“Back it up. Natalie needs some of her own space now.” He flicked his hands to push all of her friends out of my face.
And I thought it was nice. Maybe the nicest thing that Michael had ever done for me.
Then he faced me, and I saw rage on his features.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.
I straightened at his words. At the anger in them. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“You think this whole party is about you?”
“No,” I spat.
“Then fucking act like it, Natalie. God, this is about me and Melanie. It’s our day. You don’t have to come in and try to take over the spotlight just because you’re some whore to a guy with money.”
My jaw tightened. “You should rethink what you’re about to say.”
“I don’t have to rethink anything,” he snarled.
“Are you sure you want to do this? Because I told Melanie that I wouldn’t.”
“I’m sure that you’re the attention whore. It’s what you’ve always been. You think you’re so cool, being the loner, but you’re just desperate for people to see you. And I see you. I see you for what you really are—nothing.”
I wouldn’t stand here and let him talk to me like that. If the Upper East Side had to follow me around, then I’d use the Upper East Side for what it was really good for.
“Michael, I watched you break my sister’s heart so that you could take her best friend to homecoming. I watched her cry all weekend while you fucked her best friend,” I said, stepping toward him. “I saw how she took you back, and I see the shell of a woman she is now when she’s around you. I see the abuse and harassment and debasement. So, you can stand there and tell me that I’m nothing, but those words are wasted on me. I’m not going to cry and grovel to you because your daddy has money while you’re a worthless piece of shit.” I blinked at him, giving him the same look I’d seen Katherine give to people she believed were beneath her. “But if you hurt my sister or try to talk to me like this again, then I’ll make sure that your life is a living hell. I will ruin you. Wreck you. I will make you wish that you’d never been born. And don’t doubt that I can do exactly that. You have no idea the resources at my disposal.”
I waited. Staring him down like the flea that he was. Waiting for him to snarl back at me like I was the bad person.
But he backed up a step. Losing ground to me as he took in my words. As he saw the dead certainty in my expression.
“You can leave now,” I said, waving my hand at him.
He gritted his teeth and then stormed off as if he were about to go find Melanie. But I couldn’t even seem to care.
My eyes found Penn’s across the backyard. He looked concerned as if he’d seen what had just happened and disapproved. But he hadn’t been able to hear what was said. And I couldn’t face what I’d had to do to that prick…even if he deserved it.
I just walked out the side exit around to the front of the house. My hands shook when I took a seat on the front steps.
Amy appeared a few minutes later. I’d been expecting Penn.
“Hey there, bestie,” she said. “I told Penn to let me take this one.”
I released a giant breath. “I hate him.”
“Yeah, Michael is a real dick. But whoa, Nat, I didn’t even know you had that in you to tell him off like that. I’ve never seen you fight dirty. Even to people who deserve it.”
“I know,” I whispered. “Am I becoming like them?”
“Like the people who hurt you?”
I nodded. Fear trickling into my voice. “Like Katherine and Lewis and Penn and all the other people in New York.”
“Maybe they’re bringing out the fighter in you. Michael had it coming after all.”
“He did,” I agreed easily. “But did I have to make him crawl like a worm?”
“Personally, I enjoyed it.” She sank into the seat next to me and nudged me with her shoulder. “Just remember that you have something none of those Upper East Siders were born with.”
“What’s that?”
“A moral code. You know when right is right and wrong is wrong. You’ll know if you go overboard. You can pull yourself back. And anyway, I think Penn likes you too much to see you become a bad person.”
I sighed. I didn’t know how to say that I’d thrown out my moral code after Katherine and Lewis ruined my life. She knew what I’d planned for them, but she didn’t know what lengths I planned to go. What I’d do to make them pay. Maybe…maybe I didn’t even know. Maybe I’d find out and pull back, just like Amy had said. Maybe, in the end, it wouldn’t be worth it.
But as I stared that future in the face, I couldn’t imagine stopping. And I didn’t know what scared me more.
Chapter 23
Natalie
The rest of the party had gone off without a hitch. Melanie had been preoccupied with her friends, and Penn had been suspiciously quiet. So, I never got to talk to either of them about what had happened.
I awoke the next morning with a sinking pit in my stomach. I needed to talk to Melanie. Sure, Michael had had it coming for being a dick. But I had promised Mel that I wouldn’t say anything. The last thing I wanted was for her to be mad at me since I was sure Michael wouldn’t give the full story.
After throwing on a pair of sweats and an old Grimke University T-shirt I’d found in one of my drawers, I headed down the stairs, hoping to find Mel alone. She was lying out on the couch with the blankets pulled up to her chin. Her normally perfectly straight brown hair was pulled into a messy bun on the top of her head. She didn’t have on a lick of makeup. And she was the prettiest I’d ever seen her.
“Nat,” she grumbled. “You’re up early.”
“So are you.”
She yawned dramatically. “Dad left for work at the crack of dawn, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. Mom made me some tea before heading to the shop.”
“Did she read for you out of it, too?” I asked, sinking into the armchair.
“Thankfully, no.”
“Lucky.”
She yawned again. “Are you up for good? Maybe I could snag your room.”
“Sure. I just wanted to talk to you a minute about last night.”
Melanie’s smile brightened. “Oh, good! I wanted to talk to you, too. I wanted to thank you for being so nice to Michael. I know how you feel about him, and it meant a lot to see you two get along.”
“It…did?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah. You were the highlight of the party. Such a hit with all of my friends. I mean, honestly, how do you even have sixty thousand connections?”
I shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
“Well, it’s so cool! And everyone agrees.”
“And Michael didn’t say anything else to you?” I couldn’t help asking.
“About what?”
“What he thought of the party?”
“Sure. He said he had a great time. I know he was so glad that you and Penn could make it.”
I stared at my sister. Was I in some alternate universe? I’d been sure that Michael would run straight to Melanie and whine about how I’d treated him. It was almost too good to be true that Melanie hadn’t even noticed our confrontation. That she had been so caught up in her friends that she missed the whole thing.