A huge smile shaped her face when she opened the door. “Drew? What are you doing in town?” Her gaze dropped to my Frank’s Famous Chicken shirt. “And why are you in that shirt?”
“I’m back for the rest of the school year. And dad made me get a job.” I left out the part about him making me get a job to pay him back. It was too depressing. I’d done the math, and with the eight dollars I made per hour, it would take me three years to pay back the twenty thousand in tuition Dad said I owed him.
“Ew.” She snarled her lip at the shirt as I stepped inside. “So, wait, are you coming to Barrington?”
I let out a sigh. “Do you have wine?”
Two glasses of wine later, I was sprawled on Olivia’s plush bed, surrounded by a mountain of throw pillows while she stared at me like I’d grown two heads.
“Dayton?” She looked repulsed. “Your dad is sending you to Dayton?”
“Yep.” I sat up and took another swig of wine, but there wasn’t enough wine in the world to drown out the shit show that was my life.
“I…” Her mouth opened, then closed. “You’re going from Black Mountain to Dayton?”
I nodded.
And the look on her face told me I was in for a horror show. “Just don’t go.”
“That’s what he wants, Olivia. He wants me to be a brat about it, so he’s justified in his bullshit.”
“It’s your funeral.” She sat up, pulling her long, blond hair into a ponytail. “Just stay away from the gangs and the girls. And don’t use the bathrooms.”
“Gangs? They have gangs?” Dear God, was I going to leave with a teardrop tattoo on my cheek?
“Yeah. It’s inner-city, babe. There are drug dealers, and if you piss off the wrong girl, they will absolutely, one hundred percent, come at you with a razor blade. Like, they are going to hate you.” Shaking her head, she took the wine bottle and brought it to her lips. “Like hate.”
I fell back onto the bed, staring at the sparkling chandelier. “Great. Just great.” And I wasn’t even going to tell her about my slutty little rendezvous with the token bad guy.
“Last semester there was a rumor that they found a dead body behind some of the lockers at Dayton. And I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“That’s going to be me,” I said, fighting back tears. “Killed and shoved into a locker.” I needed more wine. “And then I’m going to come back and haunt my dad’s ass.”
I could have dealt with Barrington for two months, where I at least knew Olivia and her brother, Jackson—I could at least blend in. I knew Dayton was bad, but by the sounds of it, I might not survive two months there. There had to be a way out of this.
The next morning I woke to the distinct smell of bacon cooking. I found my father in the kitchen, a frying pan in hand. . My gaze trailed from his graying hair to the ridiculous-looking apron covering his dress shirt and slacks.
“Oh, hey. Good of you to show up,” I mumbled, then went to the coffee machine and started it. “So, have you actually seen that school you decided to send me to? Do you care if I get shanked in a hallway?” It wasn’t even a stretch.
He flipped a piece of meat. “Have you always been this dramatic?”
“Only when my wonderful father sends me to what is basically one step up from reform school.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Dayton is reform school for you before you go to college.”
A flash of anger jolted through me. I’d been kicked out of Black Mountain for “cheating” on a test. Which was bullshit. I’d never cheated on anything in my life.
“I already told you I didn’t cheat on that test,” I snapped.
Not that he believed me, of course. All he saw was his delinquent daughter who’d shamed him by getting kicked out of the expensive school he’d shipped me off to at age eleven—most likely so he could brag about paying the ninety-thousand dollar a year tuition while not having to deal with me. Except now, he did have to deal with me. For the last two months of my school year. The horror.
“I’ve set up for your paycheck to be directly deposited into my account since you owe me for the last two months of tuition.”
Annoyance rippled through me. “You know I can just get mom to pay you.”
“I don’t need the money, Drucella.” He huffed, setting the spatula onto the counter. “It’s the principle. It’s about you learning a little bit of responsibility for your disastrous behavior.”
“Yes, yes, I’m such a disappointment, I know.” I was so done with this.
I went upstairs, changed for school, then grabbed my purse. I knew he expected me to refuse to go, and that was exactly why I went, the same reason I suffered through the humiliation of working that drive through. Because I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Like any “spoiled brat” would do, I made sure to slam the front door on my way out. It had been seven months since I’d seen him. He’d been here for two minutes and I already preferred being alone, and I hated being alone.
Orientation through an almost empty school had been one thing. This—this was another thing entirely.
Students poured into the school through an open doorway. Girls wore fishnet tights and crop tops, shorts their asses hung out of. It was a little shocking for someone whose entire life had been spent in a school with rigid uniform rules. And God, did I feel out of place.
A massive guy shifted past me. My gaze went from his spiked hair to the eyeliner caked around his eyes to the studded dog collar around his neck. Yep. I was not in Kansas anymore.
“You stupid fuck!” Shouts boomed down the hall, and I jumped when a guy got slammed against the lockers. “I’ll fucking kill you and your mother.” The one shouting threw a punch, and all hell broke loose. One of them ended up on the dirty tiled floor, the other on top. Students congregated around, pointing and laughing while the smack of fists against cheeks echoed down the hall. And the teachers? They passed by with hardly a second glance.
Blood splattered the tiles, and I turned away. My stomach rolled as I shouldered through the packed hallways to my assigned locker and debated going to the office to see if I would get sent home if I said I pretended to be ill.
I turned the combination to my lock. Just as it popped open, my phone buzzed with a text from Genevieve:
Gen: How’s public school? Is it like TV???
I snapped a picture of the guy out cold in the front of the dented lockers and sent it to Genevieve.
Gen: OMG, that’s deplorable.
Me: Welcome to my new hell. Let’s hope I don’t get stabbed by the end of the day.
Gen: I’ll cry at your funeral and get ‘rent a crowd.’
Me: Thanks
I’d just put my belongings away when the ambassador who’d shown me around last week popped up beside me, all bouncing ponytail and smiles. “Hey, Drew.”
“Uh.” I closed the locker door, trying to recall her name. “Hey…Nora?”
“If you want to sit with me and some of the other girls at lunch, you’re welcome to.” She smiled again, and I questioned how genuine it was.