by Doyle, S.
* * *
Later that night
Marc
I made my way into the main house. It was after midnight and I’d seen Landen’s bedroom light go out. Ash’s light, however, was still on. I felt a little ridiculous creeping through the house like I was a damn thief, and not someone who lived on the property. I knew where her room was from the countless times when she would ask me to play with her when we were kids.
That was the problem, I thought. The reason why Landen had spoken to me. We weren’t kids anymore and Landen knew it. Well, she was. But at seventeen, I wasn’t.
I knocked on her door quietly and heard her bounce off her bed. Surprised when she opened the door to me.
She pulled me inside and closed the door behind me quietly.
“I just wanted to check on you.”
“You could get in trouble,” she said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
“You okay?” I asked, ignoring that. I thought about Landen’s threats by the pool the other day regarding Princeton. Had he really meant it? Or was it all just bluster to scare me?
She nodded. “Some client of his dropped him off and Dad wanted to introduce me to him. When he couldn’t find me, his client left. Dad was drinking so it just made things worse. But I’m fine.”
“I’ll leave then.”
Except I didn’t. Instead, I looked around the room I hadn’t seen in a while. Gone were her more girlish decorations, a variety of stuffed animals, replaced by things more interesting to a teenager. A band poster—I knew she didn’t get at a concert, because her father wouldn’t let her go. A Wonder Woman poster, because she thought it was the greatest movie of all time. Outfits she’d laid out on hangers around the room, probably planning for the first day of school.
It reminded me she was going to be there with me. Where I didn’t want her. I scowled.
“Don’t try too hard,” I said, pointing to her clothes. “It will make you look desperate.”
“I am desperate,” she said, smiling quietly.
It was strange, but her smile shifted something in my chest. Pity maybe? It didn’t matter. I had a plan for Ash when she started school and that plan was to keep as much separation between us as possible. Because that’s what Landen wanted. Because I’d been threatened.
Because I didn’t like the force he’d used when he pulled her from the carriage house and didn’t want to give him another reason to touch her like that.
“Night, Ash.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply, just made my way to her door, closing it softly behind me. Not a sound to be heard in the entire house. I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure what compelled me to come check on her. But as I got into bed, I thought again about what Landen had said, about discouraging any attachments she might have.
That’s when I realized tonight was probably the last time George, Ash and I were ever going to have dinner together again.
I refused to acknowledge how that made me feel.
* * *
First day of senior year
Marc
There was no way I was going to say anything. No way I was going to step in and get her out of this mess. Because there she was, in the hallway by the lockers, making a scene already.
She wasn’t a new transfer. People in town knew the Landens. Knew she lived up in her mansion, privately tutored because her father thought his precious princess was too good for the public-school system.
People wouldn’t have known about the asthma unless someone, who knew I lived on the Landen estate, asked me what the deal with her was. If they did ask, I told them what I knew.
She had asthma, although I’d never seen any impact of that other than her taking the occasional hit off her inhaler. And her father was an overprotective asshole.
My opinion was she should have been in school years ago, but what I thought didn’t matter. I had to remind myself, again, I didn’t care. I had my own shit to deal with.
I was less than a year from turning eighteen, from being legal, when my life was going to be under my control finally and nothing was going to interfere with that. Part of having control meant making money. That’s what people who graduated from Princeton did.
So I wasn’t going to let Ash or her issues get in the way of that. Not even with her big, sad, blue eyes. Not even watching her be so fucking desperate for a friend she was literally walking up to her classmates, introducing herself—as if the student body population didn’t know who Ashleigh Landen was—and asking if she could join them for lunch.
Freak!
Everyone was either ignoring her, mocking her to her face directly, or, more commonly, behind her back. But it was the mean girls, who were jealous of Ash’s designer jeans and five-hundred-dollar, Jimmy Choo sandals, who were trying to make her feel how out of touch she was.
I was far enough down the hallway I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could see Ash’s eyes getting wider and wider. Her too damn big eyes. It was like they needed to be that big so you could see all her pain and hurt.
Fuck! Now I could see tears. And her chest heaving, which meant in three, two one…there went the inhaler.
George had always said Ash’s asthma was mostly under control. That her father had coddled and isolated her too much. Made her believe she was sicker than she actually was. George felt it was hurting her potential. That she wasn’t as confident as she should be, given all her advantages in life.
Did. Not. Give. A. Shit.
Because Ashleigh Landen wasn’t my problem, and I had orders to stay away.
I could ignore her. I should ignore her.
Or I could set her up as someone to be protected.
I knew the politics of high-school power. Soccer team captain, student council. I was, in all likelihood, going to be voted as the King for Homecoming. Which I would accept reluctantly because it was just one more line item on my application to Princeton.
If, right now, I said Ashleigh Landen was cool, it would make her cool. If I did nothing, she would most likely be sentenced to Freak-ville where she might stay for the remainder of her high-school life.
