by Trisha Wolfe
No, I didn’t attend the college—though I was so very close to it. I stared at it through my window every day, watched the students lay on the grass while reading their books. I studied right along with them; I studied harder than them.
“Ten thousand,” I say. “And that’s all. I’m sure that will advance your pathetic station in life quite nicely.”
Sue turns to face me then, her thin mouth curved into a condescending smile. “Fine. But I want it immediately. And I also want to know why…”
Her words trail off as the sound of ticking snags my attention. It’s loud, coming from a clock on the vaulted wall behind Sue. The clock wavers in my vision, but I can make out the time—the hands point to nine and eleven.
I blink hard and refocus on Sue in front of me. “Did you do that?”
Her head notches back. “What the devil are you talking about now?”
“Stop.” I shake my head, hold up my hand. “Just stop, Sue.”
Sue backs up a step, her expression hesitant. “Stop what, Ellis? I didn’t do anything.”
A laugh springs free. “You’re changing all the clocks, aren’t you? You’re fucking with me, trying to make me crazy.”
She props a hand to her hip. “I think you’re doing a good job of that all on your own.” She turns to head down the stairs, and my vision pulses with red.
I am not crazy. She’s doing this—she’s doing all of this.
The moment Sue places a foot on the first step, my hands shoot out.
I push her.
There’s a startled yelp, then the sound of her body tumbling down the stairs. A thump and snap as her neck twists.
I stare down at her from the landing, waiting to see her twitch. There’s no movement.
I dust off my blazer, straighten the creases. Not as subtle or discrete as toxic beans…but it gets rid of the problem.
Dr. Leighton would be proud.
12
Cosmic Karma
Lanie
There was a window in a room at the Boston psychiatric facility that overlooked the college grounds across the street.
I stared out that window a lot.
I longed to be a part of that world so badly, I read the books the students read. I studied, I did the work, and Dr. Leighton—my confidant and mentor—assured me she’d help me get my degree.
She had made promises, and yet, it was taking too long. I put in the effort. I worked harder than any other person at the facility, and after seven years, I felt I had earned my doctorate.
Dr. Leighton came to see me. “The mind is so powerful, Lanie. Our own mind can be our enemy. The mind makes it real.”
She said things like this to me often. I thought, at times, she did so to try to placate me. To help me accept an impossibly difficult situation. I wanted—needed—change. I was becoming desperate for that change.
I knew Dr. Leighton was trying to help me achieve my goals, but after a while, I was becoming tired of trying and getting nowhere.
I researched how to start over, start fresh. Others had done so before. They had new names, new identities. All one needed was enough money.
And access to that money.
I saved up a month’s supply of my medication and put my plan into effect.
On the last day that Dr. Leighton came to visit me, I asked the most important question—the question that would cement my choice.
“Do I deserve another chance?”
She reached out and placed her hand atop mine. “Of course, you do.” She patted my hand before she pulled away. “Eventually.”
Eventually was not certain enough.
“I want it now.”
Her smile was resolute. “You’re not ready.”
The day Dr. Leighton overdosed on the same medication she was feeding her patients was the day she told me I was ready. I felt bad that I had to leave her in that state, but I knew she’d recover. And I knew she’d reach out to me…eventually.
We’d spent so much time together, and she was my mentor, after all. She taught me much of what I knew about psychology and the mind. She taught me how to blend and adapt. I adopted her characteristics, and that helped form the basis for a new identity.
I knew she’d stay with me. She wouldn’t leave.
That was Dr. Leighton’s gift to me; a chance to start over.
Lanie Masters had been admitted, but Ellis Montgomery was set free.
13
Return to Sender
Ellis
Susan Canterbury is more beloved in death than she ever was alive.
Black streamers decorate the halls of Black Mountain Academy. Students with puffy eyes and red noses shuffle through the school. Mr. D. held an assembly to honor the respected teacher that has been with them for over a decade, where the Cougarettes—the dance team—performed a reverent tribute to the belated teacher.
It was a tragic accident, the headline of the local newspaper read.
And I agree—it was such a tragic accident. Tragic that Sue took that one step too far.
Carter traces his mouth across the back of my hand, placing delicate kisses to my skin. “I can’t believe what happened to Ms. Canterbury,” he says all of a sudden.
It’s been all anyone’s talked about this week since her body was discovered at the base of the staircase. A horrible, tragic accident…that no one was around to witness.
“Maybe she did it on purpose,” I wonder aloud.
He rolls onto his side, head propped on his hand. “Why would she do that?”
I shrug against the blanket as I stare into the canopy of branches above. “She seemed lonely to me.” And desperate. Sue stank of desperation. Had she not been so intrusive and miserable, she’d probably still be alive, teaching her class, tormenting Carter.
Two birds, one staircase.
We’re camped out on the bluff near the waterfall. A blanket spread beneath us, the sound of the cascade a buffer between us and the world. It’s an overcast afternoon, and we’re taking advantage of the half-day—a day given to faculty and students to grieve.
