The Garden Read online

  The Garden

  Shelfbrooke Academy

  Amy Sparling

  Copyright © 2019 by Amy Sparling

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover: Parker Premades

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Love Lessons

  About the Author

  Also by Amy Sparling

  Chapter One

  My Instagram feed is filled with snow-covered landscapes and elite socialites all bundled up in Gucci sweaters and knee-high boots posing with their pumpkin spice lattes in hand. To all that winter aesthetic stuff, I say: gross.

  In many parts of the world, January is a frigid, snowy awful month of warm layers, electric blankets, scraping ice off your car, and eating hot soup or whatever it is people do in cold climates. But here in sunny California, it is an absolutely perfect seventy degrees. (Or twenty-one degrees Celsius, as my Canadian chef likes to say.)

  I look away from my phone, letting my head fall back on the lounge chair, my eyes closing while I listen to the sound of the pool water sloshing through the filter, and feel the warm sun on my face. The Malibu mansion is truly my favorite of all our homes. We used to only come here in the summers, but as soon as I got old enough to start calling the shots, I settled down in our Malibu vacation home and let my parents go wherever they wanted to go for the rest of the year. Sure, Cali isn’t as historic as England or as gorgeous as Thailand, but I feel a sense of belonging here.

  My phone starts ringing the cheerful Shawn Mendes song I’ve assigned as my best friend Viv’s ring tone. Well – she’s a close friend. You don’t exactly have best friends in the traditional sense when your family is wealthier than everyone else’s. You really never know who you can trust and who is trying to use you for your connections. I’m pretty sure that everyone is trying to use you when you’re rich.

  But Viv’s mom is the president of a large fashion company, so they’re doing pretty well with money. I trust her for the most part.

  “Hey,” I say, putting the phone to my ear as I relax by the pool.

  “There’s another MTV party tonight,” she says, heaving a sigh like it took a lot of energy to get out those words. “Are we going? I’m kind of tired of the music scene.”

  That’s probably because her beloved Shawn Mendes hasn’t noticed that she exists yet, despite her pretty desperate attempts to flirt with him. But I’m not going to say it out loud. Girl code and all that.

  “I’m over the music scene, too,” I say. Solidarity. Truth is, any party is my scene right now. As long as I’m not stuck at home for another awkward dinner with my parents who are staying here this summer, I don’t care where I am. I love my mom and dad, but they’re basically strangers lately.

  “Great,” Viv says. “We’ll find something else to do.”

  The clickity-clack sound of Charlie’s heels draws my attention to where my mom’s assistant is approaching from across the pool. She waves frantically at me like it’s important.

  “Viv? I’ll call you back.”

  “Kay, but don’t forget. You always forget.”

  I roll my eyes and promise that I won’t forget. But now that the MTV party is out tonight, I have no idea what else would top that. I haven’t posted to Instagram in a few days and my adoring followers will want to see something that makes them envious. That’s why they follow me, after all.

  “Sophia,” Charlie says, smiling politely at me as her tall frame hovers over mine. She works for my mom full time, and she basically lives here, but she doesn’t dress like it. She only ever wears pant suits or blazers and matching skirts. And always heels. I mean, props to the woman for wearing heels twenty-four hours a day, but holy crap, the fancy clothing must get old. I practically live in my jeans, leggings, and oversized shirts. The ironic thing is that my designer loungewear costs ten times what her formal work clothes cost.

  “What’s up?” I say, peering up at her. She’s in her early thirties, but easily looks as stressed as a fifty-year-old heart surgeon. You can blame that on my mom, who asks a lot out of the poor woman.

  “You’ll need to pack up your things, hon.” She glances at the tablet in her hand, and something tells me she just doesn’t want to meet my eye. “Your plane is leaving in the morning.”

  “Where am I going?”

  She checks the tablet again. “Some small town in New England.”

  “New England?” There is nothing cool in that part of the country. In fact, it’s one of those places that gets snowy and gross in the winter. I am absolutely not going there.

  Charlie nods. “Your flight is at ten-thirty. Mrs. Brass has informed me that you’ll be attending school there until you graduate, so pack enough clothes and belongings for the duration.”

  “What?” I fling my sunglasses off and stand up. I am equal parts confused and angry. No wait, strike that—I am mostly angry, and only a little bit confused.

  Of course my mom would send her lackey to tell me upsetting news. She always does. Mom doesn’t say anything herself unless it makes her look good.

  I storm past Charlie and into the house, my bare feet cold on the white marble floors. “Mom!” I call out, even though it’s loud and rude and everything my mother hates. “Where are you?”

  “Calm down, child,” Mom says in a voice that’s stern and unaffected, aka-her normal voice.

  Charlie is right on my heels, no doubt clutching that tablet and thinking of excuses to placate my mom. I’m sure if my mom had it her way, she’d never have to speak to me.

