by Eva Ashwood
I make it into a small alleyway between two class buildings just seconds before a fresh wave of dizziness washes over me, nearly bringing me to my knees.
7
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
This attack is intense. It comes over me out of nowhere, rising up like an ocean to drag me under. My vision goes almost completely black, all my senses becoming muffled and dulled as if I’m drowning in the very air around me.
Every second that passes feels like an eternity, and I can’t even tell if I’m still breathing or just opening and closing my mouth like a fish. The rough stone of the building’s facade scrapes against my fingertips as I press my hands against it, and that singular sensation grounds me against the force of the blackness pulling at me.
Slowly, the attack recedes.
As it does, I realize that I am in fact breathing, and I put conscious effort into slowing and evening out my inhales and exhales. The world turns to fuzzy, dark shapes before my eyes, and then finally into recognizable images.
Fuck.
A shiver wracks me, part leftover adrenaline and part fear. I haven’t had an episode this intense since I was twelve or thirteen, a lost kid trying to navigate the system with little guidance and no solid memories. And just like when I was a kid, the feeling of having no control over myself in an unfamiliar place is starkly terrifying.
Fuck finding the administration office. Fuck the trio of assholes I just left behind. For now, none of that shit matters. In this moment, all I can do is lean against the wall with my forehead pressed against the rough surface. It’s cool against my heated skin, and even with the roughness, I welcome the temperature change to help ground and chill me out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Good. Again.
I don’t force it or try to fight off the lingering effects of the attack. I learned a long time ago that pushing back like that only risks triggering another one. I need to let my body recover from this on its own.
It’s hard to keep the panic at bay though. It feels like everything inside me is trying to push itself out, like I’m not even myself—like this body doesn’t even belong to me.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, forehead pressed against the stone.
Finally, when my head feels less like it’s trying to split itself in two, I turn and slide down the wall to sit on my ass, leaning my back against the building.
I search inside myself for the emptiness, the black hole that I’ve built in my chest. When I find it, I latch on to it, letting the numbness spread through my body. I can feel my face fall slack, the pinched, taut muscles smoothing out.
None of this fucking matters.
Not exactly the most uplifting mantra, but hey, it gets the job done. The last bit of buzzing tension slides from my body, and I let out a deep breath.
What I could use now is a fucking joint. I don’t smoke often, but enough that I always keep a little baggie on hand in case the need arises. Rummaging through my messenger bag, which I dropped when I stumbled into this alley, I dig out my lighter and roll a quick joint.
But when I put the little hand-rolled cigarette between my lips and bring the lighter up, I realize it’s out of fluid.
Motherfucker. Is this some sort of cosmic joke day, where I’m just the butt of all of them?
Flick, flick.
I try to get the flame to work, each little spark yielding no results worth writing home about. Fucking figures.
“Need help?”
I look up. A girl of about my height with pin-straight black hair and olive skin is standing near the entrance to the alleyway, her head cocked to one side. She doesn’t give off the same cocky, cruel aura Gray and his friends did, but that’s not enough to bring my guard down.
“Really depends on the kind of help you’re talking about,” I say carefully.
She smiles, reaching into her own pocket and pulling out a lighter. “How ’bout this kind?”
I eye her. Part of me wants to tell her to fuck off; the other part of me is too tired to be that fucking stubborn when someone’s offering me what I need. So I lift my hand and take the offered lighter, then spark a flame and light up. The drag that I take is long and self-indulgent, a deep breath to fill my lungs. I let it settle there for a few seconds before blowing out.
Shit, that’s good.
After one more hit, I look back up to the girl. She’s still standing there, watching me with a curious expression.
I hold out the lighter, and she takes it back. When I hold out the joint, she raises her eyebrows before meeting my gaze. “You’re really gonna smoke a joint on campus before school’s even started?”
I shrug. “Sure looks that way.”
She laughs, then reaches out and plucks the cigarette from my fingers before taking a long drag. She waves away the cloud of smoke after she exhales, passing the joint back to me.
“You know, they take that shit pretty seriously here. From everything I’ve heard, at least. They’re big on rules.” She rolls her eyes. “Although they don’t seem to be enforced evenly across the board. The students from families with the most wealth and power can pretty much get away with murder.”
“You’re not one of the ones who can get away with murder, I take it?”
She laughs again. “Me? Fuck no. I’m here on a scholarship.” She jerks her chin toward the joint dangling from my fingers. “Which means I really shouldn’t be doing that.”
“Huh. Makes two of us.”
Her eyebrows shoot up, and an excited expression crosses her face. “Wait. Are you the other freshman scholarship student? I heard there were two of us this year.”
“Yup, that’s me.” I roll my eyes, stubbing out the joint before flicking the butt away. “Although apparently it’s a big fucking deal that there are two of us this year, and people aren’t happy about it.”
She scoffs. “These snobby assholes can find anything to bitch about. Their campus is gorgeous, they’re basically set for life even if they spend all four years fucking their way through the student body and doing coke on the weekends, they drive cars that cost more than some people’s houses, and yet they somehow manage to claim they’re the fucking victims.”
