“Eliminating a considerable amount of back-and-forth, both in the moment and later once our families got involved, Lord Blanchard and Mr. Goedert made certain I was booted from Jarrow and then proceeded to blackball me from every other private school in the UK.”

“What about your parents? Didn’t they fight for you?”

He stopped walking again, his gaze unseeing over my shoulder. “They did not.” His tone was flat. “By the time I got to tell my side, Polly had already reached them and told them what she’d heard from Lord Blanchard, that I was an out-of-control danger who needed to be expelled and sent somewhere far away.”

“America?”

“I don’t think they particularly cared where, so long as I wasn’t anywhere near Astrid or Cory.”

Sometimes words failed. And sometimes the simplest were the best. “They suck,” I said, and reached out to squeeze his hand.

He squeezed back. “The only person who had my back throughout was Auntie Esha. She placed her call to Sonya.”

Of course. I felt a stab of guilt at all the unkind thoughts I’d silently directed at his aunt over the course of their stay. No matter what was going on between her and my dad, she had been a strong supporter for Arthur at his worst moments and that had to count for something.

“And so you came to Barrington.”

“Yes. By that January I was a Barrington Eagle. Rah-rah.” He smiled a small smile. “I suppose that means next month will be my anniversary.”

“I guess it does.”

“Shall we have a party? Not invite Bronwyn?”

I felt like a deer in headlights and released his hand like it suddenly caught fire.

He grew puzzled. “Finley?”

“No, yeah.” I bobbed my head and tucked my hair over one ear, both of which were the equivalent of a neon sign that said UNCOMFORTABLE! “That sounds, yeah . . .”

I resumed walking back in the direction we’d come from, toward the festival and escape.

Arthur followed and his eyes bore into me, obviously sensing something was amiss. “What is it?”

For a hot moment I considered spilling about not going back to Barrington. But on the heels of him telling me about his raw and deeply vulnerable experience, it didn’t feel like the right moment. However, Ayisha’s face popped up in my mind and I went with that.

“Actually, I just learned something about Barrington, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

“What was it?”

So I stopped walking and told him. Not the part about staying in Christmas, but the part about Ayisha and how, even though I didn’t know for certain, I was convinced the only reason I got into Barrington is because she had been forced to withdraw. Which made me feel like a changeling and wish she could have stayed.

When I finished, I gave a helpless shrug. “No wonder she hates me. I’d hate me, too.”