I knew the girl, Sugar, was small. That had been entirely too evident when I decked her. But she seems even smaller now that she’s sitting right in front of me, so close. Slim, narrow shoulders that almost curve inward, petite little ears with tiny hoops slipped through them. I stare at the long, dark hair in front of me, wondering when she got rid of the blue tips, wondering why she moved here, trying to figure out how in the hell this little townie from the Briar Cliffs—my biggest sin—showed up at Preston Prep.
I’m not the one who doesn’t belong here. This turf is as close to mine as any other.
She shifts, making the ends of her hair drag along the top of my desk. I slide my pencil forward and cave to the desire—no, compulsion—to run the tip of it through the inky black fringe. Mesmerized, I slowly run the pencil from one end to the other, watching the little strands fall like a silky, dark, sweet-smelling curtain—
Whip!
“WHAT THE HELL?!”
Still holding my pencil, I look up into Sugar’s face—her blood-red, pinched, and totally pissed-the-fuck-off face. She’s looming in the aisle, having thrown herself violently out of her seat. Her eyes are an inferno, chest heaving in these sharp little jerks that make zero sense to me. It’s like she’s having a problem breathing. There’s this vein on her neck that I’m pretty sure I can see throbbing.
I sit here, stunned speechless as I look back at her.
Please don’t scream.
“Miss Voss,” Dr. Ross says, standing wide-eyed at the front of the room. “Calm yourself right now.”
“This guy touched me!” Sugar spits, thrusting an accusatory finger at me. I don’t miss the way it trembles. “He grabbed my hair!”
I gape, my baffled gaze pinging between her fiery eyes and Dr. Ross. “I did not!”
Dr. Ross looks more concerned than pissed. She takes a step toward Sugar, who reacts by grabbing her backpack and promptly sprinting for the door. It closes with a sharp click behind her when she flies from the room without a second look.
The whole class is stunned silent, although a few people are definitely looking at me. Aubrey, Elana, and Afton, for sure. I shrug, all ‘hell if I know’, and Afton narrows her eyes.
“I’ll go find her,” Afton offers, standing quickly.
“Take her to the infirmary.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Afton grabs her own bag and walks out of the room. This time, every guy watches her go.
I exhale and sink into my seat, tapping my pencil on the desk. I’m thinking that, this time at least, I’m wrong. Maybe everything isn’t about me. Whatever is going on with that girl, it has to be something else. I mean, that shit was straight up coconuts, wasn’t it?
For some reason, I look back at Reyn for confirmation of this.
He looks just as confused.
I shift my gaze to the front of the room and realize Dr. Ross is staring at me. “Mr. Wilcox.”
I straighten in my seat, pulling a polite expression over my features. “Yes, ma’am?”
She peers over her glasses at me. “I don’t know what you did to that girl, but make sure you apologize.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And prepare for two days of detention for interrupting my class.”
Annoyance flickers in my chest. Two days? What the fucking fuck? I don’t argue back. I know she’ll make it five in a heartbeat. Maybe longer. I bite back the anger and nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
6
Sugar
Keep your hands to yourself.
There’s one rule.
One.
Keep your goddamn, motherfucking hands to yourself. It can’t be that hard. Kindergartners grasp this shit the first week of school.
That’s what I keep saying to myself as I roam the hallways of this massive, godforsaken place trying to find the bathroom. I’d bolted from the room like a complete lunatic, running down two different halls before I came to my senses and realized I’m completely turned around. The halls are eerily quiet, void of the nonstop disruption at my old public school. Finally, I see a small marker on the door that says ‘women’ and duck inside. A quick look around makes it obvious that the higher quality of private school education extends to bathroom accommodations, too.
I mean, not one broken sink or mirror in sight, and every stall has a door.
Walking over to the sink, I drop my bag on the floor and stare at my face in the mirror. My nose and eyes are red, the tell-tale sign of my ultimate weakness. My hair is windswept from running down the hall, so my ears are exposed, showing off the little hoop earrings Georgia had insisted I wear. The uniform is still straight and pressed, and looking at myself, I can barely recognize the person staring back.
This isn’t the girl from the Cliffs, with her dark eye makeup and ratty jeans. This isn’t the person who walked through the docks with a fuck-you shield wrapped around her. This isn’t even the person I was a couple days ago, elbowing Doug and escaping the consequences.
Who are you? I mentally ask. Who is this person who looks like a schoolgirl and acts like a mental patient? This isn’t me. It’s jarring and disorienting, like at some point I’ve been knocked unconscious, and this whole experience is some very vivid dream playing out in my head.
Though, were that the case, my brain certainly wouldn’t put that asshole here.
Seeing him in the doorway had been startling. And not just his presence, his appearance as well. The two other times I’d seen him, he’d been dressed so casually, like any other high school shitheel. But today he looked like the other boys, dressed in his uniform coat with his red and black tie slightly askew. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. He looked both out of place and perfectly at ease.
I should have known he’d be a student here. Why wouldn’t he be? Only rich kids migrate to the Briar Cliffs in the summer, and this place is full of them.
It was bad enough seeing him, but then he had to make an utter ass out of himself as he made his entrance. Seriously, what an egotistical jack-off. Not just abusive, but an idiot as well. All easy smiles and swagger, the kind of guy who thinks he’s untouchable. Clearly, no respect for boundaries, the way he was touching everyone and everything. He even mouthed off to the teacher, who looks scary as hell.
I take a deep breath and take the earrings out. This won’t do—playing at being like any of the other girls here. I don’t want to be like them. Look at Georgia, so trusting and optimistic. If that’s ‘normal’, then I don’t want it.
Grabbing a paper towel, I run it under the sink water. I’ve just wiped off my face when the bathroom door opens. A gorgeous girl from Dr. Ross’s class walks in. She’s tall and thin, with perfect hair and a calculating expression on her face.
“Oh,” she says. “There you are. How the hell did you get all the way to the tech hall?”
I blink. “Me?”
She rolls her eyes and approaches the sink, checking herself out in the mirror. “Aren’t you the one who just ran like a bat out of hell from class?”
I lean back against the sink. “Yeah, that’d be me.” I give her a sidelong look. “On a scale of one to ten, how crazy did I look?”
“That’s relative.” She digs through her backpack and pulls out a makeup bag, unzips it and with sharp, glossy nails, extracts her lip gloss. “I’m Afton, by the way. And let me tell you, everyone here may look all nice and put together, but that’s what money is for—to cover everything in a shiny wrapper, bow and all, so it looks fully functional. The matching uniforms don’t hurt, either.” She swipes on a thick coat of pale red. “But crazy, along with dark secrets and deviant behavior, is pretty standard around here, and the first day at Preston isn’t easy. I think you’re fine.”