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“Oh my god, right,” she squeals. “You don’t know. Colt has to repeat senior year because he missed most of last year. And my summer was amazing because we’re together now.Reallytogether. Officially.”
Dread claws at the inside of my shell, and my pulse flutters like wings in my throat, but I quirk a brow and purse my lips, never showing a thing. “Is that allowed?”
“Finally,” Dixie says, giggling. “Royal’s not here, and Colt worked out a deal with Duke over the summer.” She beams up at him like he bought a billboard in Times Square announcing their dating status.
Colt Darling hasn’t been allowed to date the past few years. He’s been shunned, not even eating lunch in the café with everyone else. Not that I care. I helped drive him out of the café. No one wants to look at that gross, deformed mongrel while they eat.
Dixie’s already holding Colt’s hand, but she grips his arm with her other hand and sways into his side, looking like she’s about to break out in a happy dance in the middle of the hall because she managed to convince the school’s least desirable guy to go out with her. She clings onto his bicep like she’s afraid he’ll run if she lets go.
Maybe he would.
“Well, congratulations,” I say. “You’ve landed Willow Heights’ lowest bottom feeder. Why do you keep towing that leach around? You know you could get a medium-hot guy, at least. Everyone knowsthatloser would be fuck ugly if he hadn’t had, like, a million plastic surgeries.”
Colt scoffs. “And you’re so real?”
I want to scream. I never wanted to see him again. He’ll ruin everything.
Everything.
“Anyway…” Dixie says, widening her eyes at him in warning.
He knows better than to talk to the Queen Bitch like that. He knows better than to talk to me at all.
He looks me up and down with that hooded gaze before his dusky blue eyes settle on mine, cool and indifferent. I raise my chin and return the look. I’m not afraid of him. He should be afraid of me. He should be kissing my feet right now, not looking at me like something that should be scraped off the bottom of his shoe. He clearly needs a reminder of what happens when he forgets his place.
The thought of being the one to remind him fills my chest with elation even as warning bells ring in my brain.
Get it together, you stupid bitch.
I never thought I’d have to see Colt again. He dropped out last year, after he got jumped in the parking lot and almost died. He was a senior. He’s supposed to be gone. I want to scream at my cursed luck. All my hard work, the hours and days and weeks and months I’ve spent perfecting my diamond exterior, and he could crush it like it’s as fragile as a robin’s egg.
I desperately search his gaze, trying to find some spark of hatred, some whisper of fear or desire. That’s how everyone else looks at me. But there’s nothing in his eyes that speaks to any emotion.
Not that I expected anything. We walked around the same school for my entire sophomore year pretending the day in the basement never happened, the one and only day I allowed the Dolces to make me a victim. I hate that he saw me like that, and even more, I hate that he saw my sisters that way. But he knows how strong I am, that I only let them win that one day. I didn’t let them break me the way they broke him.
The waywebroke him.
I helped them because he didn’t fight back. I crushed him because he let me, because he allowed us to make him a victim every single day. He chose that because he’s weak. I’m strong. He might hate me, but he’ll never feel sorry for me. Weak people don’t pity the strong. Losers don’t pity winners for their victory.
He was only here a few months of my junior year, so we haven’t seen each other in almost a year. Still, it’s funny how much history can exist between two people who’ve barely had a dozen conversations. It’s funny how much two enemies can have in common.At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to survive. It’s every man for himself. How is it that the queen on her throne, surrounded by a sea of admirers, understands that better than the nine-fingered loser smoking under the bleachers alone?
“So, are you going to tell us or what?” Dixie asks. “What’s up with you and the D-boys?”
I glance at Colt, but he’s staring off, looking bored. Not like I was going to tell Dixie anything real, anyway. We’re friends in the way only two people who don’t trust each other can be.
“Oh, you know,” I say with a dismissive wave of my hand. “D-boys will be D-boys.”
Before I’m pressed to elaborate, Cotton Montgomery swaggers by with DeShaun Rose. I’m relieved to have an excuse to slide away from Dixie and fall in with the guys from my group.
“Have I got a surprise for you,” Cotton says, the smug grin on his face making me want to gouge his eyes out with my new set of nails.
Those eyes have seen too much.
“Every girl in school knows not to take surprises from you,” I say, smiling sweetly at him. “Especially when they come in open containers.”
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Cotton says. “I’m reforming my ways this year. I won’t need girls at parties. I have a hot new stepsister.”
“That’s just wrong,” DeShaun says, shoving Cotton.
