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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2020 by K. L. Walther

  Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks

  Cover art © Kat Goodloe

  Internal design by Ashley Holstrom

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  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—­except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—­without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-­4410

  (630) 961-­3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Walther, K.L., author.

  Title: If we were us / K.L. Walther.

  Description: Naperville, IL : Sourcebooks Fire, [2020] | Audience: Ages 14-18. | Audience: Grades 10-12. | Summary: Sage Morgan and Charlie Carmichael prove to everyone at Bexley School that their close friendship does not hide a romance when new student Nick Morrissey and Charlie’s twin brother, Nick, stir things up.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019058943 | (hardcover)

  Subjects: CYAC: Best friends--Fiction. | Friendship--Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)--Fiction. | Twins--Fiction. | Brothers--Fiction. | Gays--Fiction. | Boarding schools--Fiction. | Schools--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.W362 If 2020 | DDC [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058943

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To my parents:

  Mom, for all those long walks

  and hours at the command center.

  And Dad, since without you and the yearbooks,

  Bexley would cease to exist.

  Chapter 1

  Sage

  There were cigarettes wedged in the cracks of my windowsill, and my mom noticed right away. “Those aren’t mine!” I blurted when she held up two of them, tips browned and singed. This was a given, because I’d lived in this room for all of ten minutes. My sheets weren’t even on the bed yet.

  She frowned and shook her head. “Use an ashtray next time.”

  “Maybe it’s in here,” my dad joked, pulling out one of my desk drawers. I was surprised the cleaning crew hadn’t caught the butts. My mom had opened the window because the smell of Clorox was so strong.

  “Who lived here last year?” she asked.

  “Schuyler Cole,” I said, and couldn’t help but laugh as she dug out another stub. I almost told her to stop, since I kind of wanted to show the girls later. Up on the third floor, my friend Reese had already texted us that her room’s last occupant left her prom dress hanging in the closet.

  Not a night to remember? I’d written back.

  “Schuyler Cole…” my mom mused. “Isn’t she…?”

  “Yeah, Charlie’s ex.”

  She nodded. “Will he be coming by to say hello later? And help, since we all know how much you love unpacking?”

  “We wish.” I smiled. “He’s still in rehearsal.” Charlie had gotten a weeklong head start here at Bexley, moving into school early for the musical’s “preseason.” This year’s show was Into the Woods, and he was playing none other than Prince Charming.

  My mom sighed. “What about Nicky?”

  I shook my head. “Soccer.”

  “Andrea,” my dad said, chuckling. “We don’t need the extra labor. This is Sage’s senior year. We’ve got this.”

  I smiled. My parents were divorced, but I loved that they always moved me in together. “Oh, that’s a relief.” I faked a yawn. “Because I’m a little woozy from this smell.” I flopped down on my mattress and shut my eyes. “Please wake me when the people from Pottery Barn Teen arrive for the photo shoot.”

  * * *

  I went to boarding school, but I didn’t grow up thinking I’d go to boarding school. When I was in third grade, I’d fantasized about someday wearing blue and white at Darien High School’s football games and maybe being voted homecoming queen. But all that had gone out the window in eighth grade. Holding court from the back of the bus, Charlie told me he couldn’t come over and binge on ice cream and Netflix because he needed to go home and work on his Bexley application. “Mom wants Nick and me to start them today,” he’d explained. “She doesn’t want us to get behind.”

  “Wait, Bexley?” I’d said. “The Bexley School? Like where Kitsey went? You guys are going to go?”

  “Well, yeah.” Charlie shrugged. “We all go. My grandfather, my dad, Kitsey… Of course, Nicky and I are gonna go.”

  So naturally, I started my own application as soon as I’d gotten home and finished an episode of Gossip Girl and a bowl of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked. If Charlie was going to Bexley, then I was too. I wasn’t going to let us be separated.

  I smiled as I tacked a picture of us up over my bed. One of me wearing Charlie’s spare hockey jersey with black paint under my eyes and standing on his skates as he danced us around outside the locker room. It went next to a fifth-­grade snapshot, taken after our school’s production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We both held huge flower bouquets.

  My parents were gone, my mom en route back to Connecticut and my dad to New York, and the girls and I were about to head over to the Pearson Arts Center for Move-­In Day’s school meeting. “Okay, enough pictures,�
� Reese said, and waved her phone around. “Jennie sent the scouting report.”

  “Oh, yes!” Nina hopped up from my desk chair. “Anyone British?”

