by Angel Lawson
Sebastian interrupts, “Straight road.”
I nod without looking at him. “Exactly, I wanted to get it up to speed, open it up. But I never got the chance. This fucking deer came running out into the road, and I didn’t even have both hands on the wheel. I tried to swerve around it, and then—”
There’s a soft, barely-there noise coming from my right—something small and strangled and pained—and I jerk my gaze to her. She’s got a hand pressed lightly to her throat and her blue eyes are trained unseeingly across the room, angled away from me.
I work my mouth around a clumsy reply that never emerges. I want to tell her not to listen. To press her fingers into her ears. To go stand outside the door for a couple minutes. What the hell was I thinking, doing this? Even being detached and relaying it as mechanically as possible, I can barely stand to say it. Why did I think she could bear to relive it?
“What happened?” Georgia gently asks, ripping me away from my thoughts.
I look at Emory, but he won’t meet my gaze, either. I continue, “It flipped. Four, maybe five times.”
“Six.” Vandy’s ragged voice makes the back of my neck prickle. “It flipped six times.”
I can tell a couple of them—Georgia and Sebastian, who must be out of the gossip loop—are just now putting all this together. I mutter, “Six times. Right. And she got,” I sweep a hand toward Vandy, eyes diverted, “hurt. A lot worse than I did.”
It’s a nice, tidy summary. It’s one I’m used to telling, back at Mountain Point, during those legally-mandated counseling sessions. Usually, I’d go on. I’d tell them how the road was so deserted that it took forever for anyone to pass by and see the fire. Rarely, but sometimes, I’d even go into how I kept walking, hoping to flag down the cops I’d called on my battered cell phone, but then always returning because I didn’t want to leave her there alone, broken and barely conscious, on the shoulder of the road. I never say the other stuff—how the pain was so intense that it made me vomit, or how I kept wishing that I’d just died there, in the driver’s seat, because it already felt like my life was over.
I never admit that I moved her.
“There was…fire,” I explain, shifting my shoulders uneasily, “and she was in the middle of the road, so I had to move her away from the wreck, even though…” Vandy already knows this. I know she does. She was more conscious than not for that part. I can still remember the way she looked up at me, eyes dazed and full of agony as I carefully dragged her to the side of the road. It doesn’t make it any easier to say this aloud. I wet my lips, finishing, “Even though you’re not supposed to move someone with spinal injuries.”
Everyone’s quiet, and I know they’re looking at her more than me. Looking at her leg. Thinking of how she walks. Maybe even remembering how much worse it used to be. I know at one point, early on, she couldn’t even walk at all. I should feel relieved that she can. I should be able to see her merely limping and think ‘thank fucking god’, instead of the constant internal stab of ‘I did that’.
But I can’t.
It’s Carlton who ultimately breaks the silence. “Didn’t you already do time for that?”
I finally lean back in my chair, knee bouncing. “Yeah, a little. I was in juvie for a few months, after the hospital. They let me plead down my sentence as time served, plus probation and community service, on the condition that I enrolled in Mountain Point for four semesters.”
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “But you’ve already done the time. Everyone already knows.”
“That’s the best part,” I say, giving him a bitter smile. “I’m having my record expunged when I graduate. Once I get out of here, it’ll be like it never happened.”
That’s what the lawyer had said.
Like it never happened.
They must all sense the truth of it—that it isn’t fair that Vandy has to walk around with the consequences for life, and that I can just move on and do anything I want. I could be a football star. I could be a doctor. I could be a lawyer. Sky’s the fucking limit for me.
But if this video got out, that’d be a different story.
They seem to accept this as ‘good enough’, which is fortunate. It’s not my fault my ‘biggest sin’ just so happens to be something I’ve already been caught for.
Everyone in the circle looks to Vandy, but my eyes are the last to land on her. She’s still got her arms crossed, but her face is hidden from me now, obscured by a curtain of her pretty blond hair.
