“Quitting means he wins. Is that really what you want? Do you really think that will make anything better?”
I flinch as a strange sense of déjà vu wafts over me at his words, which are so similar to what that note said.
Before I can question him about his meaning, or really even string two words together, he slams through the door, stalks across the porch, gets into his rental car, and peels out of the driveway.
6
After Liam’s visit, winter break flies by so quickly, I swear it gives me whiplash.
Carley and I have a great time catching up and spending as much of our time together as we can. We celebrate Christmas with a big dinner with her two older brothers and their families and gifts, and New Years at home with sparkling grape juice and crab legs. The only real blight to the weeks together is the handful of times I catch Carley staring at her phone, her brow furrowed, chewing her lip in agitation. She eventually confesses that she’s worried she hasn’t heard from Jenn.
“What if she’s in trouble?” she’d asked one night over popcorn and her all-time favorite 90s rom-com.
I did what I could to comfort, pausing the movie in the middle of the scene where the undercover journalist posing as a high school student accidentally gets high on pot brownies, to assure her, but I’m not sure I was able to completely put her mind at ease. Still, she didn’t let her worries ruin our time together. When break ended, and it was time to return to school, I was going to miss our nights, since she worked so many day shifts.
I’m ready for my new, regular school, with new, regular people. Sure, a typical public school might not shine as bright on my resume as Angelview, but I won’t be the social pariah I was among the prep-school assholes. I won’t have the rich mean girl drama Laurel always dumped on me, or the arrogant pricks like Saint. No one at my new school will know anything about my past or be able to use it against me.
I’ll be just another kid. I can study, swim, and even box if I want without anyone trying to decimate my life.
It’s going to be great.
At least, it would’ve been if I wasn’t a fucking moron.
Swallowing down the bile in the back of my throat, I stare at my dorm room door, which is covered with printouts about needles, pictures of burning houses, and Planned Parenthood pamphlets.
Why the fuck did I decide to come back here?
Oh, right. Because I might be gullible as hell but I’m not a quitter.
That logic seemed so solid while I was still in Atlanta, pleading my case to return to Carley. Now that I’m back on Angelview’s campus with a shining reminder of why I should’ve stayed away right in front of my face, I’m seriously questioning my sanity.
It’s more than my pride at play, though. I have to remind myself of that. I’m back here because I need to get answers about that photo and note and no matter how hard I tried I wasn’t able to get that back in Georgia. I couldn’t stop looking at the faces in the picture during break, and the more I studied them, the more insistent this nagging voice in the back of my mind became. It kept whispering questions to me.
Who sent it?
Why?
Who wins if I quit Angelview?
What does this all have to do with me?
And why the hell was Jenn, of all the people in the world, at Angelview in a photo with Saint’s father and his old business partner?
The voice was too insistent, and the more I tried to ignore it, the louder it became until it was a roar that rattled around in my skull, demanding answers.
So, I came back. I’ll very likely regret this decision.
On second thought, when I think of the way my chest burned upon seeing the skeleton of Angelle House during my ride into campus, I already do regret it.
With a deep sigh, I reach out to unlock my door, but a motion out of the corner of my eye catches my attention. Pivoting around, every muscle in my body seizes when I spot Loni standing at the end of the hall. She’s watching me carefully, and I can’t read her expression.
She has to be pissed at me. I mean, I’d be pissed at me, leaving the way that I did. Slowly, she begins walking toward me, her fingers linked together in front of her flared corduroy skirt, her expression determined. Fuck, what if she turns on me completely? Throws something at me, or calls me names like every other fucker at this school?
I tense, waiting for what I’m certain is an inevitable blow, but she shocks me by throwing her arms around me and hugging me so tight, the air whooshes from my body. At first, I’m too stunned to move. Then, I let my bags fall from my shoulders and wrap my arms around her, squeezing her to me, not giving a damn when I get a mouthful of curly hair.
“I was so worried about you,” she murmurs in my ear. “When you left and then didn’t answer any of my texts or calls, I thought you weren’t coming back. My dad called Carley and even she said you’d quit.”
“I wasn’t,” I admit to her softly. We lean away from each other, and I tilt my head back to meet her dark eyes. “I wasn’t going to come back. I was going to go to school in Atlanta and never set foot here again.”
“But you changed your mind.”
I bob my head, and a laugh that sounds a little too hysterical bubbles from my lips. “Yeah. I changed my mind.”
“Why?” She sounds incredulous. “As sucky as it would be to lose you, I wouldn’t blame you for saying fuck it to this place. Not after everything you’ve gone through.”
Loni is such a good person it boggles my mind how she survives here and maintains that kindness within her. But as good as she is, I can’t tell her the full truth. I can’t breathe a word to her about the picture or the note, not until I know what they mean.
“It’s … complicated,” I say instead. “Mostly, I just couldn’t let those assholes win.”
It’s an honest enough answer that I don’t feel guilty about keeping the details from her.
Loni releases me, and as I pick up my bags, she finishes unlocking my door. She opens it for me, and stepping inside my room, I’m relieved to see it hasn’t been messed with at least. I half-expected it to be trashed, but it’s exactly how I left it when I went back to Georgia for break.
She shuts the door behind us as I set my bags on the floor, then tosses me the keys, which I catch and lay on my desk.
“So, how did you convince Carley to let you come back?” she asks, taking a seat on my bed as I begin to unpack. “Because every time my dad talked to her, he said she wasn’t letting you come back under any circumstances.”
I try to hide my surprise that Mr. James spoke to Carley more than once as I drop my duffle bag on my desk and unzip it. “It wasn’t easy.”
Far from it. It was our only fight during my visit home. I think she was close to committing me because of my decision, but I eventually wore her down and convinced her to trust me.
“She couldn’t deny the doors that a diploma from Angelview would open for me, though,” I explain.
“I suppose that’s true.” Loni watches me in silence for several moments as I move around the room, and I can’t figure out what she’s thinking again.
“What?” I finally demand, turning from stuffing a handful of panties into the top drawer of my dresser. I lean my back against it and arch an eyebrow.