Arsène’s mac ’n’ cheese was atrocious. Lumpy and unevenly cooked, with balls of orange powder everywhere. His ramen made you wish you were drinking bleach instead, and I hadn’t even known screwing up ramen was possible. Yet here we were, eating stale instant ramen swimming in what looked suspiciously like piss from Styrofoam cups. Riggs mixed whatever was in the flask with Tropicana, which gave it the diluted yet sharp taste of dish soap. This had to be the lowlight of my life. If God did exist, I was going to sue.
The three of us were sitting on Arsène’s bed. It was a bunk. We sat on the bottom part, using his roommate Simon’s top mattress to prop our legs.
“Love what you did with the place.” Riggs motioned with his wooden chopsticks around the room. Arsène had an entire wall on which he’d graffitied a thousand times in neat, black, and bold handwriting:
I hate Gracelynn Langston. I hate Gracelynn Langston. I hate Gracelynn Langston. I hate Gracelynn Langston. I hate Gracelynn Langston. I hate Gracelynn Langston.
“Who’s Gracelynn Langston?” I swallowed a lump of mac ’n’ cheese without tasting it.
“Arsène’s evil stepsister,” Riggs supplied, slurping a noodle into his mouth. I was still trying to work the chopsticks. There were a ton of things rich kids knew how to do and I didn’t. Using chopsticks was one of them.
Arsène flashed me a deadly look, his brown eyes scanning me head to toe. I could tell he wasn’t sold on me. Riggs was a go-with-the-flow type of guy, but Arsène didn’t seem hot on extending his social circle, which currently only included Riggs.
“You sure about this, dude?” Arsène asked Riggs. “We don’t know anything about him.”
“That’s not true. We know he’s dirt poor and is a good swimmer.” Riggs laughed, but somehow, I couldn’t be offended by anything this guy said. There was no malice in him, something I couldn’t say about Arsène.
“What if he tells about the flask?” Arsène spoke directly to Riggs, ignoring my existence.
“Look at him. Does he look like he can hurt anyone? I wouldn’t trust him to kill a cockroach. He won’t tell about the flask.” Riggs waved him off. “So. Arsène. How do you feel about Gracelynn Langston? And please don’t hold back.” Riggs chuckled into his Styrofoam cup of MSG and sewer water.
“I’d murder her if she was worth wasting a bullet on,” Arsène ground out, his eyes hard on his food. “She’s the reason I’m spending Christmas with you dickheads.”
“Not this again.” Riggs yawned. “Either fess up to what happened with her, or stop bitching about her.”
“You were the one who asked.” Arsène kicked Riggs in the shins. “Hey, can this guy even talk or what?”
“I can talk,” I clipped out, stirring the noodles in my cup. I just didn’t want to. There was nothing much to say, really.
“I’ll amend—can you say anything interesting?” Arsène pinned me with a look.
“Cut him some slack. His mother stood him up,” Riggs explained.
“Bummer.” Arsène sucked his teeth. “So what’s your story, morning glory?”
“How do you mean?” I scowled.
“How’d you end up in this prison for teenagers? No one came here willingly.”
Forcing myself to look up from my food, I met his gaze. “Got caught copping a feel of a billionaire’s daughter. This is my punishment. Haven’t seen my mom in over a year. Don’t know if I ever will again.”
It was only when I said these words that I realized I genuinely didn’t know if I’d ever see her. Arsène stroked his chin, considering this. He looked like he could murder someone for real. Whereas Riggs had that scruffy, cute look girls really liked.
“Whose fault was it?” Arsène asked. “The getting-caught part.” He put his Styrofoam cup on the floor, grabbed mine, and did the same. He opened his nightstand drawer and took out vinegar chips and some popcorn. He popped both bags open, and I let out a relieved breath.
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“Does life matter?” Arsène deadpanned. “Of course it matters. Vengeance keeps a person going. If there’s someone to blame, there’s payback.”
I thought about it.
“It was her fault, then.” I helped myself to a handful of popcorn. “The more I think about it, the more it feels like a setup. Her dad walked in a second after I put my lips on hers.”
“Definitely a setup.” Riggs nodded, chewing his chips loudly, cross-legged. “Was she at least hot?”
“Um.” I rubbed my chin, willing Arya to materialize in my imagination. I didn’t need more than to think her name before I had a clear vision of her. Her swamp eyes and full mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Your guess is not good enough. Show us,” Riggs demanded.
“How?”
“She must have social media.”
“Bet she does, but I don’t have a computer,” I said. It was half the truth. I did have a computer, but the ancient type. One that I could barely use Word on. Even that was because Andrew Dexter Academy demanded we have computers.
Arsène took out a brand-new laptop from his leather backpack and handed it to me. “Here. Use my MyFriends. Just type in her name.”
“You have a MyFriends?” I eyed him skeptically. All I knew about Arsène Corbin was that he was an evil genius who barely attended any classes and yet somehow ended up passing each year with honors. While Riggs spent his time trying to get himself killed by climbing trees, skipping between rooftops, and getting into brawls, Arsène was more the type to build DIY bombs and sell them online. Come to think about it, they were an odd pairing. They were probably so close only because they were forced together by loneliness.
“For research purposes.”
“You mean stalking.”
Arsène kicked my side with his socked foot. “I tolerated you better when you kept your mouth shut.”
I typed Arya’s name in the search bar, feeling my fingertips going clammy. I didn’t even know why. I had thought about Arya often—mainly bad things—but it wasn’t like I liked her anymore or anything.