Emory sighs. “Vandy, you have to—"
“I know.” She pushes her hair away from her face and finally I can see that she’s not stalling. She’s just slipping into some armor, building some defenses. Her eyes are guarded but resolute when she begins, “It started a few years ago.”
Inside, I freak out a little, because I thought for sure being here would be her big sin, and it’s suddenly occurring to me that a lot of these girls' confessions are about something sexual, and it’s all been dubiously consensual bullshit, and I just…
I can’t hear about someone doing shit to Vandy.
I can’t.
Just the thought of it makes me want to get up and pace.
She goes on, voice soft, “I had a few surgeries that first year, and they had me on morphine for a while.” Fuck fuck, no. Now I’m the one who wants to cover my ears. “Eventually, they put me on other painkillers. They were patches sometimes, but usually pills. I was almost always hurting, so I was almost always on them. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.” She takes a breath, and I can tell she’s chewing the inside of her cheek. “At some point, the pain stopped being so bad. Or, at least, it wasn’t bad all the time. I could have stopped taking them.” She looks up, into the camera. “But I didn’t.” Her shrug is tight. “I kept telling them it hurt, and they kept giving me the pills. For a long time, it was really easy. Getting an oxy script was like asking for a drink of water. Everyone just automatically believed me. I can’t even remember most of my Sophomore year, I was so stoned out of my mind all the time.”
I chance a glance at Emory. He’s watching her, wide-eyed, like she’s someone he doesn’t even know. I’m too busy being grateful that I’m not hearing about some doctor’s bad touch to feel much of anything else.
Vandy looks down at her wringing hands. Her cheeks are red. “It’s really hard to come off that stuff. The doctors tried to wean me in stages, last year. I acted like I was following the protocol, but I wasn’t. I had built a nice stash over the two years, so I could keep taking them. And taking them. And taking them.” Her smile is something tight and guilty. “Eventually, the stash grew a lot smaller. I tried playing up the pain, but it just led to more procedures and prodding and babying. I knew no one here would sell it to me, but I’ve even bought some off a couple Northridge guys.” Her eyes move to Carlton, who’s been watching passively. “Yours, I assume?”
Carlton’s wide eyes snap to Emory. He points to her, voice insistent. “Bro, I didn’t know about that.”
“It was hard getting money, though,” she continues, picking at a fingernail’s chipped polish. “My parents would always ask what it was for, and it got easier to just steal it.”
Emory runs a hand down his face. “Jesus, V.”
She stiffens, almost imperceptibly. Her voice is harsh and biting when she says, “You don’t know what it’s like, okay? You have this whole life that has nothing to do with—” She swallows down the rest, exhaling in a hiss. “It was the only thing that got me through, and it’s not like it’s something you can just quit, cold turkey.” She flattens her palms to her thighs, pushing her shoulders back. “It’s taken me all year to get my dosage down to a point where I wasn’t getting sick.”
Caroline cautiously asks, “Are you still…?”
Vandy looks up at her, and then around at the rest of the people in the circle, Emory last. “No,” she finally mutters, head shaking. “I’m done with it now.”
There’s something she’s not saying. Mayb
e the others don’t notice the slight crack in her voice, or the way her shoulders twitch when she says the words, but I’ve seen enough liars—been enough of a liar—to know when something’s being held back. Maybe she’s still addicted. Maybe she still gets sick. Maybe she still thinks about lying to the doctors.
It doesn’t matter.
Among all those maybes is one certainty: Vandy’s biggest sin is just another sick repercussion of my own.
One more thing I’m responsible for.
When the camera turns off, moments later, no one looks relieved.
11
Vandy
The ride home is quiet, filled with tension. Emory and I don’t even look at one another. I remember a time, when we were kids, that Emory didn’t always treat me this way—like something made of thin, fragile porcelain. We’d fight. We’d play together. We’d fight some more. We were always close, but we were still siblings at the end of the day.
Now, we barely seem to know each other.
