by Jordan Grant
Snickers erupt from the audience watching us. He shoves by me, knocking my shoulder as he does it when I refuse to move. Damn, it hurts. The commotion of students starts up again, louder than before and definitely discussing the show they just received with their lunch.
I watch him go, and he’s nearly to the double doors, but it’s not going to be good enough for Finn.
I have to do something.
Do something, Harlow!
I swallow hard because I’m trying to not vomit my words.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” I demand, my voice ringing out loud and clear in the open space.
The chattering of students stops.
Students pause mid-step to their tables.
Ian halts in his tracks and my heart along with him.
Nothing on him moves until his fists clench at his side and he spins on his heel in one quick, abrupt movement.
Nine steps. That’s all it takes.
One long stride followed by another and then another, and then he’s in my face, and the back of my knees knock into the dining room table behind me, my fingernails catching on the starched linen.
I’ll take the heat gladly though, and feel the fire of his fury. This is better than indifference. I am consumed by his anger.
My palms flatten automatically against the table as he leans in, towering over me. He’s got one hand on either side of my hips, pressed against the edge of the table, trapping me where I stand.
“Is this what you wanted?” he demands, the oculus above bathing him in golden light. “I fucking can’t stand the sight of you, Weathersby. I can’t look at you. Your existence is one long, living goddamned nightmare for me.”
Tears spring to my eyes because those words, those mean, hateful words, coming from the one I love are too much. I swallow away the knot in my throat. I’ve got to push him harder and then pull back the moment before one of us breaks.
“You need help,” I bite back, “if I am your worst nightmare.”
“I didn’t say you were my worst nightmare,” he snaps, his nose nearly touching mine we are so close. “You’re not even in my top three.”
“Well, what is it then? What’s your number one?” I push.
His next words are seethed against my lips, the bite of hellfire falling from his tongue. “Forgetting what you did,” he breathes, “and fucking you again.”
My heart tap-dances above my lungs.
“You’re sick.”
He doesn’t deny it. “And no one can fix me, sweetness, not even you. So why are you here, little mouse?” he demands. His hands tighten, biting into the sides of my thighs, as his lips brush against my earlobe. “Is that what you want? Do you miss me fucking you?”
“Clear out!” I hear Everett call before the sound of groaned complaints and chairs screeching against the floor.
“You heard him!” Chase adds. “Out! Now!”
Doors swing on their hinges, and I wonder if Ian would even care if the student body was here to watch our downfall.
His hands tightens at my hips, his thumbs pressed flat and hard enough to bruise.
“Answer me,” he growls, the words sharpening across his teeth before they leave his mouth.
I can’t admit it, not now, not ever. I will never jeopardize his future for the sake of my present.
“Why did you come here?” he muses as one of his hands trails upward, greedy and demanding up the side of my leg, bunching up my pleated skirt with it, then further. Over my side, his fingers splayed across my belly and up to the swell of my breast. “Why do you keep coming back? Haven’t you had enough?”
My skin is on fire.
All of me is on fire for him.
And I know I’ll never be able to extinguish the heat.
It’s too much. It’s too much! It’s too—
“Stop this, Ian,” I nearly sob.
I hate fighting with him. I don’t want to fight anymore.
Ian clucks his tongue twice and shakes his head. He seems almost disappointed in my reaction.
“You’re playing unfair,” he remarks, lifting his hand from kneading me to my cheek to wipe away a stray tear.
“She’s had enough,” Everett says from behind him.
“You broke me,” Ian whispers the words against me in a poor imitation of a kiss that never comes.
“I set you free,” I choke out, biting my tongue to not add, I gave you back your future.
“No,” he shakes his head, inky strands of hair falling into his eyes, “you got freedom, Harlow. I got locked up with everything bad about me.”
13
Ian
It takes everything I have to walk away from her. I want to scream and curse and fucking hit something until my knuckles bear bruises for weeks after. I want to turn around and suck the answers straight out of her soul because God knows I’ll never get them out of her mouth. I want to...
I want to kiss her and taste the bitterness of her betrayal on my lips.
And see her big blue eyes lock on mine the second before she realizes what is happening.
And feel the fight leave her the moment I crush her against the cafeteria wall and consume her.
And hear her whimper when she realizes there’s no escape, not from us, not ever.
The thought pisses me off even more as I slam the door to the cafeteria wide with both hands, sending it knocking against the wall hard enough to leave a dent. That kiss in the locker room was a one-time deal, or so I keep telling myself. I’m treating that shit like Las Vegas—what happens in the locker room stays in the locker room—and it can never happen again.
She looked stunning in her blue-jean overalls, the cut of the fabric making her legs look even longer than usual. Her nose was red like her fury allowed her metamorphosis into human Rudolf. Anger formed a blaze of hellfire and brimstone in her glare that threatened to bring warmth back into my cold, dead heart.
Instead of that pitiful look she’d been sending my way for weeks, she looked like she wanted to kill me for hurting her pretty car—still don’t know who did that, by the way. It’s like a goddamn game of pick a freshman stalker, any stalker. In that moment, she probably wanted to hit me or kick me or yell at me until her voice shattered.
