by Jordan Grant
“I said, hey, free range,” she repeats. I frown at the name. “Or, maybe I should call you free game instead?”
“I’m also organic, but I don’t think you’d qualify, too many fillers and all.”
Damn my mouth!
Her lips twist upward into a tight smile the moment before she rips the violin out of my hands.
What the—?!
I struggle, trying to reclaim it, but Finn steps closer, his meaty palms wrapping around my arms and yanking them behind my back.
“What are you doing?” I snarl, trying my best to remain calm. I can’t let them know what this means to me.
One, two, three, four, blue.
One, two, th...th...three...
“Ian let you off easy,” Aurora remarks, dragging one long manicured finger screeching across my violin. I wince. I feel the bite of her fingernail like it rakes across my own skin. “It’s time to make up for that.”
Without another word, she slams my violin into the floor of the stage, kneeling at the last second, so she can continue to beat it into the polished hardwood after the first hit.
My heart bursts open and bleeds. I am drowning from the inside out.
My last reminder of William.
Our final shared duet.
“Noooooo!” I yank toward her and almost make it, so close I could nearly bite her nose. Finn grunts and curses as I try to rip free of his grasp.
Aurora pauses, looks up at me, and laughs before she continues slamming my violin into the stage until it is nothing, just pieces of splintered wood and broken cords.
It’s not just my violin that lays there, broken and discarded on the floor. William lays there again, among the splinters of wood, and it’s too late. I can’t save him. I can’t do anything but watch.
“Why?” A sob escapes my lips with the word, but no one answers me.
Aurora swims behind my tears. She looks bored.
“Bring her here,” she says. A moment later, she snaps, “Bring her here, Berkshire.”
Finn shoves me forward, nearly into Aurora’s face. She doesn’t even flinch. She looks straight at me, pinning me with those cold, green eyes of hers as she utters her next command.
“Make her bow.”
Finn slams his knee into the back of my legs, and they give out beneath me. I topple to the stage, but I’m not there long.
Fuck this! Fuck them!
I try to stand, my movements jerky and wild. Finn grunts with the struggle. Aurora’s friends are shouting, but I have no idea what they are saying.
“Stop moving, bitch!” Finn roars, bringing his knee into the back of my spine this time and then leaving it there as he finally wrestles me to the stage and pins me.
Finn’s hands are clammy around my wrists. He smells like sweat and a bottle of sour cologne, and it settles thick on my tongue.
Finn’s fat palm smears my face across the floor, bruising my cheekbone. I can make out Aurora in my peripheral, holding up the neck of my violin, slivers of wood still sticking out of it. I shake, fear and adrenaline and rage speeding through my veins.
“Give me her hand,” Aurora commands.
“No, no, no,” I say, trying to shake my head and causing my head to squeak against the floor. “Please. Please don’t.”
“Aurora?” Ivy questions. I can’t see her, but she sounds afraid. That makes two of us.
I don’t know if it’s because Finn’s knee is carving out a spot in my spine or it’s the darkness, but I can’t breathe. Aurora raises the neck of my violin, preparing to strike. It’s weak, and I hate myself for it, but my tears fall just the same.
In my head, I see all my dreams disappear. No medical degree. No patients. No surgeries. My dreams demolished before I even have a chance to try.
She raises the neck of my violin like a bat over her shoulder.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” a voice roars.
Although Finn’s still got me trapped, I can see him in my peripheral. Ian stands on stage, his shoulders heaving with each breath. He’s tall already, but the rage etched across his skin seems to make him even taller, meaner, deadlier.
I try to say his name, but all that escapes is a wheeze.
A blush warms his cheeks. Snow dusts his shoulders and falls to the floor next to his black boots. He’s wearing a black hoodie that falls just above his eyes and a matching peacoat, open at the center and stopping just above his knees. He may not be an angel, but he certainly looks like a fallen one, delivered to earth to save me.
Aurora ignores Ian and swings. A fraction of a second later, Ian slams into Finn, and it moves me just enough so the blow misses my hand.
