Is this bitch serious? “I don’t appreciate it when people try to intimidate me because I don’t want to sleep with them, so Alec can shove my apology up his ass. Why has he sent you to bother me? Are you his secretary?”
Cleo’s eyes narrow. “I thought we should get to know each other again, since you seem determined to make enemies of people who should have been your friends. Your father may have been a big shot, but he’s old news now, and you’re nothing. I will make your life a living hell, Melrose, unless you step in line. That includes staying away from Gabriel Fallen.”
I slam my locker shut. “You choose my friends now? I’d have thought you wouldn’t have much spare time between plotting the downfall of Rome and bathing in your ass milk.”
Behind me, Gabriel snorts, and I get a little flutter of excitement that I made Gabriel Fallen laugh.
“I’m telling you this out of the kindness of my heart.” The smile Cleo gives me is anything but kind. “I know what you’re feeling – Gabriel’s pretty and famous and he makes you feel special. But you’re not special – you’re the ghost slut, and he’s only after you because he wants to be the first to fuck the mysterious girl. He’ll use you and spit you out and leave you a bloody mess, just like he’s done with every girl in our year. Leave him for the woman who can handle him.”
From the way her eyes raked over Gabriel, I knew she meant herself.
Gabriel gives a dark chuckle. “That’s a rather revisionist view, Cleo. If I recall, you broke into my hotel room after junior prom, and when I politely declined, you pushed me through the French doors and cut yourself on the glass. I may be a man whore, but I don’t do crazy.”
One of Cleo’s minions giggles, but a stern look from Cleo soon puts a stop to that. She turns back to me and addresses us both in a sickly sweet voice. “I’m talking to Melrose now, Gabe. But we should catch up later, in private. I want to hear all about your tour. Now that no-good druggie drummer is out of your life, maybe you’ll have more time for your real friends.”
Gabriel stiffens. My blood boils. If this girl is sinking her claws into Gabriel, she should at least bother to know something about him. I’ve read every press interview and seen hundreds of YouTube clips of Gabriel and Dylan playing and laughing and crying together. They’d been friends since they were in diapers. Gabriel has to be cut up about Dylan’s death, and Cleo can’t even figure that out?
I meet Cleo’s glare with one of my own – a glare that would reduce a lesser mortal to a puddle of goo, but Cleo wouldn’t be so easy to break. “Look, I don’t know what you think you’re achieving here. I’m not after your crown or your man. Gabriel can make his own decisions, although if he wants to avoid venereal disease, he should probably keep away from you. On account of the ass milk.”
Gabriel is laughing so hard his whole body trembles, but no one else dares. There’s an intake of breath from Cleo’s minions and the surrounding students.
Cleo smirks. “You think you can walk back in here and own this school? I know you believe you’re special because you disappeared for four years. You were probably in Tijuana getting your nose and boobs done.” She gives this condescending nod to my chest. “You should go back. They’re uneven, and no one wants you here. Go back to being a ghost slut, and stay away from Gabriel.”
No one wants you here.
The words coil around my heart, squeezing the air from my lungs. I’m unwanted. That word brings up all kinds of pre-coffin shit I didn’t want to think about right now. I don’t know what I expected, showing up at Stonehurst during senior year, where everyone else knows each other, has this history, has this sense of the way things should be. I should have known I couldn’t fade into the background.
But I came anyway, and as much as I tell myself it’s to achieve what Antony and I need, I know that’s not the whole truth. Deep down, I’m sick of being lonely. I’m sick of empty rooms and playing music at top volume to drown out the darkness and the voices in my head. I’m sick of staring at the fancy dining table that seats twenty or sprawling out on the monster sofa in the games room and wondering what it would be like to add a player two to a video game.
I want everything I can’t have. The loneliness that is crushing me also protects me. And I’ve gone and cracked that shit wide open. A single tear leaks out of the corner of my eye.
I blink the tear away, but it’s too late. Cleo’s seen my weakness, and she pounces. “Poor little ghost slut, crying because she can’t handle it out here in the real world. Go back to the shadows where you belong. And leave Gabriel alone – he’s mine.”
