I remember everything that happened that night, right down to the finest detail. It’s just, I don’t want to tell her.
“Your mother is a hero,” Sylvie says, her voice full of awe. “She saved your life.”
I shrug, brushing it off. “She did what any mother would do in a situation like that.”
“Ha! I have a feeling my mother would let me burn,” Sylvie says bitterly. “She’d save Whit. Maybe Carolina.”
“She’d save all of her children,” I say, my voice soft as I reach out and lightly pat her hand.
Sylvie pulls her hand from beneath mine, making a dismissive gesture. “This is getting too serious. Let’s talk about something else. Oh, I know! Tell me about your trouble at Billington.” Her eyes light up, little flames dancing in their pale blue depths. “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t read your file when I hacked into the system, because I so did, and I’m positively green with envy over the experiences you’ve had. I love a lurid good girl gone bad story. Spill it.”
The truth is so boring. I was the typical rebellious rich teen who acted out. It was the standard cry for help. The any attention is good attention type situation. I was a mess. Trying to escape the pressures at home, the pressures at school. Wanting to grow up too fast, too soon, yet needing my mommy because I was scared.
And of course, there was Yates. He was incessant. It started when I was thirteen and grew breasts. He wouldn’t stop staring at them. He walked in on me taking a shower, watching me through the glass door. Sometimes, just because I could, I’d let him stare. It would satisfy him and he’d leave me alone.
Until the need became too great. Eventually, he was in constant pursuit of me. Trying to get me alone. Trying to sneak into my room.
Mother was too wrapped up in her own problems—and her affair with Augustus Lancaster, one of the richest men in the country, if not the world—to see what was happening right before her own eyes. In her own home. I’m still unsure if she realizes everything that happened between Yates and me. I tried to tell her once, but she began crying when I said Yates’s name.
So I stopped.
I clear my throat and decide to tell her about the other boy in my life at that time. “There was a boy.”
Sylvie’s expression becomes excited. “Of course. That’s how it always starts.”
“He was a year older. Gorgeous. Confident. Arrogant.” I think of Whit. He is all of those things and more. “With a hint of mean.”
“They’re the worst.”
“Awful,” I say in agreement. “He chose me out of everyone else, though, and I felt special. Wanted. Needed. He was bad—everything about him, my parents hated. He did drugs. Drank too much. I was only fourteen, and I turned fifteen when we were together. He convinced me to try things, and I was perfectly willing.”
This is all true. There was a boy at school. A senior when I was a freshman, scandalous. Yates hated him, which made me love him even more. His name was Daniel. He taught me shot gunning—blowing smoke into each other’s mouths—and how to stay drunk at school all day while keeping your composure. He had persuasive hands and an easy way about him.
He was the distraction I was looking for at that time. He was sweet, kind of dumb. Also kind of mean, just as I told Sylvie.
“Like what?” Sylvie’s eyes are wide as moons.
“Drugs. Drinking. Sex.” I shrug, hoping she doesn’t ask for details. Knowing she will most likely ask.
“He’s the one you were caught with in the gym.”
I nod. We weren’t actually having sex, but we were close. “They expelled him. He was eighteen. I was fifteen. A minor.”
“Scandalous!” Sylvie covers her mouth with her fingers. “You were willing though, right?”
“Of course,” I snap, feeling defensive. With Daniel, I was always willing, yet he was the one who got in trouble. Who was threatened with jail time by Jonas and my mother.
When the very one who was practically raping me every chance he could get lived under their own roof. Jonas’ own son.
You can’t call it rape when you enjoy it, Yates said to me once, after a particularly heated moment between us. You want it. You want me.
The guilt I still feel over that is so overwhelming, I suddenly rise to my feet, my thighs bumping into the table and making everything on top of it rattle.
“I need to use the restroom,” I say before I hurriedly walk away, never once looking back. I don’t need to. I’m sure Sylvie is wearing a shocked look on her face, wondering why I would just take off like that.
If you haven’t been through it, it’s hard to describe what it’s like, dealing with haunting memories and how they make you feel. How they come out of nowhere, when you least expect it. Climbing up your throat. Crawling all over your skin. Swallowing you up whole. They linger on the edge of your mind, lying in wait with the potential to ruin everything. Like my dinner with a new friend.
How can I be friends with Sylvie when her brother is Whit? Who now has my private journal because he stole it? Who, if he wanted to, could go to the very back of that journal and read those extra secret entries, and figure out exactly what happened between Yates and me. And what I did to finally make it stop.
I find the tiny restaurant bathroom in the back of the building and lock myself away inside, leaning against the door, staring at my reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. I look so young tonight, my hair in French braids, no makeup on my face, a gray North Face hoodie on and black leggings with my black and white Dior sneakers, much like what Sylvie’s wearing.
We both look like babies. We are babies. But I’ve seen and done so much already, inside I feel old. Jaded.
Disgusted.
Pushing away from the door, I go to the sink and turn on the water, washing my hands before I splash the icy cold water on my face. It puts some color into my cheeks, and after I’ve dried myself off, I smooth my hair back. Stand a little straighter. I remind myself of the girl I was two years ago. Chasing dreams and running from nightmares.
I’m still that girl. Though my dreams are all gone and the nightmares are always just behind me.
With a resolute sigh, I open the door to find two middle-aged women standing in the hallway, waiting to use the restroom. They glare at me with contempt, their eyes narrowed, their lips curled. Judging me when they don’t know me. Most likely hating me for my youth, while they hang on to it as tightly as they can with their claw-like fake nails.
I return the glare, flipping one of my long braids over my shoulder, putting a bit of saunter in my step as I walk past them. I exit the short hallway, making my way out into the dining area and head toward Sylvie when I spot someone sitting at a table on the complete opposite side of the building.
Whit Lancaster.
Watching me.
I stop short, in the middle of the restaurant, struck dumb by his presence. Our gazes lock. He smirks. I frown. He’s sitting with his friends, and a few girls accompany them too. Including Jane and Caitlyn. They’re flanking either side of him, both of them laughing, touching him, their hands like butterflies, hovering just above him, as if they’re not sure where to land next. Jane makes her decision first, her hand settling on his forearm. Caitlyn rests her hand on his shoulder, leaning her head toward his, her mouth right at his ear. Her lips move as she whispers something to him, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. They’re both desperate to capture his attention, but it’s as if he doesn’t realize their existence.