The Valedictorians Secret

The red ink at the top of my Calculus BC midterm didn’t look like a grade. It looked like a crime scene.

98%.

In any other universe, a ninety-eight was cause for a celebration. It was the kind of grade people posted on their refrigerators. But in the Hastings household, a ninety-eight was a clerical error. In the race for Valedictorian at Northwood Prep, it was a suicide note.

I stared at the two-point deduction until the paper started to blur. Question 14. A sign error. A stupid, reckless, exhausted little minus sign that should’ve been a plus. That one stroke of a pen was the difference between holding my lead and watching it slip through my fingers. It was the difference between my father’s nod of approval and a two-hour lecture on “attention to detail.”

“Don’t look so devastated, Sloane,” a low, infuriatingly smooth voice said near my ear. “If you cry on the paper, the ink might run. Then you’d really have something to complain about.”

I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Archer Reed. I could smell the peppermint gum he was always chewing. He was leaning against the desk behind mine. He had his long legs stretched out into the aisle. He crossed his ankles like he owned the entire room. He always looked like he was lounging, even when we were in the middle of a high-pressure exam.

I took a deep breath and turned slowly. “I’m not crying, Archer. I’m calculating.”

“Calculating what?” He flipped his own paper over with a flick of his wrist. A bold, mocking 99% stared back at me. “How many hours of sleep you’re going to sacrifice tonight to make up for that two-percent deficit? Because spoiler alert: there are only twenty-four hours in a day. You’re already using twenty of them to highlight your textbooks.”

“One percent,” I hissed. My fingers curled around the edge of my mahogany desk. “You’re gloating over a rounding error.”

“I’m not gloating, Hastings,” he said. The corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk. He leaned in closer. His voice dropped to a private murmur that didn’t reach the desks around us. “I’m winning. There’s a difference.”

“You cheated,” I snapped.

It was a lie. I knew he didn’t cheat. Archer was annoyingly brilliant. He was the kind of guy who slept through the lecture on Taylor series and then got the highest score in the state. He didn’t have color-coded binders. He didn’t have a five-year plan. He just had a brain that processed numbers faster than a supercomputer.

“Ouch. Is that the best you’ve got? Defamation?” He stood up. Archer was six-two. He was a physical reminder that life wasn’t fair. He spent his afternoons playing varsity soccer while I spent mine in the library. Yet he still managed to stay an inch ahead of me in the rankings. “I didn’t cheat, Sloane. I just didn’t overthink it. You’re so busy looking for the trap that you forget to just solve the problem.”

“Go away, Archer.”

“I can’t do that. Your brother is waiting for me in the parking lot. We’re carpooling today. My Jeep is in the shop and Finn offered to drive.”

I groaned. I stuffed my midterm into my leather satchel. “I forgot it was Tuesday.”

“Every day is a Tuesday when you’re as stressed as you are,” he remarked. He started walking toward the door. “Try to breathe, Sloane. It’s just a number.”

“It’s not just a number,” I whispered to the empty room. “It’s the only thing I have.”

I stood up and smoothed out my pleated skirt. Northwood Prep was not just a high school. It was a factory for the elite. The hallways were lined with lockers painted a deep navy blue. The floors were polished marble. Every student here was the child of a CEO, a Senator, or a surgeon. The air smelled like mahogany polish and expensive perfume.

The school was divided into two types of people. There were the people like my brother Finn, who glided through life on charm and athletic ability. Then there were the people like me. The ones who had to work for every single inch of ground.

I walked toward the student parking lot with my head down. I didn’t want to talk to the Climate Change Committee. I didn’t want to hear about anyone’s internship at the UN. I especially didn’t want to see the “Top Ten” board in the main lobby. Every Monday, the administration updated the rankings. They posted them behind a glass case. It was like a leaderboard for a video game, except the prize was your entire future.

