Zion has been spending more and more of his time cutting class and hanging out with his Gulch friends, most of whom had already dropped out by sophomore year. Grandpa is doing better than he has in years, but he is still usually asleep by the time I get home from school.
Jake still smiles at me when our path’s cross at school, but he learned his lesson the last time and hasn’t spoken a word to me. He risked passing me one note during AP Government to confirm that we were still on for the Founder’s Ball.
It makes me wonder if he only wants to take me at this point to prove something to Vin.
That would be pointless, taking on Vin Cortland doesn’t make you brave. Just stupid.
But even the possibility of going to the Founder’s Ball with the person who will piss Vin off most isn’t enough to overrule the isolation that suffuses every moment.
I have never felt so alone in my entire life.
But maybe that’s the point.
When I finally force myself to ask him, it turns out that Zion has Amelia’s phone number.
I’ve never asked him how he always manages to have a phone on him despite our extreme poverty, but I can only assume it involves petty theft of some kind.
The night before the Founder’s Ball, I finally decide to reach out to her. Amelia is the closest thing I have to a girl friend. I can trust her not to spread stories, because she has as few people to talk to as I do.
It’s Zaya. I have an iPhone, a fridge full of food, and I don’t know what to do.
Be there in 15.
“This looks like something out of Extreme Makeover - Trailer Park Edition,” Amelia exclaims as she walks through the door. “What in the name of Adam’s shiny elbow happened to your house?”
Amelia isn’t cursing, even though it really seems like she wants to. It makes me wonder what the hell must have happened for her not to let a damn or hell slip out of her mouth.
I hold up the phone so she can see the picture of Vin that has been set on the home screen. There is some kind of parental lock that prevents me from changing it. It’s been days, and I still haven’t cracked it.
Amelia lets out a low whistle as she looks around the transformed living room. “Is this what all that posturing at the Gas and Sip was about? I thought Cortland was going to strangle you, not remodel your house.”
If given the two options, I know which one I’d have preferred. I gesture for her to follow me upstairs so we don’t disturb Grandpa, who is still sleeping.
He sleeps a lot these days. I doubt he has even noticed all of the changes in the house.
“Are you going to explain?” she asks expectantly as I close the bedroom door behind us and sit down on the bed.
Instead of answering, my thumbs move along the phone’s screen. Moments later her crappy flip phone vibrates with the message.
He wants me to marry him.
I like her even more when, instead of screaming for joy or telling me how lucky I am, her mouth drops open and she just stares at me.
“Why?”
I text her again.
He has to get married to get his inheritance.
“That’s not really an answer to my question.” Amelia sits gingerly on the edge of my bed and crosses her legs at the ankle. Today she wears a calico-patterned dress that has short sleeves but bunches of ruffles down the front. I catch the hint of a bright pink bra strap before she pulls the ruffled neckline back into place. “There are a hundred girls who would take that deal, even if there was nothing coming on their end but the name. Why would he pick you?”
I shrug, even though it isn’t just confusion swirling through my head. Amelia doesn’t know anything about the history between Vin and I, nobody really does. But nothing from the past would explain this bizarre turn of events.
And I don’t want to speculate on the whims of Vin Cortland, because that is the best way I know of to get my feelings hurt. He either chose me because torturing me has been a favorite pastime of his for years, or because he thought I would be easy to control.
Neither of those options is particularly flattering.
It should tell me something that I still have his gift in my hand, an expensive phone that I should have pawned at the first opportunity.
I think I’m going to get rid of this thing. Hammer maybe?
“Don’t you dare!” Amelia snatches the phone out of my hand and turns it over to inspect the back. “This is some top-of-the-line crap. Sell it if you have to, but trashing it would just be a waste. Then you’ll only have something else to feel bad about.”
I hate that she’s right.
It makes me want to share a thing with her that nobody but me knows, if just to see what her reaction will be. I need to know just how far from sanity I’ve let myself go.
When I pull the shoebox out from under the bed and drop it in her lap, Amelia looks at me like she thinks there might be a bomb in there. I nod at her to open it when she hesitates.
Her face is gratifying, because clearly I’m not the only one going crazy here.
“Where did you get this?” She gasps the question as she thumbs quickly through the bills, clearly doing a mental calculation. Then she catches the look on my face, and her eyebrows shoot up. “From Vin?”
I nod as she hands the shoebox back, gaze lingering only for a moment on the pile of cash before she lets the lid fall shut.
“That’s wild.”
Picking up my new
