by L V Chase
I slow down as I get closer to the front doors on the west side of the building. I run my fingers through my hair. If I leave now, I’ll be skipping half of my classes, and my bullies will know how much control they have over me.
A kid I don’t know, possibly fifteen or sixteen, stops in front of me. His gangly body barely fits in his clothes.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I manage to echo, my fingers still raking through my hair.
“So, uh, I heard that you need money,” he says.
He pulls out his wallet. I stop my hand’s movements. My arm drops back to my side as he rifles through his cash.
“I don’t have much right now,” he says, “but I could get you more in a week. I’d be interested in your, uh, services. Here’s twenty-two dollars—”
“No,” I cut him off. As he opens his mouth again, I push past him. I nearly sprint down the hall, heading back down to the east side. I won’t leave. I’ll just get my homework from my locker and hide out on the school’s roof until fifth period is over. I’m strong enough to get through this. I’m not a coward. I’m not a pushover.
As I get closer to my locker, I see Ethan leaning against it as he scrolls through his phone.
I stop directly in front of him. “Could you please move? I need to get into my locker.”
“Didn’t classes just begin?” he asks, not looking up from his phone. “You’re missing out on the educational experience.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “I’m waiting to have a conversation with you.”
“Could it wait?” I ask, turning to check for more desperate, perverted boys. When I look back at Ethan, it occurs to me that he somehow knows where my locker is.
Could he be the one who shoved me into my locker?
I consider him carefully. He could also be the one from my memory—the one I loved within the wooden gazebo in the public garden. His appearance seems familiar, and I’ve trusted and forgiven him far more than I should. That also could be because my brain recognizes and cares about him.
“No,” he says, looking up from his phone.
I glance away, hoping he didn’t catch how intently I was scrutinizing him.
“Because you’ve been committing a Class B misdemeanor,” he says. “The penalty is up to three months in prison or a $500 fine.”
“I haven’t broken any laws,” I say, tracing back through my steps through the last couple of days. I don’t think I’ve even jaywalked.
“Prostitution is illegal in most of the United States, barring certain counties in Nevada,” he says.
I grip my hair in my hands before slowly letting my hands drop back to my sides. I can’t act like the crazy chick. “How do you know about that?”
“If you need legal counsel, my father could help. Needless to say, payment would be necessary.”
“I didn’t even do it,” I say. “And I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t make that…that advertisement or whatever it is.”
He shrugs. “That’s your view. In the courtroom, facts are irrelevant. Only opinions matter. The opinion of the police, who aren’t going to waste time investigating the issue. The opinion of the jury, who will learn of your recent history in a psychiatric program. The opinion of the judge, who will see you as one more mentally ill, unstable woman turning to prostitution. Trust me, he’s seen it all.”
I grip my hair again, nearly pulling some of it out. I may, in fact, crack over this. “I don’t know why you think telling me that is helpful.”
“Because there’s a simple solution. A jury and the police will be more inclined to trust your narrative if you have a conservator. A conservator is a form of an adult guardian. We would advocate for you and assure them that you are stable enough to be taken seriously.”
“We?” I ask. “Are you telling me that you want to become my guardian?”
His eyes are wide with an expression of innocence. From how he’s acting, he might as well have asked me to join him for lunch tomorrow.
“I’m offering you a hand while you’re drowning,” he says. “Can’t it ever be that simple?”
“It could,” I say. “But I don’t need a guardian. I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. And you’re hardly older than me.”
“I’m old enough to serve the role, and, of course, you’re entitled to make that decision,” he says. “But I’d urge you to take the time to think about the full picture. Just a few days ago, you had guardians in the form of hospital employees and psychologists. It’s not so different from that.”
He pushes off my locker. As we nearly bump into each other, he shows me his phone. The screen shows a text sent to him. The text shows the prostitution ad.
“Who sent that?” I ask.
“That is knowledge I’m not privy to,” he says. “They sent it from an email address named Sadie69Blair.”
He walks away. I watch him for several steps, trying to remember him from my two-year gap. He acts like he doesn’t know me, but maybe he doesn’t want to overwhelm me with our history, or we had a terrible break-up. Maybe he sees this as a second chance.
Still, it’s a strange request, turning my rights over to a guardian, even when I’m eighteen. I had heard of others doing that. Some celebrities. I don’t think they were happy.
After a minute, it hits me that Ethan can’t be the only one that text was sent to. It could be all over the school by now. People will be sharing it with each other before their classes start. Everyone will know.
I open up my locker, grab my US Government binder and start my search for the stairs that lead to the school’s roof.
It doesn’t take me long to find. The stairway leading to the roof is steep to the point of nearly being a ladder. When I open the door, a strong breeze nearly knocks me over. I pull out one of my binders and set it between the door and the door frame—just in case it locks from the inside.
I walk the perimeter of the roof. From up here, the world looks smaller, but not insignificant.
