by Jordan Grant
I am drowning, only I can’t taste the saltwater flooding my throat or feel its burn inside my nostrils.
My wounds are invisible, but they are still there. I am a victim of a broken heart, love and friendship and rivalry colliding and splitting apart my universe.
Molly rests a hand on my shoulder. When did she arrive? I lift my gaze from the floor, finding kindness in her big brown eyes.
She takes in the two cups, the kettle, and the bottle of peppermint schnapps, then she shakes her head like she’s ruling out the possibilities and crossing off a list inside her head.
“Is this about Ian?” she asks, her words soft and gentle like her touch. When I sit there staring at the carpet as I sniffle, she adds, “I saw him leaving the dorm. He looked miserable. What happened between you two?”
I swallow the knot binding my throat and croak out my words. “I told him it wasn’t going to work out.”
“Why?” she asks, her question thick and slow. She looks at me like it’s not some traitorous thing to do, like I’m not stabbing her in the back and leaving the knife there, embedded, just by having this conversation with her.
Her cheeks flush with embarrassment. I should say something, but I think my words are on the floor along with what’s left of my heart.
“I don’t get it, Harlow,” she says, her gaze flitting to the floor. “I thought you liked him. He definitely likes you. I’ve never seen Ian look at anyone the way he looks at you.”
“How does he look at me?” I manage after a long moment, though I shouldn’t ask. I do though. I deserve the pain.
Molly’s eyes gloss over as she gazes out the window. “Like he just can’t help but look. When you walk into a room, he stops whatever he is doing and just stares at you. He ignores his friends, he ignores Aurora, he ignores Headmistress DuMonte, he ignores everything.”
Her words punch me dead-center of my chest and push the breath from my lungs. Fresh tears spring to my eyes.
“Did he do something?” Molly asks quietly, fingering a thread on the carpet. “Like, did you have a fight or something?”
“No.” I shake my head. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Why don’t you give him a chance then? He’s not a bad guy. Yeah, his friends suck, and yeah, he’s a total asshat sometimes, but he’s not a bad guy.”
I look at her, the words refusing to leave my mouth. Her eyes widen for a moment.
“This is about me, isn’t it?” she breathes.
I swallow. She shouldn’t look guilty. I am the guilty one, not her. “I can’t hurt you, Molly. You’ve been through enough.”
She sits down beside me with a sigh. “We used to be friends,” she says, “before all of this happened.”
Her image swims, and I blink away the tears.
“Don’t do this to yourself, Harlow.” She shakes her head slowly, drilling holes through me with her glassy gaze. “Don’t do this because of me.”
She lets out a wry chuckle. “This isn’t a girls-before-boys thing. This is a do-what’s-best-for-you thing, though I appreciate the effort, sister.”
A sliver of a laugh bubbles past my lips.
She sounds like the gym coach, telling me I get an A for effort after I trip on my feet and face-plant on the way to the finish line.
I look over at Molly, but before I can say anything, she holds up her hand to stop me.
“Roomie,” she says seriously, “I got 99 problems, but you ain’t one.” She shrugs. “I’m not going to lie. The stuff Finn does gets to me, but I’m also well aware that I’m riding a downhill slope. Next year, after graduation, I don’t have to see any of them, especially Finn Berkshire or Aurora Blakely, ever again.”
I wipe away my tears with the pad of my hand. “Why don’t you just tell your parents? Surely, they would get you out of here.”
She frowns and resumes picking at the rug again. “Call it self-punishment, I guess.”
Her voice breaks on the last word as a knock comes from the door.
Molly stands as I hurriedly fix my tear-matted hair and take one last sniffle. Molly has barely unlocked the door before Raven busts past her.
“Who’s ready to go to a parrtttayyy?” Raven shouts with a fist pump and a whoop before stopping mid-stride to frown down at me.
I scatter to clean up the mess.
“Are you all right?” she asks, pulling off her bedazzled, neon green sunglasses and looking at me. “Because now I feel like a total bitch.” She leans up on her toes to look over into our closet. “Beckett, I swear to God I will kick your ass! Come out here!”
