As I jog, I tug at my new school uniform, a mid-thigh red and gold plaid skirt, something the administration instituted to blur the lines between the haves and the have-nots. As if. Everyone already knows who the rich kids are and who are the ones like me. Just look in the freaking parking lot. “I love you, Louise,” I mutter. “All these jerks have is something their parents bought them.”
I stop at the door, inhaling a deep breath. You’d expect a regular glass door for a school, but this isn’t an ordinary place. The door here is made from heavy, beveled glass, the kind you see in old houses. Freshman year, I thought it was beautiful with the red dragon carefully etched into the upper section, but now—ha. Dread, thick and ugly, sucks at me, sliding over me like mud even though I gave myself a hundred pep talks on the twenty-minute drive in from the Sisters of Charity in downtown Nashville.
“Steel yourself,” I whisper. “Beyond these doors lie hellhounds and vampires.” I smirk. If only they really were. I’d pull out a stake and end them like Buffy.
Sadly, they are only human, and I cannot stab them.
I pat down my newly dyed dark hair, shoulder-length with the front sides longer than the back, a far cry from my long blonde locks from last year. Cutting and dying my hair was therapy. I did it for me, to show these assholes I’m not going to be that nice little scholarship girl anymore. Screw that. I gather my mental strength, pulling from my past. I’ve sat in homeless shelters. I’ve watched Mama shoot needles in her arms, in between her toes, wherever she could to get that high. I’ve watched her suck down a bottle of vodka for breakfast.
These rich kids are toddlers compared to me.
So why am I shaking all over?
No fear, a small voice says.
I swing the doors open to a rush of cool air and brightly lit hallways. The outside may look as if you’ve been tossed back a few centuries, but the inside is plush and luxurious, decorated like a millionaire’s mansion.
Smells like money, I think as I stand for a second and take it all in. It’s still gorgeous—can’t deny that. Warm taupe walls. White wainscoting. Crown molding. Leather chairs. And that’s just the entrance area. I walk in farther, my steps hesitant. Majestic portraits hang on the wall, former headmasters alongside framed photos of alumni, small smiling faces captured in senior photos. The guys have suits on, the girls in black dresses. By the end of this year, my picture will be encased in a collage and placed with my classmates. A small huff of laughter spills out of me, bordering on hysteria, and I push it back down.
Students milling around—girls in pleated skirts and white button-downs like mine, guys in khakis and white shirts with red and gold ties—swivel their heads to see who’s coming in on the first day of classes.
Eyes flare at me.
Gasps are emitted.
Fighting nervousness, I inhale a cleansing breath, part of me already regretting this decision, urging me to turn around and run like hell, but I hang tough. I swallow down my emotions, carefully shuffling them away, locking them up in a chest. I picture a chain and padlock on those memories from last year. I take that horror and toss it into a stormy ocean. There, junior year. Go and die.
With a cold expression on my face, one I’ve been practicing for a week, my eyes rove over the students, not lingering too long on faces.
That’s right, Ava Harris, the snitch/bitch who went to the police after the party, is back.
And I’m not going anywhere.
All I need is this final year, and I might be able to swing a full ride at a state school or even get a scholarship to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt. My body quivers in yearning. Me at a prestigious university. Me going to class with people who don’t know me. Me having something that is mine. Me making my own road, and it’s shiny and flat and so damn smooth . . .
My legs work before my brain does, and as I start down the hall, the crowd parts, more students seeing me and pausing, eyes widening.
The air around me practically bristles with tension.
If I were a wicked witch, I’d cackle right now.
My fists clench, barely hanging on to my resolve.
Piper rushes up and throws her arms around me. “She’s back! My main girl is back! OMG, I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!”
Seeing her exuberant, welcoming face is exactly what I needed. Pretty with long strawberry blonde hair pulled back with two butterfly clips, she’s been my friend since we had a chorus class together freshman year. She can’t carry a tune, but I love to sing. I had a solo at every single concert at Camden BTN. Before That Night.
She smiles as she squeezes my hand. “I’m so glad to see you. Also, my parents are insisting you come to dinner soon. It’s been a while.”
Indeed.
Before I can answer, someone jostles into us, moving away quickly, but not before I hear snitch from his lips.
My purse falls down with the force of his shoulder.
And so it begins.
Helping me get my bag, she turns her head and snaps at the retreating back of the person who bumped into me. “Watch it!” Then, “Jockass!”
Rising up, I crane my neck to see who it was. Red hair, football player: Brandon Wilkes. I barely know him.
She blows at the bangs in her face, schooling her features back into a sweet expression even though her eyes are darting around at everyone as if daring them to say one word against me. “Anyway, I’m glad you came back. We haven’t gotten to talk much, and that is your fault, which is fine. I gave you space like you asked.”
She never did pull punches.
I haven’t called her like I should have, but I needed distance from this place and everyone here. I tried in the beginning, but when she’d bring up school and the football games and her classes and everyday things about the day-to-day at Camden, I felt that pit of emptiness tugging at me, a dark hole of memories and people I didn’t want to think about. Her life went on—as it should have—while I was stuck wallowing in the past.
“But you’re here now.” She smiles, but there’s a wobbly quality to it. She jumps when she hears her name over the intercom, talking fast as lightning. “Yikes! I need to run. My mom is here. Can you believe I forgot my laptop on the first day? I’m such a ditz! See you in class, ’kay? We have first period together, yes?” She gives me a quick hug. “You got this.”
Do I?
Truly, I want to run and get back in my car and leave this place behind forever, but then I think about my little brother Tyler. Goals . . . must stick to them.
Before I can get a word out—typical—she’s gone and bouncing down the hall like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
I miss her immediately, feeling the heat of everyone’s eyes on me.