"I thought we were meeting them?"
"Meeting them... intercepting them... same thing, right?"
"Shit," I mutter as I climb from the car.
Thoughts of Kenny in a Sterling Prep uniform fill my mind, and my nerves about how she'll take seeing me are replaced by anticipation.
I follow Cole toward the dorms, my excitement about seeing her again after hiding here for the past four days has almost got the better of me by the time we come to a stop by the entrance.
"Conner, chill the fuck out. You're practically bouncing."
"I am not," I argue.
Cole rolls his eyes at me before they light up at something—or should I say someone—over my shoulder.
Turning, I watch as Hadley walks through the front door. The second she spots Cole, she takes off running in our direction and jumps into his arms. Instantly, the sound of their kiss fills my ears, but I'm soon distracted when someone else walks out of the main doors.
Kenny looks around for a few seconds giving me a chance to look her over. Her hair falls around her blazer-covered shoulders and has a slight curl at the ends, and I wonder if she’s trying to hide the numerous piercings she has in her ears. Her face is clear of the dark makeup she usually applies, but she’s left her nose stud in. Thank fuck, because it’s sexy as hell. I also notice her lingering bruises are lighter than a few days ago. She looks so fucking beautiful, I can hardly take my eyes off her.
"Kenny," I breathe, desperate to know how she's going to react to me.
Her entire body tenses as she hears my voice, making dread settle into my stomach.
Any hopes of her being as excited to see me as Hadley was Cole are immediately squashed. I don't need to see the look in her eyes when she turns to me to know that she'd rather I wasn't here right now.
I don't let that stop me, though.
"Looking good, Kenny. You are rocking the schoolgirl look," I announce, walking up to her and running my eyes down the length of her body. She might not have her skirt rolled up to the point that I can see her ass, like many of the other Sterling Prep girls, but that doesn't matter to me.
She could be wearing a trash bag and she'd still have my temperature soaring. "Excited about your first day?" I ask with a wide smile on my face, lacing my arm through hers. But she doesn’t return my smile.
In fact, she doesn’t seem happy to see me at all.
Chapter Seven
Kennedy
“What the hell are you doing?” I seethe at Conner.
Hadley and Cole give us space, too busy wrapped up in one another.
Traitor.
I knew I couldn’t trust—
“Conner.” Her voice cuts through the tension swirling around us. “You need to back off.”
His expression falls. “W-what? I just want to—”
I yank my arm free and put some space between us. It’s bad enough I’m dressed in this god-awful uniform, but now Conner is looking at me like I’m all his dreams come true.
“Kenny, I just thought—”
“Thought what, huh? Thought that I need you to swoop in and save me? Newsflash, asshole. You’re too late.” Tears sting my eyes, but I force them down.
I won’t cry.
Not over Conner and his self-righteous attempt at fixing this. Fixing me.
I take off toward the school building. He calls after me, and I hear Hadley and Cole try to talk him down, but I don’t turn around.
I can’t.
I need to lock down my emotions and be strong if I’m going to survive the next five months here.
Five months, fuck.
Maybe I can get a job and save enough cash to leave. I turn eighteen soon, it isn’t like James Jagger or the guidance counselor can do anything then, if I decide to up and run.
Who am I kidding?
No one in Sterling Bay is going to give me the time of day, let alone a job. They’ll take one look at my tattoos and piercings and close the door in my face.
Conner, Cole, and Ace don’t realize how lucky they are. They have a right to this life. It’s in their blood. But me? I’m a Heighter through and through. I don’t have any secret relatives waiting in the wings to rush in to save me.
Hadley catches up to me, grabbing my arm. “Would you just slow down a minute?”
“What?” I narrow my eyes at her. “So Conner can ambush me again? No thank you.”
“Kennedy, he didn’t—”
“Look, I appreciate what you’re doing. I get that the two of you share some weird bond.” I don’t know why, but the words make my stomach twist. I like Hadley, mostly, but a part of me doesn’t like that she’s close to Conner. “But this,” I continue, “us being friends… it isn’t going to work if you always side with him.” My eyes flick over to where Cole is leading Conner down a different path toward school.
Thank God.
“Kennedy, that’s not fair. He’s my friend and you’re—”
“Not?” I raise a brow.
“I’d like to think we could be.” Hadley offers me a sad smile that softens something inside me.
What is it about her?
“I didn’t know Conner would be here this morning. I thought Cole and Ace would keep him away.”
“You promise?”
She nods. “But it’s school. You’re going to have to face him eventually. Unless you plan on hiding out in the girls’ bathroom the whole time?”
The thought has crossed my mind.
Maybe this whole thing is a bad idea. So what if I don’t get my diploma? It’s not like my future is paved with opportunity. Girls like me don’t make it far.
“I just need some time,” I lie, because Hadley is looking at me like she needs answers. Answers I don’t have.
After the other night in the Jaggers’ kitchen, when I’d found Conner beaten and bruised, we hadn’t talked again. I moved into the dorms, and he’s given me space.
Until now.
But Hadley is right, there’s no escaping him. Every day, I’ll have to face him. His infectious smile and playful laughter. Conner is good. Always has been. Even when he lived in the Heights, he had this way of brushing off all the crap. Like a rainbow after a storm, Conner had this way of making everything feel better.
But that was before.
Now I’m broken, worn down by cruel words and heavy fists. My heart is battered and bruised, and my soul is no longer pure.
And although I know Warren is to blame, that he’s the one who made me this way, a part of me will always hold Conner responsible for walking away.
So it doesn’t matter how happy he is that I’m here, or how much he wants to fix things... he can’t.
Because some scars are simply too deep to erase.
The second we step inside the building, it’s like someone hits the mute button. Everyone eyes me with a mixture of curiosity and disapproval. I know what they’re thinking—the new girl might wear their uniform, but she isn’t one of them.
She never will be.
I’d felt the stares and heard the whispers as we left the dorm and made our way toward the school building, but it had been easier to ignore them out there.