They have no idea, no clue of what their seventeen-year-old friend, Voclain’s beloved quarterback, already knows.
That he would pay anything, any price, to have that girl.
— Harlow —
I sit on the ground, my legs splayed in front of me and my book bag lost a few feet away, abandoned on the grass. My fingers bite into the soft lawn as I tilt my head up toward the sky and let the sun warm my face. Blades of glass slide through my fingers as I force my palms to unclench and my shoulders to relax.
My lungs work in sporadic bursts as the stone of the building jabs into my shoulder. I close my eyes and begin, just as Dr. Murray taught me.
The numbers pop into my head as I count, forming clouds of mist in my mind.
One, two, three, four, blue.
I try my best to visualize my version of serenity—a perfect summer sky over ocean waves—but it eludes me.
One, two, three, four, blue.
O...one, two, three, four, blue.
The darkness slithers back toward the shadows, and my picture of the perfect beach day shows itself. I latch onto it, and the darkness disappears completely as my heart rate slows. I know it’s still there though, lurking at the edges where I cannot see.
Cold sweat coats my forehead and pools low on my back as my hands tremble from the adrenaline of whatever just happened. I should take a pill, but the distance to my book bag seems uncrossable and even my bones are weary from hours spent at the airport yesterday.
Molly cries beside me. Unshed tears prick at my eyes, and I bite my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood to stop it from trembling. I don’t join her, even though I could use a good cry. I don’t join her because they will see, and after that, I’ll be the girl who cried. William taught me better than that. I know better than that.
Why do they hate me?
The question rings in my ears, though I know I shouldn’t ask it. I shouldn’t even think about it. It’s not like people ever need an excuse for hatred. Hatred simply is.
It’s easy too, with none of the effort required by empathy or compassion. It spills from our lips like poison and from our fingers like an airdrop of napalm, incinerating everything in its path. It exists because we allow it to exist.
Molly sniffles, wiping the back of her hand across her nose before she opens her book bag for a tissue. She’s devoted a whole side pocket to tissues, and the realization that she saw this coming makes me grimace.
“Don’t worry,” she says, and it sounds like she’s talking more to herself than to me. “They never strike twice in one day.”
She blows her nose, and it sounds like a trumpet. I giggle, and she joins me. It’s ridiculous, sitting there, sweaty from our sprint and trembling with nerves as the warning bell for first period rings.
“Crap,” she says, “ten minutes to get to class.”
I pick myself up off the ground and help Molly to her feet. Dirt and grass cover my flats. My white stockings have an ugly rip in the back thanks to the stone wall. I look like I got lost in the woods and had to push my way through the trees to get out.
We hurry toward the main building, a mortar-and-stone sprawling structure that resembles more of a medieval castle than a high school. There are pathways all over the campus, crossing and winding from one building to another, but a few of them intersect in front of the building to form a long cement path. A row of tall flag poles flanks the path on either side, each bearing a flag of royal blue embossed in silver with the Academy’s logo.
Students avoid Molly and me like we are contagious. I want to flip them off and shout, “What is your problem?” but that might scare Molly. I don’t want to scare my only friend.
If I’m honest though, the actual reason I don’t yell is because I’m a pansy. I hate confrontation. I don’t understand it, and I think it’s all background noise when you should be belting out the lyrics to your own soundtrack. Plus, what if those kids tell me the truth? What if they tell me the reason they hate me and I can’t handle it? When I can’t handle it, the darkness comes to visit.
“Who were those guys?” I ask Molly as I comb my hair with my fingers. I like to think the tremble in my hands is only from adrenaline, but that’s not true, and Molly and I both know it.
“The first one, the blonde,” she says, swiping on cherry-flavored Chapstick, “was Finn Berkshire, you know, of the Berkshire Oil Company.”
I shrug. The name means nothing to me. Why isn’t she cursing his name and threatening to kick his ass? Why isn’t she shouting for help and demanding that the teachers do something? I am disturbed by the realization that this is her normal, an acceptable part of her day. I want to wrap my arms around her and squeeze her tight.
Next comes her compact, which she quickly flips open to fix her ruddy cheeks. As she pockets the compact and retrieves a hairbrush out of the compartment on her book bag she has apparently devoted to this worrisome routine, she says, “Then there was Everett Reynolds, Archie Blakely, and Chase Tallum from your left to right, behind the tall one with black hair. They are sons of the ultra-rich from all over the United States.”
I am lost, putting faces to names and mesmerized by her near picture-perfect memory. Molly hands