Because Ash didn’t have a filter. She didn’t know how to suppress feelings or pretend to be happy when she was sad. Or fine when she was hurt, like now. The princess in the castle hadn’t learned to put up walls against the people who might want to tear her down.
She was a fucking baby who had just been dropped into a tank of sharks.
“Fuck it,” I muttered under my breath. I walked over to where two sophomore girls, whose names I didn’t know, were giving her a hard time.
“Are you trying to be an asshole by wearing Jimmy Choos to school? Do you think you’re impressing us?” one of the girls asked.
“No,” Ash said. “I just…these are my shoes.”
The other girl snorted. “Right. And those diamond studs are just earrings. People around this school have money, too. They just don’t go around shoving it in everyone’s faces.”
Ashleigh shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do that at all.”
“Hey,” I said. Ash looked up at me like she always did. Like I was a hero, a God, her only friend in the world…when I was none of those things. Why did she always have to look at me like that?
“Marc,” she said quietly. Almost reverently.
I looked at the two girls, who definitely knew me. I was that guy in this school. “Ash is new. Maybe try to get to know her before you verbally slash her up.”
“And you,” I said to Ash. “I told you not to try too hard. You didn’t listen.”
That was it. That was all I had time for. I turned my back on the three of them and left to go to class. It would work or it wouldn’t, but I didn’t care.
Because Ashleigh Landen was not my problem.
4
Homecoming Dance
Ashleigh
The first time I found out about Marc’s girlfriend was at the Homecoming Dance. It was my first school dance ever.
I spent money, but not too much, on my hair to smooth out my wispy, blond curls. On my dress. On my makeup. My father had hired a stylist of all things, which I didn’t think I needed, but in the end it worked.
I was average height, still thinner than most girls, but I looked the best I had ever looked in a black dress that, while it didn’t scream sex, hinted at it a little. Which, at fifteen, was okay.
Nothing was ridiculously designer—because I’d learned the hard way that girls didn’t like that—but before I left the house I’d thought, for the first time, I could see what I might look like someday. Big blue eyes, straight blond hair…I wasn’t ugly.
And I wasn’t stupid. I’d been sheltered from kids my own age my whole life, but I was quickly learning the dynamics of teenage life in high school. I knew which cliques of girls to avoid. Which cliques of girls would be more welcoming because they were a little nerdy like me.
I knew which groups of boys were starting to look at me.
The first few months hadn’t been easy, but day by day, I’d started to figure out that the easiest way to fit in, was simply not to stand out. I didn’t raise my hand in class. I never again wore jewelry or expensive clothes to school. I made George drop me off a block before the school so they wouldn’t see the Tesla he sometimes drove, another one of my father’s cars.
Now things were getting easier. Maybe because Marc had stepped in that first day and announced to Shelly and Kayla I was cool. Or maybe Shelly and Kayla realized I wasn’t the freak they thought I was. Just a little desperate to fit in.
They weren’t my friends. I still hadn’t managed to navigate that particular minefield of breaking into the cliques of friends who had known each other since elementary school, but I wasn’t picked on or ostracized.
Like now, I was sitting at a table with some sophomore girls from my French class, and, every once in a while, they would include me in the conversation. I was about to gossip with them about Mr. Archer, who we all suspected had the hots for our French teacher Ms. Nalley, when the announcement came that the Homecoming Court had arrived.
Each year was represented, and when Marc walked in with Kaitlin Archer on his arm, I thought how convenient it was that the hottest guy at school would be paired up with the most beautiful girl as his Homecoming Queen.
Kaitlin was tall and had long, wavy, dark hair. She exuded sex in her strapless gown with the long slit up the side of her leg. I thought she was a little pushy when she led Marc to the center of the gym and made him dance with her, but this was all just for show.
It wasn’t real. The King and the Queen were voted on by the student body. It’s not like they were actually…
“Holy shit,” Samantha from my French class said, even as she covered her mouth with her hand. “They are so freaking hot as a couple.”
A couple.
I could see this now, because Marc was kissing her. Nothing gross. No tongue. Just casual kisses on Kaitlin’s lips like it was something he was used to doing. My stomach dropped, and for a second, I wondered if I wasn’t going to get sick.
I made myself watch them.
Of course he had a girlfriend. While Marc hadn’t ever really talked about his reputation at school, I’d learned fast enough he was more than just the captain of the soccer team. He was popular. Obviously, he was also super hot. Those two things alone guaranteed he would always have a girlfriend when he wanted one.
Why not the sexiest girl in his class?
It bothered me, but it should have been expected. It’s just that he never said anything about her. He’d never once mentioned Kaitlin in any conversation, which seemed like a really big deal.
Because it was the one nosy question you never asked. The one thing you never wanted to know.
She didn’t go to his soccer games. I knew that. I would have seen her there, which meant, in my mind, she wasn’t the best girlfriend he could have.
After watching them for a while, accepting what I was seeing, I made my way quietly out of the gym. There were plenty of places to get lost in this school, and my plan was to find one, bide my time until the dance ended, and I could go home.