Aurora screeches, and it happens so fast. Ian is on top of Finn, punching him in the face. Each hit is quick and potent and brutal.
One hit. Two hits. Three.
Blood splatters. Finn claws at the floor and tries to escape, but Ian drags him back.
“Ian,” I say, and this time, his name escapes my lips, breathless but clear.
It takes a moment, but he stills. His hoodie is pushed back from the struggle, his hair wild and sticking out everywhere. He white-knuckles Finn’s lapels, and I watch as he forces himself to let go. Finn falls back on the stage, his eyes already turning black, blood gushing from his nose.
Ian climbs to his feet and walks over to gather me in his arms. The world goes fuzzy at the edges.
I feel dizzy.
I can’t breathe.
Blackness bleeds, viscous and quick, at the edges of my vision.
My fingers claw at my throat. My breaths are strangled and short. My chest is rising so fast, too fast, my heart pounding inside me like it’s in a race to explode.
“Where are your pills?” Ian asks, snatching my backpack off the floor and digging through it furiously.
He tears open zippers. Pens and pencils, my notepads and books, go everywhere.
The darkness is warm and so inviting. The world gives way to black.
Ian’s hand is at my mouth.
“Swallow, Harlow,” he says, and I do.
He pulls me into his arms as I close my eyes and wait for the medicine to take effect. My head lolls against his chest.
“Hey,” Ian says, concern furrowing his brow as he rubs my cheek with his palm until my eyes open. “Are you okay?”
I nod, hiccuping in his arms. Tears slide down my cheeks and wet his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He rubs the crown of my head, combing through my hair slowly, again and again. His kindness makes me cry even harder, and I feel the tug on my heart, center of my chest, as he reels me in.
His heart beats out a steady rhythm beneath my ear, and my eyes shut as I lose myself in the metronome. I am holding him tight, practically glued to him, but I can’t bear to wrench my fingers away.
The door off-stage slams open with a solitary thud. I feel Ian tense again.
I blink. Everett, Archie, and Chase come into focus.
Archie says, “The cavalry’s answered our man’s call, bitches.” He eyes Finn moaning on the floor and adds, “And former bro.”
Everett nods at Ian as he surveys the wreckage. “You two okay?”
Ian nods. “Thanks for coming.”
He gently peels me off him to stand beside me. It doesn’t take long for his attention to settle on Aurora and her crew, who are now trapped between Ian and Chase, Archie, and Everett blocking the nearest exit.
Nobody except me sees the dark shadow that enters on the opposite side of the room.
“I will end you,” Ian says, his words low and rough like he put them through a wood chipper before they left his throat. They all take a step back, even Aurora. His voice is still smooth and seductive like usual but with a bitter bite like he’s the Devil delighting in his plans to rain hellfire down on earth. The comparison is appropriate because he’s the god of this campus, and I doubt he's feeling benevolent. “I will make sure the rest of your days are spent regretting the day you ever met me. I will fucking destroy you.”
&
nbsp; Aurora’s mouth falls open, and it takes her a long moment, almost an entire minute, before she recovers.
“She is nothing!” Aurora hisses, sticking out her manicured index finger at me. “Arriviste trash! Can’t you see that?”
She stalks forward, her hips swaying with every step, and tips her chin at him. She runs the palm of her hand across his beautiful face. Ian doesn’t even flinch. He just stands there like a statue.
“Everyone knows," she purrs, but her words are deadly, laced with venom, “you and Harlow aren’t together anymore, so that made her free game, Ian. Those are the Rules.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the Rules!” Ian snarls, sneering as he rips her hand off of him and clenches it between his own.
Her hand has to be hurting her. He’s holding it so tightly. Her eyes are watering, and she lets out a little whimper before she yanks it free.
“We were kids!” he shouts. “Grow the fuck up!” He eyes the rest of Aurora’s crew and moves toward them, his steps thunderous in this cavernous hall. “Don’t touch her again.” He points at me. “Don’t talk to her. Don’t even fucking think about her. Do you understand me?”
