Envy

dreams, apparently. She deserved to settle for something attainable, something subpar.

Miranda was no hanger-on, clinging to a friendship with Harper in the hopes that some small crumbs of desirability and popularity would fall to the ground at her feet. But a part of her was always waiting, wondering- when would Harper turn to her and say, “It’s your turn now”? When would she reveal her secret of success and teach Miranda how to be bold, beautiful, and… more like Harper?

After all, everyone knew Harper Grace had it all-so wasn’t there enough to share?

Harper had never been very good at the sharing thing. Maybe it came from being an only child. Or maybe it just came from her utter disdain for almost everyone who crossed her path. Why should she share? Who was more deserving than her of having… well, anything?

Which isn’t to say that there weren’t a few exceptions-obviously there were some people worth her time and goodwill. Well, at least two: Miranda and Adam.

But then, she wasn’t very good at sharing them, either. Which is why she’d hated Beth even before discovering her own feelings for Adam. Harper was supposed to be his top priority, and always had been. But when Beth showed up, everything changed. She’d stomped all over Harper and Adam’s friendship, pulled him away; even if she hadn’t been in love, Harper doubted she would have been able to stand it for very long.

She wouldn’t have to wait much longer, Harper comforted herself. The next day, she was planning to put Kaia’s plan into action. There was just one thing: What if it didn’t work?

Harper rolled over in bed, kicking at her blankets in frustration. She hated thinking of Beth, wanting what Beth had-Beth, of all people. So boring, so dull-she was nothing, compared to Harper. And yet she had the one thing that Harper wanted the most.

And it wasn’t just Beth. Kaia’d had him too.

It was infuriating, the way Harper couldn’t stop watching her enemies-even her friends-and wishing she had what they had. She would never want Beth’s life, Beth’s bland and muddled personality. So why did she spend so much time wishing she could take Beth’s place?

It was the same with Kaia, spoiled, self-centered, bitchy, rich Kaia. She had no friends, no life-but she had so much else. Harper looked around at her room with complete disgust. The shoddy pieces of furniture, shadowy silhouettes in the moonlight, were supposedly antiques, but to her they just seemed old and out of style. Her closet was bursting with imitation designer gear, discount shoes-and even those, her parents always claimed, were practically more than they could afford. Whereas Kaia was probably spread out on designer sheets beneath a mahogany four-poster bed, tucked away in a cozy corner of her giant estate. Kaia didn’t have to buy Frada (imitation Prada), and she didn’t have to worry that someone from school would spot her helping out at the family dry cleaning store on weekends.

Sometimes it seemed like everyone she knew had something she wanted. Money, men-it didn’t end there. She was even jealous of Adam’s good-natured honesty, Kane’s car-and his complete lack of scruples. Even Miranda had something Harper occasionally longed for: obscurity. She didn’t have to worry about people watching, judging her every move. She didn’t have to constantly perform. She could just be.

It was as if everyone had something, something that made their lives better, special-and what did Harper have?

For one thing, she had the admiration of every kid in school. But, late at night, deep in the back of her mind, a small voice questioned what they saw when they looked at her. Was it real? Or did it all rest on an elaborate bluff?

Because if Harper really was who they said she was, if she really did have anything a girl could ever want, why did she lie awake so many nights wishing she were someone-almost anyone-else?

Anyone else might have lain awake all night, every night, struggling with his conscience, worrying about his betrayal of a friend, wondering if he was doing the right thing.

Not Kane.

No, as he stretched himself out along the couch and tucked a thin blanket over himself, his mind was untroubled, his conscience clear.

And he did have a conscience-despite his constant boasts to the contrary. True, it didn’t get much of a workout. But it was, like everything else about Kane, fully functioning-and, he insisted to himself, in this case it just had nothing to say.

He flicked on the TV-he needed it to fall asleep, to fill the silence of his empty house-and closed his eyes.

So he was in hot pursuit of Adam’s girlfriend. So what? First, as he’d pointed out to Harper, he and Adam weren’t best friends. Spending time with people didn’t automatically make you close, it didn’t mean you could depend on them. He’d learned that the hard way, a long time ago. And he wasn’t about to make the same mistake again. He liked Adam, liked hanging out with him-he certainly out-classed the rest of the Haven High gang of losers-but they didn’t owe each other anything.

Second, Beth was just a girl. Sure, Adam would be broken up, for a while-but he’d recover.

And then, there was the third issue. The status of his so-called crime: Was it even possible to steal something that had already been stolen? Because Kane had spotted Beth first. Kane had pursued Beth first. And by the rules of the game-rules that, in the old days, Adam had readily agreed to-Beth had been his for the taking. Until Adam swooped in and took her away. Beth had forgotten. Adam had forgotten.

But Kane remembered.

She had chosen Adam over Kane. She’d fallen for Adam’s good-boy looks, his good-boy charm. She’d brushed Kane away from her like a gnat and given herself to Adam. And ever since then, everything had been different. Adam was different, ignoring every other girl, most of the time ignoring Kane-all he wanted was Beth. To be with her, to talk about her, to hold her. Kane couldn’t stand it. Partly because he hated to see a friend morph into one of those relationship pod people, jettisoning all the interesting parts of his personality. Trying his best to behave-to obey.

But more than that, Kane couldn’t stand the possibility that Beth wasn’t “just a girl,” that she really was something special, something new-and that she belonged to someone else. Kane was not, by nature, a covetous person. Envy was too passive for him. To envy something, after all, you had to be sitting on the sidelines, watching what someone else had. Wanting it, longing for it, and powerless to get it.

Kane didn’t do powerless. He didn’t waste his time wishing he had someone else’s life, someone else’s possessions. He was who he was, he had what he had-and when he discovered something out there in the world that he needed? He took it.

Chapter 9

Harper didn’t usually associate with Beth and her little clique during gym class. Of course she had to be nice to Adam’s girlfriend, and pretend they were friends, but that didn’t mean they needed to be bosom buddies. So usually, after suffering through the forty-five minutes of torture better known as phys ed, she stayed on the other side of the locker room, sliding out of her hideous orange and black uniform and back into her real clothes as quickly as possible so that she could get the hell out. (The girls’ locker room, although lacking the overpowering stench of sweat ever-present in the guys’ locker room, was still not the type of place in which you wanted to kick back and relax.) But today was different. Today she had a mission. Kane and Harper had conferred, and agreed: It was time to set Kaia’s plan into motion.

She moved into position-a few feet away from Beth and the group of mousy blondes who surrounded her. When Beth, with her watered-down personality, managed to be the center of attention, you had to wonder about the quality of the company. Imagine a group that found the Queen of Bland riveting, Harper marveled to herself.

Far enough away to be unobtrusive, but close enough to… to do what she had to do.

She felt a small twinge of guilt about the whole thing, but quickly squelched it. She was doing all of them a favor, she reminded herself. Beth and Adam’s rickety relationship was being held together by a Band-Aid-and it would be less painful for all involved if someone just ripped it off, nice and quick.

Lucky for them all, Harper was up to the task.

“God, if I never have to run laps again, it’ll be way too soon,” Marcy sighed, stripping out of her sweaty gym uniform.