“Again, not my fault,” I repeat, trying to ignore the way our uniforms are brushing up against one another, the fabric rustling in just such a way that it seems overly loud, like I can imagine each fiber tangling together and drawing us closer. “I was two, Parrish. Two. Tell me how much you can remember from age two. Now, leave me the fuck alone, I have plans tonight.”
“All I have to do is send that pic of you and Lumen kissing to Tess, and you won’t be going anywhere,” he replies, cool as a cucumber even while he has the audacity to threaten me. “Then maybe you’d understand how it feels to be suffocated because of someone else’s mistake.”
“You mean Saffron’s mistake?” I query back, using the righteous anger in me to crush down those pesky hormones. “You’re right. I’m sorry that you suffered because of a mentally ill and extremely sad woman. But don’t take it out on me: it’s petty and pathetic and it doesn’t suit you.” This time, when I go to elbow him out of my way, he leans in even closer.
“You already ruined my life once, and here you are, out to do it all over again. Whatever this crap is that you’re pulling with Lumen, call it off. Break up in front of the school. Do it online, I don’t care. Just end it.”
We stare at each other for so long that I can’t help but wonder what everyone else is thinking. From anyone else’s perspective, this probably looks like a romantic moment. Our faces are that freaking close.
“Newsflash: you don’t get to tell me what to do. You might have Kimber so afraid that she won’t speak up when you trash her phone—which was really fucked up by the way—but not me. I don’t want my time at Whitehall to suck, but I’m not bowing down to some pouty rich boy who thinks he owns the school and everyone in it.”
Parrish grits his teeth, but whatever it is that he was planning on saying goes out the window when Danyella appears on my left side. She looks decidedly ticked off.
“Are you quite finished, Mr. Vanguard?” she asks, pulling her hot pink glasses down her nose to look at him. “Because as far as I’m concerned, your behavior is troubling and inappropriate. Did Dakota consent to having you push her into a bank of lockers?”
He says nothing, standing back up and staring down at me with an intensity that’s hard to describe. It’s similar to the way he looked at me during the party, like I’m nothing and everything at the same time. An impossible dichotomy, that’s what his gaze is. I can’t even begin to pick it apart.
Danyella grabs my arm and drags me away, casting an angry glare over her shoulder as she steers me toward the entrance to the parking garage.
“You shouldn’t let him get away with things like that,” she chastises as I let out a huff and slide my phone from my pocket. God forbid I forget to call Tess. According to Kimber, if you miss one required check-in text or call, Tess will show up with Paul in tow and drag you back home for a lecture. “He’s a bully, Dakota.”
“He sure does act like one sometimes,” I say with a sigh. Parrish’s motivations make zero sense to me. Why does he care if I kissed Lumen? Well, if Lumen kissed me. What’s it to him? Also … does that count as my second kiss? There was no tongue, but it was on the mouth. That counts, doesn’t it? “Mostly, I think he’s an insecure asshole who needs a spanking.”
The look Danyella throws me is equal parts horror and fascination.
“Not from me!” I blurt out, and I hope I look as aghast at the idea as I sound. “You think I’d actually touch that jerk’s ass?”
“Flushed cheeks and parted lips are a physical indicator of attraction. You were certainly looking at him like you wanted to touch his ass,” Danyella says with a shrug, flipping her book bag open and rummaging around for her keys. “Also, there seemed to be a bit of a rash on your chest that wasn’t there earlier.”
I narrow my eyes on her the way Parrish does, and then I want to kick myself for imitating him or even thinking about him at all.
“I was angry,” I tell her, and she gives me a look, once again over the rim of her glasses which must be some sort of indicator that she’s annoyed. “He infuriates me like nobody I’ve ever met. I can’t explain it, but from the first second I laid eyes on him, I hated him.”
Danyella continues to stare at me for a moment before letting out a regretful sigh and dumping her bag onto the pavement. She’s like Mary Poppins or something with all the weird shit she keeps in there: scissors, glue, bags of sequins, signed playbills from past theater performances, a curling iron, a single pink ballet slipper.
“So you’re glad it happened then?” she clarifies as she digs through the items and then eventually finds her car keys shoved into the toe of the slipper.
“Glad what happened?” I ask, still far too distracted for my own good.
Danyella shovels the junk back into her bag and stands up, pointing at me with her keys.
“The breakup,” she says, and it takes me several seconds to even remotely remember what she’s talking about. Oh. That. People have giving me sympathetic looks all day, but I don’t really know anyone here yet with the exceptions of Danyella, Lumen, Chasm, and Parrish.
“We were never really dating, so we can’t really break up either,” I tell her after a quick look around to make sure nobody else is in hearing distance. “He just wanted to put on a show to humiliate me.”
“He resents you,” Danyella agrees, and three tries later, she’s able to unstick the door on her side of the car. Mine was never really closed to begin with since the fabric of an old costume was stuck in the hinges. I carefully tug it free and deposit it into the back seat.
“I guess,” I reply, wondering where we’re going with this. I’m excited to have made a friend so quickly, but I’m still wary. Chasm warned me about Whitehall; Maxx did; Danyella herself did. I can’t be expected to trust too easily, right? “He blames Tess’ overprotective nature on me, as if I chose to be kidnapped. I’m pretty sure he’s jealous, too. Like, he wants to be Tess’ bio kid the way I am.”
“I think the two of you resent each other,” Danyella says, backing out of her space in the parking garage and maneuvering around all of the luxury cars driven by idiots who seem to be backing out without looking and also while going about ninety miles an hour.
“Whatever resentment I feel toward Parrish, he brought on himself,” I say, shooting off a quick text to Tess and then another to Maxine. Tonight would be a good night to talk, seeing as neither Lumen nor Danyella care whether I speak to my ‘kidnappers’ or not. Maxie keeps saying she’s going to take me hiking, but we haven’t been able to work out a day where she’s free and one where I can escape Tess. I haven’t talked to my grandparents since the coffee shop either, and it’s starting to chip away at me on the inside.
They’re all alone now, in that big house, and it kills me. It fucking kills me. I suck in a deep breath to banish the feelings and try to focus on my new friendship instead.
“Regardless, it still takes two to tango,” Danyella replies, carefully checking both ways before exiting the parking garage. That two second delay causes the other cars piled up behind us to honk, and people start yelling out their windows for her to hurry up. I feel my eye twitch. Entitled brats.