by Cassie James
Plus, we get to talk about Yearbook, which we actually have together. I haven’t done much more than take some club photos, but Patrick glows a little when he talks about the yearbook. It makes sense considering he’s the editor.
“It’s fun having two classes with you. That was a nice surprise,” I muse since we’re discussing classes. A weird silence descends. I glance over at Patrick to find him chewing his bottom lip. “What?”
“I might have manipulated your schedule a bit.”
“Oh.” I blink, processing that. He looks nervous as hell, but I quickly decide I’m not that bothered by it. “It’s fine,” I tell him.
“Really?”
“You had access to change my schedule and still left me in classes where I’m alone with Smith in one and Ace in another. You could’ve done a lot worse, but you didn’t. So yeah, I’m not mad. I am curious, though. Was I not in Yearbook originally? I did think it was weird that I got put in a class you’re supposed to have to fill out an application for.”
Patrick wrinkles his nose. “They put you in theatre. But that seemed like…” He trails off.
“It would have been like they were giving me Cece’s slot. Yeah, that’s in seriously poor taste. Who the hell does the schedules?”
“The front office does most of the work, but Dr. Peterson has a say, too. Usually he would never let something like that slide.” He shrugs casually as if it’s not that big a deal, but something about that strikes me funny. The headmaster might not always know what’s going around the school, but Dr. Peterson should. I wonder if trying to stick me into Cece’s theatre spot was some weird power trip. A way to punish me for all the times I found excuses not to meet with him when he tried to schedule counseling sessions with me.
Patrick pulls into our spot at Churchill Point. It’s always the same spot we come to, the same as the first time. This spot has the best view of the city. We don’t have a blanket with us this time, so we sit on the grass side by side, me leaning about him as we look out over the city.
I sneak glances over at Patrick until finally I just drop the pretense and turn to look at him full-on. The whole city is laid out before us, but the only thing I want to look at is him.
I still think he’s every bit as beautiful as the first time I saw him. When he was insulting my intelligence and Sadie was accusing him of spreading STDs—but I try not to think about those particular details. Instead, I think about seeing his honey-colored eyes for the first time and seeing that panty-melting smile of his. At the time, I never would have imagined the two of us would end up here.
“You could have anyone you wanted. Why me?”
He reaches out to take my hand, lacing his fingers through mine as his eyes study me. “How could it have been anyone else?”
He leans in to kiss me and I kiss him back, but there’s something unfamiliar about the way he’s kissing me. Sloppy and desperate in all the wrong kind of ways. Slowly, he starts to move over me, leaving me no choice but to lay back against the grass as he climbs over top of me. I try to stop the uneasy feeling in my stomach. I love kissing Patrick. Love the way he’s usually so precise in every motion. So very him.
But this? This feels like I’m kissing someone else entirely.
I turn my head to the side, breaking the confusing kiss. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he mumbles.
It’s a bullshit answer and I know it. Clearly something is wrong, because I don’t recognize him as he pushes my sweatshirt up my midsection and starts tugging at the waistband of my leggings. There’s nothing sexy or practiced about it. He’s being erratic and stiff, and there’s nothing special about him trying to unceremoniously strip me down in the middle of a public park in broad daylight.
I push his shoulder, making him roll off of me. He lets his head drop back against the ground as he lets out a frustrated groan.
“Why are you trying to do this right now?” This isn’t how I imagined being intimate with Patrick for the first time. For being such a ladies man, he’s sure not living up to expectations at the moment. He’s experienced. I know he is. There’s no way he thinks this is really acceptable for anything more than a quickie between two people who have no intention of being serious together. And that’s not even remotely how I view our relationship. I like to imagine he doesn’t either but after this—shit, I don’t know.
“Because I love you,” he spits out with an irritated tone that doesn’t match what he’s claiming.
A heavy weight settles in my chest. “How can you say that right now?” He isn’t even looking at me, but through me. “Those words mean something to me. Saying them right now, when things are obviously getting really weird between us, it’s like you’re turning them into a joke.”
“Yeah, I get it.” He climbs to his feet, apparently just so he can stare down angrily at me, since he doesn’t go far. “I’m not good enough to be a priority. I’m not good enough to fuck. And now I’m not good enough to say I love you.”
“That isn’t what I said and you know it.”
Fuck this. I climb to my feet and walk away from him, not even bothering to see if he follows. If he doesn’t, I’ll fucking walk home if I have to. Right now I’m so mad my adrenaline is egging me on, telling me I could run a marathon if I needed to.
“Where are you going?” Patrick calls after me.
“Back to the car. I knew this was a mistake before we even got in the car and I should have listened to my gut.” He says something else but I hum under my breath to tune him out. Because I swear, if he doesn’t stop I’m going to end up on TV for pushing his ass off the ledge of Churchill Point, and that’s not really the family legacy I was hoping to help leave.
I climb into the unlocked car, arms crossed, and eyes trained out the passenger side window. I don’t look at him or speak as he joins me. He just sits there as if he’s waiting for me to break and speak first.