“He’s not here,” I say with a snort.
She kneels on her four-inch heels in front of me. I admire the spiked leather circling her ankles before lifting my gaze.
“Who did this?” she demands.
“It’s nothing,” I say, looking toward Molly. “I am fine. We are fine.”
Raven huffs and purses her fuchsia-painted lips at me. “Fine. I can take a hint. I’ll leave it alone under one condition.”
“Name it,” Molly says as I stand, depositing my notes along with Ian’s atop my bed.
“Come to my party.”
“Raven,” I say, my gaze flitting over to Molly with a frown, “I don’t think…”
“Shut your gorgeous mouth!” Raven snaps, her beautiful chestnut curls bouncing when she takes two steps toward me and raises a hand. She looks over at Molly. “You are both invited. It’s my birthday, and I want you there. It’s like an insult to me if you don’t attend.”
“But,” Molly begins, shaking her head, “we don’t really belong, Raven. Your people aren’t our people. It’s Aurora’s birthday too, and she will freak.”
Raven laughs, showing off her perfect veneers, but there’s real amusement twinkling in her eyes. “My people? I didn’t invite the entire damn Academy. They invited themselves because everyone is itching to get off campus for the weekend and do drunk, stupid teenage things.” She scrunches up her nose. “I don’t even like most of ‘em, with silver spoons stuck so far up their asses they use polish as toothpaste.”
I giggle. Molly snorts before she realizes what she has done and clamps a hand over her mouth.
“I think what Molly means,” I say, “is that they won’t like us being there.”
“I don’t give a shit what they like. It’s my birthday party, and I want you to attend.” She eyes us both. “Look, no one will dare mess with either of you. Barley will be there, and they are all scared shitless of him, even the almighty quarterback.”
“Barley?” I ask.
Raven rolls her eyes and digs her cell out of her pocket before checking the messages. “My doofus brother. He’s gross but humongous. Pops is making him play chaperone, probably as punishment for him and a warning for me. He plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, and my father freakin’ hates it. He was supposed to go to med school, get into the pharmacological business like dear ol’ dad.”
“Oh,” I say, thoroughly confused.
“Barley?” Molly asks like she’s seen a ghost. Now, I am interested. There’s the past, present, and hopeful future written in her gaze.
“Yeah,” Raven nods as she texts someone before sliding her phone into her back jean pocket. “So you two coming or what?”
“Yes!” Molly squeaks, practically leaping toward the closet.
I gape at her.
“Fabulous,” Raven says, but she’s frowning at her phone. She gives us a middle finger salute as she heads to the door. “Until tonight then, bitches. I’ll text you the deets.”
As the door closes behind her, Molly digs through our closet on a mission.
I guess it’s time to go to a party.
25
Harlow
The music hums inside my veins, thrumming all the way to my bones. I dance under the stars, surrounded by drunk classmates as the bonfire blazes off in the distance. The terracotta stones of the patio cradle my feet like they were crafted to hold them, and although I haven’t had
anything but a can of Coke since arriving, I feel the buzz of beer and the high of pot lingering in the smoky air. But if I’m honest, it’s not just a contact high. The pills keep away the darkness, and I swallowed one dry just before arriving.
I am a string, played by an invisible violinist. I can’t help but lose myself to the music, the scent of sweat and spilled beer, and the thump, tha-thump of the base knocking inside my chest.
I dance with wild abandon, swaying and twirling with my hands raised to the constellations like I am a witch dancing for my deity under a full moon.
I am afloat in my twirls, the pleats of my white, cotton dress spinning along with me like I am a ballerina and it is my tutu. Molly laughs at the spectacle I must be, and I catch her gaze for a moment as I spin and spin, round and round, my classmates blurring into a kaleidoscope of Oxford button-downs and Anthropologie midi-dresses.
Molly’s laugh is not mean—it’s relieved, giddy even—as she twirls alongside me before grabbing my hand and bringing me to a wobbly stop. Barley—six foot five inches of American all-star with a mop of messy brown hair and what is probably a permanent simper—does a ridiculous little shimmy at my side.