“I love that I have you all to myself,” Carter says. He loops a strand of my hair around his finger as he gazes down at me.
I turn my head toward him and take in his beautiful features. “I love that you have me all to yourself, too.”
His lips twist into that sly grin right before they meet mine in a slow and sensual kiss.
After his fight with Sully, Carter’s temperament has been much calmer. Maybe it’s the cooling of the season, or the fact that a threat to his student career has been eliminated. Or that he’s falling in love, and everything else is just a distraction.
His eye still has a tinge of purple beneath it, and I swipe my thumb over the tender skin.
“I would fight to keep you,” he says.
This display of obsessive protectiveness should be worrisome, as it’s another indicator of his possible disorder. But I’ve come to realize the violence within him is perpetuated by his strong emotions, and this is how he conveys them.
“Who would you fight?” I ask, my voice teasing.
“Anyone. Everyone.” He kisses me again, and I try to douse the spark of suspicion that his statement has some basis.
“Has someone said something, Carter?” He looks away, and I reach up and draw his gaze back to me. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing. Just something Addison said.”
Alarm has me lifting onto my elbows. Carter pushes back and drives a hand through his hair. “Seems she wasn’t the only one to see me get into your car the other night. That fucker Sully saw, and he’s spreading rumors at my old school.” He groans. “Guess I didn’t knock him out good enough.”
A pulse of panic stabs my chest. I remember looking into Sully’s eyes…though I thought he was too out of it to get a good look at me.
Sloppy, my inner voice scolds.
Still, how much danger can one high school boy present? Sue set a high bar for being a meddling threat. I c
an handle this.
“Just ignore it.” I smile and stroke his face, willing myself to take my own advice. “The only way to confirm a rumor is to act on it.”
He moves in and kisses my neck. “You’re so smart,” he whispers along my jaw. “That’s hot.”
I laugh, but in the back of my mind, that annoying voice mutters a warning. “What about Addison?” I ask.
Distracted, he says, “What about her.”
In my opinion, she’s not as harmless as Sully. I’ve known girls like her. I know that, when they want something—or someone—they can be vicious. And I remember how Addison looked at Carter with that adoration in her eyes.
She wants him.
“Would she tell somebody about us?” I ask.
“Of course not,” he says, further distracted with my body. He fiddles with the button on my blouse. “She’s my friend. She might not agree with all my choices, but she wouldn’t hurt me.”
Right. Men are so easily duped. Honestly, it’s not their fault, not really. They’re led by their egos…and their dicks. Stroke both the right way, and their mind isn’t that difficult to cloud, to control.
“But she doesn’t agree with your choice to be with me,” I say, hedging. “She knows, doesn’t she?”
He sighs. “I don’t really care what she agrees with. I’m here. With you.” His eyes widen as he makes his point. “She’ll get over it.”
My heart constricts painfully at the realization that Carter included Addison in our secret. I feel…violated in some way. As if what makes us special has been soiled.
That’s just my nerves, though. The fear of losing him. What Carter and I have is special no matter who knows and places judgement. I’ve never felt this way before about anyone, and I won’t let one little girl ruin us.
If Addison wants to keep us apart, then just one phone call to the right person could make that happen. I have to make sure it doesn’t.
Carter pushes my blouse open, the silky material drops to my sides to expose my lacy bra.
I lose myself in him. Let the anxiety and trepidation for what awaits us fall away as his hands roam purposely over my body and he sinks inside me. The weight of the world disappears in his anti-gravity.
Spent from our lovemaking, I leave Carter on the blanket to rest as I hike down to the waterfall’s edge. I pull Carter’s jacket around me and seat myself on a large boulder, letting my feet dangle into the rushing water. It’s cool and refreshing, and washes away the lingering anxiety.
I’m feeling renewed and in control, knowing that the worst is behind us, when my phone dings with a text.
I shouldn’t look at the screen; the heightened sense of dread coiling my body senses the bomb about to detonate.
I glance back in Carter’s direction, needing a reminder of my purpose, before I flip my phone over and tap the message.
Unknown number: I know about the Beach Blood Bash.
14
Of Light and Dark
Ellis
Jeremy Rivers had been the center of my universe once. He wasn’t unknown cosmic energy, or anything dark and mysterious. He was the sun, and all essence of life revolved around him.
I was an awestruck sixteen-year-old who fell madly in love with him from the moment our eyes met over the flames. He was sitting across from me at a beach bonfire, the glow of the roaring blaze illuminating him against the dark backdrop of night sky.
He smiled at me, with a flirtatious pop of dimples and those baby-blue eyes squinted in mischief, and that’s all it took.
Lanie Masters fell in love with that beautiful boy instantly.
His first words to me: “You’re beautiful. I have to know your name.”
We wandered off from the group to walk along the shore. We talked about our favorite music, and how we wished our town wasn’t so lame. When I got cold, he wrapped his arms around me and just held me close, the ocean lapping over our feet, sinking us down into the sand together.