For the first time all day, a genuine smile breaks across my face. I honestly didn’t expect to meet anyone I’d get along with on campus—disregarding the brief moment of excitement I felt when I saw Gray’s face earlier—but I actually like this girl.
I stand slowly, keeping a hand on the wall for balance before hefting my bag over my shoulder. “What’s your name?”
“Maxine.” She grimaces. “But call me Max.”
“Sophie.”
She nods. When I press away from the wall tentatively, I notice her watching me curiously, but she doesn’t ask what’s wrong with me or demand to know why I ended up in this weird little alley in the first place, which earns her even more points in my book.
“Where you from?” I ask as we step back out onto one of the walkways that cuts across campus.
“Boston. You?”
“LA.”
“Close by.” She shoots me a look. “That’s nice.”
“Sort of. It’s not like I’ve got anyone to go visit on the weekends or anything.”
She dips her chin, seeming to understand what I’m saying without me having to spell it out.
“When did you get in?”
I snort. “I dunno. Like an hour ago? I still have to go to the admin office to get my student ID and schedule and shit.”
“You know where it is?”
I wave a hand vaguely toward my left. “Over there somewhere?”
She laughs. “Close. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Ordinarily, this would be the part where I’d brush her off. Where I’d say I don’t need help—because I don’t—and make sure she knows that just because we shared a joint, that doesn’t make us friends.
But I don’t do that.
Maybe it’s because of the episode I just ha
d and the lingering worry about it that still floats beneath my conscious thoughts. Maybe it’s because of my confrontation with Gray and his friends. Maybe it’s because I’m not sure there’s anyone else on this campus who won’t look at me like I’m dirt.
Whatever the reason, I lift one shoulder in a shrug. “Sure. If you don’t mind.”
“Nope. I’ve got nothing else to do today.” She rolls her eyes. “Just waiting for classes to start so I can see how far in over my head I am. It’ll be a good distraction.”
With that, she leads me across campus toward the administration offices.
We talk a bit more on the way over. Nothing serious. Mostly, we talk shit about the rich kids, and she fills me in on a few details about the school—including the fact that Hawthorne University isn’t all that welcoming to its scholarship students, at least as far as the rest of the student body is concerned.
I could’ve guessed that by the chilly reception I just received, but it apparently runs deeper than that.
Hawthorne only takes scholarship students because they’ve got some very big donors who sponsor the scholarships. It’s been a point of contention, with some people arguing that it brings down the entire reputation of the school. But if they pulled the scholarships, they’d likely lose other funding as well, so for now, their compromise is to keep the numbers low.
Don’t want too many coke sluts with degrees running around claiming to be alumni of Hawthorne U, I guess.
It’s not something that surprises me. I’m not that naïve, and after the way Gray and his friends completely turned on me, I imagine the rest of my stay here isn’t exactly gonna be smooth sailing.
Well, lucky for me, I’m used to choppy waters.
The students at Hawthorne want to give me a problem? Gray and his cronies want to push me into the limelight for a laugh?
Bring it.
I’m fucking ready.
8
When we reach the admin building, Max gives me her number before leaving me to sort out my paperwork—even though this campus is so fucking small that I figure there’s a pretty good chance I’ll randomly bump into her again before I have reason to call her.
I walk into the office just a few minutes before it’s supposed to close for the day, and the secretary, whose face is pulled taut by the impossible tightness of her bun, isn’t pleased. Neither is the academic advisor I’m saddled with for the duration of my education at Hawthorne University.
As I listen to my advisor go on about how I’ve been given a great opportunity here and should treat it with respect, I consider telling him why I was late. Because one of their elite, their best and brightest, their well-bred stock, harassed and embarrassed me in front of a sizable crowd. Thinking back to what Max said, however, I hold my tongue. If the people at the top don’t really give a fuck about me as a scholarship student, why will these people?
So I let him lecture me, and then I let him complain about the specialized paperwork that has to be added to my file, and then, finally, when he’s done complaining, I’m given access to my dorm.
Every student at Hawthorne is issued a key card for their dorm room, which also doubles as their campus ID.
It’s what’ll get me into my room, check my presence for attendance in class, and allow for access to the school’s physical library, digital library, and JSTOR—which apparently is like rich people’s Wikipedia.
By the time I’m finished getting all the paperwork taken care of, I’m tired, hungry, and very much done dealing with people who don’t want to deal with me in the first place.
Everything I own has been delivered to my dorm room, and an upside of not owning very much shit is that it only takes me about half an hour to unpack. Because Hawthorne is so elite and only houses a relatively small number of students, I have what amounts to an entire apartment unit all to myself.
I take a little extra time figuring out how I want to arrange my art on the walls, and once I get the pieces hung, I sink into the cushions of the plush couch, gazing up at the only things that make this little apartment feel like mine.
Home sweet home.
Classes don’t start until Monday, so I spend the weekend getting my kitchen stocked up and setting up a little studio in the corner of my living room that gets the most light.
