“Sneaking into the boys’ locker room?” he murmured. “I feel so violated. Tell me, sweetheart, did you see anything you like?” He flashed a smile so big that every perfectly polished molar came out to contribute. It sent a shiver down my neck, the way his eyes narrowed as he surveyed me. “Tread carefully, little Harper. You don’t need another enemy. Especially one like me.”
The shuffle of Headmaster Lowell’s feet on the thick carpet seemed to bring him back to his senses. He dropped the smile and cleared his throat again, keeping up the choking act.
“Thank you, sir,” Sterling said, accepting the glass of water. He turned those hazy brown eyes on me. There was anger there. The kind of anger I was smart enough to pay attention to. Because Sterling Lane wasn’t half as stupid and lazy as I wanted him to be.
I held my phone aloft for Headmaster Lowell to examine the photo. Sterling’s eyes scanned the image, then he leaned back, crossing his arms across his chest. He was up to something.
“Are team meetings not allowed at Sablebrook?” Sterling asked. “It’s a naive question, because yes, I admit to holding one. I didn’t know it would be an issue.” I looked again at the photo, scrutinizing it with unbiased eyes—eyes of someone who wasn’t there to see and hear the raucous cheering. Sure, Sterling was at a table, surrounded by his teammates, but the vodka was nowhere to be seen. Only the thin rim of the shot glass was visible in his grasp. Truly, he could have been holding anything.
“But—I have more,” I sputtered. “This is his.” I’d gone too far to turn back. I reached into my bag and produced the small brown cigarette butt, secured in its labeled plastic bag. I set it on Headmaster Lowell’s desk as he put on his glasses to examine it. He turned the bag over in his hands, a pinched expression on his face. “I’m afraid we’re not equipped for DNA testing at Sablebrook,” Headmaster Lowell said, glancing up at me.
“I retrieved this from below Sterling and Cole’s window,” I told them. “He was smoking in his room and flicked it outside. I saw him.”
Sterling’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak but then seemed to think better of it.
“Don’t look so self-satisfied,” I snapped at him. “You know I’m right.”
Sterling uncrossed his arms and steepled his fingers. “I think anyone raised within the purview of the United States judicial system would appreciate how paltry this so-called evidence appears. And how desperate your accusations seem. We both know what this is really about.”
“Of course we do,” I said. “It’s about Cole.”
“Harper, I’d like us to move past this,” Sterling replied mildly, switching to a tone I’d never expected from him. It was the way you’d soothe a wounded animal. “I understand you’re hurt. And why you’re so desperate for revenge.”
“I’m not hurt—”
“Harper,” Headmaster Lowell interjected. “Please let Sterling finish.”
My stomach contracted into a pea-sized ball with the density of Venus. I had no idea where Sterling was going with this, and that terrified me.
“Now, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, sir,” Sterling continued. “But the thing is, I’m really not ready for a relationship. And you know how girls get. Hell hath no fury, and all that.”
The pressure. The pressure behind my eyes. My head had either exploded or was in the process of doing so, my brains brightening the puke-brown curtains.
There were no words. No words for the unbridled outrage that was bursting the blood from my veins.
Headmaster Lowell flushed pink, whereas I kept on cruising past red into a hearty shade of eggplant. “I don’t want to date you,” I shrieked. “I hate you.”
“Settle down now, Harper,” said Headmaster Lowell. “I think you’re right, Sterling. I think it’s best if I just let the two of you work this out by yourselves.”
“But he’s lying,” I shouted.
“I know how difficult this age can be,” Headmaster Lowell said, breaking out one of the lessons from his weekend course in pop psychology. “You know, Dr. Schwartz isn’t just a career counselor. He has training in, well, personal issues as well.”
It was too much. Too much for me to endure. I couldn’t sit through another moment of this horrible, nonsensical farce of my worst nightmare.
