by Jenni Sloane
I’d thought Cole hadn’t noticed me.
What an idiot I was.
I slowly lifted a hand and wiped ketchup from my eyes, still ignoring Kayle and her proffered wad of napkins. I used my hand, smearing my leftovers down my cheeks and onto my school sweater. When I could see again, I turned around.
Cole was standing against the back wall. He caught my gaze and gave me a nasty grin. But I wasn’t even as fixated on the cruelty of his expression as I was on who was beside him. Standing next to Cole, his hand on Cole’s shoulder like they were old buddies, was Bennett. As I stared, Bennett gave me a wicked smirk that matched Cole’s.
So Kayle was right.
Bennett Baker had been bought.
Chapter Three
I arrived at the check-in room for my seven p.m. detention, still smelling like ketchup and gravy. I had been shepherded out to the rec yard after dinner with the other students, and hadn’t had time to change. Cole wasn’t there. Surprise, surprise. His new buddy Bennett must have given him a reprieve. Mr. Rominsky didn’t comment on the smell, or the crust of ketchup in my hair. He just led me to the athletic office.
After Kayle’s warning about grueling detentions, I was relieved when Rominsky told me I’d be polishing all the trophies in the athletic office. That didn’t sound so bad. He handed me a bottle of metal polish and pointed to several shelves of trophies and plaques, then told me to get to work.
“Um, sir?” I said hesitantly. “Do you have a rag?”
“Ah.” He tossed me a stiff, threadbare scrap of cloth that was riddled with holes, then took a seat at his desk and bent over some paperwork.
I stared at the cloth. How was I supposed to get anything done with this?
I poured some polish onto the least-tattered area of the rag, and picked up a trophy. As soon as I started to rub, polish seeped through the worn fibers and coated my fingers. The chemical smell was strong enough to burn my nose, and I worried about my hands taking on the smell. An hour and a half of this. Jesus.
By the third trophy, my hands were starting to burn. I put the rag down for a moment, flexing my scalded fingers. I needed to ask for a different cloth. But that would mean hearing my own voice echo, small and dull, through the room. I gathered my courage. “M-Mr. Rominsky? Do you have a better rag? This one’s full of holes, and the polish keeps getting on my skin.”
“That’s the only one available,” he said without looking up.
Ummm…okay. This hoity-toity reform school couldn’t afford new cleaning rags?
Deep down, I had a feeling this wasn’t really about a dearth of rags. It was about making sure I hurt.
“It’s really burning,” I said softly.
“Then maybe you’ll think twice before disobeying a rule.” Rominsky’s voice didn’t hold a shred of sympathy.
My stomach twisted. This definitely wasn’t legal. They couldn’t torture me into submission, not even at a reform school. But… Rominsky and I were alone here. No witnesses, no one to back up my hot take that schools shouldn’t burn students with chemicals. Who could I go to? Ms. Callahan? She was probably the one who’d come up with this punishment. She would take pleasure in my pain; she wasn’t an ally.
My parents? I was allowed one phone call a week. Maybe if I told them what was happening here…
No. My parents hated me. They wanted me gone. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of begging to come home.
I rubbed the trophy in my hands even harder. It was from 1968. Probably real silver, or silver-plate. I polished it until it gleamed.
From now on, nobody was going to hear a word of complaint out of me. I was going to endure everything that Strathmore threw at me—everything that Cole Heller threw at me—without crying “uncle.” Nobody would get the satisfaction of breaking me.
With that knowledge, I finished two of the three trophy shelves, until every bit of metal shone like mirrors. My hands were raw—flushed hot pink and bleeding from a couple of little cracks along the knuckle line. But I welcomed the sight. It meant I hadn’t given in.
“Time’s up,” Rominsky said, a moment after I’d started on the third shelf. “You’re slow, Reiter. You’ll have to finish tomorrow night.”
I bit back a “What?” I’d heard him. I knew he was serious. I wasn’t going to argue.
“Same time, same place,” he said. Still without looking at me.
