“Shit.” I scratch at my throat, trying to breathe but I can’t.
“I won’t be surprised if an image of that girl starts floating around, with a Missing Person’s Warning over her ugly face,” she keeps going, her back to me. “She’s so done and as soon as one person learns her name, her entire life is done for.”
“Kristine,” I gasp, my vision growing hazy.
“You know the first time that story blew up, they called the informant a close family friend,” she snorts. “I bet she ain’t that close anymore, that skank.”
I’m the ‘close family friend’ who the papers referenced when they blew the story of Aiden and his condition. The way they talked about him made me sick, like he wasn’t a human being but a figure for the stock market.
“Kristine, I can’t breathe…”
“What?” She spins around but I’m already falling to the abyss below, darkness taking over every part of me. “Mia!”
But I can’t hear her, the last thing I heard that afternoon was the sound of my racing heart, a dreaded sense of impending doom filling my lungs instead of air. All I could hear in the still of the darkness was Julian’s low, ominous voice coming for me.
And me wanting him to kiss me again.
Even though I somehow escaped that day, I knew that one day, the guy who took my first kiss, the one who broke my heart in two, would come for me and inevitably destroy me.
That was my paranoia for almost a year, but today, it’s different. It’s been almost a year since seeing the thunderous look on his face, I hardy think he even remembers what I did or what I look like, let alone how that kiss tasted and felt.
He doesn’t remember. He forgot all about me.
But the next time I saw him, it was like he took a sledgehammer to my chest and impaled my already broken heart until I was nothing but an empty being. And all I could do was stand there, allowing it to happen like I wasn’t in charge of my own heart.
The next time I saw Julian Fitzgerald, he eviscerated what was left of my shredded heart in a matter of a few steps that were well calculated on his end. I fell like a domino, like every single affirmation I’d ever told myself meant nothing and had no power over him and his allure.
Tonight, I’m going to party like I don’t have a care in the world.
I’m going to party like my parents still sleep in the same room.
I’m going to party like my mother isn’t depressed.
I’m going to party like I’m not sad and miserable and my life isn’t slipping through my $40 manicure, when I used to get $250 manicures. Trust me, there’s a difference.
But, I’m going to party on this last weekend before school starts and I’ll be one of the most popular sophomores at Clintwood, with a reign that’s unmatched even if I feel like I’m living a lie among wealthy kids who worship the ground I walk on.
I’m Mia Montague, the Ice Queen Bitch, dumbing down bits of my life just so I can fit in with these average whores.
“Oh God, where is that bitch?” my friend Rye whines from the backseat of my mom’s Range Rover that she can’t drive anymore. Her license was taken a week ago and she’s been a devastated mess—like that’s new.
“She’s a bitch now?” I tuck in my problems, glancing at Rye through the mirror.
“When your supposed best friend flirts with your boyfriend from the moment you tell her that he’s your boyfriend then ends up sleeping with him on the very night your boyfriend promised to take you out on your first official date, yeah that girl becomes a bitch.”
Well, damn.
“Here, drink more.” Jaz, our other friend, offers my father’s scotch that they’ve been drinking the entire drive from Palos Verdes to Malibu for this rager.
“I’ve been drinking all day, it doesn’t help.” Rye sighs.
“Your boyfriend cheated on you with Kristine?” I question, eyeing her as I take in the way she’s dressed, like a girl on the prowl—so unlike the happy, bubbly girl from three days ago.
“Like that should surprise anyone.” Jaz burps. “That plastic bitch slept with my boyfriend, Kev, two months ago and still smiled in my face like she didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Wait, did she know that you were dating or…?”
“Oh, stop defending her like she’d do the same for you!” Rye shoots me a look.
“What?”
“Oh, come on, Mia,” Jaz starts. “You’re not as clueless as you’d like people to think. You’re always at the top of the Principal’s list.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I scoff.
“Seriously, my aunt told me this a while back.”
I swallow. Shit.
“Who’s your aunt?”
“You know, the one who works in admin at school? She told me that you picked up AP classes. You’re like super freaking smart, all the teachers say so.”
“I work hard, just like everyone else.” I try to laugh it off. “You’ve met my dad, there’s no way he’d fund my expensive tastes if I came home with shitty grades.”
“Don’t do that, Mia.” Rye shakes her head, her eyes alight with tears as we wait in the car. “You’re smart and I’m sure you can see that Kristine is a bitch who hates you. She pretends to be your friend because you are famous.”
“Truth, she’s as fake as her fake clothes, her fake personality, her fake smiles, her fake hair,” Jaz chimes in. “Be careful when it comes to that bitch.”
“Come on guys, Kristine…”
“Will play you like a rigged game if you choose to be that dumb girl, wanting a best friend who’s really jealous of you and hates you for being who you are.” Rye’s voice hardens, her eyes narrowed. “Anyway, we’re telling you this because you need someone to warn you, since I’m transferring schools.”
“What?” I spin around in my seat, eyes wide with shock.
“My Dad wants to move back to Chicago, so we’re all going. I’m done with Palos,” she shrugs. “Tonight’s my last night with you that’s why I came along, enduring a painful, shitty trip with that backstabbing bitch for you.”
“Rye!” I gasp.
“Me too,” Jaz chimes in as well.
“What do you mean, you too?” I frown.
“I can’t do this anymore, Mia. I fell in love with Kev and she took him away from me,” Jaz says, her voice low and strained with raw pain.
I’m so stunned, my jaw is dropped.
“But you can’t move now because of…”
“A broken heart?” Jaz murmurs. “You have one too, Mia. This shouldn’t be hard to understand.”
Silence falls over us in the car and I turn around in my seat. Woodenly, I grab my compact mirror so I can check my make-up but I’m not really seeing anything.
Do I really have a broken heart?
“She’s coming. Act normal,” Jaz whisper yells. “We’re not telling her about any of this.”
“Remember, Mia,” Rye whispers. “Everyone knows that she wants Shane Matthews because you want him. She’s going to destroy you. That’s her plan. Be careful.”