Before I can formulate a scathing response, Cleo turns on her heel and trots away, ass swinging. The girls behind her all turn in unison, like this was a carefully choreographed act to impart maximum humiliation, and stomp after her.
I glance at Gabriel, blinking away the tear before he sees it. He shakes his head. “Cleo’s rolled out the red carpet to welcome you, Mac.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“Really? I am.” Gabriel shudders. “She may look like just another mean girl on a power trip, but Cleo St. James is batshit crazy, and not in a fun way. If you want me to stop bugging you, bring the heat off—”
“Hell no.” I lace my arm in Gabriel’s. He grins as we walk together in the direction of homeroom. “Cleopatra doesn’t scare me.”
But after our run-in with Cleo, Gabriel’s subdued. He doesn’t joke and flirt with me in homeroom or first period. He takes his books out and hunches over them, but I can see him doodling in the margins instead of working. I see too, that everyone around him whispers about him, watching him out of the corners of their eyes. I hear my name on their lips, as well as Dylan’s.
I wonder if this is Gabriel’s way of trying to take me out of the spotlight, or if it has something to do with what Cleo said about Dylan.
I can’t pretend I know anything about what he’s going through. I’d never found my best friend ODed in my hotel bathroom with a suicide note blaming me. Hell, I’ve never even had a best friend, unless I count Queen Boudica. But I do know a little bit about being infamous, about living your worst nightmares in the press for all to see.
Everyone in this school knows this horrible truth about Gabriel, and they know a completely different truth about me. They circle us both like sharks, waiting for us to tire, before they gobble up every broken piece of us that’s left.
12
Mackenzie
I debate skipping out on the chemistry make-up session, but I’m three days into class and already so behind that I know I’m in danger of flunking out if I don’t put some work in. All I have to do is follow the written directions and write down what I observe. How hard can it be?
Next to impossible when faced with the glory that is Gabriel Fallen. As soon as I walk in the door to the lab, he’s putting on a show for me. He has his lab coat on backward and his aviators on and he’s spiked his shoulder-length hair so it sticks out at all angles. He holds up a test tube and announces in a trembling voice, “My greatest creation. It’s aliiiiiiive.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I roll my eyes as I slide my seat away from him. That scent of him swirls around me – the smoke and sugar of heathen debauchery. All the dark and tempting promises of his music drip from him, and I want to surrender to it. Instead, I pick up the worksheet containing the experiment we’re supposed to complete and start measuring out the different chemicals.
“What are you talking about? This is my serious student face.” Gabriel purses his lips. “I copied it from Eli.”
“It needs some work.” I stare down at the page in a vain attempt to keep myself from laughing. “It looks like someone’s shoved a cantaloupe up your rectum.”
“A cantaloupe?” Gabriel slides in beside me. “That’s awfully specific. Do you have a lot of practice shoving spherical fruit into forbidden orifices?”
His arm brushes mine, and my skin crawls with heat. I look toward the windows – anywhere to avoid meeting Gabriel
’s eyes, because I don’t trust myself around him right now – and see Eli and Noah walking across the quad, surrounded by their popular friends. Cleo hangs off Noah’s arm, but his eyes are fixed on the classroom. On me and Gabriel. And he looks murderous.
“Your friend doesn’t like me.”
Gabriel looks up and sees his friends. He grins wickedly and flips Noah off. Noah frowns and returns the gesture, but I can tell from the tightness in his shoulders that this isn’t friendly ribbing. Noah doesn’t want Gabriel to hang out with me.
Cleo looks over and sees us. She shakes her head at me as if to say, ‘what will I do with you?’ Great. I’ll pay for this later. Now Eli’s looking, also great. He gives this friendly wave that makes my chest tight. The last time someone waved at me… I can’t even remember. I whirl around to face the experiment again. No point wishing for what can’t be.
“Noah’s got a wicked hate on for you,” Gabriel muses as he makes a table for our results on the back of the worksheet.
I grunt in reply. There’s nothing else to say about it. If I were Noah, I’d hate me too. “Noah’s your friend. You don’t share his hate?”
