Read Online Kisses and Lies by Lauren Henderson - Free Book Online

idea standards were so shoddy there,” she says happily.
    I nod, wide-eyed.
    “I didn’t realize that till I came here,” I say, which may be overdoing it a bit, but it doesn’t matter. Grandmother launches into an exquisite denunciation of lazy exam boards, modern curricula in general, and St. Tabby’s in particular, which carries us all the way through the removal of our main-course plates, our gooseberry fool for dessert, and coffee (served in china cups so fine you can almost see the coffee through them—I’m always terrified of breaking them). St. Tabby’s is one of the best girls’ schools in the country, and for Grandmother to have found a chink in its armor has absolutely made her day. We’re a competitive family, the Wakefields.
    I congratulate myself on having found a subject for lunchtime conversation on which my grandmother can happily hold forth for hours. I’ll find something else to criticize about St. Tabby’s next week. And then I can just sit there and nod and avoid as much as possible having to practice the art of making polite conversation.
    This pleasant mood lasts all the way out of my grandmother’s private apartments, down the elaborate central staircase, and through the big main door of Wakefield Hall. Once in the fresh air, though, my mood shifts, no matter how hard I try to keep that feeling of elation. It’s always hard for me when I have to go back to Aunt Gwen’s.
    I struggle with feelings of jealousy toward Taylor all the time. Because Taylor doesn’t live at Wakefield Hall. Like the rest of the girls, she just boards here. She has a proper home to go back to, a cozy one where people are happy to see her, and probably make her breakfast. Even Lizzie, whose dad is never around, has that palace to live in and Lucia alternately coddling and tough-loving her. Whereas for me, this is it. A room grudgingly provided for me by Aunt Gwen, who copes by pretending I don’t exist. And I can’t say any of this to Taylor. It would be much too much poor-little-orphan-me.
    I don’t often think about my parents, because there isn’t any point, and besides, I was too young when they died to remember them well. I just have snatches of memory, like those old-fashioned slide shows you see sometimes in films, where they project a bright image at you for a few seconds before someone clicks something and it snaps away to another slide.
    I’m almost down the drive now, almost at Aunt Gwen’s house, which is actually the old gatehouse, tucked away in a nest of trees beside the main gates. I wonder if I’m feeling strong enough to go through my special box, where I keep things that remind me of my parents. Photos of us, when I was little. My baby book. A scarf my mum knitted for me. It’s not very good—it has a lot of dropped stitches—but I find that really endearing, because she was obviously rubbish at knitting but persisted anyway, because it was for me.
    I pass the stand of cypresses that conceals the gatehouse from the drive, and as I round them and the house comes into view, I jump and nearly drop my bag, and all thoughts of anything but what’s immediately in front of me are wiped from my mind.
    Jase Barnes is sitting on the garden wall. Looking pretty hot in a bright orange shirt and black jeans.
    He must be waiting for me.
    Oh my God. What have I got myself into?
    Last week, I sneaked into Nadia’s flat. Which is when I found out that Nadia saw Dan’s EpiPen in what she thought was Plum’s handbag—and when I worked out that Dan was poisoned by peanut oil on the crisps. I ran all the way back from the Wakefield tube, so excited by my twin discoveries that I couldn’t wait to tell Taylor everything I knew. Someone killed Dan. It really wasn’t my fault that Dan died. And that, in turn, meant I could kiss a boy without being afraid that he might drop down dead at my feet, like Dan did.
    So when I raced back to school that evening, and I saw Jase Barnes by the dining