That afternoon Mrs. Randall appeared in the doorway of the studio, her whimsical skirts trailing behind her. She looked at me behind her enormous glasses and I allowed my hands to fall from the canvas. I wondered if I should have been embarrassed, touching the canvas like that, breathing and thinking. But then I remembered that everything had already been lost at Crestwood. What the hell did I care what Mrs. Randall thought?
“You know, Kennedy...” Mrs. Randall said, perching against the table, which was smeared with old dried paint. “You really are progressing so nicely— despite everything else.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“Thank you. I guess,” I said.
Mrs. Randall shuffled her graying hair. “It’s only that—hmm. How can I put this? It is my duty to make sure that you remain at this school. But...”
I felt like rolling my eyes. But I kept them pressed straight ahead, choosing instead to feign no knowledge about what Mrs. Randall was going on about. Of course, it was very likely that Mrs. Randall, along with the rest of the staff, knew how much the other students were ripping into me. It was happening in front of their very eyes, as well as mine, but of course, the teachers didn’t have a say. The kids' students were the ones that ruled the halls.
“But what?”
Mrs. Randall sighed. “I just don’t want you to go out of your way to make yourself miserable just because you’re trying to prove something.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I said, balking. “I’m just trying to live through my senior year, so I can go to a good a good college and get the hell out of Ridgewood.” A fire started in my belly, one that forced me to continue. “Do you know the sorts of things I saw, growing up? Kids who didn’t get enough food at night and came to school hungry or parents who didn’t know how to get jobs, so they struggled and eventually found work as cooks and gardeners and maids for people like you. I’m not saying I don’t respect those people. I do with all my entire heart. But I’m also saying that if I found myself working for anyone in Crestwood after graduation, I might cut my own head off.”
I felt strangely satisfied at the moment but also guilty as the words rolled from my lips. It wasn’t like it was Mrs. Randall’s fault; what was happening to me. But I couldn’t let her off the hook either. She was a part of this system. They were all a ridiculous organism, with hundreds of disgusting beating hearts and far too much cash to go around. They were a machine of greed.
When I left art class that afternoon, I marched to my locker to grab the rest of my stuff and eventually grabbed the bus home. I had already texted Wren, praying that she could hang out when I arrived back home. But she had enrolled in some kind of math academic team or something. I assumed there was a boy involved. But the fact that I had to assume, rather than knowing it outright, made me upset.
I was losing connection to everything I had ever known, everything I had ever loved. And I wasn’t replacing it with anything but loneliness. Maybe this was what it was like to become successful. You couldn’t have feelings anymore.
THE FOLLOWING DAY ON my way to my locker, I passed Hailey and the three boys. Kieran held everyone’s attention, telling some sort of story about a previous vacation to Mexico. I paused for just a split-second, analyzing the situation. Hailey’s hand was stretched out across Kieran’s upper bicep, her head tossing back with laughter. I had a sense that Kieran was playing her like a fiddle, just like he had played me. But I didn’t care at all.
Of course, this also could have meant that Hailey and the boys had been in on ruining me from the very start. They had built up a cocoon of safety for me, forcing me to deliver the biggest secret of my life—that I had caused my Dad’s death—and then tossed me into the trash like it was just another day in Crestwood.
It was the cruelest possible thing anyone had ever done to me. And yet, I lived through it. I had come out on the other side.
Outside the school, I grabbed my phone and tried to call Wren. It went straight to voicemail. I crunched through the gravel toward the path between the trees, trying Eric this time. I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks and I suddenly ached to see that flowing head of wild black hair. But his phone went to voicemail, too.
“Hey! Hey, Kennedy! Wait up!” A voice trailed behind me.
At first, I didn’t recognize the voice. I paused, grateful, for just a split second, to even hear my own name said out loud. It was friendly and bright. But when I turned around, I found none other than Hailey running toward me, her bright blonde hair billowing in the wind.
“What do you want?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest. I felt like I was at war, ready to rip into her if she crossed me.