  “What is all this talk about me flying out to New England tomorrow? Is this some kind of joke? Because I’m not laughing.”

  My mother is beautiful, starkly put together, and absolutely as cold and unfeeling as the stone tiles beneath my feet.

  She glances up from the book she’s reading, her dark brown eyes meeting mine for the first time in weeks. We might live in the same house a few months a year, but we mostly communicate through Charlie, or text message.

  “Your grades have become unacceptable ever since you started partying more than you study.”

  I scoff. “I don’t really have grades, Mom.” My private tutors teach me lessons three days a week and I do assignments and they never give me grades. That’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it is for all of my friends who are also homeschooled with private tutors.

  “You know what I mean,” she says, glancing back at her book. “You’re not dedicating yourself to school, and you need to because this is supposed to be your senior year. I refuse to be the next face of a college admission scandal, so you better believe I’m not paying off a college to accept you. You’ll have to get in on grades alone.”

  “I don’t really care about college,” I say.

  “If you want your trust fund, you’ll go to college.”

  That shuts me up. My trust fund kicks in when I turn twenty-one. It’s enough money to
allow me to do whatever I want for the rest of my life. And all I have to do is attend some stupid college for four years to get it. I take a deep breath and try another approach.

  “I apologize about slacking in my schoolwork. I’ll ask my tutors for extra credit and I’ll work harder.”

  Mom’s head shakes one time in a sharp, precise no. “You’re leaving tomorrow. You’ve been enrolled in Shelfbrooke Academy and you will finish out this semester with a group of your peers. They’ve agreed to let you take the standardized tests and graduate with a diploma, if you just put in the work.”

  “Shelfbrooke Academy? Where have I heard that name before?”

  I have very little to do with the east coast, so I’m pretty sure I haven’t dated anyone from there or been to one of their parties while visiting our NYC home.

  Mom flips the page in her book. “My sister lives there.”

  Oh. The air whooshes out of me. “You’re sending me to school with my cousin Belle?”

  “She does attend that school,” Mom says.

  I groan. Belle and I are the same age. We were friends when we were little kids, but quickly grew apart. Something about my aunt choosing not to accept the monumental inheritance from my grandmother when she passed away. I don’t remember the story, just that my mom and her sister fought very loudly after the funeral and then I never saw either one of them again.

  “Mom, please don’t do this to me.”

  “It’s already done.”

  “Mom, please.”

  “Don’t whine, Sophia, it’s an awful look on you.”

  I grit my teeth. I hate when she makes me feel stupid. My mom is not the touchy-feely type. If anything, her assistant Charlie is more of a mom than my own mom.

  I take a deep breath and shove all the things I want to say to the back of my mind. Not because I’m trying to be a good daughter or anything, but because I don’t want to give my mom the satisfaction of seeing me angry.

  “Guess I’m going to Shelfbend Academy.”

  “Shelfbrooke,” Mom corrects, her eyes on her book.

  “Shelfbrooke,” I say, mostly to myself so I can remember this stupid school’s name. I want to go back out to the pool and Google and it see exactly what my parents have gotten me into.

  I sweep past Charlie and her concerned expression and walk right back outside to our rooftop pool, pretending for all to see that I have no problems at all. I am Sophia Brass, and I don’t have a care in the world. I find my phone sitting in the lounge chair from where it had fallen when I abruptly left a few minutes ago. I pick it up and press a button, then hold into my ear.

  “Viv?” I say when she answers. “Told you I’d call you back. We have a problem. A huge, life-shattering problem.”

  “Oohh,” Viv says, and I can practically feel her eyebrows wiggling mischievously even though she lives a mile down the beach. The girl loves a good bit of drama. “I’ll be right over.”

  Chapter Two

  Sitting by the pool is not as much fun when I’m fuming mad. I stretch out my legs on the lounge chair and I close my eyes and let the sunshine warm my face and I take deep, deep, yoga breaths.

  It does nothing to help.

  I am so mad I wouldn’t be surprised if flames suddenly shot out of my eyes. How could my parents do this to me? They’ve spent most of my life completely ignoring me and letting me do whatever I wanted while under the loose supervision of nannies. Now suddenly they care about my education? This is crap!

  Viv arrives a few minutes later, her eyes wide and mischievous because she loves a good gossip, or tea-spilling as she likes to say. The second she walks onto the rooftop patio, her Givenchy flip flops smacking the pavement, wavy bleach blonde hair swaying beautifully behind her, I don’t feel relieved to see her. In fact, I get the same feeling I normally get when I’m around her for too long, although it usually takes about an hour for that feeling to kick in.

  The truth is… I kind of hate my best friend.

