The Academy

It was the Wednesday after we came back from New York. Danny, Devin, Sam, and I had just gotten to the mess hall and joined the others for lunch. But there was a slight absence at the table. Andy, Ashley, Jake, Christian, and Jinxx were yet to be seen.

“Where are the other guys?” Audrina asked, shaking up her salad. Everyone shrugged.

“I think they’ve been in the library all morning,” Brent suggested. “Ashley left our building pretty early saying he was going to study or something, same with the others.”

“Christian’s been all hush hush about something since before we even left New York,” Cassie said. “Maybe they’re working on the same thing.”

“Maybe this is another I See Stars kind of surprise,” Claire laughed, hitting Zach playfully on the shoulder. Aww, was she flirting? Claire was so adorable.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, over winter break you guys should come back to California with me, stay at my place,” I suggested taking a sip of my iced tea.

“Yes!” They all shouted in unison.

“Where do you live where you can put us all up though?” Audrina asked causing the others to look at me with similar interest.

“Yeah, sounds like a pretty big place if we all can stay there,” Andrew pointed out.

“Oh it’s nowhere special,” I lied. “You’ll just find out when the time comes.”

They shrugged it off, accepting my mysteriousness and continued eating. Andy, Ashley, Jinxx, Jake, and Christian never showed up causing more concern in the group. At one point Cassie decided to bring Christian some food and potentially try and find out what was going on with them not showing up. If they skipped lunch, it had to be big.

The bell rang and we all went our separate ways. Sam and I were headed towards our math class which hopefully Cassie would show up to soon and tell us what she found out about Christian and the others. That’s pretty much what was on all of our minds at the moment and probably would be for a majority of the time until we found out what was going on.

Sam and I sat in the back, semi-paying attention but mostly playing a game of tic-tac-toe on our note sheet. The lesson wasn’t anything we couldn’t learn from the book so we just kept playing and passing notes for the entire class.

Sam pushed the paper over to me with a note written on it. “Seriously, where in California are you from? I can tell it’s a big deal if you can put us all up.”

I sighed and started writing, “Promise not to tell?” He nodded. “My family has two houses in California, one in Laguna Beach and another in Beverly Hills. My dad is a music producer and my mom is a script writer.”

He read it and looked at me shocked. I nodded. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” He whispered.

“Just didn’t think it was that important,” I shrugged. “I transferred here from Beverly Hills High School.”

“Well, that would explain your partying background,” He chuckled.

“Don’t tell the others,” I begged. “I don’t want this to get around school. It would give Michelle something to use against me.”

“I won’t.” That’s when the bell rang which signaled the end of classes for the day.

“I’m going to find Cass and see if she found out what the other guys are up to,” I told same.

“Okay, I’ll see you at dinner tonight.” He turned the opposite direction and began walking with Cameron whose class was two doors down.

Once outside I figured it would be a good time to call my mom since she had been wanting me to. The phone ran three times before she picked up. She seemed happy, which probably meant she had been writing all day. That meant she wouldn’t take much convincing.

“Oh, Riley, I was just about to call you,” She said. “Listen, would you like to come to Miami with us over winter break or go to New York with Braden?”

“Braden is going to New York? Does that mean he isn’t going to be at the beach house at all?” I asked slightly surprised since my brother usually lived at the beach house during the winter while my younger sister usually went wherever our parents went.

“Most likely not.” She turned suspicious. “Why?”

“Well, I have a few friends and I was wondering if they could stay with us over winter break. Maybe we could use the Laguna house,” I explained hopefully.

“I don’t know Riley,” Her voice was full of doubt. “Can I trust you?”

“Of course you can!” I exclaimed. “When can you not trust me?”

“When you get expelled from school for coming in drunk,” She retorted.

“But it’s not like I would be going to school the next day.”

“Okay Riley,” She sighed. “Just don’t give me any reason to regret trusting you for this.”

“I won’t,” I said as I arrived back to the dormitory. “I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up and walked into the living area. Cassie was nowhere to be found so I headed up the steps toward our torm room. Cassie was sitting on her bed reading her history text book. “Did you figure out what Christian and them were up to?” I asked putting my bag on my bed.

“They’re leaving Kloss.”