“I think—” he starts to say, but I cut him off.
“I want to go home.”
“But—”
“Patrick. If you don’t start this car and drive me the fuck back, this isn’t going to be fixable anymore. Give me some fucking space, so that I can figure out how the hell I’m supposed to face you again after what you just pulled back there.” I’m so angry I can practically taste my own bitterness on my tongue.
Patrick does start the car and turn toward home, but a few minutes into the drive he makes a frustrated noise deep in his throat. “I don’t understand why you’re so mad. If you didn’t want to mess around all you had to do was say that.” I laugh humorlessly, the sound so pathetic as it echoes through the car.
“I would have been thrilled to fool around with you. If only it had been about me and you—the way it should have been—instead of about you being caught up in what happened between me and Jax.”
He doesn’t try to talk to me again after that. The rest of the drive is silent.
Chapter Sixteen
Why am I here?
The detention center looms ominously in front of me as a guard checks my ID and waves me through the gate. I park in the designated lot and slowly make my way to the front doors. It’s the sound of crying that hits me first. The front lobby is like a haven for wailing mothers and I’m relieved Cece’s mother isn’t among them. If she’d been here, this plan would have gone straight to hell.
I’m following Sadie’s instructions down to the letter. Show up for the earliest possible visitation. You’re more likely to find someone working that’s new and less sure of the rules. Dress young. Cry if you have to. I’m lucky that even though she didn’t agree with what I was doing, she was willing to help me. Apparently, Sadie’s had a friend or two in juvie over the years, so she knew all about how to get around the family-only rules.
This place is nothing like I’ve heard juvie described in Nikon Park. I imagine the demographics around here have something to do with that. Even though the detention center’s not in Patience, it’s close en
ough that pretty much everyone here has to be from nearby—and there’s nothing but rich people for miles, basically.
I go through security, trying not to cringe at the gruff way the guards speak to me as they direct me how they want me to pass through. It’s weird feeling like I’m treated like a criminal just by association.
As I pass into the area where visitors are actually checking in, I see two lines. I study the two women working closely before choosing my line. I go with the younger of the two, the one who’s smile is a little too bright and definitely forced. She looks like she’s a little slower, too, which I’m guessing is because the other woman is more experienced.
“Step on up,” she waves me closer when it’s my turn. “ID, please.” She taps a paper on the countertop. “And fill this out for me.”
I hand my ID over and she starts doing something on her computer as I fill out the form. It’s just basic stuff about who I am and who I’m visiting. I breeze through it quickly and hand it to her. She thanks me quietly and continues doing whatever it is she’s doing on her computer. After a minute, she looks up.
The woman frowns at me as she looks from me to my ID. “What’s your relationship to the person you’re visiting?” It’s on the paper, but I’m sure she’s wondering if she’s going to catch me in a lie.
“Stepsister,” I answer with my best poker face.
She looks down at her computer screen, squinting hard like she’s afraid she missed something, then back to me. “Your name isn’t on her family visitation sheet.”
I make a big show out of widening my eyes and quivering my bottom lip. “Our parents were married when we were younger, but they’re divorced now. But we’ve always kept in touch. She really didn’t put me on there?” I sniffle as if fighting back tears.
The lady falters, clearly not prepared to handle the threat of a crying teenager on top of all these crying mothers. “I’m sure it was just a mistake, sweetie,” she whispers. She hands me back my ID and my stomach sinks as I wait for her to tell me I have to leave.
For a second, she doesn’t say anything and I tell myself just to turn and go. This was a stupid idea. Then, slowly, she slides a key across the counter to me. She looks me straight in the eyes, her eyes wide like she’s begging me not to do anything to draw attention to us. She’s breaking the rules for me. Big time.
“You’ll leave any personal items in the lockers to the right and you can retrieve them again after your visit,” she says casually, the same as I’m sure she’d explain this to anyone else. But her smile is tight like she’s still worried someone’s going to notice what’s happening somehow.
I smile and mouth thank you as I take the key from her, fighting back a grin when she shoots me a conspiratorial wink. I can’t believe I actually pulled that off.
I go through the rest of the steps, locking my things in a locker and going through another round of security before I’m taken to a big open room with small, cafeteria-style tables. A guard directs all of us to have a seat as we wait for the girls to be brought out. I still feel major imposter syndrome, like someone is gonna turn and point out that I don’t belong at any minute. This is pretty major rule-breaking I’m doing right now to be here. I only hope it’s freaking worth it.
I tap my fingers nervously on the table as I wait. I’m not waiting for long before a buzzer sounds and a metal door clicks open on the far side of the room. A line of girls escorted by several guards enter. The guards watch like hawks as the girls each go to greet their families. Cece pauses just inside the door, eyes scanning the room before they land on me. Surprise causes her eyebrows to arch. She didn’t know I was coming, and this whole plan could fall apart right here if she protests, but she purses her lips and starts towards me without a word to any of the guards.
I never considered what it would actually feel like to have her walking towards me, to make the conscious choice to sit down with a killer. My hands are clammy as I rest my palms against the table while she joins me. Cece watches me carefully, her lips slightly turned up in the corners. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s close enough to be unnerving.