I found Finn’s car. It was a silver SUV that our parents had bought him for his sixteenth birthday. Archer was already there. He was leaning against the passenger door. Finn was tossing a basketball between his hands.

Finn was my twin, but we couldn’t be more different. He was the “easy” Hastings. He was the social butterfly. He didn’t care about the Valedictorian race. He just wanted to get a D1 scholarship and play ball. He had the same dark hair and grey eyes as me, but while mine were always darting around looking for the next problem, his were always relaxed.

“Hey, Sis!” Finn yelled. He waved the ball at me. “You look like you just watched someone kick a puppy. What happened?”

“Calc midterm,” Archer answered for me. He didn’t even look up from his phone. “She got a ninety-eight. The world is ending. Repent now, Finn. The apocalypse is here.”

Finn laughed. “Ninety-eight? Damn, Sloane. Dad is going to have a stroke.”

“Thanks, Finn. Really helpful,” I said. I pulled open the back door and climbed in. I didn’t want to sit in the front. I didn’t want to be near Archer’s peppermint-scented arrogance.

“Relax, I’m kidding,” Finn said. He hopped into the driver’s seat. “Look, Archer is coming over for dinner. Mom is making that lasagna you like. We’re going to run some drills in the driveway first. Just shake it off. It’s one test.”

“It’s not one test,” I said. My voice was tight. “It’s the midterm. It’s thirty percent of the semester grade. And Archer is now point-three ahead of me in the weighted GPA.”

Archer turned around in the passenger seat. He looked at me over the headrest. “Sloane, it’s point-three. You can make that up by sneezing in the right direction during the final. Or you could just stop being a robot for five minutes. Might help the brain function.”

“I don’t want to hear it from you,” I said. I stared out the window. “I’ll see you at home. Unfortunately.”

The drive home was twenty minutes of Finn and Archer talking about soccer strategy. They talked about “zonal marking” and “clean sheets.” I tuned them out. I thought about Question 14. I thought about the minus sign. I thought about the look on my father’s face when he would ask to see the paper.

The Hastings’ house was a sprawling colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac. It was beautiful and perfectly landscaped. It was also very quiet. My father, Arthur Hastings, was a corporate lawyer. He didn’t get home until eight. My mother, Beatrice, was usually at a charity board meeting until six.

I walked through the mudroom and headed upstairs. I could hear the rhythmic thud of the basketball in the driveway. It started almost immediately. Thud. Thud. Swish. It sounded like a heartbeat. It was steady and annoying. It was the sound of people who didn’t have to worry about sign errors.

I didn’t go to the kitchen for a snack. I went straight to my room. I locked the door. I slumped against the wood.

My bedroom was a shrine to the perfect student. The walls were off-white. My desk was organized by color. My bookshelf was filled with classics I had read because they were important, not because I enjoyed them. There were trophies for debate and medals for math counts. It looked like a room in a museum.

But under my bed was the truth.

I pulled out a thick, leather-bound sketchbook. It was hidden inside an old box for a graphing calculator. I didn’t use it for drawing flowers or sunsets. I sat on the floor and grabbed a charcoal pencil. I let my hand move fast.

I drew a girl. She was standing at a podium with a gold medal around her neck. Her feet were encased in heavy concrete. Cracks were forming in her skin. She looked like she was made of porcelain. She looked like she was about to shatter.

This was my secret. My parents wouldn’t understand this. They wanted a winner. They didn’t want a girl who felt like she was suffocating. They didn’t want a girl who saw the world in jagged, dark lines instead of clean equations. If anyone saw this, they’d realize I was a fraud. They’d realize the “Ice Queen” was just a shell.

A sharp knock on my door made me jump. My heart hammered against my ribs.

“Sloane? You in there?”

It was Archer.

“Go away, Archer!” I scrambled to close the book. My charcoal pencil rolled under the bed. I cursed under my breath. “I’m studying!”

