PROLOGUE
“Revenge does not begin with blood. It begins with a name. And the belief that someone must pay.” The Count of Monte Cristo
Iyawned and set the book down. “I love this one. The words are pure art.”
Jude rolled his eyes. “You would love something we have to read for school.” He tapped me on the top of the head with his own book then chucked it toward the edge of the couch. “I can come up with better things to do now that I’m a senior and none of them have to do with reading. My hands however….” His eyes flickered briefly to my mouth then back up again. He’s teasing as per usual. “…need something to dig into.” He means clay. Logically I know, he means clay. Sculpting is his thing, his stress reliever as a football player except he’s crazy good at it. Then again he’s crazy good at basically everything. He has magic hands off the field, in the art studio, in the bedroom apparently. I looked away as my stomach plummeted.
Lines were meant to be crossed, right? We’ve been friends our entire lives but something shifted the minute we had to do buddy up for a group partnership freshman year. Maybe itwas all the late night studying, maybe our hormones were just out of control, it’s amazing how you can be with one person for years and suddenly every breath they take means something more, every shift in their stance, every graze of their fingertip is no longer an accident, no you’re suddenly wondering if it’s intentional. The only problem about starting off as best friends? It meant I knew everything about him, including all the broken hearts he’d left in his wake. Every girl at our school wanted to hook up with him. He was gorgeous, rich, athletic. The only negative was that he was painfully aware he was a god among high school boys. It really wasn’t even fair that he was only seventeen and looked like he belonged in college. I always thought it was his genes until I found out his dad made him work out like crazy, I assumed it was for sports when one day he let it slip that it was for protection. I laughed it off. He didn’t. Honestly, if he had any chinks in his armor it was his dad. We lived in a small town outside of Seattle, and people talked about his family having illegal dealings with powerful people in the city. Whenever I asked Jude about it he would go quiet and say we shouldn’t talk about it, that someone might hear even when we were completely alone.
Which was my first hint that things weren’t all as great as everyone thought they were at his home. The handful of times I went over there his mom and dad were fighting, I didn’t miss the spots of blood on his dad’s collared shirt when I left or the way he stared me down as if challenging me to say something. I hated it when we had to study at his house for that reason alone. I never felt safe, and I don’t think Jude did either but his parents had the best food and we were almost always alone, which was nice.
“Jude…” I gently put my copy of Romeo and Juliet on my lap. I do it slowly so I don’t throw it at him in frustration and accidently hurt his face and the book in the process. “Be serious,we still have a paper to write.” Yeah because your focus is so much better, Lilah.
“You write it, I’ll watch you. You’re pretty when you concentrate.” He leaned in grazed my nose with his fingertip. Was that on purpose? Did he see my short intake of breath? “I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself until you can’t take it anymore and beg me to kiss you.”
“There will be no begging.” I managed to say without stuttering though clearly breathless. Wow, that sounded so convincing.
With a lazy movement of his arm he pulled me across his lap and tilted my chin toward his until we were inches from kissing. “Pretty, pretty, please?”
“We’re friends.” I whispered. “You know that.”
“Best friends,” he corrected. “I would die for you Lilah, that means I should be able to kiss you, right?” He leaned in further. “The math checks out.”
My eyes narrowed while my heart hammered in my chest. Was this finally happening? “You can’t hit me with logic and stare at me like I’m your air, Jude, it’s not fair.”
“You are though.” He whispered leaning up toward me, he was close, too close. “My air. My light. You would be my greatest sin and most proud accomplishment. Sometimes I think if I could just drown in you, the rest of the world would finally go silent.” His smile fell.
My body went completely hot. “High school boys shouldn’t talk like that.”
“High school girls shouldn’t be so hard to get.” His smile was back, charming, easy. “I don’t want to be called a thief, I won’t steal a kiss you won’t willingly give, so please, Lilah, please kiss me.”
This was it, this was the moment.
A defining moment.
I leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth, his lips parted while his hands moved to my shoulders, achingly slow, just like the start of a kiss that would ruin me for all future kisses.
I leaned into him as the sound of fighting sounded from downstairs. A gunshot rang out and then another. We pulled apart and stared each other down just as we heard his mom scream his name. Life had other plans than for me to have Jude’s kisses. Life wasn’t fair.
The Dean’s List
1
“A man betrayed learns quickly. Trust is a luxury. Memory is a weapon.” The Count of Monte Cristo
LILAH
We all have things that trigger us, things that make us cringe, flinch, laugh, react in some way that tells the world around us that we are in fact capable of human emotions like fear and distress.
I’ve spent years trying to make my reactions small, just about the same amount of time spent trying to appear like things don’t bother me even when they do. If people knew the actual herculean strength it took for me not to start screaming every time a text alert went off they’d be shocked.
Yeah, a text alert. Because text alerts aren’t always good news. And I received the worst news of my life, of my best friend dying, via text. A freaking text.
I’ve tried them all of the different sounds and notifications. From the cheerful ones to the annoying ones, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a random little blip in my day that feels foreboding likesomething really bad or really good is about to happen. It annoys the hell out of me when I see people get a text and smile.
I instantly hate that person and then tell myself it’s irrational and they’ve done nothing to earn that hate except for have a purely natural response to something funny or cute. It could be a cat video or declaration of love for all I care, and I still felt this gut reaction of complete and total dread.
I hate a lot of things about myself, but that may actually be the one I hate the most because it seems so stupid and petty at the same time. Even if I don’t like surprises and can’t feel joy like most people doesn’t mean they should also walk around like a zombie just trying to make it through the day.