As I hurried back down the fluorescent-lit corridors to my dorm room, I wondered what Cole was doing with his detention-free night. Plotting new ways to torture me? My cheeks burned to match my hands. I shouldn’t give myself so much credit. Cole probably didn’t spare a thought for me when he wasn’t looking right at me.
But why was I wishing he did?
When I got to my dorm, a petite blond girl was lying on the bed opposite mine. She was on her back, legs bent, her left ankle propped on her right knee. Her pajama bottoms were pink and printed with unicorns firing laser beams.
My heart nearly stopped. This was Ainslie Martin. My roommate.
My new potential friend.
She held a small MP3 player and had grimy white earbuds jammed in her ears. She acted like she hadn’t even heard me come in.
I hid my reddened hands behind my skirt, wishing to god I wasn’t covered in dried condiments.
“Hey,” I said loudly. “Ainslie, right?”
She tipped her pale face toward me, her expression unreadable. She had porcelain skin, full, pouty lips, and wide blue eyes framed with long lashes. Looking more closely, I saw a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her blond hair was long and artfully tangled in beach waves, and her thin, tanned limbs moved gracefully as she pulled one earbud out of her ear. “Yeah?” she muttered.
Well, this was off to a great start.
“I’m Amma Reiter.”
A long pause.
“So… I guess we’re roommates.”
She continued to stare at me, nose wrinkling slightly. “What is with your hair?”
I reached up self-consciously and touched a ketchup-stiffened strand. “Oh, uh…accident at dinner. Some kid spilled his food on me.”
I waited for some indication that she’d been there. That she’d been one of the people who’d pointed and laughed, or rewarded Cole with a holler of approval. But she just stuck her earbud back in and settled once more on the bed.
“I meant the Mormon hairstyle,” she said without looking up. “It’s not uncommon to have food dumped on you if you’re, like, a loser.”
My hopes for friendship were evaporating quickly.
I stroked my hair from the slight poof at the front all the way down my careful braid. “It’s not Mormon,” I said. “It’s just…how I wear my hair.”
I listened to the faint, tinny sound coming from her earbuds.
“How’d you get permission to have music?”
She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and sighed. “Well, it is my second year here. So I do have some privileges.”
I felt like a mom trying to talk to a bratty teenager.
“Is that why you were allowed to arrive late too?” I asked, starting to enjoy annoying her. “You weren’t at the opening assembly. Or dinner.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Strathmore knows who my parents are. They know they can’t stop me from doing something my parents give me permission to do. I straight up told that Nazi bitch I was going to see Certifiable, and that I’d need a day to recover afterward.”
The Nazi bitch, I assumed, was Callahan. But what was… “Uhh…Certifiable?”
She rolled her eyes again, then sat straight up, yanking her earbuds out and jabbing her finger at an iron-on patch on her pink camo backpack. “Them.”
The iron-on was—I assumed—a band logo. An eagle in a straightjacket, and CERTIFIABLE emblazoned over it in formidable serif capitals.
“Oh. That’s a band?” I knew very little about pop culture. My parents hadn’t let me watch R-rated movies, they’d vetted every song on my phone, and refused t
o get any type of streaming service whatsoever. I’d had to watch Game of Thrones at Tamar’s house, trying not to actively salivate watching Daenerys go from trembling victim to mother of dragons. I would have given anything to ride a dragon through skies thick with smoke and flame, invincible on the back of my massive protector.
Her pouty mouth fell open slightly. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m not super up on…music.”
“They’re amazing. I went to every show on their tour over winter break except one. Their bass player, Ian, goes here. He’s British. Last year was his first year on tour—he had to get special permission from the school to delay his final year. Ian doesn’t even have to show up till tomorrow morning. Strathmore wants to have students who are famous—famous for stuff other than crimes, I mean. So they let Ian do whatever he wants.”
