by Josie Max
“They into gang-bang stuff? I can invite the football team over,” Briggs offered.
I took a quick glance over at Violet. She had her head down, searching through her backpack. As she lifted a pencil and pad of paper out, I added my thoughts about tonight’s festivities.
“I don’t know, man. I was thinking we could head down to Happy Pond. My dealer is down there most nights, hanging. We could go for a dip.”
“Shit, I don’t know. Didn’t you find that disgusting dead body there? Doesn’t that make the water contaminated or something?” Caleb asked.
“I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work,” she said with irritation in her voice.
I glared at her. “You want to come?”
“No, I don’t want to come. You know that’s where my mom died. You know because you found me.”
Her cheeks were flushed, and I couldn’t help but notice her chest rising and falling rather rapidly. As much as I would enjoy popping those buttons of her blouse and see how far that flush went, I remained focused on pissing her off.
“Don’t remind me. If I had known I was rescuing trash, I would have left you to die, too.”
Her jaw tightened and she mumbled something.
“What was that, little girl?” I cupped my ear as my lips curled.
She went pale. The entire class turned to stare when she stood abruptly and pushed her chair over. “I said I wish you had left me to die.”
Violet glanced around, realizing everyone was staring at her. After a moment, she ran out of class.
“That worked easier than I thought,” Briggs added.
I glanced toward the door. “Yes, a little too easy.”
This morning in front of the school, she fought back. I expected Violet to stay and fight. Causing her to break was simple.
Maybe by the end of the week, she’d be gone.
SEVEN
Violet
THE NEXT TWO CLASSES were easy compared to art class—easy because Knight and his buddies weren’t in them.
I noticed as I walked down the hallway people stared and whispered to each other. It must have been from me running out of first period.
When Knight called me little girl, I snapped. He must have written that note. I knew exactly what that note meant. Roses are dead—that was my mom. He was taunting me, trying to scare me . . . and it worked.
What they said in class about the party was irritating. But then he mentioned the pond and drugs and then finally called me little girl.
I ran out of class and found the bathroom, spending the rest of first period getting myself together. No one I knew was in my next three classes—no Seraphina or Knight.
Now it was lunch and Arabella told me I could sit with her.
I walked into the dining hall but didn’t see a place to stand in line to get lunch. Glancing around, I noticed Arabella in the back corner sitting by herself.
I took in the room as I made my way to her. It looked more like a dining room in a restaurant than a cafeteria at a high school.
The tables were large and round with white tablecloths. Each table had a small glass vase containing white flowers. My eyes widened as I noticed a few kids eating off milky-colored plates with gold and navy trim. There was nothing plastic about that plate or silverware. I wondered for a moment, Was that actual china?
They spoiled these kids. No wonder they were petty monsters. The only one who was down-to-earth was Arabella, who had just spotted me. She smiled and waved from her table.
The room was warm, and I desperately wanted to remove the school blazer but didn’t dare for fear I’d attract attention, especially from the table nearby that was filled with all the people I hoped to avoid. Seraphina sat next to Knight and all their friends.
It didn’t matter if I removed the jacket or not because they noticed me at the same time as Arabella.
“Oh my god, it stinks in here. Do you guys smell that?” Seraphina yelled while staring at me.
I ignored her and kept weaving through the tables to Arabella.
“You’re so right, Seraphina. It’s so stinky . . . like old, rotten fish,” one of her bitches whined like a baby.
“Eww. I heard if you’re a skanky whore and you don’t see the doctor, the festering sores on your va-jayjay can start to stink. Oh . . . hi, Violet, I totally didn’t see you there.” Seraphina’s lips curled.
I nodded at them as my jaw tightened. She was trying her best to get to me, but I wouldn’t let them. If her boyfriend had a wandering eye and it landed on me, that wasn’t my problem.
As much as Knight hated me, which was obvious, he sure stared at me a great deal. That irked Seraphina, which made me not mind his gaze that much. Anything to piss off that bitch.
“I’m totally not hungry now. Thanks, Seraphina,” Knight grumbled as he pushed his plate of food away.
“I’m sorry, baby.” She ran her fingers up his arm as he shrugged her off. “It’s just that I wanted to help Violet. She has an odor problem and should see a doctor.”
Knight studied me, his expression unreadable and cold. That didn’t stop my nipples from hardening as if it was his fingers, not his eyes, sliding over them.
