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“I’ve been through much worse than you. Try me.” I spit on his shoes, then. Unfortunately, I was so cold that it might not have been obvious I was trying to spit. I was already making a bunch of weird noises and shaking as it was.
A few nearby guys from the football team cupped their fists over their mouths and let out a low, “Ooh” sound. Cassian just watched after me with a look I couldn’t quite place on his face, almost as if he was a kid who just discovered an insect he’d never seen before. Almost as if he was deciding whether to squish it or capture it and take it back to his room as a prize.
As much as I wanted to grab my clothes from Zoe, I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of seeing me show any weakness. So I walked past him, heading straight for a packed section of onlookers. I made no sign of planning to slow down, and they all parted for me.
I tried not to think about everyone probably being able to see my nipples through my wet bra or what they’d think of my ass while I walked away. Worse, I tried not to think of the mingling sympathy and disgust they probably felt to see the puckered, white burn scars speckling my skin.
It was humiliating.
It did make me want to curl up and cry.
But I’d learned something a long time ago. We can’t control the shitiness life throws at us. But we can control how we react.
The thought helped me keep my back straight and my head held high until I was around the corner of the house and by myself. Zoe caught up with me then.
“Charli!” She said, wrapping her arms around me. Just the touch of her skin felt like lava, and I found myself wanting to melt into it. “I’m so, so sorry. I just went to the bathroom for like two minutes. He really does do the swimming thing with people who come to his party for the first time, but they usually have towels waiting and the heat turned on inside. And the lights…” she shook her head. “I’m such an idiot for going inside when I did. I’m—”
I shook my head against her. “It’s o-okay.”
She grinned a little. “You know, I had no idea you were such a badass. Try me,” she mimicked, laughing. “That was—”
“Hold on.” I turned away from her, then bent to throw up in the bushes. When I was done, I wiped my mouth, feeling a little better.
We both laughed then, even though I wasn’t sure I’d ever be warm again.
I ended up getting a ride home with Clint, who Zoe texted to come rescue us. The heat blasting in his car felt like magic, and when I finally got home, I think I fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.7CassianI grabbed the orange juice from my fridge and spun off the cap. I raised the jug to chug directly from it and paused when I noticed my stepdad watching with a disturbed look on his face. He was sixty-six, which meant he had a comfortable lead of thirty years on my mom. She’d had me at eighteen, and my dad had stuck with her, even though the pregnancy wasn’t planned.
That was my dad. He was good to a fault. Always willing to help people, even if it cost him.
And in the end, it had cost him. It had cost him everything.
It hadn’t been for nothing, at least. He’d taught me a valuable lesson. No good deed goes unpunished. People who do the right thing show their neck to the world, and it’s only a matter of time before it decides to take the bait and put you down, one way or another.
I gave Walter my best smile, then tipped the jug of OJ back and took a long swig.
My stepdad was Walter Lakeland. His dad was rich, and his dad’s dad had been rich. Walter’s claim to fame was taking his hundreds of millions of dollars and using them to overfund a few businesses and real estate projects. After a few dozen years of paying smarter people to do smart things with his money, he’d become a billionaire, surprising absolutely nobody who understood how the world really works.
He was the real American dream in action. You can do anything and be anything you want, so long as your daddy’s check writing hand doesn’t cramp up. Once you make it, you also had to remember to insist you’d pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and look down on anyone without money, too.
My mom walked into the kitchen, then. She was still young at thirty-six and beautiful, even if she had started fucking up her face with plastic surgery over the last few years. Her Botox fortified forehead tried to scrunch when she sensed the obvious tension in the room.
