I pushed her away, forceful enough to send her stumbling, but it already felt too late.

Suddenly, I was the trout. How hadn’t I realized before that she was in her element again? Now I was the one gasping for breath, sickness coiling in my stomach as I furiously rubbed the back of my hand over my mouth, as if that could make it undone.

“Why . . . Why the hell did you do that?” I choked out. “I’m with Jasper. You—you know that.”

“I do,” she whispered.

I tried to make sense of anything that had just happened, but her face was like a house that had all its windows shuttered.

When I came up with nothing, I abruptly turned around and stormed into the hallway, desperate to leave the situation and her face and the overwhelming scent of her perfume behind.

Jasper. I had to tell Jasper.

However, before I even made it to the boys’ wing, I was distracted by the commotion going on in the entrance hall.

A day after the article about Crystal Danell had been posted on The Chitter Chatter, it had been picked up by a bigger local news outlet. As a result, several news teams had turned up at Seven Hills over the past few days, swarming around the front yard and filming the outside, stopping students in their tracks when they entered and left.

So far, none of them had dared to come inside. Now, a camera team of three stood at the bottom of the stairs, blocked by Mrs. Whitworth, who was standing on the bottom step with her hands on her hips.

The warm smile she usually wore was replaced by a furious glare, her voice shaking with anger as she said, “. . . but to try to invade the privacy of a seventeen-year-old like this? This isn’t journalism, this is a disgrace. You should be ashamed, every one of you!”

The two male cameramen shuffled around in embarrassment.

The female reporter, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to accept defeat. “Please, Mrs. Whitworth, just a few questions. Being the headmistress, surely you knew about her real identity? Did Crystal ever come here to visit Ashley? Did—”

“No comment.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Mrs. Whitworth coldly said. “I will not allow you to make a spectacle of my students. This is private property—I will more than gladly call the police if you do not leave within the next two minutes. Have I made myself clear?”

At that, the reporter finally lowered the hand that was waving the microphone under Mrs. Whitworth’s nose. “Come on, guys,”

she sighed and shuffled away with the two cameramen in tow.

“We’ll try again later.”

I shot them a dark look as I passed by them. When I reached the staircase, Mrs. Whitworth was still glaring after them, breathing heavily, her hand clutching the banister. “Looks like I’ll have to call the police,” she murmured. “Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.”

I briefly debated whether I should tell her how brilliantly she had handled the situation, but then I remembered why I was going to the boys’ wing in the first place: Jasper.