Hailey caught her breath for a moment and then said, “Sorry. I really wanted to catch up with you.”
“Why? So you could learn more about my secrets and tell them to the entire school?” I demanded. “Or because you want to call me a slut or a whore or a piece of prostitute trash from Ridgewood? If you have some other insult up your sleeve, let me know. I’m so excited for you guys to get more creative.”
Hailey rolled her eyes slightly, almost good-naturedly. “Kennedy, I wanted to tell you that it’s over and I’m sorry.”
I looked at her, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s over. The war,” Hailey said, her words simple.
“Again, I have no fucking clue what you’re—“
“Between us,” Hailey continued. She flashed me a perfect smile and looked like she had been stripped out of the pages of my favorite teenage magazines. I resented it.
“Oh. Wonderful. Thanks for the heads up,” I returned and started to walk away.
Hailey reached out and touched my arm. “Seriously.”
The touch was alarming. I realized I hadn’t been touched by anyone since—since Kieran and I had had sex at his house and Caleb and Dante had watched. The realization of this sunk over me. Maybe my face looked shadowed.
“I mean, Kieran and I were always going to get back together,” Hailey continued. “It was only a matter of time. And it has nothing to do with you, really. You were just this pawn that we were playing with. Like a cat and mouse thing, you know? You can’t blame the cat for being so into tossing the mouse around.”
“Right...” I scoffed. “Whatever, Hailey.”
Were they actually back together? I didn’t think so. Kieran had been pretty frank about not wanting it, although looking back, it was a bit difficult to trust anything that they had told me.
“Wait...” Hailey said again and gripped my arm this time. “I really want to invite you to my party this weekend.”
I coughed. Was she actually serious? “I would literally never, in a million years, go to your party,” I told her. “I don’t care if it’s on the fucking moon.”
Hailey’s grin widened. “Actually, it’s on my dad’s private yacht. And I’ve hired The Muskets to perform at midnight. It’ll be my birthday. Eighteen.”
“Wow. I guess that means you can finally bet on horse races,” I shot and repositioned my schoolbag on my shoulder.
Hailey shrugged. “Among other things.”
“Right.”
The truth was, I loved The Muskets. They were this super-hip punk-indie band from Los Angeles. I had them blaring on my phone during almost every bus ride over from Ridgewood. They had been my answer to countless sleepless nights since Dad had died and they had been my band-aide for all the shit situations at Crestwood since I’d started.
“So you’ll come?” Hailey asked in a hopeful voice. She dropped my arm and brought her hand out, like a businesswoman. I imagined her ten years from now in a power suit, doing just this. “I really need you to be there, Kennedy. I want us all to start fresh. I am truly sorry and want you to forgive me. Truce?”
I shouldn’t have given in. But I was lost with sadness about potentially losing Wren and Eric, and I really didn’t have any other plans but for listening to Mom laughing at Jeff’s lackluster jokes on a Friday
night. I brought my hand into Hailey’s and shook, my nostrils flared.
“I will probably—maybe—potentially be there,” I told her. I felt a strange heaviness in my chest, as though my heart was grateful I was taking this brave, idiotic step, or it could be the biggest mistake of my senior year.
“Great!” Hailey shrieked, rushing back toward the school. “I can’t wait to see you there. I’ll send you directions. But you can’t miss it. It’s the biggest yacht in the harbor.”
Of course, it was, I thought to myself.
When I arrived back home, I found Mom in the reading nook, going through old piles of books. She lifted three little thin, busted-out leather-bound books as I entered, saying, “Look at these. My old journals from when I was in high school. Ridiculous, huh?”
I chuckled, amazed at how easy it was to sweep into the reading nook and feel utterly at peace. I cuddled close to Mom as she read over the words—all about meeting my Dad for the first time.
