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“This again?”
“Pretty sure Harper has Royal. But don’t worry, I’m not the rumor-spreading sort. I’ll keep that to myself. Everyone’s going to figure it out soon enough, though. Royal’s a lot of things, but subtle isn’t one of them.”
“What about Dixie?”
“I’m sure she’s already posted a blog about the race. She saw Royal take off with Harper. Your cover is blown for sure.”
“It’s not a cover,” she said. “I care about Royal.”
I studied her from the corner of my eye. “Why?”
I wouldn’t come right out and talk about that day in the basement, but I didn’t understand how she could be with those guys after what I saw.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” she said.
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t understand, and I don’t really care. Besides, it was just a fluke. Let’s forget it.”
“What was?”
“You know,” I said, draping my hand over the top of the steering wheel. “That night. That sex…”
“Oh,” she said with a fake little laugh. “Yeah. Totally.”
one
Rumor Has It… The disgraced queen hasn’t just been warming the beds of any and all interested males, but several females as well. Is there really no end to her depravity, and if so, do we really want such filth in our midst?
Gloria Walton
I’m going to tell him. If nothing else good came from being toppled from my throne today, it’s that I’m free to do that now. I know the Dolces won’t completely let me go, but they won’t want me anymore if I don’t look like their flawless queen. Now the whole school thinks I’m a common whore, and they made that happen. They don’t want me. They’re done with me, and they let me know it in spectacular fashion.
I’ll be cast from their circle, their group. Which means I can tell Colt the truth at last. I can tell him what happened between us last year. I won’t hold back the ugly parts like Dixie does, selecting the truths that he’s allowed to have, since he can’t remember any of it. I’ll tell him everything, even the terrible way it ended. He deserves to know, even if he never remembers it. And once he has all the information, maybe he’ll forgive me.
Maybe, if I tell him I thought about him every fucking day, that I never got over him and never will, he’ll understand why I didn’t tell him before. Maybe he’ll love me despite everything, the way I love him.
Fuck.
Do I really love Colt Darling?
My heart hammers and I let the car slow, downshifting as I approach his house on the outskirts of town. What will he say when he sees me? If I tell him how I feel, will he say he feels the same? Or laugh in my face?
The thought makes me want to swallow the three pills in my pocket, get on the highway, and drive until I fall asleep at the wheel. But I can’t endanger some innocent person just because I’m too scared to face the truth. I did that last year, and look at the mess it caused.
I turn onto the long, gravel drive that winds through the trees toward his house. It’s not even midnight, so he might still be up… But so might his dad.
The reality of what I’m doing sinks in. He might be asleep. Am I really going to knock on his door and act like this is all completely normal after I freaked out earlier? Wake him up to confess something he doesn’t even remember?
I pull into the small, gravel parking area surrounded by barren oaks and hickories. A Mercedes Benz sits beside Colt’s Ridgeline, and beside that… There’s another car.
I stare at the six-year-old Honda Accord for a minute, my mind unable to comprehend why the misfit vehicle is here. I want to believe it’s his Mom.
But slowly, the cold truth sinks in.
She was talking about it in dance just last week, how her parents gave her their old car for her eighteenth birthday.
Dixie.
My stomach lurches, and I stare up at the window on the second floor where soft, warm light still fills the frame, even this late. I can see a faint flickering on the ceiling, between the filmy white curtains.