Because I never really expected I’d be going to a college, let alone attending a fancy university, my major is, for now, undecided. My line-up for the first semester is a handful of 101 classes and basic extracurriculars—all art classes. For the cost of all these fancy courses, I should probably feel bad that I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but I figure that taking Ms. Nielson’s advice and trying it out is the first step in… I dunno, whatever little social experiment this part of my life is.
I’m not exactly looking forward to the first day of classes, but I have to admit, having my own fucking apartment isn’t half bad.
The McAlisters didn’t like the inherent messiness that comes with creating good art, so I was never really able to set up a permanent studio space in my room. I could get away with sketching and working with charcoal, but I didn’t get many chances to paint.
Here, though? I can do whatever I want.
While I never had any formal training outside of a couple classes in junior high, I’ve always found myself drawn to it. First coloring, then sketching, then my true passion, painting. I used to stay late after school, missing the bus home just to be able to use the school’s art supplies to finish my pieces.
Maybe it’s a little sad, but those are some of my best memories. Those times when it was just me, an empty art room, and whatever was in my head emerging slowly onto a piece of paper or pilfered canvas.
Now it’s a piece of Bristol board, and I paint abstract shapes in cool colors before adding vivid highlights—a splash of red here and there, like blood streaked across an ocean. None of it is meant to be comprehended or understood. Or at least, not the way a book is meant to be understood.
It doesn’t tell a story. It creates a feeling.
It just is.
There’s nothing more intimate or cathartic than feeling the drag of a paintbrush across a blank canvas, than smelling fresh wet paint or having graphite from your initial sketches still on your hands after a thorough wash.
It’s been a long time since I was able to just lose myself in creating pieces, and for an entire blissful weekend, that’s exactly what I do.
But at eight o’clock on Monday morning, my alarm clock blares into the quiet stillness of the morning, a harsh reminder of why I’m really here.
Ugh.
I roll over with a groan to turn the fucking thing off, then pull the covers over my head and get about thirty more minutes of sleep before I decide I need to get up and at least pretend I believe that my future can be reshaped in these halls.
Because of my self-imposed exile in my room the last few days, I’ve avoided another repeat of my first day on campus.
Now that I’ll be attending classes and crossing paths with other students all the time, I’m doubtful things will stay so calm and easy.
Bring it.
I repeat my new mantra as I pull on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, knowing damn well that I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb here.
Dressed, messenger bag in hand and my textbooks all digitally uploaded onto my school-issued tablet, I head out.
Hawthorne University boasts an intimate campus, where everything students need is on the grounds. There’s a laundry service, an on-campus café and convenience store, and a student union that’s essentially a glorified dining hall with a fully staffed kitchen—though it’s weird as hell to think that they have chefs making gourmet food like it’s a Michelin star restaurant and not a fucking university.
But I’m hungry, and my ID card gets me three comped meals a day. So even though I stocked up my little apartment with snacks and staples over the weekend, I make my way to the student union for breakfast before my first class.
&
nbsp; I don’t miss the lingering stares and whispers that follow me. I clearly haven’t stopped being a topic of conversation, even though I’ve been basically locked up in my dorm since my encounter with Gray.
I get my food, earning a look from the guy who fills my order when I swipe my student ID and the words Scholarship Meal Plan flash across the screen.
Great. Even the fucking cafeteria staff here are snobby.
People are gathered in little clusters at round tables, eating their breakfasts. This place looks nothing like any school cafeteria I’ve ever been in, but I follow one very simple, time honored rule—find the empty table and claim it.
Ignoring the sidelong glances and whispered words that follow me, I start eating my breakfast at one of the smaller tables that isn’t overrun by one of the many cliquish groups occupying the others. After a few minutes of me not doing anything more exciting than eating, I feel people’s attention start to drift away.
That’s another time-honored rule I’ve learned the hard way. Don’t feed the beast, and eventually it’ll die. If I keep my head down and don’t give anyone a reason to notice me, they’ll pick an easier, more interesting target.
I’m about halfway through my breakfast when a girl comes toward my table. She lingers at the side of it like she doesn’t want to get too close to me.
“Hey, scholarship girl.”
I slowly chew my bite and make a show of swallowing. She shifts on her feet, uncomfortable, as I stare at her directly in the eyes. Her nervousness is almost fucking comical. What does she think I have, some sort of disease?
“I have a name, you know,” I say dryly.
She doesn’t acknowledge that, shifting on her feet again like she’s considering sprinting for the hills. My brows pull together, and I set my fork down, giving her my full attention.
She’s definitely nervous, but I was wrong before. She’s not scared of me.
“Listen.” She drops her head a little, her voice so quiet I have to strain to hear it. “I heard about your public spat with Gray Eastwood. Take it from me: keeping up in this place is brutal enough without getting on the Sinners’ bad sides. Especially Gray’s. It’s worse for scholarship students. No one thinks you belong here. You’re basically a plaything, especially when you’re a girl.”