Nine fucking months.
Some days, I didn’t know how I’d survived without her. But I was a fighter. A survivor. I didn’t need Harleigh or Cherri or anyone else except my best friends and my plans to make it through senior year.
“Yo, Nix, where’d you go just now?” Zane asked.
“Nowhere.”
“Don’t do it to yourself, man. It isn’t worth it.”
I didn’t need to tell him what I’d been thinking because he knew.
He always fucking knew.
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed, running a hand over my head and down the back of my neck. “Sometimes, it hits me.”
Even after nine fucking months, it didn’t hurt any less.
“Are you going to intervene in that, or should I?” Zane tipped his head toward Kye and an irate Chloe.
Muttering a curse under my breath, I headed in their direction. “Clo,” I said.
“Oh, hey, Nix. Can we—”
“No, Chloe.” Kye leveled her with a death stare. “I said let me handle it.”
“Handle what?”
“Nothing, man. Come on, let’s get another drink and chill. It’s not important.”
“He’d want to know, asshole.”
“Chloe Mirabelle Carter, I swear to God—”
“Want to know what?” My brows pinched as I glanced between them. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“He deserves to know.” Pity glinted in Chloe’s eyes.
My heart kicked up a gear, crashing against my rib cage, and I knew… fucking knew whatever she was about to say would change everything.
I hadn’t realized how much five little words would rock me to the core until I heard them.
“She’s back, Nix. Harleigh’s back.”
Harleigh
The blue and gray plaid skirt barely kissed my thighs.
“Are you sure this is standard school issue?” I asked Celeste.
“Right? I complained to Principal Diego twice last year. It’s so misogynistic to expect us to wear these miniskirts while the guys get to walk around in slacks. Hello,” she sang. “So much for equal rights.”
“I think I’m going to put a pair of shorts on underneath.” I went to my dresser and pulled out some plain black bootie shorts.
“I’m not sure Principal D will like that.”
“Principal D can kiss my ass. Pun intended.”
Celeste snorted. “Who are you and what have you done with the Harleigh I know and love?”
I smiled, barely meeting her eyes. If she didn’t look too closely maybe she wouldn’t see that this was a front. Smile. Laugh. Throw out a sassy comment or two. Give off the impression that I wasn’t on the verge of puking my breakfast up over my pristine new uniform.
The skirt was too short, the blouse too form fitting, and the knee-high socks were… Well, I didn’t have words to describe the navy-blue socks with gray trim. If Principal Diego had set out to make the female pupils of DA look like porn stars dressed up as high school teenagers, he’d succeeded.
The whole thing bordered on indecent.
But as I followed Celeste downstairs, none of the adults—my father, Sabrina, or Mrs. Beaker, the housekeeper—batted an eye.
“My, my,” Michael said, folding his morning newspaper and locking eyes with me. “Now there’s a sight I thought I’d never see.” He winced at his choice of words, but I didn’t let him see my own surprise. “Sorry, that was—”
“It’s fine. We should probably go,” I said, not wanting to drag things out any longer than necessary. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Celeste, watch out for Harleigh please.”
“I will, Dad.”
Dad.
I bristled.
“Aren’t you waiting for Max?” Sabrina asked.
“Nope. He can ride with the Vaughns next door.”
“Celeste, you know—”
“Bye, Mom. See you later. ‘Come on,’” Celeste mouthed at me, and we took off down the hall. She grabbed the keys off the sideboard, and we slipped outside.
“We can wait for Max,” I said.
“Are you kidding? It’s your first morning. There’s no way in hell I’m letting him ride with us.”
“Thank you.”
She smirked, yanking open the door to her car. “Come on, let’s go.”
I climbed inside, smoothing out the hem of my skirt, or lack thereof. There had been no uniform at Darling Hill High so this was new. Although, I figured it was a damn sight better than having to play the designer label game with my classmates.
At least in a uniform, I would blend in. With any luck, I would blend in so well I quickly became invisible.
“Are you nervous?” Celeste asked as she turned on the ignition and started backing out of the driveway.
It blew my mind that her car was worth more than anything I’d ever owned or lived in. It had been a seventeenth birthday present a few weeks ago. I didn’t know much about cars, but from the sleek lines and leather trim I could tell it was expensive, so I’d googled it.
The custom Range Rover Evoque had cost a cool fifty thousand dollars.
Fifty. Thousand. Freaking. Dollars.
But it was a drop in the ocean for people like my father and Sabrina. During my time in Albany Hills, I’d learned a lot about my new family. Michael Rowe, only son to Thomas and Geraldine Rowe, was the CEO of Rowe Real Estate, a company dating back to the early nineteen hundreds. His grandfather and great-grandfather practically built Darling Hill and the surrounding townships. The Delacortes were as equally wealthy, Sabrina’s father a successful investor. Together, they were a local power couple.
“Harleigh?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you were nervous.”
Nervous didn’t really begin to cover how I felt about starting senior year at Darling Academy. I’d grown up despising the kids across the reservoir. It wasn’t a silly little rivalry between Darling Hill High and Darling Academy, it was a deep-seated hatred. A history steeped in inequality, injustice, and prejudice.
The families living in The Row were long forgotten by their richer counterparts on the other side of the reservoir. Over the years, Old Darling Hill had flourished. Thrived. It had received constant investment and renewal. While The Row had been left to rot.
And now I was one of them. Plucked from my life of poverty and strife and planted into this… this rich man’s paradise.
It made my skin fucking crawl, shame constantly coiled around my heart like a barbed wire. I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t like Celeste or Max or their obscenely rich friends.
I was from The Row. I knew struggle and hardship. I knew what it was like to starve because there was no food in the cupboards, or to sleep cold because your mom couldn’t afford to have the hole repaired in the trailer roof.
So no, nervous didn’t begin to describe how I felt about being stuffed into this pristine uniform, riding in Celeste’s fifty-thousand-dollar car to one of the most expensive private schools in the state.
But I didn’t say any of that.
Not a word.
Because although I didn’t belong here… I didn’t belong in The Row anymore either.