  I laughed. “You’re not still hung up on Jamie, are you?”

  Nina blushed. “Listen, he was really nice.”

  “But he had that posh girlfriend back home, Miss Davies,” Reese reminded her, nodding her head toward my door. Nina and I followed her out of the room, down the hall and stairs, and once outside, we were swept up in the sea of students. Bexley had rolled out the welcome wagon: the auditorium had our black-­and-­blue school flags streaming down from the windows, and odds were, Headmaster Griswold, with his retro handlebar mustache, was greeting people as they passed through the front doors. It was the same way every year, and though I’d been so excited on the drive here, I suddenly felt something in me deflate, like I was secretly hoping that this time would be different.

  But all signs pointed to same old, same old.

  “Okay, Jennie’s list,” I prompted as we walked, arms linked. Jennie Chu was our fourth musketeer, and as student council president, she’d scored a lineup of this year’s postgraduate guys. They were the new kids in the senior class, and most of them came to Bexley for sports after graduating from their own high schools. They were known to everyone as the PGs. Nina’s beloved Jamie had been a soccer PG last year.

  Reese scanned her phone. “No Brits,” she concluded. “But there’re two football guys, both from Texas, a lax bro from Long Island…” She glanced up and smirked at me. “Sage, you’re so lucky.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Is Shawn Mendes here this year?”

  My friend shook her head. “No, but someone named Luke Morrissey is, and you’ll get to meet him very soon.”

  Luke Morrissey, I thought. Why does that ring a bell?

  “Oh my god,” Nina said. “You’re going to sit next to each other at the meeting. Morgan and Morrissey. Alphabetical order!”

  “I recognize his name for some reason,” I said. “What’s he here for?”

  “Cross-country,” Reese answered. “He’s from someplace in Michigan called Grosse Pointe.”

  “It’s right outside Detroit,” Nina informed us after consulting Google Maps on her phone. She looked at me.

  I shrugged. “Grosse Pointe sounds kind of familiar.”

  But why?

  “Find his Insta,” Reese said. That was her answer to everything. Instagram.

  I laughed. “Okay, no. I don’t want to know that his family has a goldendoodle named Waffle before we actually meet.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Waffle?”

  “Yeah! How cute would that be?”

  “So cu—­” Nina started, but then the mob of students surged forward, so we surged with it, getting torn apart by the time we made it into the PAC’s lobby. A thousand voices bounced off the white walls as I elbowed my way through a horde of junior boys in striped polo shirts, suddenly excited to find my new auditorium seat.

  Because after nearly getting tripped up in the balloons out front, I’d figured out who Luke Morrissey was. A conversation in May with Charlie had started: “My aunt Caroline called last night and said the kid who babysits my cousins is coming to Bexley next year. The one Tater Tot is in love with…”

  * * *

  “You’re the Carmichael twins’ cousins’ babysitter!” I exclaimed the second I turned into my row, and at that, a head turned…

  An adorable head.

  But an adorable head that also looked like I’d just slapped him in the face. I saw his cheeks heat, and when I dropped into my seat next to him, he reached up and ran a hand through his jet-­black hair. (“The kind of hair you want to run your hands through,” I’d tell the girls later). His eyes darted around behind tortoiseshell glasses. “Uh, pardon?” he asked.

  “You’re the Carmichael twins’ cousins’ babysitter,” I repeated.

  “Or Luke.” The guy nodded. “I go by Luke too. Less of a mouthful.”

  I smiled and held out my hand. “I’m Sage.”

  We shook. “Nice to meet you,” Luke said, and then he was quiet. Not awkward-­quiet, but definitely shy-­quiet.

  That didn’t faze me.

  “So, why are you at Bexley?” I asked, even though I already knew he ran cross-country. I also wanted to pinch myself at how enthusiastic I sounded. But at least Charlie isn’t here. “You and Charlie freak people out,” Nick once told me. “You guys are like sunshine on steroids.”

  “Oh,” Luke said. “My indecision.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  Luke smirked, and I felt a flutter in my chest. “My indecision.”

  My eyebrows knitted together. “You aren’t here for cross-country?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I mean yes, I do run cross-country, but that’s not why I’m here. I graduated from my high school last year, but with zero idea what I wanted to do for college.” He hesitated. “This, uh, also might sound stupid, but I didn’t feel ready for it.”

  “Well, no offense,” I said with a laugh, “but you certainly don’t look ready for it.”

  Luke smiled and rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m aware I look fourteen. My sister, Becca, who is fourteen, looks older than I do.”

