The Raven Cycle Boarding School

Chapter Fifteen

Blue looks around her musky and cluttered room. It looks exactly like how I left it, she thinks. Sniffing, she smells the room. It smells the same too. Mom must have been spraying my perfume around while I was away, she thinks lightly. From downstairs she can faintly hear pots and utensils clanking together as Maura attempts to teach Noah how to cook lasagna. Blue is guessing that it won't go too well.

Suddenly there is a soft knock behind Blue. Turning around she finds Ronan leaning against the open door frame with his knuckles against the wood. He wears possibly the most ripped jeans Blue thinks she has ever seen in her entire life, and a fading black tee. As Blue is briefly examining him she stops at the top of his head. She licks her lips as a sudden smile starts to form upon her face.

"What?" Ronan questions at seeing her smile.

Blue let's out a tiny laugh. "You need to shave your head again is all," She says with a grin.

"What?" He says again. Confused he reaches his hand up to feel his head.

"When we first met it was all neatly shaven and there was hardly any hair at all, but it doesn't look like you've even touched it since then," She says giggling.

Ronan raises an eyebrow. "Okay cool so I'll get Adam to shave my head sometime. Anything else weird and obscure that you'd like to mention?" He says with an eye roll.

"Well you also have a hickey on your neck," She says while turning around to unpack her suitcase.

"What?!" Ronan says urgently while rushing to Blue's nightstand to look in the mirror. And sure enough on the right side of Ronan's neck there lays a nice dark spot of love.

"I bet that's gong to be hard to explain," Blue says mockingly.

Sighing in frustration Ronan says,"There's nothing to explain, no one is going to ask."

"Unless you've got a couple of turtle necks than I bet you a ten that your wrong," Blue says seriously.

"I don't own any and you're on," He challenges her.

Smirking Blue says, "You should never bet a Sargent Ronan, we're always right."

Ronan rolls his eyes and leans against her nightstand. "Noah and you would already know, Gansey is too nice to ask, and naturally I would assume that Adam isn't going to ask where I got this hickey from," He says confidently.

"Well you're right about all of that Ronan," Blue confesses. "But you're in my house now, and I have plenty of nosey cousins and relatives who are going to love asking you about it."

Ronan curses under his breath. "Your family is too nice to pry like that," he says, feigning confidence.

"You're in a house full of psychics, there is no privacy, not really," She says with less enjoyment now.

Ronan watches his friend carefully. He sees how she goes from mocking and happy to sentimental and....regretful?

"You're not happy to be back, are you?" Ronan says more than asks.

Turning to face him she looks at him angrily. "Of course I am," she snaps. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I'm not gonna go through that with you Blue. Not when you and I already know what's going on. We can talk about that shit later if you want but right now I'm here to ask you about Barrington," He states firmly.

Blue looks at him quizzingly, "What about him?"

Ronan rubs the back of his head, "What do you think of him?"

"I've told you," Blue says annoyed. "I thinks he's just your average senior."

"Really?" Ronan says with a raised eyebrow. "That's it? Have you ever noticed anything strange about him? Has he ever done anything that you thought was wrong?"