* * *
Marc
I flushed the urinal and tucked my dick back into my pants. I turned to wash my hands and nodded to a freshman who was at the sink next to me, looking at me like Ash sometimes did. Like I was a god. If it had been Ashleigh, I would have told her to cut it out.
Made sure she knew I wasn’t the hero she thought I was. Proved her adoration was misplaced.
This kid, I just ignored. I dried my hands and stepped out of the bathroom, prepared to go to the gym and collect Kaitlin. She had a curfew, which meant she only had an hour left. George had given me the keys to the Lexus tonight, and I didn’t want to waste a second of getting some backseat action.
Not that Kaitlin went all the way. She was a virgin and holding onto it for reasons I didn’t get, but she would, at least, give me a hand job, and sometimes if I made her come with my fingers, she would lick my dick a little.
I liked Kaitlin enough. She was cool and funny. We both had the same goals. I think the whole sex thing was more about an irrational fear that, even with a condom, she might get pregnant and trash her whole life plan. She wanted to be a lawyer.
I was cool with it. I’d lost my virginity last year to Allison, who, after it happened, declared herself my forever girlfriend. That didn’t last more than a few months and I’d had to work hard to shake her loose.
Which is why when Kaitlin and I hooked up, I was relieved. She was not going to get clingy, and we were not going to get super serious. Both of us knew we ended the day after graduation.
The truth was, I doubted I had it in me to be super serious about anyone. Not now when everything was a countdown of days to my eighteenth birthday. Was I also fucked up because of my mom? Hell yes, I was.
Since the day the cops had come to remove me from my home, I’d known what it meant to have no control. No power over my mother, over my life. No choice in where I got to live or how I got to live.
The state controlled me.
The state allowed me to live with my uncle.
When I turned eighteen that would legally change. I was going to Princeton. I was going to get a job on Wall Street. I was going to have more money than Arthur Landen ever dreamed of having, and no one was going to take anything from me again.
This was not something I shared with people. For five years, I’d been playing a role as the humble, grateful teenager who had been saved from my addicted mother. Good athlete, good student, Home-fucking-coming King.
The only person who actually knew the truth, who could see right through me with her blue eyes, was the only person I needed to avoid. Which I had for the most part.
“Marc?”
I turned at the sound of my name. Ashleigh. She’d been in the shadows near the water fountain next to the boys’ room. When she stepped out so I could see her, I noticed the dress and the way her hair fell straight around her shoulders.
Shit. She looked good. Not like Kaitlin. Kaitlin was sex on a stick and Ashleigh was still only fifteen. But with the makeup and the dress, it was starting to become obvious she wasn’t a kid anymore.
I had this instinct to tell her she looked nice. That she was growing up.
But I didn’t. I wouldn’t let myself be nice to her. Despite her hero worship of me, the fact that we lived on the same estate, and grew up together. Despite knowing she came to every one of my soccer games, which I never let on I knew, I treated her like I always treated her.
Mean. Hard. A lesson in reality when princess had only known life in the castle.
Now, however, I was also under orders from her father to make it clear to her there could be no attachment. Because of my challenging circumstances.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked curtly.
She shrugged. “Wasn’t interested in dancing, I guess.”
“Right. I can’t take you home,” I told her. “I h
ave plans.”
“It’s okay. George is going to pick me up. I guess…your plans… I guess those are with Kaitlin. Is she your girlfriend?”
I winced. I didn’t talk about this kind of stuff with Ash. This world and my world at home had been separate until now. Was this what I’d been dreading? Her seeing these other aspects of my life? It didn’t matter.
“Yes. She’s my girlfriend. What about it?”
“Oh.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t know.”
“Why would I tell you?” I asked impatiently.
Then I saw it. Her eyes got wide; her lower lip wobbled.
She was hurt. Fuck me. Of course, she was. All that hero worship wasn’t just because she was lonely. She was growing up. Thinking about me, no doubt, in different ways. I wasn’t oblivious to her in a bikini, and now all that parading made sense. Why she was always prancing around me asking me how she looked.
Ashleigh Landen was crushing on me. Hard.
“Are you serious right now? Are you that pathetic?”
Her eyes got even wider. She was like fucking Bambi. Suddenly all that anger and rage I felt the first time I saw her, right after George had driven me from the rehab facility where my mother had cried and told me how sorry she was over and over, came raging to the surface.
Ashleigh always wanted to make me feel better. She wanted to be my friend. She wanted me to save her from her pitiful, lonely life, when I had other shit I needed to do. Now she was standing here in her grown-up, sexy little dress, crushed to learn I had a girlfriend. Because I didn’t share this part of my life with her.
I thought about what her father said. About how I needed to discourage her. It wouldn’t take much. Being mean to Ashleigh was something I knew how to do.
Leaning down so I was close up in her face, probably closer to her than anyone had ever been. A breath away from her nose, her lips. Close enough I could close the gap and kiss her.