Well, look who’d suddenly become Chatty Cathy. “Wow.” The word sounded flat and inadequate, but I really was impressed. Not by the fact that this Ian was British, or—apparently, in Ainslie’s world—famous. But because I loved music. Without even knowing Ian Kemp, I could imagine what it felt like to break free of this dreary place and spend months traveling from city to city, spending nights under the stage lights, letting out all your rage at the unfairness of the world, your love for the parts of the world that were still good…pour out of you in the wail of a guitar or the thunder of drums, the melody of a song.
“I used to date him,” she said, clearly expecting me to be impressed.
“Sorry it didn’t work out,” I said, taking my hair out of its ponytail.
Her mouth tightened. “We parted as friends. He just got too busy for a relationship, being on tour and all.”
Sure, hon. I’m sure it has nothing to do with him being able to sleep with groupies anytime he wants. “Oh. Well, good you’re still friends, then. And that you still support the band.”
“They’re amazing,” she repeated, as though daring me to say otherwise. “I’m obsessed.”
Something about the way she said “obsessed” unsettled me. I felt I understood Kayle’s reaction to hearing Ainslie’s name—Ainslie seemed like the kind of girl whose obsessions were not to be taken lightly. I pulled myself out of my fantasy of standing onstage, singing my heart out, and planted myself firmly back in this tiny room with its barred windows and sickening scent of the ketchup and mustard in my hair combining with Ainslie’s perfume.
“Well, cool.” I said lamely. “I’m gonna go wash this ketchup out of my hair.” I grabbed my towel out of the shared wardrobe. I could still feel Ainslie’s gaze on me. A glance revealed that her mouth was still open, her eyes glittering. Indignation, perhaps, that I wasn’t properly awed by the whole concept of Certifiable—or Ian the bass player? I felt a strange mix of guilt and repulsion. I’d wanted to impress Ainslie before I met her. Now I just wanted her to ignore me.
I heard her sigh and fall back dramatically on the bed once more. Snagging my shower kit, I made my escape to the bathrooms.
The next morning, my hands were so raw I actually gasped as I tried to make my bed before inspection. Ainslie, for all her insouciance, had made her bed and tidied her side of the room quickly and efficiently, and seemed annoyed by my slowness.
“Oh my God. What, is your hand broken or something?”
I help up my hands.
She recoiled slightly. “Oh God. Gross. I don’t want to look at that.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s a real picnic for me too.”
She shook her head as I struggled to create the required hospital corner on my cot. “Ugh, fine, let me do your bed so we don’t get busted.” She yanked my sheets into shape in about twenty seconds.
“Thanks,” I offered.
“Whatever. I don’t need to start my semester off with demerits. Especially not because of someone like you.”
See? BFF.
My first class was Algebra. Algebra, at eight in the morning. Strathmore really was a palace of tortures. Kayle wasn’t in my class, so I couldn’t even get excited about passing notes to someone. Phones were strictly forbidden at Strathmore, so it would have to be notes. While I’d never had the guts to be much of a rulebreaker, I’d survived more than a few tedious biology classes back at Monroe High passing notes to Tamar—when she was in the mood to acknowledge me.
Tamar had never been implicated. In the Halloween fiasco, I mean. The security footage had been too dark, or maybe her parents knew the right people and had made it all go away for her. She wasn’t rich, but her family did okay for themselves. Monroe High’s makeup had been mostly upper middle-class, with a few pieces of trailer trash like me. Kids from my neck of the woods were supposed to go to Highview East, but my family lived right on the district border, and somehow my mom had finagled Monroe for me. But I could almost always see in Tamar’s gaze the knowledge that I didn’t belong. That I was an okay person to hang out with if there was no one else around, but she definitely wasn’t going to take me home to meet her parents.
I hadn’t ratted her out. But part of me had been hurt that she hadn’t stood up for me. She could have told my parents, and/or the cops, that I’d never smash a stupid bird bath with a baseball bat. But not only had she let me swing, she’d completely ghosted me after that. No response to my texts, my calls. Not even my pleading message the night my mom told me I was being considered for the Strathmore Challenge.
Hadn’t she wondered what had happened to me? Why I wasn’t in school? I supposed the rumors had circulated quickly enough. Had my expulsion from Monroe made me seem cooler in their eyes? Or more of a loser?