  “Did you apply anywhere else? Or just here?”

  “No, also Lawrenceville, Taft, and Kent. But this was my first choice.”

  I nodded. “So you’ve met Charlie and Nick?”

  Another head shake. “Not yet. You know them well?”

  “You could say that.” I grinned. “We took baths together back in the day.”

  “What’re they like?”

  “Oh, well, Charlie’s the best!” I said, but then the PAC’s lights dimmed, and the giant projection screen lowered in front of the stage’s blue velvet curtain. I smiled and got comfortable in my seat. This was the reason for the stampede inside; it was tradition for the student council to emcee school meetings, and they always made an entrance for the very first one.

  “Get ready,” I whispered to Luke. “You’re going to love this.”

  This was a ten-­minute video of Bexley meets The Office, and I wanted to nominate it for an Emmy. The skit was a mock student council meeting, with each member playing up their title. President Jennie was banging the oval-­shaped Harkness table in frustration over how Bexley was a good school, but this year, it was their job to make it a great one!

  “I appreciate Jennie’s passion,” VP Samir Khan said in a confessional, “but in order to make this a great school, she needs to support my ideas for a stronger peer tutoring system, instead of just focusing on the athletic and theater departments…”

  Then the camera panned to a shot of Jennie in the library, with the redheaded Carmichael twins waiting on her hand and foot. “You’re really tense, Madam President,” Nick, in his hockey jersey, told Jennie as he massaged her shoulders.

  “Oh, Nick, I know. Feel free to dig in harder…” She sighed happily as Charlie held up a chocolate from the enormous box on his lap. He was decked out in his Prince Charming costume and totally grinning. (“That boy could set off fireworks with his smile,” my mom always said.)

  “And this one, dearest Jen, has a raspberry cream filling.” He took a slow, seductive bite of the candy and licked his lips before popping the rest into Jennie’s mouth.

  “That’s them,” I whispered to Luke.

  Luke nodded, but didn’t say anything. He just watched, and then listened as Jennie came onstage and welcomed everyone to the new school year before introducing the rest of her cabinet. “And last but not least, this is your Arts Representative, Charlie Carmichael,” she told us. “His favorite color is blue, he loves Cool Ranch Doritos, and before you ask, no, he is not a paid model for Vineyard Vines!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke lean forward in his seat.
r />   * * *

  “Come have dinner with me,” I said after the lights went up. “I want you to meet my friends.” Charlie especially, but he, Nick, and Jennie wouldn’t be around. Student council always ate with Headmaster Griswold and the deans across the street in town the first night.

  On Bexley’s dime, he’d texted me. I’m getting a steak.

  “Okay, sure,” Luke agreed, following me out of our row. “That’d be great.”

  “So, there are two different dining halls,” I explained once we made it outside. “Leighton is the bigger one, and it’s for all the underclassmen. And Addison is the smaller one. That’s where we’re going now. It’s seniors only.”

  “Right.” Luke nodded. “That’s the building next to my dorm. Where do you live?”

  “Down that way,” I said, gesturing behind us. “Simmons. The senior girls’ dorm.”

  Luke whistled. “Seems like a hike.”

  “It is, but I have a bike.” My sweet mountain bike, recently demoted from hilly woodland trails to Bexley’s cobblestone streets. Stinger, Nick had named it two summers ago, an homage to the bike’s screaming black-­and-­yellow paint job.

  Eva Alpert was holding the door open for us when we got to Addison. “Hi, Sage!”

  “Hey, Eva.” I smiled, and introduced Luke. “This is Luke. He’s a PG.”

  And we basically watched Eva melt right there in the doorway. “Oh, gr—­uh, awesome to meet you,” she said, twirling a curl around her finger. “You’re gonna love it here.” I caught her eyes travel from Luke’s head to his toes.

  Stop it, I wanted to say, already feeling territorial. I took Luke’s arm and led him inside.

  “I feel slightly violated,” he whispered once we stood in the long line for food. It snaked across the black-­and-­white tile floor. I spotted Reese’s sleek dark braids several heads in front of us. She could command a room.

  “That’s Eva Alpert for you,” I whispered back. “She’s nice but is always like that with guys.” I laughed. “And you’re totally her type.” I thought of Jeremy Tanaka, Nick’s freshman-year roommate. Eva dated him for a while last year, and he wasn’t nearly as good-­looking as Luke, but they weren’t dissimilar, both having the artsy-­intellectual cute vibe going for them.