Even after just the second week, I was already used to Ivy bursting into our dorm room at any given moment. She would constantly make spontaneous entrances, so I tried to always be prepared for it.

"Have you guys seen the note?" she asked Marisol and I. Despite the energy that her voice had, she looked exhausted. Her white-blonde hair was tied up in a messy bun, pieces of hair poking every which way, and she was dressed in her pajamas, consisting of a pair of lime-green sweatpants and a white tank top.

"Note?" I asked, looking up from my physics book. I was also used to not being able to study half the time. There was always something going on. Fortunately, my grades were showing no signs of suffering. At least, they weren't yet.

"On the bulletin board," she clarified. The bulletin board was in the very front of the school building and had information about almost all of the clubs and sports the school offered.

Marisol and I shook our heads in unison. We'd been in our dorm every since classes let out studying for this major physics test tomorrow. Two weeks in and we were already getting tested.

Ivy's eyes grew wide and a look of fear crossed her face. "You guys need to come look at it."

Marisol and I exchanged a glance and got up from our beds at the same time. We followed Ivy down the long hallway toward the foyer of the school, where there was a large crowd of students in front of the bulletin board.

"What the hell?" Marisol said to herself, but loud enough for me to hear.

Ivy's tiny hands grabbed ahold of each of our arms and dragged us through the crowd so we could see what was going on.

Everything had been taken off the bulletin board, except for a sheet of notebook paper, which had been stapled on. In beautiful calligraphy, a note to an unaddressed someone was written.

Someone knows, it said. The secret won't be hidden much longer, and you will pay. It was signed by Vivienne Aldridge.

Carlisle appeared beside us. "Vivienne Aldridge," she said to herself. "I've never heard that name before, and I know every single student and staff member here."
"Maybe it's a new student," Aspen, who was beside her, offered.

Carlisle turned to her and gave her a scolding look. "Who, from this century, is named Vivienne Aldridge?"

"It's probably an alias," I told her.

She glanced over at me, a not-so-pleasant look displayed on her face. I expected her to say something rude to me, maybe about how I should mind my own business or that she had already come up with that idea, but instead, she said, "I think you're right."

I would've been less surprised if she had slapped me in the face. But, maybe, she was making an effort. I had been hanging out with the group almost constantly. Maybe she was starting to accept me. Unlikely, but it was a possibility.

Headmaster Rosterford appeared from his office right beside the bulletin board and pushed students out of his way, making his way to the note. He tore it off, ripped it up, and yelled, "Everyone, get back to your dorm rooms!" before disappearing back into his office with the ripped-up shreds of paper.

"That was odd," Aspen thought aloud.

"I'm going to the library," Carlisle announced, elbowing her way through the crowd of teenage girls. Both Aspen and Marisol turned on their heels to follow her, and I didn't want to be alone, so I followed as well.

"Why did you call me?" Lindsay asked when entered the library. She was wearing her matching pajama set of top and bottoms that were pastel pink and blue. "This better be important. I was sleeping."

Aspen, Marisol, Carlisle, and I were in the computer lab section of the library. Carlisle was sitting in the seat in front of the computer, which wasn't logged in, and Aspen, Marisol, and I were around here.

"Come here," Carlisle said to her without looking up from the piece of paper she was scribbling on. "You're the one that's good at investigations."

Lindsay stopped in her tracks. "Carlisle. What's going on? Do I have to get rid of evidence again?"

Carlisle beckoned her over toward us again and Lindsay took a seat right beside Carlisle. On the paper in big, bold words were Vivienne Aldridge.

"Who's Vivienne Aldridge?" Lindsay asked her.

"Did you not see the note?" Aspen piped up.

"What note?"

"There was a note on the bulletin board about knowing a secret," Marisol explained. "Apparently someone was going to pay for it. It was signed Vivienne Aldridge."

Lindsay frowned and logged onto the iMac in front of her, her fingers typing her log-in information at lightning-speed. "That's odd. I've never heard of a Vivienne Aldridge."

"Right?" Carlisle said, waiting for Lindsay's computer to load to the Internet. When it did, she passed her the sheet of paper with the name. Lindsay typed it in quickly and then pressed the search button on the screen.

"Here's a news article about someone named Vivienne Aldridge." She clicked on it and it brought it up. The title of the article was "Beaumont Academy Mourns the Fiftieth Anniversary of Student's Suicide."

"Someone committed suicide at Beaumont?" Aspen's eyes got wide and she moved behind Lindsay so she could read it over her shoulder.

"It says that in 1963, a student named Vivienne Aldridge committed suicide. She was a senior, like us," Lindsay explained, scrolling down to read the rest of the article. A yearbook picture of the girl was provided. She was quite gorgeous and exotic looking, with thick dark hair, brown eyes, ruby-red lips, and porcelain skin. "She hung herself in March of 1963 in her dorm room."

"So we're living in the same building as Vivienne Aldridge's ghost?" Marisol whined. "What if it's the same room that I have?"

I really hoped that wasn't the case.

"Ghosts aren't real," Carlisle told her.

Marisol's face paled. "Shut up, Carlisle. You'll just make Vivienne mad."

Carlisle rolled her eyes and placed her head in between her hands.

Lindsay shut down the library computer and turned to the rest of us. "You guys found out what you want to know?"

"I guess," Aspen answered, getting up from where she was sitting and making her way to the library entrance. She looked so exhausted that she could barely keep her eyes open.

"Come on, Kayleigh," Marisol said to me, hooking one of her arms around mine. "Let's go back to our dorm room. We've got some sleep to catch up on."

"This was the booth that we would always sit at," Marisol said, slapping her hand against the leather booth seat.