I had to force myself to keep walking.
Let him go, Violet. He hates you.
Clearing my throat, I was a few steps from Arabella’s table. Her eyes brightened and she rose from the table. But then her expression changed. Concern etched her features, and she shook her head. I turned my head to find out what was upsetting her, but then I felt it.
Something cold and wet slapped the side of my head. A cup full of juice had hit my cheek. It stung a little, but the shock caused me to gasp.
The entire cafeteria erupted in laughter. I lifted my arm. The white cuffs of my shirt that peeked out of the navy school blazer were stained red from juice.
I inhaled. It was cranberry.
Turning, I saw Seraphina with a lopsided grin. She shrugged and said, “Oopsie. It must have slipped.”
My heart pounded. I wanted to run over to Seraphina and beat her until she was red, too. But I never had a chance. Someone gripped my arm, and I was being pulled toward the front door of the cafeteria. It was Arabella.
“Let’s go,” she said as she dragged me out the door.
“That bitch. She’s going to regret doing that to me.”
I was angry and while I liked Arabella, she was preventing me from making Seraphina pay. Therefore, I wasn’t too happy to be around her right now, either.
“No, she won’t.”
I tugged my arm from her grip once we were in the hallway and stared at her.
“So what? I should just take it? Like a good little serf.”
She shook her head. “I never said that. Come. I have an extra uniform in my locker. One perk of being the principal’s daughter.”
When I came here today, I never expected to be accepted with open arms but the non-stop harassment was getting to me.
“Fine. But I will get Seraphina back.” I stomped up the steps behind Arabella.
“I don't doubt it. I only met you today, but you definitely aren’t a shrinking violet.” She looked back with a wink.
We stopped by her locker and she grabbed a bag, then we headed back down the stairs. But instead of making our way to the cafeteria, we turned and headed toward the front door.
The intensity of the assault was wearing off.
“Where are we going? The cafeteria is back that way.” I threw my thumb behind my shoulder.
“To my car. We’re getting out of here.”
I smiled. She may be my only friend here at the academy, but she was worth twenty friends right now.
Once we stepped foot outside and the valet pulled up with her sporty black sedan, I felt the weight of the morning lift from my shoulders.
Getting a break from this place was like taking a trip to Heaven. If she drove me to an auto shop where I had to eat an old vending machine baloney sandwich for lunch, it would be a hundred
times better than eating off fine china at Green Hills Academy.
“I hope you like old Britney, because I do,” Arabella said tapping at her console and ‘Baby One More Time’ pumped around me.
We joked and discussed our love of all things 90s. And before I realized it, she had pulled up to a small restaurant called Jack’s Place.
“I never expected the northside of Green Hills had a diner like this.”
We hopped out and she grabbed the bag before coming around the car.
“Oh my god, yes. It’s not just a diner, Violet. It’s the place to be if you want to be free of all the plastic people.” Arabella hooked her arm with mine and guided me toward the entrance.
The front door was a metal and glass door and looked retro. And once we were inside, I might have thought they designed the rest of the place to look like something out of an old movie. Only I got the feeling it hadn’t been updated since it was first established.
There was something oddly familiar about it. I shrugged. Most old diners looked like this place. It’s not like I had come here before.
“Come on, we can sit here.” Arabella pulled me to a corner booth. “The bathroom is in the corner. Here’s a new uniform.”
She tossed the bag at me as she scooted over the ripped vinyl of the red-padded seat.
It didn’t take me long to change. The bathroom was as old as the rest of the diner. The mirror was faded and scratched, but I could tell there was juice all throughout my hair. Thankfully, I had brown hair, so not that obvious. I washed my face and hair as much as I could in the sink before I headed back to the dining area freshly changed. My stained clothes in the bag.
“I never expected to see a place like this anywhere near the school,” I said as I slid into the booth, tossing the bag beside me.
Arabella lifted her hand and waved two fingers at the waitress behind the bar counter. The woman nodded.
“Everyone in North Green Hills has been trying to tear down Jack’s Place for years, but they get nowhere. I suspect that Jack is some reclusive billionaire, like a Howard Hughes character, and every time someone comes to shut him down or buy him out, they get nowhere.”
I raised my brow. “I’m guessing you’re a history buff.”
