Turning my back, I wait for the shuffle of his footsteps and the gentle click of the door catch.
Lila’s quiet, observing me, and I hope to God she’s not another Emily Miller.
“You’re going to hate it here,” she says after a moment of silence.
I stand, feet planted in the center of our tiny room and arms folded across my chest. “How long have you—”
“Eight years,” she answers, exhaling as she draws her knees against her chest and rests her back along the headboard. “Eight fucking years of this bullshit. You know they actually have a class here called Charms and Graces 101? We have to walk around with books on our heads and learn to make tea like we’re some British fucking aristocrat.”
I glance at her nightstand, a thick, leather-bound book catching my attention. “You read?”
Lila laughs. “I do. Here.”
Grabbing the book, she tosses it to me. “Great Expectations.”
“No. Open it up.”
Flipping the cover open, I see where the inside has been hollowed out and a Harlequin paperback is tucked neatly inside. The woman on the cover is half-naked, her dress barely containing her ample bosom, and the long-haired, broad-muscled man holding her looks like he’s seconds from devouring her.
“Oh, honey, we need to fix this.” I shut the cover, tossing the book back.
Lila shakes her head. “I like my smut.”
“Read Fanny Hill or Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I promise you’ll never touch one of those again.”
“Anyway,” Lila sits the book back. “What’s your story? Why’d your parents ship you off?”
I move to my new bed, taking a seat on the edge. The mattress is springy and thin, and my palms trace the lumps beneath the coverlet.
“My aunt and uncle sent me here because I was becoming too much of a burden or some shit like that,” I say. “And I don’t have a story. I’m just the girl that nobody ever wanted.”
Lila pouts, placing her hand over her heart. “You say that like it’s not the saddest thing in the world.”
“It’s not sad. It’s a fact.” I shrug. “Got over it a long time ago. What about you?”
She rolls her eyes. “I was an oops baby. My parents were in their forties when they had me. Their first three kids were already grown and off to college and they were looking forward to retiring early and traveling the world when I came along. They kept me around the first ten years or so, hiring nannies and all that. Then one day they just decided I should come here.”
“Just like that?”
Lila nods. “Pretty much.”
“Were you sad?” I imagine how difficult it would be as a ten-year-old girl, being left here while your family carries on without you.
“Not really.” She glances down, focusing on the rug between our beds. “Honestly, I barely know my parents. They were never around growing up … maybe holidays and stuff but nothing else. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just a couple of spoiled rich assholes who gave me their last name and these dashing good looks.”
Lila smirks, lashes fluttering. She’s kidding, but she doesn’t need to. It’s true. She’s beautiful, striking really, even covered in a drab gray dress and sitting in this dimly lit dungeon of a dorm room.
“Look at us,” Lila says. “Just a couple of girls nobody wanted. God, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.”
“What are you doing after graduation?”
“Reinventing myself,” she says without hesitation. “I’m going to be the girl that everyone wants. The girl no one wants to be without. I refuse to spend the rest of my life as someone else’s afterthought.”
I cross my legs, leaning back on my palms. “And how are you going to do that?”
She laughs. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. But I’m going to do it. I’m going to be that girl.”
“I want to be that girl too,” I say.
My mind returns to Kerouac for the millionth time today, unexpectedly and out of the blue like it does, only this time I’m not wondering what he’s doing today or when he’ll find out I was shipped off or if he’s been searching for me in the halls at school.
I’m thinking about that last email, wishing I could talk to him and tell him I’ll wait because he’s the only person who’s ever truly wanted me.
And now I have no way to reach him.
Uncle Victor took my electronics. The headmistress says we’re an ‘electronics-free’ school, save for the computer lab, which has no Internet access. I never knew Kerouac’s real phone number or real email. We only ever communicated through Karma.
“You’re thinking about someone,” Lila says, squinting. “Who is it? You have a boyfriend back home?”
“No boyfriend.”
Her mouth pinches, like she’s unsure if she believes me. “Some guy you love?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re not going to wait for him, right?” she asks, chuckling.
I search for the right words, something that won’t make me seem lovesick or pathetic. No one could possibly understand what we had, why I loved him, or why I would wait a hundred lifetimes for him if I had to.
“Oh, god. Please. No. We’re way too young to wait around for these assholes. I did that my sophomore year. Met a boy on summer break. Told him I’d wait for him so we could be together the following summer. Found out later on that he had three different girlfriends during the school year.” She makes a gagging sound. “They lie. They always lie. Especially the hot ones.”
“My situation is different.”
“Everyone says that.” Lila rolls her eyes. “I promise you it’s not. Boy meets girl. Boy charms girl. Boy says he loves girl. Boy asks girl to wait for him. Boy fucks other girls.”
“We never dated … we just talked.”
Her head tilts, like a confused toy poodle. “So, you’re hung up on some guy back home that you only ever talked to?”
“We had a connection.” I don’t know how to say this without sounding trite. Saying we had a connection makes it seem so much less than what it was when it was so much more than that. “We wanted to be together, but we couldn’t.”
“Oh, god. Married man?”
“No. Principal.” My gaze flicks to hers. I expect to get a reaction from her, judgement or disgust or something. Instead she climbs off her bed, walks toward me, and places her hand in my face, palm-side up.
“High five, Halston. That’s fucking awesome,” she says. “I knew you were bad ass, but this takes it to a whole other level. Love a girl who’s not afraid to go after what she wants in a world that doesn’t want us to have anything.”
I laugh, slowly lifting my hand. I hate high fives, but I like Lila.
Chapter 37
Halston
One Year Later…
What a difference a year makes.
Fall leaves crunch beneath my boots as I lug my backpack over one shoulder, hauling ass across the campus of Greatwood University, the only state college that accepted my application, and only after Uncle Vic pulled a few strings.
Eight months at Welsh Academy turned out not to be so bad. There was no Bree. There was no Uncle Vic or Aunt Tabitha. There were no BMW-driving rich kids to contend with. By all accounts, it was a fresh start. A clean slate.
It didn’t take long for me to get used to the rigorous schedule or the ridiculous classes we were forced to suffer through, but Lila made things palatable. She knew all of the best hiding spots, all of the little nooks and crannies of the house. She knew where all the cameras were and how not to trip the alarms in the library and pantry.
The summer before college, I went home with Lila, spending those warm months at her family’s vacation cottage in Portland, Maine, just the two of us in a little house by the shore. She’d planned to attend Brown in the fall, her father’s alma mater, but at the last minute, she decided to go to GU with me.
I couldn’t have been happier … but I played it cool.
I didn’t want to seem that desperate.