“That’s a great color on you,” she gushes, leaning her elbows on the table. I look down, puzzled by her compliment, at my plain black shirt. “Not the clothes, silly. The lip gloss. Kathryn used to wear a great color just like that.” Her expression falters. “But then she started wearing one of those long-lasting lip stains so she could get away with fooling around with Harrington without anyone knowing. The lip stain doesn’t smear, but it’s not nearly as pretty.”
I can’t believe I’m sitting in front of her in Juvie and all she wants to talk about is my choice of makeup. At least she isn’t belligerent like the last time I saw her. That’s something, I guess.
“Thanks, Cece.” Seeing her like this, it’s hard not revert back to feeling sorry for her. I still vividly remember the shitty way Kathryn treated her, and even though that wasn’t an excuse to kill her, it isn’t hard to see how Cece finally managed to snap.
“So.” Cece studies me with shrewd eyes. “You finally came looking for answers, did you?” She looks smug as she leans back, crossing her arms over herself with a smile tugging one corner of her lips up even higher.
I’m not quite ready to ask her about what Brock Forrester said. I choose a different tactic. “You’ll never believe what the school tried to do.” She raises an eyebrow. Where her face was once perfectly manicured, her eyebrows now are darker and more full. I actually think she looks better this way. More natural. “They tried to put me in Theatre.”
Her arms fall away as she shifts in the seat. I can see right away that the news has jarred her. I’m sure she thought she would be irreplaceable, and in a way she was. Everyone has said the theatre department is barely holding it together since her arrest. Apparently, Cece’s family’s money was stretching a long way to help them put on those big productions that Cece starred in, and now no one can see to figure out how to keep things running the way she did.
“But you don’t care about theatre.” She doesn’t say it as an insult or like she’s offended. She was glad when I arrived and had no intention of trying to undercut her position in the school’s theatre program.
“Yeah, Patrick got me put in Yearbook instead.”
Cece nods thoughtfully. “That makes much more sense. A good Patience queen should have her finger on the pulse. Yearbook is a good class for that. You see all the pictures of who’s doing what with who. That’s good information, make sure you use that.”
I didn’t come here for lessons on being popular—though, damn, I would never have even considered taking advantage of being in Yearbook like that. Say what you want about Cece, she clearly knew how to keep her finger on the pulse. I wonder how many times Kathryn used that to her own advantage? It was never any secret that Kathryn’s special skills were treating people like shit and taking advantage of Cece.
“Cece, I actually came because—”
“No, wait! Let me guess!” she interrupts excitedly. It’s almost starting to feel like she’s running out the clock on our visit. “You want to know what Jax and I did in the bedroom?” She wiggles her eyebrows, but then her face falls. “You slept with him, didn’t you?” With a sigh, she angles her body away as if she can’t stand to look at me now. “Of course you did. You were the girl that left and now you’re the girl that came back. He was so obsessed with you. Of course you slept with him. No one can resist Jax Woods.”
“What do you mean obsessed with me?” Obsessed with being an asshole to me, maybe.
She waves her hand in the air meaninglessly until a guard warns her to quit playing around and she drops her hands back to her lap. “Y’know. Obsessed. Watching you every time you walked into a room. Asking people about you. Going all growly when other people asked about you.”
“That’s crazy,” I say before I can think twice about my choice of words. It doesn’t seem to faze Cece, though.
“But you slept with him. So part of
you has to know it’s true.” She shrugs. “Either that or you’re the worst masochist ever, I guess.”
I didn’t come here to talk about who I’m sleeping with. And since this is making me super uncomfortable, I figure it’s now or never. “Cece, Brock Forrester said something about you that’s been bothering me. Brent Forrester’s dad?”
“Oh, sweetie. I know exactly who Brock Forrester is.” She gets a dreamy look in her eyes. “Kathryn was totally obsessed with him. She made me sleep with Brent just to get his dad’s work schedule so she could just so happen to run into him at the country club. Did you know that?” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t recommend it. Brent throws a good party, but he’s terrible in bed. I’m not sure he knows the difference between a clit and a taint.” Gross. And way more information than I ever wanted to hear about my classmate.
“He seemed to think maybe you were a little bit sneaky or something. Like maybe you were fooling around with guys at the club and getting information you shouldn’t have.” She stares at me blankly, clearly far more interested in this direction of the conversation than she is about telling me about her former sex life.
“Is there a question in there, or are you accusing me of something?”
I quirk one eyebrow. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” I tell her honestly. “It just seemed like Mr. Forrester thought you knew something that would mean something to me. That’s all.”
Cece pushes her hair behind her ear as she stares across the table wordlessly at me. She’s had it cut several inches shorter since the last time I saw her. When she was arrested on Prom night. I can see where her roots are growing in from lack of bleaching, too, but I try not to stare. Cece’s already going to be punished for what she did to Kathryn. I don’t need to add insult to injury by making her self-conscious. Especially not when I came here asking for information.