I sit down on my bag on the east side of the roof, near the edge, where I can see everything happening in front of the school. There are at least a dozen trees lining the sidewalk. The sidewalks are empty except for one mother and her child walking to the front doors.
And, in the parking lot, is Klay.
I might not have been able to identify anyone else from so far up, especially without having known him for long. But I could identify Klay anywhere.
There’s something wrong with me, but when I look at him, I don’t quite mind it.
Klay is standing beside his Jeep, his hand held up near his ear. His mouth is biting off words, so he must be on his phone. His arms swing in wide, sharp gestures. After listening for several seconds, he tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he stabs two of his fingers into the palm of his other hand.
I lean forward. I’ve seen him be aggressive, but it always came across as bravado. The emotions he’s exhibiting now are real and raw.
It’s clear after a certain point that he’s not winning the argument. Tension hardens his demeanor, but he’s staring blankly at the school. Soon, he stops making any motions. He says something and ends the call. He slides his phone back into his pocket.
He looks up so abruptly, I don’t have time to duck down or retreat towards the center of the roof.
He sees me. His eyes pin me down. When he looks away, I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding.
He walks back into the school without looking at me again. If anything, it seems like he’s avoiding my gaze, as if he doesn’t want to see me.
He must know about the prostitution ad. Is he ashamed because he did it?
I don’t know why, but if he did, I don’t think I’d mind it as much.
11
Sadie
I sit closer to the center of the roof to avoid being seen again. I stare at my US Government notes about the legislative process, but the words blur in front
of my eyes, rearranging to look like Klay’s eyes. I keep trying to read, reminding myself that I need to stall until it’s time for sixth period.
My mind rewinds what I saw.
Klay, angry and argumentative with someone he was talking to on his phone.
Klay, relenting against something—an action I couldn’t ever see him making.
Klay, looking up at me. His eyes weren’t full of animosity or scorn.
His expression was almost panicked and distressed.
I shouldn’t feel concerned or worried about him, but it builds up in my chest like a skyscraper with each new floor being added every minute.
I wait until there’s only a couple of minutes before class ends. I close my binder and slide it back into my bag. I walk back to the door, grab the binder I left there, and retreat back into the school.
Wandering through the halls as people slowly trickle out, it feels like I’m waiting for an attack. I keep checking over my shoulder and tracking people as they move past me.
All of these people could have gotten that text with the prostitution ad. Every one of these people could easily become another tormentor. I’m behind enemy lines in every part of this building, and I’m a jittery mess inside.
I’m paranoid. I can imagine Dr. Murray giving me the diagnosis with a smug professional air.
The figure stops in front of me right before I run straight into him.
In my mind, it’s Klay—the brown hair and the broad body—but as I take a second glance, I see it’s Roman.
The fragrance of hair gel should have been a dead giveaway.
“Hey, Sadie,” he says. “I heard, uh, some crazy shit is going on with you.”
“Nothing’s going on with me,” I say.
I try to walk around him, but he grabs onto my shoulders and pulls me back in front of him. For an instant, I’m tempted to thrash and scream, to take out everything on him.
“Listen, hey, it’s me,” he says, letting go of my shoulders. “It’s cool. I get it. People are mean. Let’s handle it together. My parents are very well connected. If you want to get back at whoever did this, you can.”
I look up at him, searching his face for any deceit. I don’t see any. “So, you don’t believe that I made that ad?”
“Of course not,” he says. “You’d be a lot more subtle, and you wouldn’t be bringing up your grandma. Come on. Nobody wants to be thinking about grandmas when it comes to hookers.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Thank you. Everybody else seems to think otherwise.”
“Well, whoever set this up clearly had too much time and too much hate,” he says. “They’re terrible, but I have to admire their dedication. The bidding site would have been quite the investment for a prank, and it would have—”
“What bidding site?” I ask.
His nose scrunches up. “Isn’t that why you’re upset?”
“I’m upset about the prostitution ad, which is what you were talking about,” I say. “The part that included my grandmother.”
“Oh,” he says, his mouth forming the smallest circle. “I…well, that wasn’t the only text. There was a second one.”
“That had a bidding site?” I ask.
“A link to the bidding site. It doesn’t change things that much. It has the same photo as the first text. Don’t ask me how I know, but it’s a working site where someone can enter their credit card information to secure a time on your schedule. But it’s fine. You—”
“I don’t have a schedule!” I blurt. “At least, not that kind of schedule. I just want to go to school and help take care of my grandmother.”
He shrugs. “To be fair, this would help you take care of your grandma. It might not be a terrible idea.”
“It is absolutely, with no doubt in my mind, a terrible idea,” I say.
All of Roman’s past comments have been a train wreck of bad timing and careless disregard. He is the symbol of Hanlon’s razor—for everything rude that he says, I have to assume it’s a moment of stupidity rather than cruelty. He is either making a careless remark without reading the room or trying to be funny.
“I wouldn’t ever prostitute myself,” I say as I scowl.
“Never say never,” he says. The school bell rings. “What if you needed medical care you couldn’t pay for? Would you care more about yourself than your grandma?”
