by Callie Rose
Elijah didn’t speak or move for a long time, and I was glad. There were words I didn’t want to hear, things I still wasn’t ready to think about. But he had done what he’d said he would. He’d given me something that didn’t hurt, and I wrapped my arms around him, feeling our bodies move together as we breathed.
When my pulse had slowed a little, he finally rose up onto his forearms. He kissed me again, a soft press of his lips against mine, and then pulled out, holding onto the condom as he did. “Be right back. Again.”
It didn’t take him long to get rid of the condom, and when he came back, he turned the lamp off and crawled onto the cushions beside me, nudging me gently to get me to scoot over and then pulling me toward him, draping my body over his.
My eyelids already felt heavy, the extreme ups and downs of the night making me tired.
“Thank you.” Elijah pressed a kiss to my hair, his voice so soft I almost didn’t hear it. “For trusting me.”
A little shock of worry made my heart beat faster, and I blinked my eyes open.
I had trusted him. Even though I’d wanted this, even though I’d taken something from him as much as he’d taken from me, there were still a million ways he could use this to hurt me. The delicious melted feeling began to vanish from my muscles, a bit of tension returning like a paper-thin barrier going up between us.
As if sensing the change in me, Elijah tilted his head, craning his neck to meet my gaze. Then he wrapped his arms tighter around me and gazed up at the ceiling.
“I got my tattoo last year. My parents weren’t supposed to know, but my dad came to school once and saw me without my shirt on. I got the feathers at the bottom first, actually. I got the first one when I got out of rehab, then another a year later, and another the next year. Then I said fuck it and got the whole thing.”
My eyes widened, my sleepiness vanishing. “Rehab?”
I knew about it already. Went to rehab at age fourteen. But I didn’t know the details, the hows and whys.
“Yeah.” He huffed a breath, swallowing uncomfortably. “My mom caught me doing coke in the bathroom.” When he caught my shocked stare, he looked away. “It’s not like I was doing it all the time. I wasn’t addicted. But my parents couldn’t have a son who was less than perfect, so they sent me to rehab, the whole nine yards.”
I wanted to say something, but I was afraid if I did, he’d stop talking, so I just kept quiet and listened.
“I started messing around with drugs when I stopped playing guitar. I loved playing, but my parents said it was beneath me. They let me do it when I was younger, but as soon as it was time for me to ‘be a man’, my mom took all my guitars and broke them.” His voice twisted with anger. “She didn’t even fucking sell them, so at least someone else could use them. She just destroyed them.”
“But if you were sneaking around doing coke, why didn’t you just sneak around to play your music?”
He laughed softly. “The drugs were easier to hide. And they made me feel better about… everything.” His grip on me tightened. “I didn’t want any of this. And I know that’s a privileged thing to say—but from the minute I was born, my whole life plan was laid out for me. I haven’t gotten to decide any of it. None of what I want matters. Sometimes I feel like my mom broke me when she broke my guitars. Like she just snapped me into pieces and rebuilt me into the perfect son.”
I rolled over onto him a little more, resting my chin on his chest so I could gaze up at him.
“Maybe that’s why I started doing harder drugs. It was a way of breaking the mold they wanted to put me in without them even knowing.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course, I wasn’t breaking the mold. I didn’t find out till later, but my dad did coke for like five years. So I guess I was following my predetermined track whether I knew it or not.”
“Why do you let them tell you what to do?” I asked, but I already had a good idea of the answer. My conversations with Jacqueline about ballet were burned into my mind, and I remembered the feeling of helplessness when she’d told me in a calm voice that she wouldn’t allow me to pursue it.
There are strings attached to everything.
“I think about that a lot. And I hate myself for giving up my dreams, but—they’re my family, you know? If my parents cut me out of their lives, I’ll never see Sebastian and Meredith again.”
My skin was starting to get cold everywhere it wasn’t pressed against Elijah, and a small shiver worked its way through me as I bit my bottom lip, gazing at him.
“So what does the tattoo mean? You must’ve known you were gonna get it if you got the feathers first. Why did you get the rest of it?”
He stared into the darkness, a look of defeat passing over his face. “Because it’s how I feel. Like there’s some true purpose that’s meant for me, but no matter what I do, I’ll end up disappointing someone.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t know how to erase the sadness in his expression—wasn’t sure I wanted to—so I just pressed a kiss to his chest and closed my eyes, listening to the steady thrum of his heart against my ear.
We dozed off, our bodies tangled up together, but I woke again when it was still dark out, the sky outside just beginning to lighten to a blue-black. Elijah’s arms were wrapped around me, but when I wriggled free, he just shifted slightly and made a low noise before settling back into stillness.
Quietly, I gathered up my clothes and slipped them on, leaving my hoodie unzipped in case pulling up the zipper made too much noise. My phone sat on the coffee table, and I grabbed it and tapped in my password. Then I glanced down at Elijah’s sleeping form.
His face was peaceful, even though the bruises looked worse now that they’d had time to settle. His hair was still unruly, and he looked entirely human and vulnerable sprawled naked on his couch.
