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I step into the hallway, drawing a shaky breath. My sister darts out of their room, gesturing urgently for me to come. I shake my head and point to the bathroom.
She stifles a giggle, and I slip into the bathroom at the end of the hall, pulling the door closed. My lip starts trembling uncontrollably again, and I bite down hard, staring at my pretty face in the mirror.
Look how ugly you are, you fat cow. Now your eyes are puffy too.
Crying is for the weak. I am not weak, so I have to stop acting like it. I can’t turn into the sniveling mess I used to be. I spent every night of sophomore year lying in bed and holding my fist to my heart to keep it from rupturing out of my chest at how badly it ached to go back. Back to Savannah, where I had real friends who would giggle about boys with me. Where I had a boy with safe arms, a boy who let me grind on his lap but stopped when I pulled his hands from under my shirt.
I cried into my pillow until it was a sopping mess, stifling the sound so my sisters wouldn’t hear me, so they wouldn’t be upset. So my mother wouldn’t hear and feel guilty for bringing us here, for doing the best she could. So my brother wouldn’t hear and feel like he’d failed to protect me from his own friends, the boys who pulled us all into their circle—for a price.
Keeping silent about what they’d done to us was the price we paid.
Looking the other way was the price Dawson paid.
Last year, after everything went down with Colt, I truly realized and accepted that there was no escaping this. Something inside me snapped when I lost him. That’s when I truly embraced it, when I decided that I would be the Bitch Queen that people said I was. I would walk around school with Harper, pretending I didn’t hear the whispers or see the looks, everyone thinking I was stupid or pathetic for being friends with the girl who “stole” Royal from me. They thought I was groveling at his feet, that I was some dick-whipped slut who didn’t understand that he’d never been mine and never would be.
I pretended I didn’t care that they thought I was throwing myself at a boy who had literally dragged me under him and refused to let me go. I already knew there was nothing I could do about any of it, but that night in the pool was the moment I finally gave in, when I decided to stop fighting it and just own it. Embrace it. Become it.
Suddenly, I can’t feel my limbs, my lips, my heart. I don’t see my face in the mirror anymore.
I see cold white stars piercing the black, November sky overhead; feel my hair floating around me, my cheer skirt brushing my thighs in the water. I know I’m wearing my shoes, but I can’t feel my feet. I’m floating on the surface of the pool, so cold I think I might not make it to the far end. In some careening, reckless, hysterical way, I don’t care. I keep singing one line, my voice echoing off the corners of the pool.
“I’m not the only one…”
I swallow hard, my pulse trembling in my throat, and drag my mind back to the present. I can’t live in the past if I want to have a future.
I slap my cheeks as hard as I can, the sting bringing fresh tears. I control them, force them back into my eyes just to prove I can. I am still the queen, after all. Like Jackie, I must be collected, poised, in all things. I will never cry for Rylan again. I’ll never cry for Royal. No boy will ever make meless thanagain, will ever take my love and leave me with nothing.
I’ll let teardrops fall from my eyes the day I can make them turn into diamonds, as hard as I am.
Nothing less than perfect beauty for a Walton.
I take a makeup sponge and touch up around my eyes to make sure my face looks normal. Then I step out of my ruined underwear, tossing them into the trash before cleaning up the downstairs situation. It’s not too bad. Baron likes dry sex, so a little blood is nothing new to me. I’ll be sore for a few days, and then I’ll be good as new.
Except he said he’d come back every day…
The thought makes my whole body clench up. If I’m honest, the Dolces were only really bad to us for the first few weeks we were at Willow Heights. Then Colt walked in on us in the basement one day. I still remember the way Royal covered me, like he could shield me from Colt’s eyes. Maybe he just didn’t want Colt to know what he was doing.
“So you’re just a bunch of fucking rapists?” Colt demanded.“They’re not even Darlings.”
I’m sure he’ll regret those words until the day he dies, but I owe him a debt I can never repay. How could I even begin? Just looking at Colt wrong could put him in danger.
After that comment, though, Royal called off his brothers. For a few days, we thought it was over. We tried to pick up the pieces of our dignity as quietly as possible, figure out what the hell just hit us. It was like a car wreck where the other car comes out of nowhere, and before you know what happened, it’s over, and you’re left sitting in a pile of wreckage wondering how you got there.
It was hard at first, but Mom helped us, told us how to be proper southern ladies who never show their hands. To be like Jackie. That’s how you win. By never giving up, never admitting defeat, no matter how badly you’re beaten. You keep coming back, unruffled, until they can’t help but be impressed.
And they were impressed. The next week, Royal brought us into their inner circle like we had passed some kind of test. I guess we did. We were no longer their target. Instead, they went after the Darlings full-throttle for the rest of that year, and I was expected to participate. Standing up to them would have put us in danger—not just me, but my sisters, my brother—and it wouldn’t have stopped the Dolces. Nothing could stop them. Our only choice was to join a boy I didn’t know and his sister as victims, or to join the rest of the school against them.
So I made my choice. I protected myself and my sisters. I said the necessary things, made the remarks when someone looked at me or could overhear. I cut Colt and his sister down when it was expected of me, playing my part. But I never went out of my way to speak to either of them. Every word I spoke, every expression on my face, every text I sent, was scrutinized by Baron Dolce, to make sure I was really an ally. I had to watch my every step,every day inching forward on the tightrope in the dark. I couldn’t just pass their tests, though. I had to pass Mom’s, to make her proud. I didn’t just have to do the impossible and please the Dolces, even impress them. I had to make it look natural, effortless.
By that winter, I had learned to disappear inside myself when their bruising, careless hands reached for me. I learned to keep the smile on my face, to keep dancing. I learned not to cry in front of them, not to show a single crack in my armor.
And all along, what kept me going was the knowledge that it wouldn’t last forever. High school isn’t forever. When I was free, I would go back.Because somewhere, there was a boy who saw me as worthy, not just something to play with and punish and use as a pawn.
And now, he’s here.
I finish cleaning up and leave the bathroom, heading for my sisters’ room. They pull me inside, their eyes wide and full of questions.
“Oh my god, was thatRylan?” Everleigh asks, her cheeks flushed.
