I deflate just imagining it: Sebastian driving for fifteen hours, just to get here and save me from his brother, like some kind of sad, poor damsel. It’s been a long time since everything that happened Freshman year. I’ve hidden, I’ve avoided, I’ve done terrible, harmful things—all to push what happened with Heston as far away from me as possible. I stepped out from under that dark cloud last spring, when I marched into the police station with Sydney to report him. I did it because I was tired of hiding. Sebastian—the Devils—gave me the courage to stand up and take care of myself.
Now it’s time to find the strength to do that on my own.
“No.” My voice is soft, but final. “You have a life there with Sugar. You guys are happy. It’s time for the rest of us to find our own happiness, and that starts with not having our friend drive home from college to beat up anyone who’s been mean to us.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” I say, voice sharp. “Let us handle it. Plus, you’re wrong. Vandy still has Reyn.”
And maybe Micha’s right.
Maybe we’re less powerless than we think.
Hanging up, I feel a little more determined, but no less seething at the injustice of it all. Making my way up to the fourth floor, I admit to myself that I’m also still pissed about the night before. I’d been so shaken by being matched to him that I didn’t make any other efforts to continue my search. Now, I’m stuck snapping this damn rubber band on my wrist every ten minutes, so rattled by the hum of my needs that I’m not thinking straight. Going to Bass was a bad idea.
I pass my floor mates and pause when I get a few feet from my room. A trunk is positioned in the hall and the door is cracked. Loud, bouncy pop-music spills out the open door. Slowly, I step over the threshold and gape at what I find inside. There’s a bed where my living room sofa should be, and a desk-dresser combo shoved up by the window. Most notably, a raven-haired girl is rolling up a T-shirt, tucking it neatly into the top drawer of the bookshelf. She doesn’t notice me, and I take the opportunity to observe her, taking in her petite body, long earrings, a pair of the same cute shoes I’d seen last week while visiting a boutique with my mother. They cost six-hundred dollars.
“E-excuse me? Who are you?” I ask, so taken aback that the first words come out in a sputter. I turn off the music. “What are you doing?”
The girl turns, her stick-straight hair swinging behind her, and her eyes light up. “Hi! I’m Josephine Wentworth. Everyone calls me Josie.” She thrusts her hand toward me, but I just stare at it. Slowly, her hand falls. “It’s funny, actually,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear, “there was this whole thing at Sparrowood Academy last semester—like a whole scandal with drugs and cheating and blackmail. My parents were just livid when they found out and decided to move me for my junior year at the last minute.”
I’d heard about shit hitting the fan at that school. A couple of kids went to jail, if I remember correctly. Sounds like same-old prep school bullshit. Except maybe, unlike Preston criminals, those guys are actually still in jail. I cross my arms over my chest. “What does that have to do with you being in my room?”
“Well…” She frowns, looking around the space. “The suites were all taken, and mother didn’t think it was appropriate for me to live without a kitchen of my own. Headmaster Collins agreed and,” her frown turns into a grin, “I guess we’re roommates!”
I stare at her. “Roommates? But this is a solo. A suite. My suite.”
I have plans for this suite. Lots of plans that don’t include some transfer Sparrowood chick sleeping in my damn living room. Like not having to tip-toe around, or be quiet, or having to be considerate like I did all of last year. Is it too much to ask that a girl has a little privacy?
I open my mouth to announce this, but Josie just hands me a sheet of paper with move-in instructions from the housing office. “Sorry,” she says, lips quirked in a smile, implying that she’s not sorry at all. “But hey, don’t worry. I have a feeling before it’s all over, we’ll be the best of friends.”
Will we? Because I have a best friend. A couple of them, actually. And I don’t want any more. I stare blankly at her for a few more moments, but she just turns the music back up and systematically fills her drawers with her designer clothing. Who the hell does this girl think she is?
I spin on my heel and go into my room, shutting the door behind me. Falling back on my bed, I glower up at the ceiling. How has everything gone so wrong so fast? First the P.E. fiasco, then the bullshit with Heston. Now this.
Whatever plans I had for having the best year ever are slowly falling apart.
4
Heston
* * *
The apartment is on the back side of campus, past the old gym, wedged up awkwardly against the trees. It’s cold, cramped, and has that dusty old-person smell that reminds me of the library in my grandmother’s house up in Virginia. It features a cheap, basic living room set, a bare double bed in the bedroom, three plates and five forks in the kitchen, and a shower curtain that smells like a newly manufactured beach ball.
I stand in there, pulling a face at a dark ring around the drain of the bathroom sink, and make a mental note to buy something harder than beer.
For now, I stock the medicine cabinet with four bottles of Mylanta.
I know it’s better than a prison cell, but from here, it’s hard to see how. Being a Wilcox is all I’ve ever known, and that’s always come with high ceilings, marble floors, my own private rooms, decked-out bathrooms, media rooms, hot tubs, slick luxury cars, and yachts. This apartment makes me feel too big, like I could put my shoulder through a wall at any given moment.
The only good thing about it is the trail that leads down to the lake, but I don’t even see that being of much use. The only way to handle this is to do my time and get the fuck out. Preston Prep is the last place I ever planned on returning to.
I walk into my bedroom and grab a clean shirt out of my suitcase. I’ll eat my own liver before I bother unpacking here. Too permanent—too much a signal of defeat. When my lawyer offered this deal—probation and community service coaching swim at Preston—I thought he was joking. In fact, I laughed in his face. But here I am, stuffing a frozen dinner into a microwave that’s so old, it probably doesn’t even pass legal standards anymore. Someone—Headmaster Collins, Coach James, or maybe some Devil with pull, I don’t even fucking know—saw fit to take some kind of pity on me with this. Nothing about this pisses me off more than that. I’m Heston fucking Wilcox. I don’t take anyone’s pity. I don’t need anyone’s pity.
Ever.
I’ve just pulled the clean shirt over my head when there’s a knock on the door. Instead of answering it, I stand by the microwave, waiting for my dinner to finish. No one important knows I’m here. I made certain of that. When the microwave dings, I plop the dinner onto one of the three plates and take my time answering.
“Great,” I say when I finally open the door. “It’s you.”
“Heston.” Headmaster Collins is standing on the doorstep, face etched with a frown. Looking back, it’s hard to believe I ever found this guy imposing, even as a middle schooler. He’s nothing like the powerful icon of authority I used to see him as. Age hasn’t done him well. Much like Big Gene, the Headmaster is balding. Unlike Big Gene, Collins hasn’t quite accepted it. He’s still combing over that patch of scalp, hoping to hide it. “You were supposed to come to my office at the end of the day.”