There’s a darkness in Gabriel’s voice as he says, “I long ago gave up on letting other people dictate my life.”
Gabriel’s lyrics fill my head, the chorus to my favorite Octavia’s Ruin song, ‘Dance Macabre.’
You’re the Senator and I’m the slave.
Watch me dance for your amusement.
We’ll have a royal rave,
While Rome burns all around.
When Gabriel sings that song, there’s a bite to his words, a bitterness that seeps into every note. Suddenly, I have to dig. I need to know if what I feel when I listen to his music is real, or if it’s all an act he creates to sell records.
“So how come you’re here?” Our mixture fizzes, but doesn’t explode. I make a note on Gabriel’s table. “Surely you’d rather be in the studio or on tour rather than at school. It’s not like you need a high school diploma.”
Gabriel’s easy expression doesn’t change, but there’s a prickle in the air that wasn’t there before. “I know you’re a Ruins fan, Mac. You must have heard about Dylan.”
“I did. It’s terrible that he died. He was an amazing drummer, and I know he was your friend. But the band’s still together, right? You’ll find a new drummer and finish the album?”
Gabriel hums under his breath as he lights the Bunsen burner and rearranges the test tubes. “I haven’t decided. That’s why I’m here. Stonehurst is as good a place as any to figure out my next move, certainly better than enduring my parents back in England.”
“The music press is talking like you’re already hunkered down in a studio in Paris.”
“Yes. Well, they don’t know everything about me.” Gabriel rests his chin in his hands and stares into the flame of the Bunsen burner. A shadow hoods his eyes. It’s gone in an instant, but too late – I’ve seen it. I recognize it – the mirror image of a shadow that’s haunted me ever since the night Antony dug me out of my own grave.
It’s the shadow of regret and grief and misery so dark and so deep that it’s impossible to see a way out.
I nod. “I can relate to that.”
More than you can ever guess.
Gabriel flashes me that panty-melting smile, only this time it’s tainted by the melancholy in his eyes. And I see him as he truly is – not Gabriel the rockstar, but Gabriel the human raging over the death of his friend – and I understand just how much of his wildness is a mask.
Something happened the night Dylan died, and whatever it was, Gabriel’s here at Stonehurst trying to escape it.
13
Mackenzie
I balance my lunch tray on my knees and struggle to open my mayonnaise packet. It’s Monday of my second week at Stonehurst Prep, and I’ve got my routine down. I arrive at school just as the bell rings, avoid Eli, avoid Noah, peel pornographic stickers off my locker, nod hello to Gabriel in homeroom, go to class, stare blankly at the teachers as they blather on about stuff I don’t understand, eat my lunch in the bathroom, repeat the blathering and blank staring, sneak through the wooded area at the rear of Malloy Manor to escape the attention of press encamped by the gate, curl up with Queen Boudica and stare blankly at homework, try not to think about Eli, Gabriel, and Noah. Rinse, repeat, blah, blah, blah.
When the stupid tab refuses to tear, I hold it in my teeth and yank. My elbow bumps the tray, sending my fork skittering across the tiles.
“Fuck.” I may be the embodiment of pathetic right now, but no way am I eating with a fork that’s fallen on the floor.
“Here.”
I nearly jump out of my skin as a hand thrusts under the gap in the stall, holding a new, non-gross fork.
What the fuck?
“Shit.” I capture my tray in both hands before it slides off my knees. The fork hangs there. The fingers gripping it are thin, elegant, tipped with black-and-white striped nail polish.
I exit my stall and thump my fist on the next door. “Open up.”
There’s a click, and a few moments later the door swings inward, revealing a girl holding a tray. She stands up as I lean against the door, and I find that even with my medium height, she only just reaches my shoulder. She’s got chin-length hair dyed in streaks of blue and purple, all done in feathery layers, and emerald piercings through her pixie nose. I notice her white socks aren’t the uniform standard, but instead covered with tiny green aliens.
Her eyes widen as she takes me in. She looks exactly like the kind of person I’d expect to be eating in the bathroom. Which also means she’s fascinating to me.
