by Rae, Nikita
Contents
Never forget thy fall
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Twenty Five
Twenty Six
Twenty Seven
Twenty Eight
Twenty Nine
Thirty
Thirty One
Thirty Two
“Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.”
-Oscar Wilde
THE NAMES of the men my father killed are a mantra, a twisted beat to accompany the throb of my heart and every single step I take through life. Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright. Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright.
When I breathe in, it’s Sam. When I breathe out, it’s Jefferson, or Jeff depending on how well you knew him. Adam exists somewhere in the space between breaths, the stretched out moments when I forget to breathe at all. I knew Adam. He was Maggie’s father, the basketball coach at Breakwater High. His brother was the town’s mayor, so everyone had known his face.
I had this dream that once I escaped the confines of Breakwater, things would change for me, things wouldn’t be as hard, but I haven’t taken any chances. My family name is synonymous with pain and murder no matter where I seem to go, and that’s why I’ve abandoned it. That’s why, when I left my past behind in small town Wyoming to come to college, I became Avery Patterson.
“Avery! Hey, Avery! Wait up!” Morgan Kepler jogs after me down the corridor as I exit my English class. She either recognizes me by my bright blonde hair, or because I’m clutching my file to my chest, keeping my head down like always. I give her a smile as I hurry out of the School of International and Public Affairs, one of the most infamous landmarks of Columbia University. Morgan, for some reason, has befriended me. She’s wild and outspoken in a way I never have been. Maybe I would have turned out like her if my father hadn’t shot three men dead when I was fourteen years old. But then again, who knows who I could have been.
Morgan smells like mint gum and Issey Miyake. She flashes me a bright smile when she pitches up at my side, nudging me with her shoulder. “Are you coming to the ceilidh tonight?” The word, sounding like ‘kaylee’, is foreign to me.
“The what now?”
She twists her dark auburn hair around her index finger and grins. “Tate says it’s Irish for party. The girls from Upsilon are dressing up as sexy leprechauns. Didn’t you get the memo?”
I groan, hiding behind my folder. “No way, Kepler.” Sexy leprechauns my ass. I’m not spending my evening hanging out with a bunch of Xanax popping, neurotic bitches. Especially when it’s a Thursday and last time I checked, classes aren’t done ‘til Friday. “I’m not partying tonight. I have midterms next week.”
“So do I,” Morgan laughs. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t give myself one night off!” She lets go of her own hair to tug at mine, and I find myself wishing I’d given in to the insane urge I’d had to chop it all off a few nights back. If it were an inch long instead of curling loosely well past my shoulders, she would have nothing to grab hold of. And guys wouldn’t stare at me whenever I passed them in the corridor, making assumptions based on my appearance, like I just know they do. After all, the majority of girls at Columbia with hair my color get it out of a bottle and are known for being all party.
I slap Morgan’s hand away and give her a tight smile. “I’m no good at cramming. I have to work harder than you to score a good grade. You don’t want me to crash and burn, do you? I’ll be a massive failure and no one will hire me. I’d have to come live with you for the rest of my life. You’ll be forever wishing you’d let me alone so I could concentrate.”
“Pssshhh.” She tips her head back and moans. “Please! We’re going to be living together after college, anyway. And besides, you’re never gonna be home. You’re going to be some hotshot journo that gets invited to all the celeb parties, out all night harassing the A-list elite for the inside track on their failing marriages and boob jobs.”
Morgan has entirely the wrong idea about why I want to become a journalist. The very last thing I have in mind is reporting on the society and celebrity columns. “Yeah, real funny.”
“Avery!” Morgan hooks her arm through mine and pulls me off my path toward the Low Memorial Library, instead guiding me off campus, towards Morningside Heights, where we both live. “You have to start enjoying yourself.” She gives me the look she reserves only for me, the one that says I’m losing myself again. I told Morgan about my dad by mistake; she is the only person at Columbia University who knows. We got so drunk one night that I threw up into a trashcan on Broadway and blabbed the whole story—the shock of being told my dad had committed suicide after he’d killed three other members of the Breakwater community; that I’d been a social pariah since that day, and had been kicked and punched and bullied through the last four years of high school.
I barely knew Morgan at the time. I was seriously lucky that she was a loyal friend from the outset, because I almost killed myself creating this new persona. I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t be someone new here. Avery Patterson is an ordinary girl from Idaho. Her extended family didn’t disowned her because of her father’s transgressions, and her own mother certainly didn’t dump her on her father’s best friend’s doorstep so she could forget all about her old life and go become a coldblooded defense lawyer in the city.
Morgan draws her eyebrows together, arching over piercing grey eyes. “You know we have to go,” she says.
I groan again. “But why?”
“Because I look killer in green. And you need to get laid.”
I thump her arm as she pulls me through the entrance of our building on 125th Street, guiding me up the first flight of stairs. “That’s the very last thing I need. I don’t have—”
“If you say you don’t have time for sex, I am literally going to scream!” A group of girls on their way down the stairs stop talking to shoot us both dirty looks.