“You’ll regret this,” I said, pushing to my feet so fast my chair toppled over behind me. If I even looked at Sterling, I’d punch him right in his aristocratic nose. “He’ll ruin this school and everyone in it. And when he does, I’ll serve you your words on a silver platter.” I stormed out of the room, but before the bang of the slamming door separated us, I heard Headmaster Lowell apologizing to Sterling.
Apologizing.
For my behavior.
I hated Sterling Lane with a white-hot rage that set my whole body on fire.
Air. I needed air. I was suffocating in that room. Choking on the hateful words and lies Sterling Lane had shoveled down my throat. I’d yelled at the headmaster—me. I couldn’t even process how many Rules I’d just broken, and for nothing. Cole was still in danger and now Headmaster Lowell thought I was attracted to a sociopath. My credibility was ruined.
Cole looked up as I ran past, but I couldn’t stop. Even when he reached out, trying to grab me. I surged down the hallway and crashed through the front door of the administrative building at full speed.
Desperate lungfuls of air weren’t enough to stop the panic. Rules 1 through 20 danced through my mind in backward order. Then forward. And backward again. I started to calm down as the Rules wrapped their reassuring arms around me.
Sterling Lane would pay. And pay. And pay again.
I just needed time to plot and plan and organize. And no matter what, I’d never tip my hand again. It was a mistake showing Sterling the photo and the cigarette butt. A master liar like him would always outmaneuver me in face-to-face situations. It was all too easy for him to antagonize and goad me into making a fool of myself.
I’d played right into his hands. Next time I would wait patiently and strike when he’d never see me coming. I’d strike without mercy.
One glance at my watch told me I’d missed 85 percent of history class, and I’d neglected to get a note to excuse me for being tardy. And then, inexplicably, I didn’t care. There was no way I’d give Sterling the satisfaction of seeing me slink back into the office to ask for one.
I leaned against the building, pressing my forehead into the cool brick facade. My breathing returned to normal, and my stomach crawled down out of my throat. I’d just started to feel like myself again when cold fingers curled gently around my elbow and guided me around.
I opened my eyes.
Sterling Lane was standing there. He held out a starched and folded white cloth handkerchief. When I shook my head, he pressed it into my open palm. Tears brimmed in my eyes and a few escaped down my cheeks. I hated him even more for seeing me that way.
“Walk with me,” he said, slipping one hand under my elbow.
“No.”
“I have a note excusing both of us from Mrs. Stevens’s class,” he said. The gentle pressure of his hand on my elbow towed me along two steps. “I suggest you come.”
I used his pretentious, monogrammed handkerchief to dry my cheeks as I fell into step beside him, chin aloft. I’d never again give him the satisfaction of seeing me vulnerable.
“I’m sorry we started off so badly, Harper,” he said.
“No, you’re not.”
“Actually, I really am. Because contrary to what you think, I’m not a sadistic person. I can’t afford to be expelled again.”
“Daddy will take away the trust fund?”
“Yes,” he answered. “But more importantly, my grandmother needs me. I can’t change schools again.”
Well, that wasn’t fighting fair. Although knowing him, he was just playing that card for sympathy.
“And I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I need. It’s how I was raised.”
“I
don’t want to hear your excuses,” I told him.
“It isn’t one,” he said. “It’s a fact. You see, my father isn’t a nice person.” We were halfway across the broad, grassy quad that separated the administrative building from the academic ones. I slowed my pace to match his, wanting to get away from him as soon as possible but also knowing that I needed the note he claimed to possess.
“Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” I was proud I managed to match his apathetic tone despite the tumult raging through my insides. Two could play at that game.
If Sterling heard me, he didn’t acknowledge it. “Every year, he drags my brother and me on some commando-style ‘men’s trip’ to keep us from getting too soft. As if you learn to be a man by pissing in a stream and boiling water to brush your teeth.”
“So what?” I asked, failing to hide my interest. “Why should I care?”
“Because sweetheart, last year while sweating my ass off in some godforsaken Peruvian jungle, I stumbled upon a pearl of wisdom that you’re desperately lacking.”