Molly laughs as Barley does another jig, some crazy pseudo-tap-dance that almost blurs his feet. Beaming, I stare at them both, caught in the tide of joy that flows from them. They are happy, and I am happy—all my worries forgotten.
The song changes, and I am carried away again with the music, just another body alongside my classmates. Molly erupts in a fit of giggles as Barley backs-it all the way to the floor.
I am light, a feather cradled by the crisp wind of a fall night. The music lifts me higher, and I float among the twinkling stars, swaying and circling as my eyes close.
The music drowns out all the other noise inside of me. My mind is an empty void. The warmth of the thumping base cocoons me in its embrace. A smile tips my lips toward the heavens as the bonfire casts its glow through my eyelids.
I twirl like a little girl in a field of wildflowers. Around and around I whirl, my breath bursting past my lips in slivers of steam.
I’m a little dizzy, a little off balance, but I don’t want to stop. I know it will have to end—I can’t twirl under the stars forever—but I don’t care.
I’m right where I should be. I’m right where I need to be. Everything is perfect. I am perfect until...
Until someone bumps into me.
My eyelids snap open as the impact rips away the floaty feeling and brings me crashing back down to earth.
My gaze scrolls for a moment through my neighbors until I am drawn like a beacon to him. Ian Beckett glares at me, hellfire igniting the forges of his steely gaze. The flickering blaze of the bonfire catches his profile just right, casting his face in shadows like he’s the Devil.
An appropriate comparison, I think, because there’s only one thing I want to do when I see him: sin.
I stop moving. I stop breathing. I stop existing outside his orbit.
I am not prepared this. I want time, time to grieve, time to heal, time to fix my fucked up brain. I want to forget everything just for one night—forget William and the pills and the darkness—and just be a girl at a party happy to dance under the stars.
I am stupid.
I am naïve.
I can never be that girl again because that girl died alongside her brother.
Molly’s laughter cuts off abruptly, like the slice of a hot knife through butter as she stares at us, one hand on Barley’s forearm.
“What are you doing here, Stormy?” Ian grits out over the music. He holds a red solo cup in one hand, his other curled into a fist at his side. He barely even glances at me. He stares at Barley over my shoulder. “You came here with him?”
Oh, no.
He’s on a warpath, and I have picked up the scent of his impending wrath. It smells like the singe of smoked cigars and the hops of spilled beer, but most of all, it smells like iron and blood.
Ian is tall and built, but even by Ian’s standards, Barley is huge—I mean he’s in the NFL for Christ’s sake. Ian just glares at Barley over my shoulder, his gaze leveled at him like he’s begging Barley to throw a punch.
Ian’s nostrils flare as his upper lip curls into a sneer. The world lags as everything goes into slow motion. The music wanes as students turn and stop, watching with dazed eyes and waiting. Many of them, like me, hold their breath.
“Beckett,” Barley growls Ian’s name like it’s a curse.
The world tilts on its axis. I want to run and hide so I don’t have to see the chaos. I want to go back in time and prevent it completely.
Students part with mumbled swears as Raven elbows her way into the center of the dance floor. She’s wearing a tiara that says birthday girl in pink diamonds and a pair of silver Louboutins no amount of money will ever help me pull off.
“What the fuck is wrong with you two?!” she hisses, her gaze throwing daggers between Ian and Barley. “Seriously! What. The. Fuck!!”
Molly grabs Barley’s arm, her small hands curled around his huge bicep. He blinks and looks down at her, his expression softening. I see my chance, and I take it.
I snatch Ian’s hand, even though everything tells me to run away from the growing crowd. At first, he doesn’t move. It’s like trying to pull a boulder attached to a cliff attached to a freakin’ mountain. Then, to my relief, he follows, bellowing, “Move the fuck away!” at a lanky kid slow to scramble.