“You’re making people think I’m a tramp, Morgan!”
“So what? You’d find life a whole lot more fun if you were a bit more ‘free’ with your attention.”
“A bit more…ugh!” She opens the door to her apartment and I storm passed her, throwing myself down onto her bed. My shared apartment is another three floors up, so we usually hang out at her place between classes because it means less cardio. Unfortunately, we weren’t lucky enough to score each other as roommates in the housing lottery, and no one was brave enough to trade off the books.
“You haven’t been on a single date since the start of college. You realize that’s what your freshman year is for, right? Meeting guys? Everyone knows this.” Morgan begins hunting for clothes. She’s one of those people that appears tidy and organized on the surface but in reality is all over the place. That certainly explains the row of empty hangars and the towering pile of scrunched up satin and lace in her closet. And under her bed. I like how carefree Morgan is, but sometimes her messiness makes me nervous. Everything in my apartment is spotless, something my roommate Leslie has been good enough to maintain.
“I always thought freshman year was about figuring out what you wanted to major in and laying the ground work for achieving a solid degree,” I tell her, ignoring the fact that she’s throwing random items of green material at me.
“Yeah, but you’ve already done both of those things. Oh!” Her head appears around her closet door. “You know, I can find someone to take you if you like?”
“No! Jeez, Morgan, I’m not even going!”
“Yes, you are. Hey, is your mom still paying you a ridiculously huge allowance each month to make up for the fact that she’s a bitch?”
My shoulders slump. I turn and look at her. Dear Lord, the girl is so transparent. “And I am not going shopping, either.”
******
As usual, through diabolical and nefarious means, Morgan gets what she wants and later that night I find myself pressed up against a horny leprechaun-ette and a shirtless guy who’s torso is panted green. Whether that’s an Irish thing or not I don’t know, but he certainly smells of whiskey. When their make out session develops into heavy petting, I decide enough is enough. Morgan is talking to Tate by the kegs, laughing behind her hand the way she does when she’s flirting. She thinks her smile is bad because her lower teeth are slightly crooked. She should be thanking her lucky stars she wasn’t forced through the nightmarish dentistry ordeals I was as a kid, just to satisfy her mother’s vain pursuit of possessing the ‘perfect’ child. Yeah, that’s right—possessing. Like I was an inanimate object or something.
Morgan and Tate have had an on-off thing for the past six months, and watching them skirt around each other, pretending to be only vaguely interested, is getting really boring.
“I’m leaving,” I announce when I manage to shove my way through the crowd towards them. Morgan drops her hand from her mouth and scowls at me.
“No way, we just got here!”
“It’s one thirty. We’ve been here three hours, and I’m sick of random douche bags with green face paint grinding on me and calling me darlin’. No one can pull off a decent Irish accent when they’re wasted.”
“There are a couple of Irish people here. I bet they can,” Tate interjects.
I hitch an eyebrow. “Regardless of any genuine, bone fide Irish people in attendance at this party, it’s still time to go home.”
Morgan jabs me with her index finger, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to tell me I’m ruining her chances of a night of fun with Tate. “You’re a complete buzz kill, young lady.”
“Don’t worry, you can stay. I’m all right to walk back on my own.”
“No way. Didn’t you read the college orientation and safety handbook? No walking alone at night.” Morgan shot Tate an apologetic look and shrugs. “Maybe we could catch up tomorrow night instead?”
Tate looks put out as Morgan slips her arms through the sleeves of the jacket she’d already been holding in her hand. He’d clearly been about five seconds away from getting lucky. “Sure. We could rent a movie. Night, ladies.” He turns and disappears into the press of bodies leaping up and down to the sounds of Jump Around by House Of Pain, and Morgan pokes her tongue out at me.
“I could strangle you sometimes.” She grins as she says this, though, and I know she’ll forgive me before we reach halls.
We don’t get that far. Halfway down the steps leading from the frat house, a police car pulls up on the grass, the red and blues rotating, throwing tall shadows across the verge. The girls in tiny green mini skirts and high heels, smoking outside, scatter when the siren buzzes, squealing like morons.
“Shit!” Morgan mutters. “Can we get by without them talking to us?”
“Don’t freak out. It’s probably just a noise complaint.”
“No, Ave. I don’t wanna get caught up with these guys tonight.”
I know Morgan doesn’t exactly have a healthy respect for the law, but there’s no reason she should be so worried about getting a three-second telling off. “Don’t freak out, it’s going to be fine.”
I immediately regret my words. When the doors of the police car open and the two officers stepped out, my stomach falls through the floor. “Oh, shit!”
“What? What?” Morgan grips hold of my arm so hard she cuts off the circulation.
