“I haven’t,” I promise her, standing up and grabbing my bag. “I’m just tired.” She gives me a look, but that’s not a total lie. All week, I’ve had serious trouble sleeping. I’d say it was the whole ‘made Parrish come and also got fingered by him’ thing, but really, it’s more about Blockbuster. About the way I felt when I saw the Vanguards together, how I wanted to be a part of it … and how once again, I was further away than ever.
Then there’s the issue with the ATV. Someone hit us, and it didn’t feel like an accident. Actually, it seemed very, very purposeful. Add in the hiker and that night in the woods … Ugh. I scrub both hands over my face.
“Everything okay?” Mr. Volli asks, pausing beside me. He smiles warmly and reaches up to adjust his glasses. He’s what I would call ‘painfully average’, as in, you would never remember his face in passing. The way he styles his hair though, and the glasses he wears, the cute plaid bow ties? He’s adorable.
“Everything’s fine,” I reply, but I can’t seem to make myself smile through it.
“Of course everything’s fine,” Lumen declares, tossing her hair in just such a way that her perfume drifts over to me. It smells like roses and … like, cashmere or something. Does cashmere have a smell? “You’ve got your girlfriend by your side.” She casts Mr. Volli a look as he crosses his arms over his chest and waits for us to leave. He seems mildly amused. “And I don’t just mean female friend, Mr. Volli.”
“Students’ love lives are none of my business. Out, Ms. Hearst,” he tells her, shooing us out and locking the door. We run right into Ms. Miyamoto, but she only offers up a smile as she passes by, looking like she’s in a bit of a hurry. She heads straight into the second-floor teachers’ lounge, and I catch a glimpse of a walking stick through the door. It reminds me of the hiker that assaulted me and Maxx, and I start to get fidgety.
“There’s another party at Antonio’s tonight,” Lumen tells me, but I’m already shaking my head.
“Tess barely lets me out of her sight at this point; it isn’t going to happen.” Just talking about my bio mom makes me queasy. Our talk in Bend didn’t exactly go the way I hoped it would; it just made things worse. Meanwhile, I’m still texting Maxine with my second phone, but just barely. Even then, only in the bathroom. Parrish and I are supposed to get our doors back today, so I haven’t exactly had a ton of privacy.
Parrish. Fuck.
I just need time to think. That’s what he said to me. Think? Think about what?
“So what? You’ve snuck out before; you can do it again.” Lumen pauses as Danyella joins us, looking like she’s ready to throw herself off a bridge. I don’t blame her: I’m exhausted and I’m not the director of the production. In just two weeks, the school’s version of Wicked premieres in the Whitehall theater. After that, the crew will travel around the Pacific Northwest for most of the summer putting on performances. They even get to perform at the famous Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon.
As an ‘extra hand’, I’m not really invited to go with the rest of the crew, but that’s okay. I figure I could use the Ashland performance to get Tess to let up a bit, head down and visit Maxine …
“Not this time. I think I need to talk to Tess tonight.” Just the idea of approaching that woman scares the crap out of me. But I can’t take it anymore. She can’t punish me forever. If she isn’t going to be adult enough to talk to me first, then I’ll fucking do it. She can just sit there and deal with the fact that a sixteen-year-old has better manners than she does.
“You’re talking to Tess tonight?” Danyella repeats, like her brain is busy with about a million other things. “That’s good. Just remember to stay calm.” She taps the side of her head as her pink glasses slide down her nose and come dangerously close to falling on the floor. Lumen reaches out to fix them for her. “Use your empathy, Dakota. Try to get into her headspace.”
“You’re too mature for your own good,” Lumen spits with a dramatic eye roll. “It’s annoying, honestly.”
Danyella tosses her a skeptical look.
“You and your father could use a good heart-to-heart as well,” she begins, but Lumen’s already waving her off. Her eyes zero in on someone down the hall in the same way a hawk might zero in on a mouse.
“Hey dickface!” she calls out, drawing the attention of nearly every person in the hall. That’s Lumen for ya, a true queen bee. I don’t follow the direction of her gaze because I already know who it is that she’s staring at: fucking Parrish. “What did you do to Dakota? She’s been a schizo all week.”
“Schizophrenia is a mental health condition, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that word,” Danyella murmurs, but she also knows that telling Lumen anything is near pointless. The girl does what she wants, when she wants. I’m so fucking relieved to have gotten on her good side. On Wednesday, she ended up in a freaking fistfight in the parking garage with a sophomore girl who called her a slew of names that I dare not repeat. How that got started, I’m not even sure.
“Did you do something?” Chasm asks, pausing beside me. I pretend like I don’t smell mint and dark chocolate, that Parrish didn’t actually suggest that I leave him for his best friend. This school really is full of weirdos. I used to think I was one, what with the vibrant hair colors, the video game obsession, and the grandmaster rank on Overwatch, but this is next-level. Rich kids are disturbed. “Huh, Pear-Pear? Something we should all know about?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Parrish drawls, like he’s bored shitless. Thing is, when I glance over at him, I see his tattooed hand squeezed tight around the strap of his bag. He hides his feelings because he feels too much. It’s like I know a secret that nobody else does, and I can’t help it: I like the idea of that. “You ready?” he asks, looking right at me.
I nod because words won’t come.
Chasm, who’s still banned from the house for another week, looks between the pair of us like he can sense that something’s different. I don’t like it, the way he’s studying me and Parrish with those pretty amber eyes of his.
“Party tonight at Antonio’s,” Lumen repeats, and Chasm snorts.
“Obviously. How could you possibly think I didn’t know that?” he replies, slouching back against the lockers. He slides his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I’ll be there. It’d be nice if my best friend joined me for once.”
“I already told you: there’s no way in hell that Tess won’t be checking on us. She comes into our rooms every thirty minutes—at least.” Parrish sighs heavily and closes his eyes, like he’s struggling to regain his composure. All week, he’s been sitting on his bed and drawing. I haven’t seen any of his work—he hasn’t offered to show me—but he gets so into it that he often doesn’t notice me if I stand in the doorway and watch.
“Danyella?” Lumen asks, but our friend is already shaking her head.
“Too much work to do for opening night. Sorry.” She shrugs her shoulders, but she doesn’t sound very sorry. Danyella doesn’t mind a party every now and again, and she isn’t a complete teetotaler or anything, but it’s about as much her scene as it is mine.