Where the Truth Lies by Jessica Warman

Del as everyone else.
    Renee shrugs. “Well, he’s clearly got some secrets, but who doesn’t? I’m not impressed.”
    Hillary makes a disgusted noise.
    “I’m not ,” she says. “There are plenty of geniuses here, and there are plenty of kids whose lives are more screwed up than Del Sugar’s, I’m certain of it. Besides, his parents sent him away after they adopted him—but he lived with them for three years before then. So they must love him and everything. I mean, they adopted him, and then they sent him to boarding school. So what? Lots of kids go to boarding school.” She shakes her head to emphasize the point. “Practically everyone I know goes to boarding school.” And she starts taking a mental count on her fingers.
    I pause, thinking about it. “I guess you’re right. I mean … everyone I know goes to boarding school.”
    Hillary snorts again. “You live at a boarding school, Emily. You grew up here. Of course everyone you know goes to boarding school. God, naive much?”
    Renee gives Hillary a stony look, which is enough to give me the confidence to ignore her remarks. “So you don’t think I should bother sitting with him?” I ask, a tad disappointed. I want Renee to like me so badly. I’m not sure why. But if she thinks Del is no big deal, then I suppose he’s not.
    “No,” she says. She grins. “Sit with me.”
    So I do. That night, I see Stephanie trying to make eager conversation with Del throughout the whole meal. The school intern, Mr. Henry, is supervising their table halfheartedly (he’s only twenty-two and just out of Harvard) while Grace and Franny and Stephanie giggle and fuss over Del. Oddly enough, despite the earlier enthusiasm that Steph said he showed when inviting her to dinner, he seems almost bored.
    But after dinner, Steph catches me walking back to the dorm and squeals, “He’s going to come over!”
    “What?” I look around for him. “Now?”
    “No. He just said sometime . He was asking when we were all around, and he said he wanted to stop by and visit us sometime soon . Emily, I really think he likes me. Oh my God. I could die.”
    I’m happy for her; really, I am. But something just doesn’t feel … right. Steph is beautiful and popular. And don’t get me wrong—she’s my best friend. But she has an attitude to her that not everyone likes; a lot of people, people who don’t know her like I do, are more afraid of her than anything else. She likes to get what she wants, when she wants it, and she doesn’t like it at all when things don’t go her way. And I can’t help but feel like, just from our very brief conversation, I kind of know Del. He didn’t strike me as the type of guy who would go after someone so … well, someone like Stephanie. He seems like the kind of guy who would see right through her pushiness, and maybe even find it unattractive. Call it a hunch; I don’t know how I know. I just can’t picture the two of them together.
    The following morning, Grace is at a cross-country meet; Franny and Stephanie sleep through breakfast, so I go up alone. I’m walking back to the dorm when I feel a cool hand on my shoulder. It’s Del. He reaches out and touches me—just like that , like it’s no big deal at all.
    “It’s the Columbo expert,” he says. He’s supposed to wear long sleeves all the time to hide his tattoo, but as far as I can tell, he’s completely disregarded the rule. I can see his veins beneath the flesh of the apple. I can see the pain, so bright red and deep that I can almost feel it myself.
    I try to pretend that I’m not interested in talking to him, for Stephanie’s sake. But he has these blue eyes that look like a thousand ice crystals, a crooked smile, and slightly imperfect teeth—he’s gorgeous in a fully human, vulnerable way, and there’s something just slightly needy about him.
    Besides, everyone is still so curious about his history. Nobody knows who his real parents are, or where he came from; nobody