“Nothing, it’s just…”
Luke Reid. Luke Reid is what. I haven’t seen him in his uniform in almost four years, but he still looks smoking hot in it. Luke was the all-star hero of Breakwater High. Girls dropped at his feet like swooning maidens in distress in the hope that he would catch them as they fell. I’d been dazed by him in the same way most fourteen year olds are dazed by god-like seniors. People had actually mourned when he’d graduated, students and teachers alike. He’d passed on a full ride to college courtesy of a football scholarship to join the police force. He kept in touch with me after he left for one reason and one reason only. A reason I don’t want to think about right now. A reason I’ve tried to forget all about in the three months since I moved to New York City and successfully managed to avoid him.
His black hair is shorter than usual but still a little longer than it probably should be. Same deep brown eyes. Same strong jaw line. Shock registers on his face when he catches sight of me. He pauses for a second as he walks around the car, taking a moment to rein in the surprise of me tripping down a set of frat house steps in one of Morgan’s impossibly short tube dresses. I cringe at the look on his face. He doesn’t seem too impressed.
“Iris?”
My whole body shrinks away from that name. I glance at Morgan and see the surprise in her eyes. I told her my real name, but she’s never heard anyone use it. “Iris? Does this guy know you?”
“I’ll explain later,” I whisper. Doing my best to pretend I am one hundred percent sober, I take a deep breath and face Luke. “Hey.” I give him a weak ass smile. “Been a while.”
“Yeah…” He looks quickly from me to Morgan and back again, clearly trying to piece everything together in his head. “I went back to Break a couple of months ago. Stopped by Brandon’s but he said your mom had shipped you up here to college. I did a search but I couldn’t find you registered anywhere.”
My cheeks redden. He searched the police database to find out which school I was attending? Does the police database even contain that kind of information? I shiver and pull myself closer to Morgan. She is as stiff as a board, staring straight at Luke. I nod, biting my lip.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t have. I changed my name. I didn’t want…I didn’t…”
“I understand,” he says, saving me from saying it. Loud shouts and cheers leak out onto the street as the doors fly open and three girls teeter down the steps behind us. They immediately freeze, their hyena-like laughter paused as soon as they land eyes on Luke and his partner. At first I think it’s because they’re cops, but the tallest one, a brunette with smoky, dark, fuck me eye make up squeals and rushes forward, placing a well manicured hand over her ample cleavage. “Oh my god, you’re Luke Reid, aren’t you?”
Luke looks seriously uncomfortable. Like he just got caught with his pants down in a big way. His partner rolls his eyes. “Here we go again.”
Luke clears his throat. “I’m on duty, ladies. Have you been drinking tonight?”
The smile drops from the brunette’s face. Her blonde friends grab her by either arm and start guiding her down the stairs. “No! No way, officer. We were just leaving,” one chuckles nervously. From the look on the brunette’s face, she might just be willing to get busted drinking underage if it means she gets to stay and talk for another minute. She’s walking backwards, mouth open, as her drunk buddies drag her away.
I can’t help it. I have to ask. “What the hell was that?”
Luke rubs a hand across his jaw, looking away. “I’ve played a couple of times in a few bars. Sometimes people recognize me.”
Luke’s always played guitar, not that I ever really got to hear him. When we were at school, it was enough for most of us love sick teenagers to sit and observe him and his
friends from a distance. He always seemed pretty shy about playing, anyway. Always did it somewhere far from lunch crowds. And now he’s apparently playing in bars? “What, like in a band?”
Luke’s partner answers before he can even open his mouth. “Yeah. Reid’s quite the celebrity. We got us some One Direction shit right here.”
Luke bites down on his jaw, his embarrassment suddenly gone. In fact, he looks seriously pissed off. “Can you just shut the hell up? Go inside and scare some teenagers, will you? Fuck.”
His partner shrugs, completely unaffected. “Whatever you say, man.” He stomps up the steps, one hand on the hilt of his night stick like he’s planning on making use of it any second now. Cheering blares out into the night again as he lets himself inside. Luke rubs at the back of his neck, staring at my feet.
“So, uh, you’re tearing up the place, huh? We’ve had five phone calls about loud music and disturbance at this address.”
I look back at the house, seeing all the drunk people, painted green, laughing and swigging back beer inside. It doesn’t look great that I’m stumbling out of the building, especially since those girls a moment ago weren’t the only ones not old enough to be drinking. “We were actually just leaving, too, actually.”
“Oh.” Luke stares at me for a moment, his dark eyebrows twitching like he wants to frown. “Hey, why don’t you guys wait until we’re done here? This’ll only take a second. I’d really like to talk to you, Iri—” He breaks off, and I catch the hurt look in his eye. He doesn’t know what to call me.
“Avery,” I say quietly.
“Avery.” He nods. “It’s nice. I’ll get used to it.”
I send him a faintly apologetic smile and clear my throat. “We’re in a rush to get home, actually. I have to be up real early. Could we catch up another time?”
The radio over Luke’s breast pocket squeals, making Morgan jump out of her skin. Static fills the air for a second before Luke leans down and speaks into it.
“Unit 23 responding to noise complaint. Copy.” He looks torn as he allows another couple of girls to skitter off down the street. “I really have to sort this out. Can I call you tomorrow?”