For a second, I had an urge to take my clothes off again and lie back down next to him, to burrow into his embrace and feel his skin against mine. It would make me vulnerable too, but maybe together, we’d have a chance against the world.
I didn’t though.
Instead, I made sure my flash was off, then held my phone high over the couch and took several pictures. Then I shoved it into my back pocket and crept out, closing the door slowly so it made only a soft snick.
The Oak Park campus was deserted as I made my way back to the Wastelands. I’d only slept for a few hours, and I felt both exhausted and wired at the same time. There was a slight soreness between my legs, and my entire body still felt different somehow, changed forever.
The things Elijah had told me kept bouncing around in my head—about his family, his tattoo, and his time in rehab. I’d known a little piece of it, but he had filled in a lot of blanks.
Why did he tell me all that?
My footsteps slowed as I neared Prentice Hall, and I glanced back toward Clarendon.
It had almost felt like a peace offering. He had given me information about himself he knew could be damaging—the exact same kind of thing the Princes had spent the previous semester trying to get out of me. But he’d told me willingly, knowing I had every reason to use it against him.
My stomach twisted with a strange, unpleasant sensation as I unlocked the front door and headed up to my room. But I shoved the feeling away as I grabbed the little black notebook from the couch and flipped it open, steeling my spine with determination.
In Elijah’s section, I wrote father did cocaine for five years. Then I added Elijah went to rehab for coke.
His tattoo represents—
But I didn’t finish that line.
The world didn’t need to know that secret.
Chapter 16
When I woke up at nine the next morning, I rolled over and went back to sleep until after noon.
By the time I finally threw the covers off and got up, I felt alert and refreshed. I showered, letting warm water pelt my body as I scrubbed gently at my skin with a loofah. My body still felt different somehow, like I was a snake who’d shed a
n old skin and was now a fresh version of itself. Outwardly the same, but fundamentally changed.
I’m not a virgin anymore.
I gave my virginity to one of the Princes.
Maybe that thought should’ve disgusted me, but it was hard to muster up a bad memory of the sex I’d had with Elijah.
It’d been perfect.
Everything else surrounding that moment might be monumentally fucked up, but that event, the feeling of being skin to skin with him? It’d been better than I had ever imagined losing my virginity would feel.
Then I thought of afterward, of what he’d told me—the words written in my little notebook, the pictures on my phone—and the water pouring down over me seemed to chill.
After wrapping a towel around myself, I used my computer to transfer the pictures to the little flash drive I kept in my notebook and then deleted the images from my phone. For a second, I considered deleting them from the flash drive too, but… I couldn’t.
An eye for an eye.
The Princes had taken pictures of me when I’d passed out at a party, and although I hadn’t been naked and they hadn’t let any of the guys in the photos actually touch me, they’d let them stand close to me, posing in obscene positions. My pictures of Elijah were worse than that in some ways, but at least he was alone in them.
When I tugged the flash drive free of the USB port, I stuck it back in the notebook and shoved the small journal back in the side pocket of my backpack, pulling out my History textbook instead.
I needed to study. And I needed a break from my thoughts.
For the rest of the afternoon, I switched between subjects, studying one until my brain got fried and then switching to another. At around four, Philip texted me. He’d started sending text messages every once in a while, and they were always perfectly punctuated and read like handwritten letters. They made me giggle. I was trying to help him up his technology game, but he was still a long way away from using emojis or Snapchat.
PHILIP: Talia,
Would you like to have coffee again next week? Or we could do lunch. A colleague told me about a place that apparently has very good (bad?) hamburgers. I’d love to take you there.
Best,
Philip
ME: Yumm burgers! If bad means greasy count me in. I dunno if I can do next week tho. Got tests in American Lit and Spanish I need to study for. Maybe Saturday?
PHILIP: Saturday would work fine for me. Jacqueline has a tennis game at 11:00, so what do you say to an early lunch?
I say you could stop lying to your wife.
Huffing a breath, I flopped over on the couch, resting my feet up on the back. It irritated me a little that Philip was still sneaking around to see me—like I was some kind of dirty fucking secret. But at the same time, I had no doubt that if he told Jacqueline he’d been in contact with me, it wouldn’t end well for either of us. And that was a headache I’d just as soon avoid. I was glad to have one member of my family back in my life in some capacity, but I’d pretty much made my peace with never speaking to my grandmother again.
ME: Early is good. there’s never a bad time for burgers.
PHILIP: Wonderful. I’ll plan on that. Oh, and good luck with your exams. I hope you do well.
A strange little swell of happiness rose in my chest at the words on the screen. I didn’t get the sense that Philip was wishing me well because the Hildebrand legacy needed a straight A student, or not-so-subtly pushing me to study harder. It just felt like he was wishing me well, and the idea was so foreign and nice that I didn’t quite know what to do with it.
Philip had been serious, I was certain of that by now. It was too late for him to save his daughter, to bring her back from the dead and back to Roseland. It was too late to undo my banishment back to Sand Valley and foster care. But it wasn’t too late to do better, and I appreciated that he was trying.
ME: Thx. I’ll be okay I think.
