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“Like she would tell me shit.” Jessica scoffed.
I ran a hand through my hair, looking around the gym. “Then—”
“She told Nicole, and I heard them.”
“Whodon’tyou eavesdrop on?” I asked.
Jessica looked wounded, and I grimaced. “Maybe if you guys would tell me what’s going on, I wouldn’t have to. You and Kyrie are best friends, and you and Nicole have your study shit. You smoke with Billy. Even Kyrie and Nicole have a little friendship. So where does that leave me?”
I hated myself then—for my walls and my selfishness. I’d spent my whole life feeling like outsider, and I hated that I made Jessica feel that way.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re my friend, you—” I didn’t know how to say it. I never knew how to say it.
Jessica watched me struggle, her arms crossed. And then, finally, she let out a breath. “I get it,” she said. “I’ll lay off. But Nicholas, you make it so fucking hard, sometimes,” she whispered. Her eyes roamed over me—my height, my arms, my eyes—and for a second, it didn’t make my skin crawl. It made me feel good about myself.
“Okay,” I said.
And Jessica nodded. “Okay.” We let the unspoken thing fade away.
When Principal Garrison started announcing the Snow Queen candidates, Jessica leaned in.
“So where are we letting my dipshit brother in?” she asked.
I motioned toward the stage. “There’s a door at the back of the stage that leads to the back parking lot where the buses drop off for band. He said he’d be back there waiting.”
“And you both think he won’t get kicked out in five minutes?” She raised an eyebrow.
“He’s going to lie low. We need every set of eyes we can get.”
“On who? The Deacon? Is he your Dracula?”
I glared at her before stalking across the gym, my eyes searching for the Deacon.He’s in this very room.
After finding Nicole, Jessica and I grabbed her arms and pulled her from the crowd. The three of us snuck away behind the curtain at the edge of the stage as the Snow Queen was announced. The cheers and commotion made it easy to sneak away, and as we walked across the stage, Nicole scurried in her heels to keep up with me.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Jessica leaned into her twin and grinned. “We’re sneaking Billy in so we can stake a vampire.”
I rolled my eyes as we moved into the back room behind the stage. “Have you seen Kyrie?” I asked.
“She was with me, but then she said she wanted more punch and then all the announcements started,” Nicole said as I opened the door to the back lot of the school.
We were greeted by a puff of smoke, and Billy’s grin was devilish. I couldn’t tell if it was real or if the haunted look he’d had in his room was merely masked for the benefit of his sisters.
“Normal punch or more spiked punch?” Jessica asked as her brother walked into the school. “She shouldn’t be drinking. She’d be a fucking lightweight.”
“Who’s drinking?” Billy asked.
“Well, she’s been having more dreams, and she’s been freaked out but faking it foryou,” Nicole said, pointing at me.
We rushed across the stage, slipping out onto the dance floor as music started for the newly crowned Snow Queen to dance to.
“Where’s the Deacon?” I asked, looking for Valerie. I saw her by a teacher, talking and mingling. I couldn’t linger on how odd that looked.
“Where’s your fucking girlfriend, Nick?” Jessica barked, walking over to the punch bowl. We followed and I leaned in close to her.
“I don’t know. We were dancing and she …”She said she had a job to do.