A little shiver ran down my spine when he paused on the sidewalk and looked at me, standing so close I could see the stubble along his jaw. It was oddly out of place in his new, über-groomed appearance. Try as he might, he couldn’t quite remove all lingering traces of laziness. He released my arm, sensing instinctually that I was locked in place by my curiosity.
“We went out one night in this rickety canoe, looking for alligators. Because our guide was a lunatic. We paddled right through this tall grass, shining flashlights into the faces of the alligators floating around us, watching us. Their eyes reflected the beam—lit up like a strand of Christmas tree lights on the surface of the water. It was actually a stunning sight.” He smiled a little. “Then all of a sudden, the guide reaches down and grabs one. Just grabs the alligator and rips it out of the water. And it’s tiny, a baby. But it lashes and snaps and tries to rip our hands off. Which was pretty awe-inspiring when you think about it—that kind of spirit.
“The guide taught us how to hold it behind the jaw so it couldn’t bite. Then we started up again, and after about twenty minutes, my ape of a brother reaches down and tries to grab the tail of what looked like a smallish alligator, floating right in the reeds. And the guide sees him and knocks him away, onto the bottom of the canoe just as the head of the biggest fucking alligator I’ve ever seen surfaces, with teeth like steak knives, and lunges at the side of the boat. It could have eaten my brother whole. Not that I would have cared.”
Sterling paused. I cleared my throat, impatient for him to get to the point. It was destabilizing, standing so close to him. When he stopped talking, his proximity was all I could think about. There was nothing to occupy the space between us but his words.
“Then the guide stands up in the canoe all crazy-eyed, waving around a serial-killer machete. And he picks my brother up by the front of his shirt and says, ‘Never grab a gator’s tail unless you can see the whole of the beast. Because the tip of the tail is the narrowest part. It’s deceptive. And the teeth will come crashing round faster than you can blink.’”
Suddenly, it seemed like Sterling was looming over me. Since he never stood up straight, I’d never realized he was so tall and broad-shouldered.
“And now, Harper Campbell, even if you didn’t fully understand the ramifications of what you just did, like my idiot brother, you pulled the alligator’s tail. Here come the teeth.”
We stood there in silence for a beat, just long enough for all 537 of my Rules to roar back in solidarity. Sterling Lane would do anything to win, as he’d just shown. But in that moment, I realized I would, too.
“Is that some sort of threat?” I asked. My joints felt like jelly as I lifted my chin and met his gaze. I would never again let him realize his effect on me. “Because you have no idea who you’re messing with. Whatever you do, I’ll throw back at you tenfold. And that’s a promise.”
His brown eyes widened as I took a step closer, just to show him I wouldn’t back down. “So tread carefully, Sterling Lane,” I added. “You don’t need another enemy. Especially one like me.”
Reason 9:
I may have lost Cole forever—and Kendall.
But I wasn’t really sure about her
status in my life, anyway, so perhaps
that part isn’t entirely Sterling’s fault.
I sat outside the administration building for two hours that afternoon, waiting for Cole to walk past. Few other students appreciated the manifold advantages of that location. From my hiding spot between two pillars, I had a full view of the quad, stretching from the ivy-encrusted library to the modern glass facade of the cafeteria. Nearly everyone, at some point, had to walk past. Because of the sheer girth and spacing of the pillars gracing the entranceway, I was completely hidden from view unless someone was specifically looking for me.
But it wasn’t like my peers were flocking to the headmaster’s office or loitering on the steps. Gratuitous socializing and jock-boy horseplay were reserved for the steps outside the library, as if they were intentionally trying to distract the students studying just inside the door.
The concrete stairs can be quite cold, so I brought an extra jacket to use as a cushion. Normally I reserved that spot for pleasure reading. I could close my eyes and imagine scholars in ancient Greece pontificating over scrolls on pillared entryways much like this Grecian replica. But today, I had my textbooks arranged neatly around myself so I could study while watching for Cole. It was far less convenient than the desk in my room, or my usual study spot on the second floor of the library behind the reference section. There, it was always silent as a crypt since no one bothered to use encyclopedias anymore.