Lilith, Blythe, and Arabella nod emphatically. Ivy starts to cry.
“SAY IT!”
I startle at the slap of his words.
“Stop!” the shadow who entered earlier shouts. Molly, I think, only realizing after that I’ve said her name aloud. Everyone’s attention, mine included, turns to the waif of a girl buried beneath soft, brown hair and big brown eyes. She walks down past the empty seats and up onto the stage. I see no hint of the girl I met at the beginning of the year, crying as Finn broke her.
“If any of you,” she shoots daggers at everyone but me, “had ever asked or even listened to me when I tried to tell you, then you would know that Darcy’s death was not my fault. None of this would have ever happened if you had just listened. For too long, I thought I deserved this, but I don’t.” She pauses then points me emphatically. “And Harlow certainly doesn’t.”
She steps out of the shadows and underneath the glare of the overhead spotlight. Everyone is stunned into silence by the girl who never fights back, shattering all expectations.
“None of you would talk to me at his funeral.” Her voice cracks like the sharp hit of a hammer on thin ice. “And I blamed myself, part of me always will, but this ends now. Enough is enough.”
There is a moment of silence but Aurora shatters it. She cackles, her laughter raucous and ugly. “Get to your point, Thing, or get the fuck out.”
Molly glides forward, holding her head high, and stops less than a foot away from Aurora. I am proud. I am shocked. She is holding her ground.
“I told Darcy not to drive,” Molly says. “He didn’t even have his permit yet, and I knew he had been drinking. He always got loud, so loud, when he was drunk.” Tears pool in her eyes and nearly spill over. “God knows, I should’ve tried harder, but I wasn’t driving that night.”
“Liar!” Aurora spits the words. “You were charged.”
“Those charges were dropped.”
Aurora rolls her eyes. “Bitch, everyone in this room has charges that were dropped. It doesn’t mean we aren’t guilty.”
Molly looks like she’s going to be sick. Her voice cracks at the edges as she says, “Do you want to know what happened that night?” When Aurora doesn’t immediately reply, Molly continues. “He was driving so fast, and I had said something—some joke he thought was funny—and he turned just for a moment, a split-second to look at me. And that’s all it took.
“He was still smiling when we slid into the guardrail. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt when we hit, and he got thrown. He went through the windshield.” Everyone cringes, except Aurora. Archie looks like he’s going to be sick. “Everything happened so fast, and all I could think was his dad was going to kill him, that they would probably kick him off the football team and move him far away to some boarding school in the middle of nowhere so that we would never see each other again, so when the police arrived, I told them I had been driving. The car was destroyed, and they seemed to believe me. I thought it would be all right because by some miracle, Darcy was still talking. The car was demolished, but we were alive.”
Finn staggers to his feet. He looks like a kettle about to boil over, tears streaming down his ruddy face.
“Fuck.” Everett kneels, holding his head between his hands like he can’t bear to hear anymore.
“He didn’t die instantly like some movie,” Molly continues as she starts to cry. “He was talking. He was still trying to crack jokes even when he was bleeding internally.”
“You lying bitch!” Finn roars, jerking forward, but Molly shoves him away. “He was my best friend, and you fucking killed him!”
“I shouldn’t have let him drive, but I wasn’t the one behind that wheel, Finn!”
“You went away,” Aurora snarls. She looks so livid, her pale skin reddening to matching her copper hair. “You ran away because you knew you were guilty. You were gone almost a year.”
“I didn’t go to juvie or jail or wherever you’re thinking,” Molly says. “I gave birth to my son—my son with Darcy. Atticus.”
Everyone goes silent.
Everyone stares at her.
Finn curls his upper lip and looks like he’s about to splatter his shoes. He looks both disgusted and in awe.
I feel like I’m going to be sick, and the world rolls around me. I probably have a concussion, but even if I didn’t, I think I’d feel nauseous just the same. It was her secret to tell, and she just told it for me.
