She has filleted my heart open and just poured salt on the bleeding wound.
15
Ian
There’s a special place in my brain devoted to Harlow Weathersby and our kiss last Friday. That place is warm and cozy, like a cottage with a fire in the hearth as rain chimes on the metal roof. That place is safe and secluded from everyone and everything. No parents, no Aurora or her minions, no monsters waiting in the dark. That place is mine and hers alone.
Deeper still is a place, cold and dark and lifeless. In that place, Harlow stands in front of me, crying wordlessly, just like she did after our duet. I plead with her to stop this torture for us both, but she just stands there, unmoving as she stares forward, past me, and sobs.
I think maybe if I tell Harlow all of it, this bullshit will be over. Maybe if I tell her what the Thing really is and what the Thing did, Stormy will voluntarily switch sides. Then there will be no more rules that I have to follow, no more Aurora breathing down my neck, and no more looks from Everett like he wonders what pile of shit I will walk into next.
But no telling allowed, remember? It’s in the godforsaken Rules.
I need this over before it’s too late, before Aurora or Finn get so pissed they call a goddamn vote. If a vote happens, I will lose. I know that without question.
Two and a half years ago, consumed by rage and bitterness and heartbreak, we agreed to the Rules, five girls and five boys. We were stupid kids, callow and ignorant, but if Aurora forces a vote now, Finn will no doubt side with the girls, and I’m done for. At best, my penance will be to lose Harlow. If they enforce the penalty clause of the contract, I will lose much more than that.
Not that I’d go down without a goddamn fight. I certainly would, but there would be bloodshed. Needless bloodshed, all because Harlow has decided Molly is the victim and me the villain.
Aurora, with her sixth sense for conflict and strife, appears seemingly out of nowhere at my side. She should have been named Athena because of the wars that erupt in her wake. No, that’s being too nice because last year’s Ancient Philosophies class taught me Athena is also the Greek goddess of wisdom. Aurora should have been named Eris, the goddess of chaos. She spreads ruin wherever she goes, and it makes me sick to think how long it took me to see it.
Aurora lays a hand on my shoulder. I resist the urge to swat her away. It’ll no doubt just piss her off though. What the fuck is with all the touching lately?
“What are you planning for her today?” she asks, sneaking a glance at her phone, but I know she’s not really reading whatever’s on the screen.
I shrug. I don’t want to include her. “Something will come to me.”
“You’re going to have to try harder, Ian. Whatever it is you are doing, it’s not working.”
“I’m getting in her head, Aurora.” More like she’s getting into mine.
“You better be.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
She stares at me, blinking wildly like she’s so innocent. I slam my locker shut with my fist.
“Nothing,” she says, smirking. Shit. She knows she got under my skin. “Why don’t you come over tonight? You seem stressed." She runs a hand across my chest. I really should slap her hand away, but at least she has changed subjects.
“Maybe.” It is all I can manage through my clenched teeth.
She smells like that lily perfume she likes to drown herself in every morning. It fits her because just like the flower, she’s poisonous even in small doses.
Aurora smiles, pleased I haven’t just blown her off.
“I’ll wear that thing you like,” she says.
I want to roll my eyes, but it’ll just bring the high school equivalent of Ragnarok raining down on Stormy so I don’t. Aurora is talking about the tiny negligee that almost got her laid two summers ago.
She doesn’t like to remember that I was so drunk I didn’t even know it was her. She also doesn’t like to remember I’d puked up everything I had and then dry-heaved when Everett saved me and pointed out who—or, rather, what—I was about to fuck.
“I have to go to class.” I shrug her talons off me and step away. She follows me like a lost, poisonous pet.
“See you later, babe.” The words are loud enough for everyone in Adaptive English, including Harlow, to hear.
Fuck. Me.
I take my seat behind Harlow, and damn it, if she refuses to even look at me.
This is torture, only instead of laying on a rack in a cold chamber waiting for the executioner to arrive, I am sitting at my desk and Ms. Edmonds is nowhere to be found.
Good.
I have time to fix this shit, even though I’m not sure I can. I have to try though because if I don’t, I am going to hit something or spontaneously combust or maybe both.
“Stormy,” I growl, glad Ivy is distracted by the latest gossip surrounding which freshman might be pregnant with another one’s baby. I can hear her screeches with Blythe from the opposite side of the room. They still look over at us occasionally, probably to make sure we both look miserable.
“Stormy,” I say, and Harlow finally turns around, the movement so quick, I think she will snap her neck from the whiplash.
I see it there, even if she refuses to admit it: conflict, caught somewhere between repulsion and desire. I recognize it because it’s exactly what I see every morning when I look in the mirror.
“Yes?” she asks, her lips pursed like she’s about to spit at me.
I lean in close, my eyes flicking to Ivy and Blythe, who still appear up to their knees in gossip.
“I