When we get home, the house is dark and silent. I don’t need to worry if our parents have discovered I was missing. Were that the case, things would look far more lively.
Emory just walks right into the house, because he can do this. He can stay out late. He can go to secret meetings, parties, get-togethers, without being asked much about it. I sneak, however. He jogs up the staircase with ease, and I tiptoe, avoiding the creaks. Worn out and exhausted from the night, I’m hoping he’ll be locked in his room before I even get to the landing.
Unfortunately, my brother has other plans. His silhouette is framed by my door. I limp past him and kick off my shoes. The door clicks behind me.
His voice is quiet. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I don’t want to face him, but I do. He looks weirdly hurt. “There was nothing to tell. I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
“Do I look different than I did this morning? Yesterday or the day before?” I hold out my arms. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
“I don’t know, V.” His jaw locks, nostrils flaring out. “Maybe because you just admitted that you’re a fucking addict!”
I hiss back, “And you’re a sex offender!” We both glare at one another, a silent agreement passing between us that we’re waiting to see if our parents heard us shouting.
When it’s clear no one is coming, he sighs, head dropping. “How did I not know about this? Mom and Dad—”
“Will never hear a word about it. I’m not using anymore.” The lie feels heavy on my tongue. “And just like how I’m sure you won’t be involved in anymore sex crimes, it’s not fair for you to bring this up at home. You told Georgia that whatever was said in the dungeon stays in the dungeon. What happened to that?”
“It’s not a dungeon,” he mutters, thrusting a hand into his hair. “This is hard—having you in the group, treating you like—”
“An equal?” I bite out. “Like more than your innocent, crippled, loser sister?”
His face falls. “Come on, V, you know that’s not—”
“Yes, it is.” I snatch my pajamas from my dresser. “And maybe it’s time you stopped looking at me like a broken little thirteen-year-old, and started seeing that I’m like any other girl at Preston Prep.” I sarcastically elaborate, “Entitled, and filled with shit-loads of baggage.”
“You could have told me.”
I bury a groan into my hands. “You’re not hearing anything I’m saying. I couldn’t tell you, because you have this completely unrealistic view of me.” I look him in the eye when I say, “You want me to be this quiet, innocent girl who’s locked away, and I—” My voice cracks, and I shake my head. “I’m sick of being quiet for all of you, Em. I can’t always be innocent, and I don’t want to be locked away. I want to live my life, and that’s not always going to be sunshine and rainbows, sorry to break it to you.” I look down at my hands, feeling another wave of exhaustion. “None of you will even give me room to do anything right, let alone mess up every now and then. Are you really surprised?”
Emory certainly looks surprised. He also looks sad. “We’re just trying to make things easier for you.”
“Well, you aren’t.” I shuffle my feet, hiding a wince. It makes me breathe a strangled laugh. “All you’re doing is ensuring that I hide every bad thing from you. My leg is so damn stiff right now, but I know if I let you see it, you’ll just baby me for the next week. It’s not easier, Em. It makes everything harder.”
His eyes drop to my leg, and I can see him wanting to tell me to sit down. Instead, he rolls his eyes. “God, we’re pretty messed up, aren’t we?”
“Us?” I give him a sly look. “I mean, did you hear all that? Maybe we’re not as fucked up as I thought.”
“Or just as fucked up,” he admits.
“Well, they wanted the best-of-the-best,” I remark, leaning against the end of my bed, “I guess we’re the cream of the crop; a group of thieves, sex fiends, liars, and cheats.”
He rubs his chin with his thumb. “Sounds about right, actually.”
My voice is soft and sounds as tired as I feel, “You have to let up on me a little, Em.”
There’s a long moment of silence where Emory does nothing but stare at my discarded shoes. “I’m not sure I know how to,” he says, and I can see this strange, wild fear in his eyes. Sometimes I forget that, in a single moment, Emory almost lost his sister and best friend. Sometimes I’m too caught up in my own phantom grief to remember his own. Without warning, he reaches out and pulls me into a tight hug, mashing my face up against his chest. “But I promise I’ll try. And you can tell me if you need help, okay?”
