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“What are you talking about?” I ask.
The Montgomery family lives next door. I would know if someone had moved in. Not that we’re friendly—Cotton hates me as much as I hate him—but Mom would have dragged us over to greet them and welcome them to the neighborhood, like we live in some 1950s suburban nightmare.
“You’ll see,” he says. “Our parents met on vacation this summer. They’re already married. My new mom arrives next week, and she’s bringing me a pretty present to play with. And something for you too.”
“Why would your stepmom bring me a present?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.
“You’ll see,” he says again, his grin broadening. Then he swaggers off down the hall, leaving me gaping after him, fury rising like a phoenix inside me. I hate being the last to know. My position at this school demands I befirstto know everything. If I don’t, I look weak.
Cotton knows better than get in my way, though. He’s terrified of me, as he should be.
I’m not scared of whatever he has planned. I’m just annoyed that he’s fucking with me. But I won’t show it. I keep my game face on, joining a couple dance team girls on my way into class. We greet each other like long-lost strangers even though we’ve been on a group chat all summer. I play along, my ponytail swinging, a smile plastered on my face like I’m on the sidelines at a football game right now.
If you stop dancing, you die.
I try to put Cotton’s words out of my head, to put Colt’s surprise return and the fact that I’m Baron’s punching bag for another year in the back of my mind. Cotton will never spill my secrets because if he does, I’ll spill his and ruin him. Dixie’s social circle intersects with mine, but Colt’s not even on the periphery of my world. I barely remembered he existed the first couple months last year. And Baron will be too busy raping and pillaging his way through the freshman girls to even bother with me until second semester.
By then, we’ll be on the downhill slide toward graduation. If I keep my head in the game, none of them can catch me. And next year, I’ll be at Yale, with all this behind me. High school will be nothing but a fever dream interrupted by the tender ache of a fleeting crush that might have been love if it had been given time to breathe.
two
Rumor Has It… Several new students will be transferring to Willow Heights’ this year. Will they make waves or fit right in?
Rylan Woods
“Ready or not, here I fucking come,” I mutter, staring at the pixelated photo I screenshot with my phone. In it, Gloria “Walton” smiles from the top of a pyramid, her blonde hair in a perky ponytail, her lips coated with black lipstick. I’m used to seeing that on the lips of girls who like my band, but apparently that’s cool even for cheerleaders now.
The hands of the girls under her strain to hold her foot, while her other leg is curled up behind her in a perfect scorpion.
I helped her learn that move.
She must feel real fucking victorious up there, thinking she won.
She got to walk away from the wreckage her family caused—or run, like a thief in the night. Funny, since that’s exactly what her family is. Thieves. Except they’re rich, so they call it by a fancier name.
Rich people don’t steal. They embezzle.
Hatred blooms like a mushroom cloud in my chest, and I bite down on one of my lip rings until it threatens to tear through my skin.
Her family got to start over, change their identity with a snap of their fingers, and wash their hands of the whole ordeal. They moved on. For them, nothing changed but their names. Gloria’s still popular, still a cheerleader, still on the top of the pyramid.
That’s okay. I’m not mad.
The higher you climb, the further you fall.
She might not have changed, but I have. A lot can change in two and a half years. Lives end. New ones begin, birthed in the darkness of the mind when sleep won’t come and the shouting begins as it does every night, the finger pointing, the blame.
Who decided to invest? Who trusted too much to one man?
They blame each other, but it’s my fault. I introduced them to her family.
And then one night there’s a gunshot after the shouting.
I’m in the hall.
It’s all my fault.
My mother is screaming.
