“You okay?” Molly asks. She’s used to my nightmares. They come almost every night, and I always wake looking like I am going to throw up, paler than the white sheets on my bed.
“Yeah.” I groan as I make myself sit up. I’ve survived my first week at Voclain and even my bones seem to hurt from the long hours I’ve spent studying. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
My words carry an implied again considering my brain decided it was a good idea to claw myself free of the comforter and fall off the bed at 3 o’clock in the morning two nights ago.
“Nah.” She flips through Beowulf on her bed. I wish we could be in the same class section, but I couldn’t be that lucky. “We can leave whenever. The fam flew in this morning. No doubt my mother has already wrangled them into an enlightenment adventure.” She uses air quotes around the last two words.
“An enlightenment adventure?” I ask.
Molly rolls her eyes. “Something her acupuncturist-slash-therapist told her to try. It’s supposed to help you find meaning in the little things in life and soothe your id.”
I pull back the comforter and swing my feet to the floor, sitting on the bed.
“So if your mom has to go to Wal-Mart, she’s supposed to like try to find meaning in that trip?”
Molly laughs. “My mother wouldn’t be caught dead in retail, but yeah, something like that.”
I brush my teeth and dress quickly. I use Molly as a gauge for how to dress, and within ten minutes, I am also in a pair of khaki shorts and floral, bohemian-type blouse.
Molly looks at me. “You ready?” she asks.
“Ready, Freddy,” I say.
We walk out of the dorm room, and I am surprised as we head toward the student parking garage. It’s based on a raffle. I didn’t enter, but I know enough to know it’s hard to get a parking spot.
“You have a car?” I say.
Molly grins at me. “Got my license this past summer.” She waves her keycard at the glass door to the garage, and the door opens with a click.
We walk inside. It’s like a normal parking garage, except the entire thing is climate-controlled perfection and the spots are extra large and divided from each other by thick plastic dividers. We pass Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Porsches, and Bugattis.
“You’re lucky you won a spot,” I say.
She laughs. “Don’t believe everything you read, Harlow. There is plenty of parking. The administration just doesn’t want our pretentious classmates deciding they need a car for every day of the week.”
I grin and wonder which one of them tried it first. I am still grinning when Archie seems to materialize out of thin air and plasters himself to my side.
“Hello, lovely ladies,” he says, clearly staring at my breasts.
I laugh despite my best efforts. Molly rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s not even one hundred percent immune to his charms.
“If you are going to Chippendales, I’ll save you some money. You can just come up to my room.”
Now, I’m really laughing. Molly pretends to gag, which only causes me to chortle even harder.
“Archie!” someone shouts. “Hurry the fuck…”
Ian stops talking as he emerges from alongside a cherry-red Lamborghini. He looks relaxed in a pair of cargo shorts and a navy polo.
“Stormy,” he says, my nickname a soft purr that is all too intimate. The butterflies in my belly awaken from their dreams. When his gaze slits to Molly, he frowns.
“Molly,” he says her name like it’s a curse, but it’s the first time I have ever seen him acknowledge her, so maybe I am getting through to him.
My backbone bends a little, but I keep walking.
“Wait,” he says, and despite my better judgment, I stop and turn on my heel to look at him.
“What do you need, Beckett?” I ask. “Decide to make my life miserable today?”
Ian shakes his head. “The Rules don’t say anything about weekends. No weekends.”
“You and your stupid rules,” I hiss.
Archie stares between the both of us, his eyes wide. No amount of banter will make this better.
“Harlow,” Ian says my name, my real name, and something inside my chest breaks under the pressure.
“Just spit it out, Ian. Molly and I don’t have all day.” But when I look around, I see Molly has found her parking spot and is waiting for me inside a Lexus SUV.
“I don’t want to fight with you,” he says, his eyes closing briefly with his words. He stalks forward, erasing the space between us. I wish he smelled as dark as his soul, instead of warm, wonderful things. He’s standing so close his hot breath fans against my forehead as I look up at him.
“You say you don’t want to fight with me,” I say, “but then you make me choose. You and your friends make me choose.”
He shrugs, helpless. “Those are the Rules. I can’t change the Rules.”
I throw my hands into the air. “This is pointless.”
I stomp toward Molly, and he doesn’t try to stop me.
“Are you all right?” Molly asks as I buckle my seatbelt. She pulls out of the parking spot.
“I’m fine.” The thunderous roar of Ian’s Lamborghini vibrates all the way to my soul as I look over at her. “Molly, please know you don’t have to tell me, but I need to ask. Why are they doing this to you?”
She swallows, and I regret my question. The color bleaches from her face so she matches the white blouse she wears.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt. “You don’t have to answer that.”
She swallows again and shakes her head. “You don’t have to apologize. You’ve been great to me, Harlow, and it means the world.” She pulls out onto the road leading us away from campus. “They blame me for something horrible that happened to their friend, and honestly, it is my fault, at least part of it.”
“We all make mistakes,” I say. “No one deserves to be judged by their worst moment.”
But as the words