“I don’t care more about myself than my grandmother. And I don’t appreciate you saying that.”
“Well, it must be true,” he says. Students start flowing out into the hallway. Some people move around us. Some jostle us. Roman’s eyes follow the clusters of people with vague interest.
Roman’s gaze returns to me. “If you cared about your grandma, you’d do anything to help her.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “All you need to know is that I do care about my grandmother. The rest is none of anyone’s business.”
“Well,” he says, raising his voice loud enough that several people turn to look. “If you sucked my cock, it’d be worth your time.”
I blush furiously. People are staring, smirking, and trying to hold back their laughter. It’s hard to imagine that Roman’s words aren’t meant to hurt, but he’s watching me earnestly. He could, in fact, be that stupid or that certain I’d find this funny.
“No,” I say, although my voice shakes. “Excuse me.”
I move around him, and he doesn’t stop me this time. It’s time for art class, and I’d rather drink a gallon of paint than stay in this hallway.
12
Klay
In shop class, we’ve been working on building decorative nightstands. For most people, this would be simple. For Roman, it is the problem of the fucking century.
Mr. McKinney shakes his head at Roman as Roman walks over to me. He’s holding a cloth to his hand that’s stained red with his blood.
“Can you believe that, man?” Roman asks. “The drill just jumped out of the hole. Something’s wrong with it.”
“Is that what you tell all the girls, Shaw?” Ethan asks, striding up to us and leaning over my nightstand.
I’d sock both of their ugly faces for intruding on my space, but I know I’m not in a position to rock the boat right now. After throwing the ball at Roman in gym class, I’m on thin ice, so I focus on the table’s drawer in front of me. I’ve been burning an elk design into the front of it, but the sight of Sadie on the roof keeps interrupting my focus.
For a second, I thought she was going to jump. After I looked at her long enough, I saw there was still some fight in her, but for a moment, I thought I’d fucked up.
“I don’t know, Ethan, ask your mom,” Roman sneers. “She knows that when my cock is involved, I’m always in control. No one gets hurt, unless you count the way they can’t walk afterwards. They love that, though.”
“I don’t know,” Ethan says. “The girls leaving your room after your parties seemed to walk with a rather healthy stride. They seemed disappointed, more than anything.”
“Disappointed that it’s over,” Roman says. “And because I kicked them to the curb. You have no idea how exhausting it’s been to keep going after one chick for the last two days. I don’t normally have to be nice for this long. Or keep my cock this dry.”
Ethan smirks, gripping the edge of my table with his dirty hands. “Glad to hear that you’re already running low on stamina because I—”
“I’m not running low on shit,” Roman counters. “I just talked to her, and I’m real close to breaking her. Another week, and she’ll be begging me to nail her harder than I nailed my table.”
I slam the drawer into the table. The table nearly topples over, and Roman and Ethan both jerk backward.
“Except you didn’t nail or screw your table, did you? You didn’t do shit.” I stand up. I’m only an inch taller than him, but he has to look up to meet my eyes. “Looks like you need more lessons in how to handle your tools.”
Ethan laughs. “That’s new. You managed to unsettle him. Yo
u concerned that you’re going to lose the Hunt, Harrington?”
I bite my tongue. I can’t let them see how invested I am. “I’m not going to lose.”
I pick up the sandpaper. I open the drawer again and start smoothing the edges. They’re already perfect, but I’d rather ruin my own project than look at either of them.
“Your tough guy act isn’t going to win her over,” Ethan says, leaning onto my table again. “She wants to be rescued, turned into a princess.”
Ethan bares his teeth at me, more of a snarl than a smile. “I’m going to be the one planting my flag in her soon, you’ll both see.” He nods to himself. “I came, I saw, I conquered. And then I’m going to come again.”
I drop the sandpaper and grab him by the throat to shove him away from my table.
“Keep your hands off my table,” I say. “Fuck off and do your own work for once.”
His face ripples with anger, and his hand runs over his throat. He flicks off a tiny particle of sand that must have transferred from my hand to his neck.
“Careful, Harrington,” Ethan says in a quiet voice. “That’s criminal battery. The last thing you’d want is to be in a courtroom against my parents. Not to mention the Society.”
He turns around, walking back to his own table, which is keeling over like a dying animal. I pick up the sandpaper and start sanding the drawer’s knob. Roman examines his hand’s wound before double-checking that Ethan is out of earshot.
“We could team up,” he mutters to me. “I hate to admit it, but I think she likes him. We need to make him look bad to her.”
“Shit talking never works,” I say. I run my hand over the knob before working on the left side of it. “She’s just being friendly to him.”
“How do you know?”
I glance up at his face, then down to the bloody cloth in his hand. Specks of the blood almost look like a smiley face.
What I want to say is that she’ll never fall for him, because if she did, I’d do whatever it took to keep him away, regardless of the fucking Society and its Hunt. But I don’t want Roman to become suspicious.
