The Ivy: Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page A

nightstand he’d left a nearly empty pack of cigarettes and a crimson-colored sweatband imprinted with a large white H, which he wore during squash games. She breathed in deeply, certain now that she was imagining the faintest scents of smoke and sweat and that other indescribable smell that seemed to materialize whenever he was near.
    She could barely stand the sight of the bookshelf, its contents overlapping so much with her own, so instead she found her eyes falling back toward the trash can. Some tissues that seemed to have been used to blot red lipstick partially obscured several old copies of the Crimson and what looked like might be, at the very bottom of all the debris, a printout of an old Ivy Insider installment.
    Recoiling in the chair, Callie closed her eyes.
    But there was no escaping it: what was the use in obsessing about Gregory and wondering when—or if—he would return, when she might not even be there after her hearing in May?
    She knew she should feel grateful that the Ad Board had granted her almost a month to build her case while they assembled a special Student-Faculty Judicial Board to thoroughly review the “facts,” but part of her just wanted to hurry up and get it over with—

    “What,” a low alto said sharply from the doorway, “do you think you’re doing?”
    “Alessandra!” Callie cried, springing from Gregory’s chair. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
    “What are you doing in here?” the older girl demanded. Alessandra Constantine: rumored, and justifiably so, to have turned down a modeling contract back in LA before she transferred from USC.
    “Just…um…” Callie faltered. “What are you doing here?”
    “Picking up a few of my things,” Alessandra explained icily, walking into the room.
    Because…you broke up? But wait—wouldn’t that mean—that of all the people he could have contacted first—he chose Alessandra? Callie clamped her lips together, feeling her mind whir into high-danger-of-accidentally-blurting-things-out-loud overdrive.
    Alessandra bent down near Gregory’s bed, giving Callie a front row seat to her irritatingly traffic-stopping cleavage. “And you are in here why, exactly?” Alessandra repeated for the third time, reaching under the bed.
    “Oh,” Callie mumbled. “I—um—also needed—for the—picking up—of some things….”
    “ What things?” Alessandra straightened, holding a pair of red panties and looking murderous.
    “Wha—ah—no!” Callie cried. Her cheeks burned. According to Gregory, Alessandra had learned the truth about what had happened between him and Callie last November: how they had spent the night together after the Harvard-Yale football game.A few months ago Callie had allowed Alessandra to believe, by omission, that the “hookup” had occurred at the very beginning of freshman year. No wonder the older girl didn’t trust her.
    “I just came to pick up…a book! That I lent him…a long time ago,” Callie declared, her eyes darting to the lowest shelf where her borrowed Justice Reader from last semester might still be lurking among his other textbooks. “But, um, I don’t really need it right now, anyway, so I should probably—” Callie stammered, watching Alessandra yank open one of Gregory’s dresser drawers and pull out some highly complex-looking, fire engine red lingerie to match the panties. Callie gulped. “Go.”
    Alessandra smirked. “Yes,” she said, “I think it is best that you leave now and that in the future you stay away from my boyfriend’s bedroom.”
    “Boyfriend?” Callie blurted before she could stop herself. “Um…still?”
    “Why—did he say something to you?”
    “I—haven’t heard from him since he left,” Callie said carefully. “Have you?”
    Alessandra frowned. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
    Callie stared at the wall. Regardless of whether it was her business , it certainly wasn’t her place to break up with Alessandra on Gregory’s