“A new kid turned up this morning,” she said. “I managed to bum it off him. I think he took pity on my horrible torment. These do come in handy every now and then.” She gestured to the scarred side of her face and blew a stream of smoke into the dimming late-afternoon light.
“Never get between a girl and her spliff,” I said glibly, but my stomach had sunk. Every time a fresh face turned up at the college, it felt as if one of the thorns on that damned rosebush had jabbed into my gut.
We all deserved to be here, no doubt about that, but the newbies didn’t know that yet. They had no idea what they were in for.
Violet tapped off a bit of ash and looked sideways at me. “I’m surprised you haven’t already noticed the kid, convinced him you’re his new best friend, and conned him into handing over the rest of his stash. Been a little distracted lately?”
Her dry tone told me she already knew the answer to that question. She didn’t talk a whole lot, but that just meant she heard and saw plenty while everyone else was caught up in their own dramas.
I waved her question away. “I’ve been focused on self-improvement. Eyes on your own page and all that. So, is it any good?”
She made a face at the joint. “As far as I can tell, Roseborne has already leached all the fun stuff out of it. I’m literally blowing smoke. But it’s kind of nice just going through the motions after all this time. Like I’m living a normal life for a moment. Almost.” She let out a rough chuckle. “You want a drag?”
“After that stunning recommendation? Ah, why not?”
I held out my hand, and she passed the joint to me. I’d never been much of a smoker of any sort—when you relied on a quick tongue and quicker thinking to keep you ahead, addling your brains with illicit substances wasn’t exactly smart—but every now and then I’d indulged as a way of blending in or ingratiating myself. People liked watching other people give in to the same vices they had.
Thank you, Mother Dearest, for that lesson.
I sucked in a cautious wisp of smoke and determined that Violet’s assessment had been right. I didn’t even catch the burnt prickling down my throat that a cigarette would have offered, let alone the hint of a buzz to come. But the heat of the rolled paper in my hand and the thin smoke congealing in my mouth came with a weird sort of enjoyment.
Violet had earned the thing fair and square. I took another brief drag and handed it back to her. I’d heard enough of her story in our classes to know that back when we’d been in the real world, she’d have hated the hell out of who I’d been then, if she’d known me. No point in stirring up old resentments by acting entitled.
“Doesn’t seem like she’s going anywhere,” Violet remarked.
I didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, the fact that she’s still here? She gets top marks in stubbornness, anyway. In it to the end, even if it kills her.”
She couldn’t make that last sentence sound anything but dire. We both knew it wasn’t an “if” but a certainty.
With a shake of her head, Violet pushed off the wall. “I’m starting to see why you like her, though,” she said, and ambled off without giving me a chance to confirm or deny, apparently having reached her socializing limit for the day.
I stayed where I was for a moment, soaking in what little sun penetrated the clouds and wrestling with the annoyance and guilt her words had provoked. Just as I turned to go back inside, Trix herself came striding out.
Her gaze slid over me, and her mouth set in a firm line. She marched onward with a resolute air as if she’d decided I wasn’t worth her attention, but halfway past me she appeared to reconsider. She swung around and planted her feet in the grass with her hands on her hips.
“What were you bugging Ryo about this morning?”
I blinked at her. Of all the things I might have imagined she’d ask me, that wasn’t one of them. “Pardon?”
She rolled her eyes. “In the hall by the cafeteria. You were hassling him about something to do with ‘working together’ and ‘doing his part.’”
Ah. For once my particular affliction worked in my favor. “School project,” I said with utter confidence. “He didn’t seem to be pulling his weight, and I didn’t want to see how the profs would react if we don’t deliver. How’s that your business anyway?”
“I don’t know.” She eyed me. “It’s funny how suddenly you’re working on a ‘project’ together right when he’s also decided to start telling me to take off like you’ve been saying all along. Do you have something on him—did you put him up to that somehow?”
What kind of an asshole did she take me for? Okay, I wouldn’t deny that I could be an asshole and had been plenty of times in the past, but I wasn’t a blackmailer, for fuck’s sake.
“Sure,” I said. “Because the guy couldn’t possibly have a mind of his own. Did you ever consider maybe he just wised up and realized I had the right idea all along?”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t had it in for me since the moment I set foot on campus,” Trix retorted. “You knew he was hanging out with me. I wouldn’t listen to you, so why not turn whoever you could against me to add to the pressure?”
The playful spirit that had started to emerge when we’d dueled the last couple times had disappeared under what was by all appearances genuine anger… and hurt? Because Ryo had mattered that much to her? Or because she hadn’t thought I would stoop that low?
My heart squeezed despite myself. This caustic back and forth wasn’t getting us anywhere. I’d already decided to trash that tactic. So why the hell did I keep finding myself falling back into the same dynamic? I was the master of adapting to the situation. Trix shouldn’t be any different.
But she was, and I had one major limitation I’d never had to work around outside these walls.
The frustration of it constricted my throat. I dragged in a breath. “Do you really think I’m just out to hurt you?”
My voice came out strained despite my best attempt at keeping my cool. Trix’s expression didn’t exactly soften, but confusion took the edge off her hostility. “If you’re not, you’re making a pretty good show of it anyway,” she said.
That was fair. And it might be the whole problem. Why would she believe the other guys when they told her it was best for her to leave when she’d already heard me spouting the same thing like a jackass? She didn’t associate that suggestion with concern—she thought of it as an attack. Because of me.
How the fuck did I fix that?
An idea wriggled into my brain—something I’d discovered by accident in my first month on campus and never experimented with further because of the consequences. Because I hadn’t cared enough about anything to endure those consequences. But I owed Trix. If there was a chance it’d show her that I wasn’t just some prick, that underneath the jabs I’d always wanted what was best for her too even if I’d screwed that up…
Yeah, that was worth whatever hell rained down on me after.
Resolve tensed my posture. I tipped my head toward the college building. “Will you come with me? Let me show you something? Trust me just a little, please.”