“He finally talked to me in study hall,” Mom read from the journal, her voice was soothing, “And he asked me for my notes from Spanish class. When I tried to give him the notes, they blew away in the parking lot, and he chased after them. I thought I was going to die from laughter. When he got back, he was so exhausted that he didn’t care what happened next, I guess. He asked me for a milkshake. We split a strawberry one and sat near the cliffside, smoking cigarettes and talking about his parents. Just like me, he never really had a Dad, didn’t know the guy.”
At this, Mom’s face grew clouded. She clucked her tongue and snapped the book shut.
“Why did you stop?” I asked feeling robbed of more information about my Dad. I loved these images of my parents as silly young kids, falling in love over cigarettes and milkshakes. It had been over eighteen-years ago, maybe—just before they’d accidentally had me. I could barely comprehend that time. Mom had had bright pink hair for part of it, something that completely scandalized Grandma Kelly.
A tear formed in the corner of Mom’s eye. She immediately wiped it away, seemingly hopeful that I hadn’t seen it. I pretended I hadn’t.
“All these people we’ve lost, baby,” Mom murmured, her shoulders sagging.
“Mom. Why did you come in here?” I asked her. “What made you want to go through old journals?”
It took Mom a very long time to answer. She spread her palms out over her thighs and started shaking. I gripped one of them, squeezing hard, trying to drum up enough courage to ask again.
“Do you remember how you found Jeff in here that first morning?” Mom asked, her voice hushed.
“Yes...”
“Well, I found him in here again. He was snooping around and I called him out on it. Demanded to know what he was up to, but he just played stupid and said he wanted to check out our book selection. Whatever. The man can hardly read,” Mom said and placed her journal back on the shelf.
I hadn’t heard her insult Jeff in all the while she’d known him. Her face looked shadowed, yet her eyes remained sure.
“What did he take?” I asked, still incredulous.
“I have no idea,” Mom said and placed a finger to her lips, tapping them. “I’ve just been going through everything, trying to think of something that he might have wanted. But honestly, it’s just old things— old books from another time.”
“Hmmm.”
Mom’s shoulders sagged. “But I guess I should tell you once and for all. You won’t be seeing any more of Jeff. Maybe it’s for the best. It was fun while it lasted, but it was never going to be long term.” She flicked her finger against the journal in front of her, a relic from another time. “He was never going to replace your Dad.”
The guilt shifted inside of me, becoming a knife. I bowed my head against her shoulder and quaked, again hearing the screeching tires, the final yelp of my father before he lost his life. Once, he’d been a brute force in our home, a man with a raucous laugh that would shake you.
Now, it was just us.
And it was easy to say that was okay— that we didn’t need anyone else. But I was beginning to suspect that was wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was the night of Hailey’s eighteenth birthday party. No rational person in my situation would have shown up there. I was wearing a little black dress I’d fished out of the second-hand shop basket. I prayed nobody would notice the tiny tear at the bottom of it, near the hem—the only thing that differentiated it from a classic designer dress. It was simple, in style—and best of all, I looked absolutely stunning in it. My long toned legs stretched on for days beneath the short skirt.
Mom had taken me to buy a little present for Hailey, insisting that I had to make a good impression. I wanted to tell her just how little that mattered, that our little gift would never be good enough compared to what she would be receiving. But I was surprised to find that shopping with Mom was stress-relieving. We swept through gift shops, gossiping about things we had once cared about and we ended the afternoon with a slice of pizza from Jack’s, our Ridgewood favorite. Jack himself sliced the pizza, giving Mom a wink, just like he used to before everything happened.
I realized mid-slice that we hadn’t been at Jack’s since before Dad died. I sat eating my slice and listened to my Mom’s jokes and her smiling face. Spending some quality time with her was exactly what I had needed before the party.
Hailey was right. Her dad’s yacht was the biggest in the harbor, something I spotted immediately after the bus dumped me off there. I had only been out to the harbor once or twice as a kid. The harbor was normally used only for cruise ships on their way somewhere else, but there was a private section for pleasure crafts. I hadn’t considered that Crestwood elite also kept their yachts there. Of course, it only made sense.
