Chapter Text
FEBRUARY
“Laureeeennnn…”
Lauren looked up from her textbook at Kevin, who had collapsed half onto the library desk, eyes closed. “Yeees, Kev?”
“Don’t call me Kev. Help.”
“With?”
“Diego’s gone crazy.”
Lauren sighed. “Well, the rest of us already knew he was. Didn’t you hear he’s an eteromaniac?”
“That was a rumor. A rumor you started.”
“It could be true. He likes kissing you enough.”
“But it’s just kissing!” He cracked open an eye. “Diego’s eteromania isn’t the issue—“
“So you admit it.”
“Shut up! The issue is that it’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, I know. Did you get him a gift?”
Kevin moaned. “Uh-huh. It’s a watch. A very nice watch.”
“And?”
“And he left a new suit on my bed with instructions to go to Tourniquet at seven and ask for the Rodriguez table.”
“Wait, what?”
“I know! It’s so expensive, I can’t possibly—“
Lauren smacked him upside the head. “You idiot, he is offering you the most expensive dinner in town and will still be thrilled with whatever gift you gave him. You could give him the ring from a Cracker Jack box and he’d shower you with kisses and gifts.”
“But—“
“But nothing. How much did that watch cost you?”
Kevin mumbled something.
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“So you’re going to go to dinner, in your nice new suit, and you’re going to order whatever and you’re going to give Diego that watch and you are not going to act like an idiot about this. Got it?”
“Got it,” Kevin said meekly.
“Now go. It’s almost six.”
Kevin peeled himself off the table and scampered out of the library. Lauren watched him go, waited a moment to make sure he wouldn’t come back, and returned to her reading.
MARCH
“Happy Easter, everybody,” Lauren said, sitting down at the table in the dining hall and setting a basket of colorfully dyed hard-boiled eggs on the table. “Look, it worked!”
Divina gave a little cheer, Kevin peered into the basket and capered with delight, and Diego did his best not to look like he was intensely proud of himself for dying hard-boiled eggs. Daniel just smiled and squeezed Lauren’s hand.
“So what do we do with these now?” Divina asked. “I heard you hide them, but I think that’s mostly the plastic kind…”
“You guys never used Easter eggs?” Lauren asked in disbelief.
“We had Easter dinner,” said Diego. “No egg hunts.”
“I remember one,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “You two might’ve been too young to remember it, though. I barely do. I seem to recall that it ended with Stella forgetting to hard-boil the eggs before you dyed them, and then someone threw one at Sergio’s head and it cracked. We didn’t have any more Easter egg hunts after that.”
“Your family is too dysfunctional for words,” Lauren muttered. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with the eggs. We can eat them. Or make them into egg salad. Or cut out the bottom, hollow them out, and keep the shells as decorations. Or do that and then make them into egg salad.”
“What would we do with fifteen eggs worth of egg salad?” Diego asked.
“I haven’t the faintest. Make sandwiches and pass them out outside the chapel?”
That was what they ended up doing, much to Luciano Silva’s confusion and everyone else’s amusement.
That was also why they ended up in the Headmaster’s office for the third time that month.
“This is all Lauren’s fault,” Diego announced loudly.
“You’re the one who put the idea in my head!”
“You suggested egg salad!”
“You asked what we would do with it!”
“Headmaster Ricardo will see you now,” Cleopatra, the secretary, said with a bored expression.
They stood, Lauren and Diego still arguing, and headed for the office.
APRIL
“Happy April Fools Day,” Lauren greeted as she joined the rest in the common room.
“What, no pranks? Would’ve thought you’d be very into April Fool’s Day,” Diego muttered.
“Yes, well, your cousins are taking care of that well enough.” She pulled out her phone and flicked it on, showing them a little video.
“Wait—is that—“
“Yes.”
“And are those—“
“Yes.”
“Is that Luciano’s—“
“Uh-huh.”
“And Sergio is—“
“Yup. I didn’t videotape past that, but suffice to say Luciano’s reaction was…impressive. It took them nearly fifteen minutes to figure out what had happened.” She put the phone away. “Neither was very pleased. Both were…rather disgusted. And I and the six others who happened to be watching from the wings were all very amused.”
“Hell, I’m very amused,” Diego muttered. “I have to give my cousin credit—he certainly knows how to frighten someone.”
“Indeed,” Daniel said. “Although I have to ask—did they—“
“Yes.”
“And they—“
“No.”
“But—“
“Yes.”
Daniel thought that over for a second and burst out laughing. “Diego, I would like to give your cousin a medal.”
MAY
May was the worst time of the year to get through. The days were either freezing cold or boiling hot; it was almost the end of the year without any holidays or breaks; and they couldn’t swim in the lake because winter had just ended a month or two ago.
This didn’t stop Daniel from dipping his feet in the lake as they sat on the banks.
“How are you doing that?” Lauren asked, sitting next to him with her legs tucked up against herself.
“I told you before, I’m a robot,” he said, wrapping an arm around her.
“Who knows the proper equation for future value of an annuity?” Divina asked no one in particular.
Diego waved a hand noncommittally. “Hell if I know. Why’d you decide to be a finance student?”
“Why’d you decide to be a Future Business Leader of America?”
“Because someday I’ll buy a corporation and own all your asses.”
“Maybe in another reality,” Lauren snorted. “You, a CEO? You would be the worst CEO. You would be an awful CEO. You would never get any work done because you’d be too busy kissing Kevin and you’d wear high heels to all the meetings.”
Diego pushed off from where he was leaning against a tree and struck a pose, one hand behind his head and the other gripping the lapel of his blazer. “Hey. I am the classiest sonuvabitch to ever wear six-inch-heels.”
“Of course you are,” Kevin cooed.
“Except when he trips and falls,” Divina muttered.
“S-shut up!” Diego stammered. “I don’t do that anymore!”
Divina rolled her eyes. “Really. Which is why you broke the heels?”
“They were old.”
“You bought them last month.”
“Last season. I did it on purpose.”
“Caesar Santiago got a video and posted it online.”
“What?!”
Kevin giggled and ruffled Diego’s hair. “Sorry, Eggo, he did. But it’s a very cute fall down the steps.”
Diego was blushing furiously, ducking his head down as he sat below the tree. “I’m going to murder Caesar Santiago.”
“Another thing that might happen in another life,” Lauren muttered. “Well, I’m just glad we’re leading this one.”
JUNE
“Call me?”
“I’ve got your email!”
“Here’s my address.”
It was the last day of term. Everyone was exchanging numbers and addresses and a dozen other pieces; Lauren and Daniel had given their goodbyes and Lauren was now waiting for her parents to arrive to pick her up and take her back to Baltimore.
Kevin was already gone, headed back into town. Diego and Divina were giving last goodbyes as their driver stood impatiently and tapped his watch.
And Daniel was waiting with them, ready to be taken back to the Vega manors out in the countryside of upstate New York, as Lauren returned to a small rowhouse with grating over the door and cracked brick walls.
And no Daniel.
But she had an address and a phone number and strict instructions to call the very second she needed anything, be it reassurance or a friend to talk to or a plane ticket to New York.
And her scholarship was being renewed.
And she could get used to living like this.
So Lauren smiled as her mom pulled up in the car, and she kept smiling as she got in and began talking about her year, and she didn’t stop smiling until late that night when she went to sleep, because there were worse lives to lead than hers.