I had wanted to fuck her fury away. She could bite and kick and scream all she wanted to, but she’d never say no, so I allowed myself one little taste. That one taste was one colossal fucking mistake. One leads to another and then another and then I’m going to relapse inside her, and I’ll never recover, not again.
I had managed to avoid her for two weeks like she carried the plague before she found me there. If she didn’t leave a room first, I did because there’s only so much I can take and it feels like torture being so close to her yet a mountain apart at the same time.
The week before the locker room incident, I rearranged the desks in our shared advanced organic chemistry class to avoid sitting near her, the entire back row now permanently scooted far to the left. When Professor Sutherland peeked up from his desk and saw what I was doing, he didn’t utter a single word. There’s an unspoken rule at the Academy. If the king wants to create a new throne, let him. Give him whatever he asks for as long as he brings home the championship trophy.
When I saw her on campus, leaving the library or the music hall or one of her other not-so-secret hideout spots, I pretended like I didn’t see her. I put my Harlow blinders on and kept walking, except for that one time the week before the desk rearrangement, when I ducked behind a pillar and watched her walk across campus like I was about to go all Taxi Driver on her ass.
Now, she’s pushed and pushed and fucking pushed, and I’ve got no buttons left. I couldn’t help myself in the locker room. It’s a tight rope I’ve been walking, stuck somewhere between wanting to kiss her and kill her, but I’ll be damned—literally—if I do it again.
I continue down the hall, making students and staff scramble out of my way. I can hear the fuckers speculating about what went down in
the cafeteria, but none of them has the guts to ask me. I decide I don’t give a fuck about the rest of my classes for the day and beeline straight out of the building. I need more than a couple of classrooms between Harlow and me right now. I need distance until this itch to turn around and find her and burrow my way inside her finally calms.
I punch the exit bar on the door, and a shower of warm air washes over me as I head outside. The sun’s at the perfect fuck-you position on the horizon, burning straight into my eyes. I reach for my sunglasses at the collar of my shirt, but they aren’t there.
Shit. I’ve left them in my locker, but I’ll take the singe on my corneas before I turn around and head back inside that building. I’m going to need some sort of restraining order before this is all over and not for my own protection, but hers. I told her I’d play the game, but I didn’t want to, not really.
The first twenty-four hours after she left, I would’ve accepted her willingly back into my arms for a decent apology. The next twenty-four hours, I would’ve at least tried to understand if she had just explained. But she couldn’t even give me the real reason—whatever the hell that is—and although I’ve tried to avoid it, we are both in the game now. If she wants who I was before, the man I was pre-her, then I’ll give it to her. It’s time for the iron-fisted king to rule again.
I continue past mingling students and head to the topiary garden on the east side of campus. Well, it’s more like I just end up there because I’m not exactly thinking about finding serenity among the pruned evergreens. My fingers itch to punch something, but I’d settle for kicking a can. There’s nothing around me, just immaculately trimmed bushes and a bubbling fountain. If my fist meets concrete, my knuckles are going to break, so I settle for shoving my hands into my pockets and staring at the water as it gurgles in the stone basin. It’s slow and dumb and not fucking calming.
I’m still standing there staring at the stupid water sculpture when I feel Archie arrive. He’s got a slight limp from football season last year that you can’t see, but you can hear it when he walks on gravel, and I know it’s him, though I don’t turn around and confirm. I’m standing there like a monumental dumbass when I feel a kick against the heel of my loafer.
What the fuck?
“If I didn’t have a date later,” God, he sounds especially whiny today, “I’d totally kick your ass, Beckett.”
My gaze slides to the left, and I see the blonde behemoth giving me the stink eye, which is sobering because Archie is never serious. I’m about to ask him what happened to dicks before chicks — all that shit he likes to spout when his most recent hookup turns out badly — when Everett arrives. He stands there solemn on the other side of Archie and settles for a disapproving look that pisses me off even more, but before I can tell them both to fuck off, Chase is there, on the other side of me.
He doesn’t kick me or glare at me or so much as raise a judgmental eyebrow in my direction. All the fucker does is pull a cigarette from the pack tucked in the front pocket of his dress shirt and offer it to me without a word. I accept it between two fingers and wait for him to light it. When he does, I take one long draw and feel the nicotine flood my veins and calm the raging waters.
“You wanna go riff, man?” Chase asks, taking a hit from a vape pen he’s unearthed from somewhere. He blows out the smoke slowly through his nostrils, and I inhale the skunk of pot.
I take another drag off the cigarette before I nod. I don’t say anything to Archie and Chase as we walk away. We leave them there and walk across campus to the performing arts center without another word between us.
Chase and I are more alike than either one of us would ever admit in public. Archie is a dick when he’s hurt or angry. Everett can be judgmental prick sometimes too. Chase, though, has fire that runs through his veins just like me. He’s got a mountain of potential addictions and a teetering hold on all of them. His father, like mine, is a controlling asshole, and his mother is the only thing holding that family together. His sister has been fucked up since birth in a freak accident that cost the doctors at fault millions, and she requires round-the-clock care. He is broken and black-hearted, and we both can always find solace in music.
