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It made me curious to know where she’d gotten the money from. Had Jacqueline and Philip not cut her off financially when she’d left town? And if my mom had had so much money, why had she ended up in a dingy, blue-collar town like Sand Valley?
Erin hadn’t been able to answer either of those questions satisfactorily, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was because she didn’t know the answer or because she wasn’t allowed to share it.
I bought some new clothes, since I had left a lot of what I’d bought with Jacqueline’s credit card behind in the spring. And I bought a small, cheap laptop. I just needed to be able to access the internet with it, so I didn’t need anything extravagant.
As I was walking out of the store, a voice beside me made me jump.
“Talia?”
My head jerked to the side as my body tensed for a fight, but the boy with wavy dark hair and dark brown eyes held up his hands.
“Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just surprised to see you here. I thought you, uh, left town.”
He was from Oak Park—Oliver, I thought his name was—and we’d crossed paths a few times last year but never really spoken. He hadn’t been one of the ones to join in on bullying me, I was sure of that. Those faces were etched permanently in my mind.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, adjusting my bags in my arms. “I did. I just got back.”
“Oh!” His eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he grinned at me. “Well, welcome back. You back at Oak Park again? Senior year, woohoo, right?”
“Yeah.” I huffed a noise that was almost a laugh. “Woohoo.”
“You sound about as excited as I feel.” Oliver’s grin widened, then he shook his head like he’d suddenly remembered something. “Ah, fuck. Where are my manners? Can I help you carry anything?”
“Um, that’s okay.” I took a step back, readjusting my bags again. “I was just about to get an Uber back to campus.”
“Want a lift?” He jerked his thumb behind him. “I’m parked right around the corner.” When he noticed my hesitation, he held his hands up again. “I don’t bite. I promise.”
I debated for another solid minute, and he didn’t push me, just waited, that half-grin still on his face.
“Yeah, all right.” I finally shrugged. “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“Nah, not at all. Here, let me help.” He grabbed the large bag with my laptop in it and then pointed down the sidewalk behind him. “I’m this way.”
As we walked toward his car, he tugged another bag from my hands. We stuffed everything in the back of his Lambo, and I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes at his car. He seemed less snobby than the Princes—he reminded me of Dan a little in that way, actually—but of course he still drove an expensive car.
He glanced over at me as he navigated us back toward campus. “Hey, sorry about all that shit that happened to you last year. The Princes are fucking dicks.”
“No argument.”
He laughed, but then his face went serious again. “Seriously. Those guys are the fucking worst. It wasn’t cool what they did to you, playing that video and stuff. You should be allowed to be who you are without people judging you for it. Everyone knows it was those four assholes who did it too—it’s like an open secret on campus. But the admins haven’t really done shit. I’m sure Elijah got his fucking dad to pull some strings and make sure none of them got punished.”
My blood had frozen in my veins when he mentioned the video, and now it moved like sludge through my body, too slow and thick to do me any good. Oliver had been there that night—he must’ve been. The way he talked about the video, it didn’t sound like second-hand information. He knew all about it because he’d seen it.
“He did?” I asked thickly.
“Yeah, I’m sure he did. It’s not the first time Mr. Prescott has used his money and influence on the admins to keep Elijah or his buddies from getting in trouble. It’s fucking bullshit.”
There was bitterness in his voice, and I could relate to it a little. Elijah was already so powerful at Oak Park. He and the other three Princes basically ran the school. Add in the extra backup of having a parent who was one of the biggest donors to the academy, and it made him basically untouchable.
I was about to go up against the Princes as a one-woman army, and they had not only each other, but the weight of their rich, powerful parents.
It’s okay, Talia. Don’t freak out. It’ll be okay.
Oliver kept up a mostly one-sided conversation all the way back to Oak Park, but I was glad for it. He was earnest and enthusiastic, gesturing with his hands often before quickly grabbing the wheel again. And despite not
liking the Princes, he was a football fanatic and a huge supporter of the Oak Park team. He rattled off some facts and figures about the team’s standing that left me totally behind, but I let the rise and fall of his voice soothe me.
When he pulled into the student lot, he glanced over at me again. “Hey, I’m not doing anything right now, if you wanna go grab a bite or something.”