Cole had vanished after the meeting with the headmaster, and his phone went straight to voicemail. I’d even knocked on his door, despite my fear that doing so would bring me face-to-face with Sterling Lane and his alligator teeth. But no one was there.
Left with no other course of action, I shifted into stakeout mode. I’d nearly finished my physics outline when a shadow fell across my page. Kendall was standing there, watching me. She clutched a square canvas to her chest, but I could only see the wooden frame of the back. Knowing Kendall, it was probably some fashion-related flowchart to help her pick the perfect shade of eye makeup.
“I heard about your brother,” she said, leaning back against the pillar like she planned to settle in and prolong this interruption. “Are you okay?”
I narrowed my eyes, waiting for the second blow of what was undoubtedly a two-punch combination. Cole was the one in trouble, not me. I couldn’t fathom why she was asking. There was no way she understood the depths of my loyalty to Cole. But as far as I could tell, Kendall simply expected my reply.
“Not really,” I said, surprising myself. Ordinarily, I’d never expose my jugular so readily, but exhaustion had settled in my bones, rendering me vulnerable. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. He’s been acting strange for weeks, and now he could actually get expelled, all thanks to Sterling Lane. I almost ripped Sterling’s throat out in the headmaster’s office. He had the gall to say…” I let my voice trail off. I’d almost told Kendall about Sterling’s wild accusation in the headmaster’s office. Maybe Cole wasn’t the only one who was behaving out of character. I sat up straighter, wrapping Rule 157 around myself: I never drop my guard around those vultures.
“What did he say?” She nudged my leg with her shoe.
“Nothing,” I snapped. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is Cole. I’m waiting for him so we can get to the bottom of this. You can leave now. You’re distracting me.”
“He was in the library,” Kendall said, not even acknowledging my dismissal. “Just a few minutes ago. He was reading a magazine in those beanbag chairs. I’m sure he’s still there.”
I pushed to my feet, sending outlines and paper index cards fluttering across the pavement. That was also unlike me. Years ago, I’d developed a foolproof system for packing my stu
dy materials away. Kendall bent down to help gather them up, tottering precariously in ridiculous heels that were better suited for soil aeration than human movement. I glanced over at the canvas she’d set down. It was a landscape—Sablebrook reimagined in impressionist style, all in shades of purple and blue.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Her cheeks pinkened as she reached over and turned it to face the pillar instead of outward.
“Nothing,” she said, handing me a stack of note cards. Her hands were shaking. Was it possible Ms. Popularity had a chink in her perfectly glossy armor?
“Did you do that?” I asked. “Because it’s really good.”
“Thanks. I’ve been stacking papers for years,” she said drily. “I know you think I’m a bubblehead, but give me some credit.”
“No,” I said. “The picture.”
“I was just goofing around in the studio. It’s terrible, isn’t it?” The poised and perfect Kendall Frank was visibly shrinking on the spot.
“No, it’s wonderful,” I said. And I meant it. Sure, Kendall Frank had egged my room. Probably even sketched one of those Harper the Hag cartoons, given her apparent level of artistic skill. But talent was talent, and always something to be revered—and I should know, because I worked like a demon to maintain the illusion of it.
Surprise and a guarded gratitude filled her face. “You’re not just saying that?” Then she shook her head. “No. I know you mean it. You don’t give a crap about being polite. That’s one thing I really like about you.”
“Really?” I asked. “Most people ostracize me because of it.”
“Well, most people suck.” Kendall straightened to her feet.
“You know, I like how you rearranged the room.” I stood, too, tucking my papers into my bag. “If you wanted to add…other decorative items, I wouldn’t object.” I tilted my head toward her picture.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said, horrified. “You mean hang that picture? Where people would see it? I don’t know—what would they think?”
Why I Loathe Sterling Lane Page 8