the shade down over the window. “The id is virtually incapable of guilt.”

  The doorknob stopped rattling.

  And that was when Tyler Green made a mistake.

  He laughed.

  Tyler

  Friday, June 5

  A pen sailed at Tyler Green’s face. He shifted, slightly, and it nicked him on the shoulder, leaving a faint blue mark on his Raging Idiots T-shirt.

  “Laughing in my class, Mr. Green?” Dr. Stratford said. “Would you like to share what’s funny?”

  “Nah,” Tyler said, casting a meaningful glance at the door, where that little punk, Mattie Byrne, was trapped outside. Mattie should have been smarter than that. Everyone who’d ever heard of Dr. Stratford knew he wasn’t the type of teacher just to let shit go.

  Students had to pay.

  Tyler had a grudging respect for the teacher. He didn’t screw around. He was a total asshole.

  And he owned it.

  Maybe Tyler would really try for Dr. Stratford. Maybe he owed it to him, and to himself. For once, here was a teacher who was a total D-bag, and he didn’t pretend to be anything else. Tyler could deal with that.

  Plus, there was military school. And there was his father’s promise that if Tyler didn’t get his shit together, didn’t do something—anything—to show he was interested in his future, he wouldn’t have to worry about living at home. Then they could focus on Jacob, Tyler’s older brother. Jacob was a top swimmer at a local community college, and he was being recruited by three different Division One schools.

  Tyler mainly got recruited to detention.

  Stratford paused a second longer, staring at Tyler, and then resumed teaching. For once in his life, Tyler was actually sort of interested. According to Stratford’s theory, people had too much id. They just did stuff because it felt good. The superego was the little angel on your shoulder, and the ego sort of balanced it all out.

  Tyler studied Stratford as he lumbered back and forth across the classroom, shouting inane questions and theories. “When was Freud born?” he thundered at Kip Landers, a blond guy sitting in the corner. Kip stuttered and looked at his desk. He didn’t know.

  And then, once someone finally answered, Stratford would just come around to the same exact question a few minutes later.

  The guy was weird.

  There was something about him. Something about the way he limped, slightly favoring his entire right side. The way half his face drooped, just the tiniest bit. And there was something about his speech pattern—was that an accent? Was he from the far north? Maybe even Canada?

  If he was Canadian, Tyler decided, he could go back to his home country. And take Justin Bieber with him.

  “Tyler!” Stratford thundered suddenly. “The class’s fate depends on your answer to the next question. Can you appropriately define recession?”

  Tyler racked his brain. He knew Stratford had mentioned this last class. He’d actually been listening that time. “Like . . . holding back?”

  Stratford stared at him. “Correct. Sort of. Not the answer I was looking for, which was to repress, which means to consciously reject ideas. Now, who likes my definition better than Tyler’s?” He cast his eyes around the room.

  A couple of hands raised shakily. Kinley raised hers and shot him a smug smile.

  Stratford chuckled. The sound was like ice dropping into a glass. Cold. And sharp.

  “Since we’re all in agreement that Mr. Green’s definition was inadequate, we’re going to have a test exactly one week from today,” Stratford said, rubbing his hands together. “I expect you all to study pages forty-seven through one hundred and ninety-eight in your textbooks. Be prepared to be tested on anything—and I mean anything—in those pages, as well as anything I’ve covered in class. Capiche?”

  Tyler didn’t say anything, but he felt his hands clench into fists at his sides. Stratford was blaming him for his stupid test? The guy didn’t have the balls to say he wanted to torture them, so he was blaming Tyler?

  He felt the little respect he’d held for the teacher being siphoned away.

  “Now, out.” Stratford sort of flipped his hand at them and then sat down, heavily, at his desk.

  Tyler swung his backpack over a shoulder and followed Kinley out the door. She was really cute, actually. She definitely had a good, round ass. And great legs. Probably from hauling all those books around constantly. A long braid, as thick as a climbing rope, swung across her back. He wondered how she’d look lying on his bed with her hair undone and her dark skin peeking out from behind an unbuttoned shirt.

  Maybe he’d hook up with her this year. Her or Ivy. Ivy was superhot, and after her fall from grace, maybe he’d have a shot with her.

  In the hall, Mattie, the kid who’d gotten locked out of the room, was leaning against the wall, flicking his shoelaces. He scrambled up off the floor when he saw them leaving, his sneakers squeaking against the tile. “Hey,” he said, keeping pace with Tyler. “Can I borrow your notes? I got locked out.”

  Tyler shrugged, pushing down the urge to make a smart-ass comment. “I don’t take them.” He sped up a step, catching up with Kinley, leaving Mattie behind. “Hey, Kin. Can I carry your books?”

  Kinley stared. “My books?”

  “Yeah.” Tyler reached out and took them. “I’ll carry them. Where’s your car?”

  Kinley tilted her head. Tyler was willing to bet that no guy had ever offered to carry her books before. In fact, she’d probably never even been kissed. He fought back a smile. This could be fun.

  “Um. It’s outside,” she managed finally, like maybe she’d parked her car in the school cafeteria, and Tyler needed to know the difference. She ducked her head and bit her lip.

  “What a class, huh?” Tyler said, ignoring her embarrassment. “What’s up with that Stratford dude?”

  She shook her head and looked backward, as if Dr. Stratford could be following them, waiting to pounce.

  “He’s tough,” she said. “Really tough.”

  “Probably not for you, though,” Tyler said. “Everyone knows you’re one of those kids that win the National Spelling Bee.”

  “I’m not letting you copy,” Kinley said suddenly, her eyes wide, like she’d just realized why Tyler was being so nice to her.

  Tyler laughed. “I’m not stupid, Kin. I don’t
actually need to copy you, okay? I just want to, you know . . . talk.”

  The pair slowed outside, near the edge of the parking lot, which was nearly empty. Psych was the only night course offered this summer. The sun’s rays had nearly disappeared under the horizon, and the street lamps hadn’t yet flickered on.

  Tyler shrugged off his backpack and set Kinley’s books on the ground next to it. He pulled himself onto the low ranch-style fence that separated the sparse grass of the school campus from the asphalt of the parking lot. He patted the spot beside him, and Kinley hesitantly sat down—not close enough to be beside him, but not so far away that an onlooker would think they weren’t talking.

  “The class is stupid,” Kinley said. “Dr. Stratford’s terrible.” She paused, and put a hand to her lips. “I think that’s the first bad thing I’ve ever said about a teacher.”

  Tyler squinted at her. “Is it bad, though? If it’s true?” He laughed. “You hold teachers up on some sort of pedestal, like they can’t do anything wrong. But a shitty teacher is still a shitty teacher.”

  “You think all teachers are shitty,” Kinley pointed out.

  Tyler nodded. “You’ve got a point there.” He dug into his pocket and came out with a slightly smashed box of cigarettes. He opened it and drew one out with his teeth. “Want?” he asked.

  Kinley shook her head. Tyler knew she was probably mentally reciting school rules, and she likely knew that smoking on campus meant a three-day suspension.

  “Come on,” Tyler urged. “What are they going to suspend you from? Summer school?” He laughed again. “They’d be doing you a favor, you know.” He offered her the pack, and she held up a hand, palm out.

  Tyler frowned. Everything she did was so choreographed. Like she’d practiced it all a million times beforehand, and then performed with utter perfection.

  “It’s not even that,” she said. “It’s that I don’t want yellow teeth.” She flashed him a smile, showing a row of pretty, even teeth that could have been lifted directly from a toothpaste commercial and planted in her mouth.