The sterling white boat was suited for over two-hundred people, which meant the one-hundred-fifty seniors from Crestwood suited the three levels just fine. When I reached the ramp, a security guard I recognized from Bluff’s Edge stopped me, demanding again to look at my ID. I looked up at him, annoyed and then leafed around in my purse for it. A moment later I heard Hailey call my name from above.
My eyes flashed toward her as she disembarked the yacht, marching in high heels down the ramp. “It’s okay, Renaldo. She’s a guest.”
Renaldo nodded and folded his hands in front of himself, becoming a statue once again. I started my way onto the ramp and walked toward Hailey, feeling like I was walking a plank of doom. But when I reached her, she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me tight.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said, giving me a warm smile. “I’m so glad we can put the past behind us.”
Weirdly, I felt a surge of relief, as well. I followed her onto the yacht, noting the massive table of presents on the far end of the cabin, where a professional DJ spun beats. Caleb stood nearby, his eyebrows low. It seemed he hadn’t been asked to play.
“Should I give you the tour?” Hailey asked, raising a perfect eyebrow.
“Erm. Sure?” I said, looking around at everything.
She yanked me through the cabin, past the kitchen and dining area, where several students had created a dance floor and were now grinding against one another. I spotted Dante out there, moving along with a girl from the Chronicle. His face was drawn and bored and as I passed him, his eyes were trained on me. Again, I had that peculiar feeling of being hunted.
“This is the front deck,” Hailey explained. “When we took the boat to Hawaii, I spent like, the whole month out here, tanning and eating chips and salsa.” She cackled. “To be honest, I gained like three pounds that summer. Mom said I was getting flabby. She put me on a diet after that.”
Three pounds? Was she serious? She was so fit.
“My mom and I basically live on chips and salsa,” I told her.
“Oh god, that’s ridiculous. You’re so skinny!” Hailey cried to me. I knew this was a compliment with many layers to it, but I decided to look beyond.
After all, Hailey and
I were trying to—become friends?
“Kieran is up here pretending to be captain,” Hailey said, her voice all bubbly. We swept up the ladder to the very top of the boat, where Kieran hovered over the steering wheel. Hailey leaned into him, dotting a little kiss on his cheek. He grimaced and muttered something in her ear, something I couldn’t quite make out.
But to me, it seemed like an insult. Hailey’s face grew shadowed. “Anyway. I think it’s about time we get this party started. Don’t you?”
“Sure,” I heard myself say.
Hailey sprung back toward the ladder, hollering out to the guests below. “It’s time! Let’s get out of here!”
I stood blinking at Kieran, my heart thudding in my throat. He just frowned at me and adjusted his fake captain’s hat, looking maybe ten years older than he was.
“So. You and Hailey...” I tried.
“Fuck no,” he smirked, almost spitting it. Then, he added, “You have real balls coming here.”
“Hailey invited me,” I said, feeling uneasy at his words.
“Ha. Good luck with that. Are you really going to trust her after all she did to you?”
“Funny words coming from someone I never should have trusted,” I blurted out.
Still, Kieran had this horrible power over me. He took a step toward me and reached for the dark strands of my hair. With a tender touch, he slipped the curls behind my ear. Again, I felt like his doll or plaything.
“Let’s join the party, shall we?” he asked and then walked off.
I looked out to the ocean and dark sky, which was littered with stars. I sucked in a deep breath and headed back downstairs. I found the entire senior class in various stages of undress—in swimsuits and dresses with less fabric than most swimsuits. The boys had their shirts off, their shorts laying low on their hips. Everyone swayed in time to the music, catching one another’s eyes, whispering in one another’s ears. For a moment, I tried to dance with them, tried to drift into the beat and fit in. Maybe if I forced myself to forget everything, including myself, everyone else would forget what an outsider I was. Maybe it was all about playing the part.
Wicked Blue Bloods: A Highschool Bully Romance - Crestwood Academy Book 1 Page 16