I cringe at his words. My hand burns, engulfed by the invisible flame that is his presence. People stare at us. Aurora’s mouth lands on the floor, along with the mouths of the girls she calls friends.
My heart beats a little steadier, the black at the edges of my vision creeping back into its tunnels.
One, two, three, four, blue.
One, two, three, four, blue.
I repeat the mantra inside my head.
O…one…two, three, four, blue.
One, two, three, four, blue.
But no matter how hard I try, I can’t get to that damned beach.
I don’t see it coming. I am lost, reaching out to a memory I can’t quite find. I freeze next to Ian when something lands against his shoulder and splatters us both in cold beer.
Ian growls, fury drawing his brow tight as the cords of his neck strain. He rips free of my hand as jerks around, his fists tight and knuckles blanched white.
Fuck!
My gaze lands on Barley, who’s grinning ear-to-ear as he waves his middle finger at Ian.
“Mother-fucker!” Ian roars, the word erupting through his teeth as rage reddens his sun-tanned face. He sprints forward, and he’s there before I can even move, landing a punch square against Barley’s jaw and dropping his beer at his feet.
Raven screams, her tiara falling to the ground and getting trampled in the chaos. My gaze catches Molly’s, and she looks like how I know I must look, wide-eyed as worry steals the color from her cheeks.
Barley stumbles backward with the impact, his arms waving wildly as he tips back on his heels.
Someone starts a chant, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Barley rights himself, a bruise already burgeoning at his jaw, before launching himself at Ian like he’s a bull and Ian’s the matador. Ian’s too drunk to move out of the way, and although he avoids the blow to his stomach, Barley’s fist connects with the underside of his chin. Ian’s head is thrown back with the hit, and blood rains from the sky, splattering onto partygoers.
A girl screams among the chant.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Ian staggers backward, and the blue bloods flank him now. Everett smiles—but he doesn’t look happy, just annoyed—while Chase’s hands are clenched at his sides. Archie looks bored but pissed like this was an inconvenience to his plans.
Archie throws me a slow smile that tells me he’s halfway to wasted and a wink I feel all the way to my bones. “Can I be your sexorcism when Ian totally fucks it up?”
“S…sexorcism?”
I stutter.
Someone finally shuts off the music. The chant of the crowd grows louder.
“You know, Harlow,” Archie says, with a flick of his tongue over his top lip, “where you fuck someone to get over your ex.” He throws me another wink. “I promise I won’t throw in the towel until you totally forget about his dumbass.”
I snort, but I am distracted by the growing chant and the guilt that’s gnawing away at my insides like a rat at a block of cheese. Why does it feel wrong to flirt with him? He’s the human equivalent of Adonis.
“I’ll take a raincheck,” I mumble, my gaze finding Molly’s.
She stares at me like I need to do something—like I need to save her—and my heart bursts open and bleeds. This is all my fault. Ian is falling apart because of me. I’m tearing him apart bullet by bullet, and I cannot let Molly get caught in the cross-hairs.
I will myself forward, squeezing between Archie and Chase. They don’t offer to move, assholes, so I end up flattening my boobs and ass between them both. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have to do something.
This is wrong.
It’s all so fucking wrong.
I can’t take any more violence.
Ian rights himself, shaking his head as if he can shake away his probable concussion. He sends droplets of blood everywhere like a dog shaking water off after a bath.
“Hey.” I stand on my tiptoes and bring my hands up to his cheeks. I hold his face in my hands, my fingers grazing his short sideburns.
“Hey.” I pat the sides of his face quickly, trying to wake him from this trance. “Look at me, Ian. Look at me.” I choke on my words, tears drowning me from the inside out. “Please, Ian. Please, just look at me.”
He doesn’t glance at me. He just continues to glare at Barley, his whole body shaking with fury. His shoulders bunch tight as his chest heaves with each breath. His gray gaze turns to black under the stars.
I’m not getting through to him. He’s going to get hurt. Why should I care?
He’s going to get hurt! Why do I care?!
HE’S GOING TO...
“I accept!” I half-shout at him, the words ripped from my tongue.