I sigh into his chest, squeezing him back. “I’m done with it, promise.”
He must be convinced, because he releases me and exits the room without another word. I wait a beat before going to the bathroom and locking the door behind me. I open the tiny drawer on the jewelry box and pull out the pouch, hooking a shaky finger around one of the pills.
Reyn had been right about the secret. This business of reestablishing the secret society at Preston Prep is no small matter. It proves that the roots grow deeper than I ever realized, and an exposé would be earth-shattering to the entire institution. What I didn’t know was that I’d have to reveal my own secrets to be involved, which means when I write my story, I’ll open myself and my family up to scrutiny.
But I can see the whole picture with crystal clarity now. The Devils are bigger than just one person—bigger even than a group of people, or the ones behind the curtain, orchestrating it from the shadows. The Devils are a body—mind, heart, and twisted soul—and it breathes in all of us. Reyn, Emory, and I all have our own share of the blame, but the guys only stole that car because that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re being courted by the Devils. And the more I think about it, the more I can see a little bit of the red and black behind each of those bitter confessions.
The Devils’ strongest legacy lives in all of us. It’s a long, multi-generational string of pains and hurts that will just keep growing and spreading. I think of the look on Reyn’s face that night, in the hospital. I think of the wild fear I’d just seen in my brother’s eyes. I think of the other initiates, quiet and solemn during their confessions. I think that thrusting my family into the fray by exposing it all is a bitter pill to swallow.
I smile brokenly at the white oval in my hand, before popping it into my mouth.
Well.
I’m pretty good at that, anyway.
If someone told me that being part of a club, a sorority, or secret society would change my entire perception of school, I would’ve called bullshit.
But now I see that it’s true.
I mean, on the outside, nothing has changed. I still listen to Sydney, wearing her cheer uniform, as she discusses the rumors flying around her that day; someone posting a photo of her measuring the length of her skirt compared to the other girls. It’s all, she tells me, very tragic and desperate. While she goes on about this, I s
till notice everyone giving me a wide berth as I walk past. I still register the looks of pity and disinterest. From their perspective, I’m still just Vandy Hall, the broken girl with the hot older brother.
Except…
I make eye contact with Sebastian Wilcox, who’s propped up against the statue in the quad. It’s brief and fleeting, and I know when others look at him, they might see a rough, disinterested goon with cold eyes and a hard expression. But I can see the flatness of regret now, something haunted and aged looking back at me. He gives me the smallest nod, an almost imperceptible dip of his chin, and there’s an understanding there. I know exactly where he got those scrapes on his knuckles.
It’s a surprising weight, knowing the deepest, darkest secrets of the most popular people in school. It’s more than just a responsibility, but also an odd, patchwork union.
“Hold on a sec,” Sydney says, grabbing my arm. “Afton!”
Afton turns. Her long hair has been styled stick-straight, a red and black hair bow jacked-up three perfect inches from her hairline. Her gaze darts from Sydney to me and lingers a bit longer than it should. There’s no doubt what we’re thinking simultaneously:
You’re fucking your dad’s best friend.
You’re a junkie.
“Yeah?” She focuses back on Syd.
“What time are we meeting tonight? I need to run home after school.”
Afton snorts, something caustic in the curve of her mouth. “Why? To hike that skirt up another inch?”
Sydney rolls her eyes. “Oh, you saw that, huh? For the record, I do not make my skirts shorter. My legs are just that long.”
“Uh huh.” Afton looks away, already seeming bored by her. “Bus leaves at five.”
“Are you riding the bus?” Sydney asks once we walk away.
My eyebrows pull together. “Why would I ride the bus?”
“Because you’re the newspaper chick now. You’re part of the team!” She says the last part with an overly cheesy fist pump. “But seriously, you should. It’s kind of fun.”