I finish my cigarette as we walk. The sun beats down on my back, and sweat pops up on the base of my neck. It’s hot as hell today, and practice later is definitely going to be a bitch. I debate skipping that too, but Coach doesn’t do sick days unless you’re in the hospital. He’d hunt my ass down and make me do double-time to “work the lazy” out of me.
I stub out my cigarette on the gray stone steps of the performing arts building as Chase opens the door. At first, I think we’re going to one of the exhibition halls, maybe even the main one, which has kickass acoustics, but Chase veers to the left as soon as we enter the building. I follow him down the stairs into the basement to the soundproof rooms. I haven’t been down here in forever, not since I let Bailey Bishop blow me freshman year. It used to be all flickering bulbs, sticky carpet, and the smell of mildew, but they renovated it a few summers ago. It’s nice now, fresh carpet, new paint, and it doesn’t smell like feet.
Fuck, I wish I had known it was this nice.
Chase enters the first room on our right, and I get the feeling he’s used to having the place to himself, probably because of the basement’s reputation for suspiciously sticky floors and unpleasant smells. My suspicions are confirmed when we walk inside, and I see Chase’s own Gibsons and Fenders propped up on stands against the wall. He’s not even worried about someone coming in and fucking with them.
Chase waves a hand at the wall and says, “Pick your poison, man.”
I choose a Gibson Les Paul and give myself a moment to admire it before I plug it into the amp. It’s got a mahogany build made by hand, a gloss I can see my reflection in, and a sound that promises to be as pure as its acoustic brothers. It’s a beautiful goddamn guitar.
“What do you want to play?” I ask Chase as he unbuttons his sleeves and rolls them up his inked forearms. He loosens his Academy-issued tie and tosses it on the back of a chair before he grabs another guitar off a stand. He plugs into the amp and dials down the reverb.
“I’m working on something.” He shrugs like his working on something isn’t magical. “Help me figure it out?”
“Sure, man,” I say.
Chase starts to play, and his song is part sadness and part virulent anger, just like everything he creates. If the dude ever finds happiness, he might not be an artist anymore, and although I want him to be happy, holy fuck would it be a loss to the world.
I join in, staying to the low end of the clef as Chase leans forward, his lips nearly touching the microphone, his black hair falling into his eyes.
“You caged my heart, and now I’ll trap yours too,” he sings. “Let the world watch and be entertained as we both come unglued.”
14
Harlow
The darkness claws up my throat, its talons digging deep and shredding apart my insides. It’s suffocating me on its climb, and I can’t breathe in this large cafeteria on this giant campus sprawled across acres and acres of land.
I can’t be here, not now.
I can’t fall apart.
Students have started to filter into the cafeteria, returning to their discarded plates. Molly stares at me like she can guess what’s happened. Maybe someone told her. I don’t know, but it’s too much. I can’t lose all control in front of my classmates. They can’t see me as I come apart and break.
Not here.
Not now.
Not ever.
Not that the darkness will listen or my rising panic will cooperate. I’m just a broken girl in a broken world trying to keep my house of cards from falling apart.
Fuck, I can’t breathe. I let out a long, shuddering breath, one short burst after another. My panic is a tidal wave coming into shore, and I can’t stop it.
The world tilts, and my head swims to the erratic beat of my pounding heart. My hunger is forgotten as my st
omach rolls, and I swallow hard, trying to remind myself that it’s all in my head and it’s not real.
The darkness isn’t real.
The panic isn’t real.
You can breathe.
You can be.
But my mind is a sandy beach and with every wave, I am attacked grain by grain. When it’s over, there’ll be nothing of me left to carry with the tide.
Finn’s cruel grin when he said I had to push Ian harder, when he made sure I delivered our mutual misery, because he knew before the words ever left his mouth that he had won.
Ian going still in the cafeteria before he turned back toward me. No desire or amusement or even flicker of adoration in his gaze, just cold, lonely fury that fell like a sharp blade straight through my chest.
The students out on the edge of my periphery sitting at their tables and gawking at us, raising their phones to get a better angle before they uploaded videos and sent them around campus like an Internet-driven STD.
Ian when the corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer that seemed almost painful, his tongue flicking over a canine with a soft sucking sound, the moment before he decided I wasn’t worth even his fury, and he chose to walk away.
It’s too much. It’s all too much, and I can’t take it. I am going under, and I can’t breathe.
I. CAN’T. BREATHE.
The darkness cinches around my middle like a snake and squeezes tight until every breath is a fight, sounding with a ragged wheeze.
The room is too bright, the colors white-washed from the sunlight overhead shining through the massive glass oculus. My head swims, and I am dizzy, my fingers biting into the table behind me for support.
The students who filtered back in are loud, too loud, even over the roar in my ears.
Despair tastes like cotton on my tongue and feels like the sweat sprouting on my brow.
People are staring, looking at me like I’m an uncaged animal.
I lurch forward, desperate to find dry land and finally be able to breathe again. I stumble past the gawking students and around the waitstaff that stare at me wide-eyed, wondering if they should intervene but worried about keeping their jobs. I shove open a swing door normally reserved for Academy employees, sending it squeaking on its hinges.
