The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

night of cabin debauchery. According to Saundra, it was the “highlight of the winter season.”

“And you believe all this?” I asked. I was never convinced of Bram’s feelings for Lux, but I knew that Lux held on to her relationship with Bram with an iron fist. She wouldn’t let anything come between them.

“Oh definitely. Have you noticed how they don’t laugh together anymore?”

Anymore? I’d never seen Lux crack a smile, let alone laugh. And the only time Bram let out a chuckle was when he was doing something bad.

“Once you stop laughing with your partner, your relationship takes a nosedive. It’s irreversibly damaged.” Saundra may have never been in a relationship, but she had stored away enough online relationship-quiz wisdom to date an army. “The boy is obviously just biding his time until it’s socially acceptable for him to leave.”

“I think he cares about her,” I said, careful not to use the word “love.” I didn’t know why I was defending Bram, but Saundra’s gossiping was getting to me.

“How would you know?”

“I know him better than you do.”

Saundra stopped eating and I did too, horrified that I had let the words slip out.

“How would you know him better than I do?”

I thought quickly. “We’re working on a paper together, remember?”

It was due in a couple of days, and the club being over (or on hiatus) didn’t mean our grades had to suffer. Plus, it gave me an excuse to finally confront him.

I stood up. “In fact, be right back.”

I left the table, leaving my ramen to grow cold. Saundra called my name, but once she saw that I was heading toward the definitive center of the room, she stopped.

When I reached their table, it was Lux who looked up at me first.

“Can I help you with something?” she said in a tone that was the farthest thing from helpful.

“We need to talk,” I said to Bram, ignoring her.

No matter what Saundra thought, Bram definitely wasn’t the laughing type. The way he was looking at me made me forget whether he’d ever laughed before.

“What do you want with Bram?” Lux said.

“I need to talk to him about our project.”

He pushed away from the table and stood up, towering over me. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Lux.

“Bram,” Lux said. “Seriously?”

But Bram was already walking away and I was following him. I didn’t not notice the tension between him and Lux. Maybe there was something to those breakup rumors.

We didn’t stop walking until we were in front of his locker, which he proceeded to unlock. “Bold of you. Coming up to me in the caf.”

“You’re not untouchable, Bram. And I really do need to ask you about the paper.”

Bram pulled a stapled report out of his locker and handed it to me, the words MARY SHELLEY AND HER MONSTER in bold on the cover page. Below it were both of our names.

“We were supposed to write it together.”

“You can read it to make sure it’s to your liking. I’m sure it will be.” He shut his locker and started to walk, but I called out after him, “What did you mean on the roof?”

Bram turned back to me. “What?”

“When you said Freddie takes things too far. What did you mean by that?”

Bram hesitated, as if he could see that I was willing to hear him, but what he said next was still tinged with skepticism. “You can’t see Freddie for who he really is because you’re blinded by love.”

A sputtering laugh came out of me, and the sound ricocheted too loudly in the locker bay. “I’m not in love with him.”

“You’re in something,” Bram said.“He was the only one upstairs. The obvious answer is usually the right one.”

“You’re the only one in the club who thinks he did it,” I said.

Bram checked his watch, bored, ready to go. “Is it really so hard to believe that someone who takes this game too seriously—who is desperate to win it—would do something crazy to sabotage it?”

“Love isn’t the only thing that blinds you,” I said. “Fear makes you blind, too. I don’t know why, but something about me scares you. Has since I joined the club.”

I knew I was right, but something in Bram’s expression made me doubt myself. He started to walk away again. “Good talk.”

I read the term paper that night, lingering on the last few lines.

Mary Shelley writes of two men. One, an intellectual capable of creating life from death. The other, a grotesque creature made of human body parts and covered in scars. But it isn’t the obvious monster that we have to be afraid of. It’s the one that looks like us and acts like us.

Mary Shelley’s message was clear: Real monsters aren’t the ones created by man. The real monster is man himself.

 36

SAUNDRA CONVINCED ME to go on the ski trip.

To be fair, I gave in pretty easily. My friends weren’t talking to me, my nightmares were fiercer and more frequent, my grades were in the crapper, and I didn’t have Freddie. I would endure a day on the bunny slopes if it was a distraction from my life.

Saundra even managed to find a spot for me in Lawrence Pinsky’s uncle’s cabin. According to Saundra, Lawrence Pinsky’s uncle had gotten rich after suing the city when a cop car ran over his foot. He’d bought the place near Hunter Mountain with part of the settlement money and let Lawrence borrow it for the trip. Saundra and I paused at the door, listening to the sounds of way too many people already inside. It took a minute for Lawrence to open the door, and when he did, he looked none too pleased to see me.

“I don’t know you,” he said, his eyes roaming from my blue-and-orange Islanders ski cap down to my lace-up boots.

“Lawrence, this is the friend I told you about. Rachel Chavez.”

“I don’t remember you telling me about a friend.”

Saundra rolled her eyes but kept smiling like this was a