Add in his horrible friend, Chasm, and I just know I’m going to hate it here.
Even if I try. Even if I keep smiling. Even if I plaster a positive can do! attitude over the top of my melancholy.
With a sigh, I climb out of the shower, wrap my hair in a towel, and slip into the new robe that Tess bought for me. It was hanging in the closet, along with a few other staples. Subtle hints of a dress code my new mother wants me to aspire to.
I’m looking down at the floor, my chin toward my chest, as I fiddle with the towel on my hair. At the sound of a snort, I look up and find that Chasm guy on my bed. I stop short.
“What the hell?” I choke out, noticing Parrish standing near the window, his tattooed fingers pressed into the glass. He glances back at me, his face drawn down into a moue of boredom. He taps his fingers against the window a few times as I flick my gaze from him to Chasm. “What are you doing in my room?” My voice sounds a little edgy, like it’s lined in glass, but my nerves are seriously worn thin here. If I can’t have my privacy, then I have nothing left. Nothing at all.
“You snooped in my room; I decided I wanted to snoop in yours. Fair’s fair,” Parrish says, turning around and leaning his back against the window. “Besides, Chasm’s mad. You stole his room.”
“Wait, what?” I sputter, trying to figure out how he knew I was in there.
“This room,” Chasm says with a long sigh, looking around with a sense of faux melancholy on his face. “It used to be mine, when I stayed over.” He glances over his shoulder, flashing that white-hot smile at me. Sally and Nevaeh would go nuts over him. Nevaeh, especially. I remember briefly that she hooked up with my crush, Ryan, and my heart contracts painfully. Not because of Ryan, but because a friend’s betrayal always stings the worst of all. “This bed, it used to be my bed.” He laughs and looks over at Parrish in a conspiratorial sort of way. “You don’t want to know the things I did in here; you’d never be able to sleep on this mattress again.”
My face heats up at the implications, and I realize that I’m completely naked beneath this robe, in a room with two strange guys, covered in tattoos, and dripping disdain and bullshit.
“Please. I’m supposed to freak out because you touched yourself a few times in the bed? Get over it. I’ve stayed in plenty of hotel rooms, and the sheets are clean.”
Chasm laughs at me; Parrish says and does nothing, watching us with such a mild interest that he could very well be watching paint dry.
“I didn’t just mean that I touched myself, Little Sister. I’m talking about the girls that I’ve brought in here. How many Parrish? I’ve lost count.”
“The entire female population of the Whitehall junior and senior classes, you mean?” Parrish responds coolly, and Chasm snorts.
“Come on, man. You know I’m a bit choosier than that.” Chasm pats the bed. “See, that’s why I’m saying she’s at least a four. Probably more like a five. You know I have standards.” He looks me over again and flashes his teeth in what I think is supposed to be a disarming smile. All it serves is to supremely annoy me. Misogyny isn’t cute on anyone.
“Low ones,” Parrish retorts as my mind searches for an appropriate clap back. Don’t let them get to you, Dakota. You’ve been through the worst there is. What is this? Just bullshit. “But sure, call her a four if it makes it easier for you to hit on her. We both know you’re going to do it anyway.”
“Look, I’m sorry you’re a shitty artist, and I saw your hideous sketchbooks. What do you want me to do about it? Apologize for cringing when I saw your work?” I watch Parrish as the words leave my mouth. He tries to pretend that he doesn’t care what I’ve said, but I see it, a slight tightening around his mouth. Just like that first night. He’s sensitive about his artwork. Good to know. “You’re upset I stole your mom. I’m upset you let your diseased douche of a friend sit on my bed. Just get out and let’s call a truce.”
The look on Parrish’s face tells me that I’ve crossed some sort of line. He’s subtle about it, but the darkness that crowds his handsome features reminds me of a storm that has yet to break.
“You,” he starts, and then he’s smiling at me in such a way that Chasm actually grimaces. I have a feeling that underneath all of that polished perfection and carefully practiced pique is a level of vindictiveness that I hadn’t suspected until just now. Parrish moves away from the window, dressed in the green, gray, and black of the Whitehall Academy uniform. The way the blazer hugs his muscular shoulders is criminal, and I find myself shifting uncomfortably on my feet as he stalks slowly across the room to lord over me.
I’m not afraid of him, even now, even with his toasted almond eyes narrowed to slits, his chocolate-colored lashes casting shadows on his pale cheeks.
“Me, what?” I snap back, edgy and on guard, prepared for him to lob something equally awful my way. You shouldn’t have said that, about his art, I tell myself, but it’s too late. I’ve already said it; I can’t exactly take it back now. Besides, didn’t he say he was going to—and I quote—bury me? Who does that? He fired the first shots; this isn’t even my war.
“You’ll never be a part of this family,” he tells me, and even as I tell myself that I don’t care, that he’s welcome to say and do his worst because it doesn’t matter, we both know it does. It’s the way he says it, too, that stabs me straight through the heart, tears that fragile tissue paper of my soul and makes everything hurt.
He says it, not like an insult, but like the truth we both know it to be.
“Doesn’t matter though,” Parrish continues, reaching up with a single finger to twirl a wet strand of my hair until I slap him away. “Because even if you don’t fit in, Tess will never let you go.” The smirk that takes over his face infuriates me to no end. Just as I’ve zoned in on his insecurities, he’s doing the same to me. “Never,” he emphasizes, the two syllables of that word as sharp as glass. “Trust me: I know her. Having you here is all Tess has ever wanted, but you know what else?” Chasm stands up from the bed, like he knows this is about to get ugly. “You’re a sickening disappointment.”
“Parrish, let’s get out of here,” Chasm says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His face is twisted in wry amusement, but I can tell his interest in the entire situation is fast waning. He slides his phone from his pocket, glances at the screen for a moment, and then frowns before looking back up. “We have better things to do than hang with your long-lost sister.”
My eyes flick to him and then switch back to Parrish’s brown ones, dark with anger and pierced through with a thorn of familiar hurt. Having me here hurts him.
I know it; I could see it from the very first moment I stepped into this ice cavern they call a house.
“This girl is not my sister,” Parrish repeats, a phrase I’m sure he’ll have to utter as many times as I protest the name Mia.
“You’re right,” I start as he turns away from me. Even before I say the words, I know that I’m going to regret them. “I’m not your sister because Tess isn’t your mother: she’s mine. You don’t seem to have one yourself. Didn’t she run off when you were a kid? I can see why. Clearly, you drove her away.”