We were literally the only ones in Ophelia's Hometown Buffet, just a street over from Beaumont Academy. I guess we didn't actually need to catch up on sleep: It was Marisol's idea to sneak out, because she said she needed to clear her head. Honestly, I thought she just wanted to get out of our dorm room, in case it was haunted by Vivienne Aldridge. I wasn't a believer in ghosts, but you can never be too safe.

"I'd order a sweet tea and apple pie. He'd order a coffee and French fries."

I cracked open the sticky menu that sat in front of me. A hot chocolate seemed pretty good to me right about now.

"What if he comes in tonight?" Marisol asked me, drumming her fingers on the table. She never told me what happened when we went to Pentry Academy to talk to Warren, but I was guessing it wasn't good. Even though I had heard her laughing...

"Don't worry about it," I told her. "If he does, we'll deal with it then. Right now, we shouldn't focus on it."

A waitress came up to us, her blonde hair with dark roots in a messy up-do on the top of her head. She wore dangly pearl earrings that skimmed her pale shoulders and a tight-fitting black shirt with the Ophelia's logo on that back of it. On her name tag was the name Kandi. "Can I get you young ladies something to drink?"

After Marisol ordered a sweet tea and I ordered a small hot chocolate, Marisol's eyes grew wide and her face paled. That could only mean one thing.

"Oh my god!" she squeaked, holding a menu over her face. I turned around and saw, of course, Warren van Gerald. He didn't notice me there, which I guess didn't even matter, because he had probably never seen me before.

He minded his own business and sat at a table all alone on the completely other side of the restaurant, but would still be able to see her if she wasn't covering her face.

"Can I keep this for right now?" Marisol asked when Kandi tried to take it out of her hands. Kandi sighed dramatically, took my menu, and made her way to the kitchen.

"Kayleigh," Marisol whined, the menu still in front of her face, "what should I do?"

"For starters, stop covering your face," I told her. Kandi came back with our drinks, set them in front of us, and sighed again at the sight of Marisol still using the menu.

"Can I get you guys something to eat?"

"I'll have a biscuit with butter," I told her.

"And I'll have a slice of apple pie." Marisol said that a bit too loud.

As if that were his cue, Warren van Gerald turned around, searching for exactly who was ordering apple pie. At the sight of the sweet tea in front of a person holding a menu in front of their face, Warren said, from across the restaurant, "Marisol?"

She slid the menu down, little by little, until it passed her eyes and they made eye contact. "Hey," she said, probably too quiet for him to hear it.

He got up from his table and slid into our booth, right beside Marisol. I tried not to make eye contact with her, because I'm sure she had to be feeling humiliated.

"I see you still come here," Warren said to her, scooting even closer to her.

"With a friend," she told him, narrowing her eyes at him. "Not with you."

He laughed, as if this was a joke, and took the menu from her. He placed it at the corner of the table. "I see your order hasn't changed."

"Warren," Marisol said, her voice was stern, for the first time since I had met her, "go away."

His happy expression quickly shifted to angry. Warren slid out of the booth, shooting her an evil look, and retreated back to the safety of his own table, where he shot her death glares every few minutes. But Marisol didn't seem to care. I was proud of her, and I knew Tatum would be too.

"What happened between you guys when we went to Pentry Academy?" I asked her, not trying to pry. She knew that I wasn't trying to get in her personal space, but I should get an answer after witnessing all of that.

"Long story short, he tried to make everything my fault. He wouldn't have cheated on me if I went to visit him, he said. He claimed that he didn't tell me he loved me because he wanted to do stuff with me, and I may not be the smartest person, but I can tell you right now, I'm not stupid. I know Warren." Her voice cracked as if she might cry, and I willed for her to keep it together, especially in front of him. He didn't deserve to know he had that much power over her. "I know he probably said it so I would do stuff with him. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that has been his goal since day one."

"I heard you laughing at something he said," I told her. "I thought it was going good."

Marisol shook her head sadly and took a sip of her sweet tea. "Far from it. I was laughing, that's true. But not at something he said. Well, maybe I was laughing at something he said." Marisol began to laugh, and covered her mouth with her hand. "I was laughing because everything he was saying was complete and utter bullshit. I can't deal with it right now, and he knows that."

"What's going on right now?" I asked.

Marisol squeezed a lemon into her tea. "I wrote a letter to my father the day before school started, inviting him to my graduation. It took me forever to find his address, too. He moved to Washington. But I wrote him this absolutely humongous letter, saying everything I needed to get off of my chest. I told him how I felt about him never being there for me. How I felt when he mailed me back my letter about Warren. How he's impacted my life in a negative way. I'm not trying to guilt the guy. I'm trying to get him to understand."

Kandi dropped the food off at our table and made her way to the front of the restaurant, pack of cigarettes in one hand.

"You don't need your father," I told Marisol as I spread butter onto my biscuit. "You've survived seventeen years without him."

"I know. But I want to get to know him. Like, I know almost nothing about him, except for his name, he's my father, he was in college when he got my mom pregnant with me, and that he now lives in some tiny town in Washington." She shook her head and took a tiny, almost microscopic bite of apple pie. "But that's nothing. A daughter with a real dad instead of just a father knows more than that. She knows his favorite color. His favorite band. The type of car he drives and the type of music he likes to listen to."

Green.Nickelback. A Honda Odyssey and country. Fortunately, my father had always beena dad to me. Yeah, sometimes we fought, but at the end of the day, I knew hehad my back. I couldn't pretend to know what Marisol was going through, but Ireally hoped one day her father would understand how he's impacted her life andwould try to make it right. She truly deserved it.