“This is crazy,” Jeremy had said. “But I think I’m falling in love with you, Lanie.”
And I believed him. It was madness, to think he could fall for me so suddenly…but I only knew the feelings overtaking me. I believed we were experiencing the same strong, visceral emotions together.
And when he led me behind the sand dunes and kissed me with a fervor no other boy had ever kissed me, I released any reservation about giving myself to him fully. I gave him all of me that night. My love, my pain. My soul. I bared my heart to him.
After we made love, he still held onto me. I never wanted him to let go.
I was safe with Jeremy Rivers.
The next day, the unsettling feeling that something was wrong creeped over me after he initially ignored me at school. It was just nerves, I told myself. He’s shy now, is all.
I can still smell the stale scent of the school hallway, that smell of linoleum wax and old metal lockers in the air. My heart thundered in my chest as I spotted Jeremy, as I held my books close to my chest and forced my feet to travel the distance to him—and when our eyes met…
The beautiful smile that held me captive never graced his mouth.
His words to me: “What the fuck do you want?”
I could only stare, mute and in shock.
“Chick is seriously psycho,” one of the others teased.
Laughter rose up, the deep vibration of it a razor over my skin.
My heart plummeted. The boy I had spent the most intense night with had vanished, and in his place was a cruel imposter.
The jokes started then. The slut shaming. The mocking from his teammates. The attempts to get me alone so they each could have a turn.
Despite it all, I tried so many times just to talk to Jeremy…to understand, for him to make me understand, what I did, or what changed.
Over time, I became desperate to get his attention. Whether it was good or bad. I just refused to be ignored.
I followed him. I watched him. I left him handwritten notes in his locker, on his car. I texted him pictures of me, to remind him of how beautiful he once thought I was.
Then I discovered a horrible truth.
Jeremy had a girlfriend.
Irina was everything that I wasn’t. She had his attention, his devotion. They rubbed it in my face. I watched them kiss in the hallway. Laugh with each other. Be happy together.
Something snapped inside me. Certain details become unfocused when I think back—but I remember the pure vitriol in Jeremy’s eyes when he held my wrists pinned to his locker and said: “I don’t want you. We’re nothing. It’s all in your fucked up brain—”
I remember the violent tear that ripped through my universe.
He stole something sacred from me in that moment. Although it would be years before I could put a name to it with the help of Dr. Leighton, it was my dignity that had been stripped away.
I had made a connection with Jeremy; a very real, very deep connection. My self-worth was linked to his esteem for me, and when that was torn away, all that was left was a consuming hollowness.
The void was unbearable. At least at first, then soon it made the upcoming weeks tolerable on a certain level. The ridicule from Irina and her followers, the degrading remarks and treatment from Jeremy’s teammates. All the cruelty couldn’t compare to the isolating aloneness that being distanced from him caused.
I’d never felt pain like I did in that moment, not even when I had found out my parents’ car was mangled in a head-on collision after their brakes failed.
It took some time, but eventually, I did learn to breathe again. My heart had been dissected and I may never trust anyone…but slowly, I was mending.
Until that day.
Jeremy Rivers had been discovered dead on the beach. The same beach where we’d made passionate love. His body was found in a pool of blood-soaked sand, stabbed eleven times. His girlfriend lay beside him, stabbed nine times. Some horrible reports claimed it had been a murder-suicide.
The rumors were worse…
Gossip circulated that I had been there to witness the massacre. Others speculated that I had been the one to commit the heinous act by brutally stabbing Jeremy and Irina to death.
Beach Blood Bash: Obsessed Lover Annihilates Couple.
The headlines were as gruesome as the act itself. The press was everywhere. At school, at my home. I was questioned and given a lie detector test. My aunt had to hire an attorney. There was a month-long court case.
I close my eyes and banish the memories.
I’m not Lanie Masters anymore.
But someone knows about her past, and they’re using it to fuck with me.
One thing is clear: Sue hadn’t been lying. At least, not completely. She wasn’t the one to send the text messages. She was simply greedy and tried to seize on an opportunity to exploit me. By making a quick assumption on my part, I gave her that chance.
Still, Sue was a problem—one that needed to be dealt with.
For Carter and me to be together with no other hindrance or threat, I need to discover who the author of the texts is and deal with them promptly.
I have a theory—but before I act on impulse, this time, I need to be sure. There are only two people who know about me and Carter, and one of them has reason to want me gone.
There’s a faint knock at my office door, and I look up from Carter’s file. I tuck his picture away in the desk drawer. “Come in,” I call out.
A girl enters my office, her head bowed toward her chest as she timidly shields her face with her hair, but I recognize her.
“Mia,” I say, finding her name in my memory bank. “I’m so glad you’ve come to see me. Please, have a seat.”
She does so, all the while keeping her gaze cast on the floor. She’s not the same spirited flurry of love and angst as she was before. “Ms. Montgomery…” She trails off, swallows.
“Mia, what’s happened?”