I tossed my phone on the couch cushion beside me and dived back into the books. I really did want to do well. Not for Jacqueline, and not even for Philip—but for me. I’d risked a lot to come back here, and I was determined to make it worthwhile.
I felt a little nervous as I walked toward Craydon Hall on Monday morning, and despite my efforts not to feel anything, my heart slammed harder in my chest when I walked through the front door and saw the Princes standing several yards down the hallway.
Elijah’s gaze landed on mine, and every inch of my skin warmed. Maybe his did too, because I swore I saw a blush tint his cheeks. His face was still banged up, although the swelling near his eye had gone down.
And surprisingly, Mason looked about the same. I hadn’t thought the fight was even between them, but for the minute that Elijah had held the upper hand, he’d gotten some serious punches in. The tall, green-eyed boy had a healing cut near the corner of his mouth, a black eye just like Elijah, and a purpling bruise on his jaw.
His sharp gaze tracked between me and Elijah, and I had to force my expression to stay neutral. Did he know?
The suspicion on his face made me think he didn’t, but that he suspected—which meant Elijah hadn’t told him.
None of them said anything as I walked by, but they all watched me openly, and I watched them right back. The feud between Elijah and Mason that’d led to the fistfight had obviously been somewhat resolved in the ring, but the Princes still weren’t the united front they’d once been. They were fractured, keeping secrets from each other, each functioning as an individual rather than a mindless part of the four-headed monster.
That was good. It would be easier to take down four boys than one monster.
But my heart twinged a little as I walked by and took in their bruised faces, Finn’s earnest brown eyes, and Cole’s carefully stoic expression.
I didn’t always know what I wanted from the four of them. Did I want their apologies, like Elijah had given me? Or did I just want to ruin them?
When had they all gotten so deep under my skin?
And how was I supposed to get them out?
At least classwork ramping up gave me a distraction. I had noticed Adena and her crew—which solidly included Preston and his friends now—holding court in the hallways more often. More kids seemed to be scared of her than had used to be, and her hangers-on were always eager to be assholes to me, knowing it’d get them in good with their queen. But I ignored all that to focus on getting through the week.
I spent every sixth period working on my audition piece under Finn’s watchful, quiet gaze. I could tell he was itching to talk, and to be honest, I missed our conversations in that little room. But I wasn’t ready to let him in like that again.
My two tests went okay. American Lit was tough, and when I glanced over at Finn, I almost felt sorry for him. He wasn’t a stupid guy, I knew that from talking to him, but he obviously had a hard time with certain subjects. I wondered if his dad would have to make some kind of donation to the school or something if Finn didn’t pass his final exams on his own.
My Spanish test was on Thursday, and since we were allowed to leave once we finished, I got released from class early. I was just hitching my backpack onto my shoulders when the door opened, and Miss Wallace poked her head into the room.
“Talia? There’s a phone call for you in the office. Can you come with me?”
My brows pulled together. “Um, sure.”
She nodded, barely waiting for me to join her before striding down the hall. I glanced at her curiously as we walked, trying to guess who might want to speak to me. Who even knew I was here? Maybe the lawyer, Erin Bennett? But she had my cell number. The judge who’d ruled on my appeal to access my trust early?
Inside the admin offices, Miss Wallace ducked back behind her desk, picked up the phone, and pressed a button on the large cradle. “Here you are, dear.”
I took it, putting it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello.” A youngish-sounding male voice spoke on the other end of the line. “Is this Talia Hildebrand?”<
br />
“Yes, it is.”
“My name is Chad Lutsen. I’m calling from Roseland Medical. Philip Hildebrand was admitted to our facility just a short while ago, and we’ve been unable to reach his emergency contact. Your number was in his recent contacts. Are you a relative?”
My mouth went dry. My brain had gotten hung up around the words “admitted to our facility”, and I was struggling to catch up, to figure out what this meant.
“Yes.” I swallowed, blinking stupidly down at Miss Wallace, who was watching me with a concerned expression. “I’m… his granddaughter. What—what happened?”
“Your grandfather suffered a stroke. He’s in surgery now, and we’re doing everything we can to help him.”
The panic that’d been rising slowly, held down only by my blind reassurances to myself that nothing bad had happened, flooded my body so quickly my knees buckled. I braced one hand on Miss Wallace’s desk, the phone shaking in my other as I pressed it to my ear with bruising force. “Is he… okay?”
“His stroke was serious. I can’t give you a better prognosis until he’s out of surgery. But I wanted to reach out to you so you were aware what was going on and could come be here if you’d like. We’ve been trying to reach Jacqueline Hildebrand as well; she was listed as his ‘in case of emergency’. Do you happen to have an alternate contact number for her?”
“I… No. I—”
“It’s all right. We’ll get ahold of her. If you’d like to come to the hospital, we’ll be able to give you updates as soon as we have them. We can also call—”
“No! I’m coming. I’m coming!”
“All right.”
He rattled off the address, and I gestured desperately to Miss Wallace for a pen and paper, writing it down so fast it would be a miracle if I could read it later.
When I hung up, Miss Wallace stood from behind her desk, concern and pity etched into her face. “Are you all right, dear?”
“No.” My voice was hollow. “No. I have to—”