“Finn sent me up to get his lucky headband,” Archer said through the door. “He thinks he left it in your laundry basket by mistake. And he says you’ve been in there for forty minutes without coming down for water. He’s worried you’ve finally turned into a pillar of salt.”

“I’m fine! Just leave me alone!”

“The door isn’t latched, Sloane. I’m coming in to grab the headband, but I’m checking on you first. You looked pale in the car.”

“Archer, don’t come in here!”

The handle turned. I hadn’t pushed the lock all the way. It was a stupid mistake. Another sign error.

The door swung open. Archer Reed stood there in his sweaty soccer jersey. He had a basketball tucked under his arm. He froze.

I was sitting on the floor. The sketchbook was open in my lap. Charcoal was smudged across my cheek and my fingers. The drawing of the breaking girl was staring right at him. It was dark and ugly and honest.

Archer didn’t move. He didn’t make a joke. He didn’t smirk. He just stared at the page. The silence in the room grew heavy. It felt like the air was being sucked out of the closet.

“Sloane,” he said. His voice was quiet. He stepped into the room. He looked at the dark lines of the drawing. “What is this?”

“It’s nothing,” I said. My voice was trembling. I tried to slam the book shut. “It’s just a project. For an elective. Get out, Archer. You can’t just walk into my room.”

He didn’t get out. He dropped the basketball. It bounced on the rug with a dull thud. He knelt down in front of me. He was too close. I could smell the sweat and the peppermint. He reached out his hand toward the page, but he didn’t touch it.

“This isn’t for an elective,” he said. He looked up at me. His eyes were a dark green. For once, they weren’t mocking. They were searching. “This looks like a scream. Are you okay?”

The concern in his voice was the final straw. I could handle his mockery. I could handle his arrogance. I couldn’t handle him being nice while I was falling apart. It felt like he was seeing the real me, and I hated him for it.

“I said get out!” I pushed his shoulder. He didn’t move. He was solid.

“Sloane, wait,” he said. He grabbed my wrists gently. His grip was firm. “I’m not going to tell anyone. Is this why you’re so wound up? Because you’re doing this instead of being the person they expect?”

I looked at him. I saw the 98% in my head. I felt the charcoal on my skin. I didn’t have a witty comeback. I didn’t have anything left.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered.

“Try me,” he said. He looked at the sketchbook again. A slow look crossed his face. It was the look he got when he was about to solve a hard equation. “Actually, don’t. I have a better idea.”

“A better idea for what?”

“For both of us,” he said. The smirk finally returned. This time it felt different. It felt like a tether. “You have a secret, Sloane Hastings. And as it turns out, I have one too.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I tried to pull my hands away. He let go, but he didn’t move back.

“I’m talking about a deal,” Archer said. He stood up and looked around my room. He looked at the trophies on my shelf. Then he looked back at my messy drawing. “I’ll keep your secret. I won’t tell Finn. I won’t tell your dad that his perfect daughter is losing her mind on paper. I won’t let anyone know that the Ice Queen has a soul.”

“And what do you want in return?” I asked. My heart was still racing. I didn’t trust him. Archer Reed never did anything for free.

“I need a place to go at night,” he said. His voice was flat. “A place where no one asks questions. And I need someone to tell my mom I’m at their house studying. Someone with a reputation so perfect that no one would ever doubt them.”

“Why?” I asked. “Where are you going?”

“Because if I don’t get this scholarship, I’m not going to Harvard, Sloane. I’m going to work at the garage with my dad. And if my mom finds out what I’m doing to make extra money, she’ll kill me.”

I stared at him. “You’re working? You’re the second-ranked student in the state and you have a job?”

“I have three,” Archer said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “But that’s not the point. The point is, we both have something to lose. I need an alibi. You need a vault for your secrets. So, do we have a deal?”

I looked at my sketchbook. I looked at the girl in the concrete. Then I looked at the boy who had been my shadow for ten years.

“Fine,” I said. “We have a deal.”