Trusting Stone Read Free

I’ll probably be celebrating with Mara.”
    “Come on, Eden, you’ve avoided hanging out with us all year. We’ve got loads of St. Leonard’s students —well, another four—and you know we’ll bump into each other next year. Please?”
    Eden was suspicious of the group for all the reasons that Susan had just mentioned. The group acted like an embassy—all-America was their approach. They ate at the few American chain restaurants in Edinburgh, and had endless care packages delivered from back home with American products that weren’t available in the Edinburgh shops. They looked like they had been plucked out of their American colleges and placed on the Edinburgh campus without missing a beat in their Abercrombie hoodies and Old Navy flip-flops. By default of the program they were all on, she knew that they all had more money than sense. After all, she was paying for this out of her own trust fund .
    No, these were the sorts of students who would ask her where she went to prep school. In fact, she had recognized a few of the girls from her debutante training sessions and it made her shudder to imagine hanging out with them. Also, there was a part of her that was mortified they might know what had happened to her. Campus gossip moved fast and she couldn’t imagine that her little breakdown and the events that precipitated it would have been kept quiet enough to not reach most St. Leonard’s students .
    “When is it exactly? I’ll think about it,” she finally capitulated. Eden knew that her parents would expect her to go. They had been subtly pressuring for months to connect more with some of the American students in the exchange program. After all, several of them were children of her father’s business partners, or potential ones. A part of her also knew that she would need to build the courage sooner or later to face these sorts of events. She couldn’t run from her past forever. Going would also keep her parents at bay. Eden had a hard balancing act of appeasing her parents’ incessant need to keep grooming Eden and her own desire for independence from a lifestyle that had done little to help her when she needed it.
    “Yay!” Susan started jumping up and down and jostling Eden, forcing the coffee to spill. “Listen, you won’t regret it, it’s going to be epic. Here.” She handed Eden the invitation. The embossed card with gold inlay looked excessive and decadent, just like everything in her previous life. It weighed heavy in her hand.
    “I said I’d think about it. I haven’t finalized my plans, so don’t get too excited,” she explained. Despite Eden’s dislike for Susan’s approach toward life in general, the girl had been nothing but kind to Eden at every chance and she suddenly felt bad watching Susan go from pleased to disappointed with her statement. Susan was simply a product of her upbringing and Eden felt a hint of guilt at her judgmental aversion of her.
    “Don’t worry, Susan, I’ll look at my schedule, okay? I’m sure I can figure it out.”
    “Oh, you won’t regret it. It will be great. Call me and maybe we can meet up beforehand.”
    Looking past Susan, Eden saw Mara approaching and gave her a wave. Susan glanced back and Eden tried not to react to the look of annoyance that flashed across Susan’s face.
    “I’ll be in touch, alright?” Eden wanted this conversation to be over.
    Susan hesitated. “Not to be a bitch, but it’s invite only…”
    Eden understood immediately—Mara was not invited. Elite American students only. Ugh, and there it was—the exact reason she knew she should avoid Susan.
    “Sure, no problem, message received,” Eden responded with another forced smile.
    “Okay, great, later!” Susan squeezed her arm and practically hopped back into the student union, leaving Eden holding the invitation. She stared down at it, already regretting her promise to Susan.
    “Ah, the lovely Susan Stuart. What did she want?” Mara said as she reached for Eden