Ian stares at her. Grief, sorrow, disgust, everything unfurls in his gaze. Aurora gapes at Molly.
Ian says his question so softly, for a moment I wonder if I imagined it. “Why didn’t you tell us, Mols?”
“It was just after his funeral when I found out,” her stare, more sorrowful than angry, scrolls from person-to-person around the room, “and none of you would even talk to me.” Her voice cracks like plaster under the weight of her words. “You already had your stupid Rules and your stupid game and I wasn’t going to drag Atticus into any of it.”
Finn storms down the steps and off-stage, but not before he throws up on one of the seats in the front row.
Aurora exchanges a glance with her friends. She’s outnumbered, and she knows it.
“This isn’t fucking over,” she snarls, and then she’s backing toward the exit. Her lips turn down into a moue as she leads their exit out of the auditorium.
Everett kneels on the floor, his head between his hands, his fingers combing through his auburn curls. Archie kneels at his side, his hand on Everett between his shoulders. Chase stares at Molly, his eyes wide.
“What the fuck,” Everett says, but it’s not a question. It’s a statement that repeats out of his mouth like a record player skipping.
“Molly,” I say, amazed that I am staring at her, “why did you tell?” My voice cracks as I shake my head. “You didn’t have to tell that for me.”
Molly gifts me with a small smile. “You needed my help, Harlow.” Her gaze flits to Everett, but it’s so fast, I think I might imagine it. “It’s time this ended once and for all.”
Ian stares at me and says, “I’m sorry, Molly. I’m sorry for everything.”
Everett, Archie, and Chase echo Ian’s words.
Molly nods, swallowing loudly. She’s crying, but her words are clear. “I’m not going to say it’s okay because what you all did to me is not okay, but right now, let’s just make sure Harlow is all right.”
Ian kneels in front of me and pulls me in close, his hands on either side of my face.
“I’m sorry.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m so sorry.” He kisses my nose. “Please forgive me.”
Tears slide down my cheeks, and his image wavers like a reflection on the rippling waters of a lake.
“I’m sorry too,” I say before I kiss him. He tastes like salt, and when our lips meet, fireworks erupt
center of my chest. The sparks that rain down ignite every part of me.
Ian starts to help me to my feet, seems to think better of it, and pulls me into his arms before he stands.
Archie, Chase, Everett and Molly join us as he carries me out of the auditorium. For the first time in a long time, no matter what next semester brings, I know everything will be all right because I’ll be in Ian’s arms, with our friends beside us.
40
Harlow
Ian stands next to the window in my room, looking out onto the backyard. His hair is combed flat, his expression haunted but beautiful. The snowy ground that blankets the ground outside reflects the light of the sun, bathing him in a titian glow. He wears a bespoke, black suit that matches my dress, his loafers polished.
I take one final glance in the oval mirror above my vanity. The black of my dress bleaches the color from my skin, and I look pale compared to the dark fabric. I see William in my reflection, our hair color so similar, our eyes the same clear blue, and it shatters my glass heart.
“Are you ready?” Ian asks. When did he walk over? His hand holds steady at the small of my back.
I nod, and my fingers find his easily. We walk downstairs hand-in-hand and out the door of my grandparents’ home.
Snow blankets the ground, the azaleas that bloom ruby red in the summer, and the tops of the manicured shrubs that line the sidewalk. Tree branches hang low to the ground, weighed down by the frost. I wrap my peacoat around me tighter, my breath blowing hot steam into the chilly air.
We continue off the patio, my heels clicking on the shoveled concrete. We pass my grandmother’s prize rose garden, the green house my grandfather spends most of his time in, and their heated pool. We keep walking until we reach the rocky cliffside overlooking the Atlantic.
The scent of saltwater hangs in the air. There’s a stage off to my left with white scaffolding and black curtains. There are floral arrangements everywhere to match William’s team colors, blue hydrangeas and white lilies. Photographs of William, blown up on tall easels, stand scattered around the area.