  I mean, she’s fun and beautiful and our parents are friends and we’re in all the same socialite friendship circles, but deep down in the very center of my heart, I can’t stand her. I can’t stand a lot of things about my life, but every time I’ve even dared to mention it, Charlie will tell me to stop being a brat and be grateful for my awesome life.

  I grit my teeth, force back my secret hatred of my best friend and wave at her as she approaches. I get up and hug her, then we sit next to each other on the lounge chairs.

  “Spill,” she says, tipping her sunglasses down from the top of her head. “Are your parents getting divorced?”

  “What?” I roll my eyes and stare out at the pool. “No.”

  “Oh,” she says, sounding surprised. “Well, that’s good. What happened?”

  I heave a sigh and find that it’s harder to say the words than I imagined. It feels icky, embarrassing. Like I have to confess that I’ve kissed a poor guy or something.

  “My parents have gone completely insane and they’ve decided to pull me out of private tutoring in the middle of my senior year and send me to a freaking boarding school.”

  Viv’s shoulders fall. “That’s it?”

  “What do you mean ‘that’s it’? This is terrible news!”

  She chews on her bottom lip for a second and then smiles at me. “Sophia, it’s really not a big deal. I mean, there’s like four months of school left, right? We’ll still hang out every day and party every night. It’ll be fine.”

  “No, because I won’t be here in California.”

  She sits up straighter. “You’re going away?”

  I nod, happy that she’s finally looking concerned.

  “But why?” she says. “There are tons of great boarding schools here in Cali.”

  I shrug. “Like I said, my parents have gone insane. Maybe I could get myself emancipated due to their insanity.”

  Viv chuckles. “You’re forgetting the number one rule of rich kids.”

  “And that is?”

  She looks at me like I’m dumb. “Hello? Your trust fund? Our parents use them to control us?”

  I groan and lean back against my chair, covering my face with my hands. She’s right. She’s totally right. Right now I live on my parent’s dime. My trust fund is big enough to keep me set for life, but I don’t get it until I’m twenty one. Viv’s parents are even worse, because they’re making her get a college degree before she has access to her trust fund. That means we’re still stuck doing whatever our parents want until we’re old enough to get our money. That means if my parents told me to dress like a clown every day for a week, I’d have to do it.

  That means I have to go to boarding school.

  “So where is it?” Viv asks.

  “Shelfbrooke.”

  “Oh!” She perks up and gives me a reassuring pat on the arm. “That’s not so bad. It’s a pretty prestigious school. Lots of future congressman attend Shelfbrooke. The D’Villes go there, too.”

  “Yeah but it’s on the east coast. Only losers live on the east coast.”

  Viv laughs. I get the feeling she’s enjoying my pain a little too much. Shouldn’t a real best friend be here for me, suffering and freaking out too?

  “It’s just a few months, Soph. I’ll still be here when you get back.”

  “Our summer plans are still on, okay? I refuse to let my parents’ stupid new rule derail that.”

  “Oh, it is so on,” she says with a grin. “Europe won’t know what to do with us.”

  I smile too, happy that, for all her faults, my best friend is still my best friend. And maybe I can just get through these next few months, graduate, and then come back home where I belong. And Viv and I can go on our senior trip that we’ve planned for years. We’re going to charter a private jet and see all of Europe in style. It’s like a wealthy persons’ take on the old “backpacking around Europe” dream. We’re going to do it in style.

  “It’s just a few months,” I say, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves.

>   “It’s just a few months,” Viv repeats.

  “Knock, knock,” a voice says from behind us. My heart immediately swells with anticipation. The voice belongs to Henry Sharp. The Henry Sharp, of the Sharp congressman legacy. His dad is gearing up for his presidential run, and Henry plans to follow in his footsteps.

  We’ve been getting close lately, flirting over text and in person. If I play my cards right, I might become a future First Lady. I think I would look really, really good in front of the White House.

  “Henry!” I say, getting up and giving him a hug. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

  He shrugs, that boyish grin making my stomach flutter. Henry has it all. He’s tall, toned, and absolutely gorgeous. His family moved to Malibu after his dad became a senator. All the girls immediately threw themselves at him, but I feel like Henry and I have a connection. Maybe because I’m smart enough to act confident around him. It’s a much better look than desperation.

  “I saw your Snaps,” he says, referencing the Snapchat pictures I posted a little while ago. I was happy back then because it was before my mother dropped the boarding school bomb on me. Henry smiles and runs a hand through his dirty blond hair. “Thought I’d surprise you.”

  “Well it’s good timing because you won’t be seeing her for a while,” Viv says. I stiffen and give her a glare she doesn’t seem to notice. I wanted to be the one to tell him, not her.

  Henry frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s being sent off to boarding school.”

  Now his brows shoot up and then he grins. “You’re joking, right? It’s the middle of the year.”