“Um… hi, Mackenzie,” she says in a breathless whisper. “I...I grabbed an extra fork by mistake.”
“You know who I am?”
“Of course. You broke Alec’s nose.” Her eyes widen. “It was awesome.”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “You’re the only one in this school who thinks so.”
“That’s because Alec’s…” she snaps her mouth shut, as though she was going to say something but changed her mind. “He’s the son of Mark LeMarque, big-shot producer. Everyone who goes here wants to be in showbiz, so they’ll suck up to him or Gabriel Fallen or Cleo St. James to claw their way to their big break. I heard Cleo flew to Paris over summer to tape a modeling reality TV show, but she got eliminated in the first round and she won’t tell anyone what—” The bathroom door creaks, and the girl grabs me by the collar and yanks me into her stall, slamming the door behind her. Our food flies everywhere, splattering both our uniforms in red wine jus. The girl backs into the far corner, biting her lips as she balances her tray on top of the cistern, trying to appear as small as possible.
Outside, I hear voices. I recognize one as a girl I saw with Cleo when she accosted me in the corridor and another, unfamiliar voice.
“It’s so annoying Mr. Ross made me do my make-up test over lunch,” says Cleo’s friend. “I’m starving, and the fascists who run this school closed the salad bar four minutes ago. It’s practically child neglect.”
Wow, I’m sure the actual horrors of fascism are equivalent to not getting your daily dose of kale. I bite back a retort that whips across my tongue.
“Don’t worry, Daphne, you just missed the usual. Alec’s planning the first party of the year, Eli wants us all to volunteer to plant trees in the Emerald Beach nature reserve, Noah grunted into his coffee. Oh,” the second girl’s voice drops. “You won’t believe what I overheard at the lockers. Cleo asked Gabriel over to her place this weekend. and he told her he’s hanging out with Mackenzie Malloy instead. I hope that girl knows what she’s doing, because Cleo’s ready to go nuclear on her ass.”
What? Gabriel hadn’t said to me about this supposed hangout. I assume he’s just using me as an excuse to get out of Cleo’s date, but I can’t stop my chest constricting so tight I worry I’m having a heart attack. But it’s just an attack of what-the-fuck-is-Gabriel-Fallen-playing-at, which
is definitely more exciting.
“Personally, I think Cleo should stay away from Gabe,” Daphne sounds worried. “You heard about what happened on his tour.”
“No. I was in Nantucket all summer. Oh, that reminds me, I have to tell you what Chip and I got up to at the boathouse, but you were saying about Gabriel—”
“The drummer of Octavia’s Ruin killed himself. Or, at least, that’s the official story.” Daphne lowers her voice. “I have a cousin who works in management for their opening band. He said Gabriel and Dylan had a massive screaming argument the day he died, and that Gabriel threatened to hurt him. Apparently, the police have their eye on him. They think he might’ve been responsible for his death.”
“But he killed himself,” the other girl points out, which is exactly my question. “That’s not Gabe’s fault.”
“Suicides can be faked,” says Daphne in a know-it-all voice.
What the actual fuck? That can’t be true. Gabriel and Dylan were close. It takes a cold fucking person to murder their best friend and cover it up, and that’s not Gabriel. It can’t be.
But I think of the darkness in Gabriel’s eyes, and I wonder.
I know better than anyone the depths of evil human beings are capable of.
I hear the water running, and the hand dryer blares, drowning out their voices. I lean against the door, trying to catch what they say about Gabriel. The door swings open, and their voices disappear down the hall. Dammit.
Behind me, the girl visibly relaxes. I’d almost forgotten she was there. I yank open the stall door and get my ass out of her space. “So, now we’re both wearing each other’s lunch, I should probably know your name.”
“I’m Georgina, but everyone calls me George.” She shoves the contents of her lunch tray – ceramic plate and cutlery and all – into the trash, and balls up a wad of toilet paper to dab at the stain on her collar. “When they bother to use my name. Usually, it’s ‘freak’ or ‘dyke’… Cleo has some imaginative names if you can’t think of any.”
My Stolen Life: a high school bully romance (Stonehurst Prep Book 1) Page 7