My thoughts were interrupted by a stirring from the class. I realized another student had just walked in—ten minutes into the lecture on nonlinear equations. He wasn’t very tall—maybe five-eight or five-nine. And very thin—almost scarily so. His black hair was gelled into a Hades-esque flame, and his small but defined features were placid. His lower lip had a row of rings in it, and his septum and brow were pierced as well. It took me a moment to realize what was wrong with the picture he presented…and then I realized he wasn’t wearing a school uniform. Instead, he wore low-slung, ripped jeans—very low-slung; I could see the waistband of his boxers—and a tight white T-shirt that showed off the taught muscles of his slender, tattooed arms. His compact chest looked rock-hard, and as he strolled down the aisle to an empty seat, he casually scratched his stomach with his wrist, pushing his shirt up to reveal more boxer-waistband, and a trail of dark hard leading from the bottom of his six pack down into his jeans. My insides tightened a little, an unexpected bolt of heat catching me between the legs. I wasn’t sure why. That body was impressive, but the hair and the piercings made him look like some 90’s wannabe-punk. Which, I guess, was kind of hot.
I was still staring at him, much to my chagrin. But everyone else was too. Ainslie was practically salivating. Even Ms. Harmon, the teacher, seemed unable to look away.
“We love you, Ian!” someone called from the back of the room. Ms. Harmon had to shake herself out of her trance to scold them. Ian gave the back of the room a little wave without turning around.
“And you,” Ms. Harmon said to Ian, without much conviction. “I believe your letter of permit said you were to be at the school by eight?”
“Sorry.” Ian’s voice was low and gravelly, like he’d just woken up. His lips curved slightly, the rings catching the fluorescent lights. “Bit of a rough night.”
That accent. His Britishness had seemed like a random detail for Ainslie to include in her presentation on the merits of Certifiable last night. But now I understood. A guy who was every bit as hot as Cole Heller, but who hadn’t tried to drown me in a bird bath, frame me for vandalism, or throw food on me? And who had an English accent? Sign me up.
The door opened again, and an absolute mountain of a man walked in. He was even bigger than Bennett. Well, taller, at least. He was leaner, but absolutely jacked. A bodybuilder, I thought. There was no other explanation for the muscles tha
t bulged under his school sweater. A sweater that looked sweetly ridiculous on him.
“You too, Archer,” Ms. Harmon said. “Eight o’ clock.”
“Not his fault,” Ian said in that cigarettes-and-whiskey voice. “He’s got to stay with me. Bein’ my bodyguard and all.”
Some people laughed.
Archer didn’t speak. His face remained utterly impassive.
“Take your seats,” Ms. Harmon said crisply.
Throughout the rest of class, I snuck glances at Ian. Which seemed only mildly classier than outright staring at him like he was a god, and I was a supplicant. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Ian doodled in his notebook. Strange monsters, mythical beasts, winding ribbons of darkness—all rendered and shaded to perfection with his blue pen.
Archer stared straight ahead, taking notes without seeming to look at the paper. Add Ian and Archer Kemp to the long list of things I didn’t get about Strathmore Reform. Things I was too unfamiliar with to process, too unobservant to notice, too sheltered to understand.
One thing I did note: For the remaining forty minutes of class, Ainslie didn’t take her eyes off Ian. Not even once.
Chapter Four
“How was detention?” Kayle asked me at lunch. We were having borscht. Like, actual Ukrainian fermented beet soup. This really was a prison camp.
“Fine,” I murmured, not wanting to go into detail about it. “I have to go back tonight.”
“What the hell did you do? Did you get in trouble again?”
“No—Nothing. Just…didn’t finish the task he gave me.” I took a bite of borscht and made a face. It was lukewarm and sour.
“I guess you know Cole didn’t have to serve his detention.”
“Yeah. I figured.” In my mind, I saw Cole again, clapping Bennett on the shoulder while staring at me. Like it was a performance for my benefit.
“Bennett’s in his back pocket,” Kayle said. “It took less than a day. I hate rich people.”