Arabella wrinkled her nose. “I know. I’m such a nerd, but there’s so many crazy things that have happened here. What’s fascinating is the stuff people don’t know about, like details I know on certain people’s parents . . . certain kings and queens of the town.”
I leaned forward and was about to ask her to tell me when the waitress arrived with two milkshakes and two plates of something with eggs on top.
“I never ordered this.” I gazed up at the woman with short, gray curls.
“Arabella ordered two, so I made two.” She nodded before walking back to the counter.
“Violet, this is Jack’s famous peach milkshake and their biscuits and gravy sunny-side up. We don’t need a menu and you really don’t need to order anything else.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been to a diner before, Arabella. I usually order pancakes or waffles, or something like that.”
She reached over and placed her hand on mine. Staring into my eyes, she said, “Just taste it and then you can thank me.”
She knew more about this place than I did, but I knew what I liked to eat. I shrugged and appeased her. She had been nice and helpful to me today, so why not?
I dug into the dish until the yoke oozed. When I took a bite, my eyes closed. Damn, she was right.
I chewed, savoring the wholesome goodness before opening my eyes back up. Even if my mom never made biscuits and gravy, it somehow reminded me of her and my heart fluttered in my chest.
She shoved the milkshake in front of me. “Now take a sip.”
I held up my hands and mumbled, “Can I finish what’s in my mouth first?”
She groaned, “Okay, if you want to be all good-mannered and shit.”
Swallowing, I smirked. “Give me that. No one threatens me with good manners.”
Once I took a sip, I understood I had been wrong to question her.
“It’s official, you shall be my official food person. Is there a name for that? Someone who recommends food, you know, like there’s people who recommend wine.”
She tapped her chin. “Like a sommelier but for food?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what that is. I guess.”
She pushed her shoulders back and nodded. “Yeah, I like that. Arabella, food sommelier.”
We laughed and ate, not caring that we were late getting back to school after we left the diner.
Once we drove up to the academy after lunch and hopped out of the car, I said, “Thanks. I needed that break.”
She placed her arm around my shoulders. “That’s what friends are for.”
EIGHT
Violet
“THANKS FOR TAKING PITY on me and driving me home, Arabella. Again.” I hopped out of her black Genesis G80. While I was grateful for the ride, I feared many times on the way home Arabella was trying to kill us.
She was a lousy driver.
“Don’t think of it as a pity ride.” She leaned over to the passenger seat, pointing at my backpack I had almost forgotten to grab.
“After Seraphina stood me up on the first day and the entire rest of the week, I don’t know what else to think of it as.”
Seraphina had no problem taking me to school, which I was realizing might be a chance to look good for the mayor, but most likely was to get to see Knight. But getting home was a problem, as she told me Monday when she drove off, leaving me behind.
“I can take you to school, too.”
“Oh god, that would be heaven. Not to have to deal with the icy silence every morning in Seraphina’s car. Or when she spoke, reminding me I wasn’t worth the breath she breathed and that if she had her way, they would kick me out of Green Hills for just existing.”
A bemused smile appeared, and she nodded. “Now go get some rest because this was only the first week.”
I groaned, “I hope I make it.”
Was it worth going through this hell to get a chance at the university of my dreams? I doubted it. But then my mother’s words floated through my head.
We have too much spice in our blood to dissolve into nothing.
I jutted my chin out and said, “I’m sure Monday will be better.”
“Let’s hope. What happened at lunch today made the juice in the face from Monday look like nothing.”
Hitching my backpack on my shoulder, I closed the door and waved. I watched Arabella curve around the fountain as she headed toward the street. Sighing, I turned to hide in the pool house all weekend and hoped to never run into the mayor or his nephew.
Arabella was right. Once I got home on Monday, I showered and collapsed into bed. I didn’t even wake up to have dinner that night; I was so exhausted.
Tuesday wasn’t much better. Then on Wednesday, Knight and his crew still made disgusting jokes in art class, but I ignored them. Seraphina and her Bitch Crew, which Arabella had nicknamed, took any chance they could to trip me or put things in my hair. I hadn’t found out until I got home and looked in a mirror that they had stuck gum in my hair on Thursday. I had to cut some of my hair away just to get it out.
As for the rest of the school, they were in on the taunting. I was the school punching bag. I lost count of how many times I’d been called trash or a whore. Some even flicked wads of wet paper at me.
But today, Seraphina tricked me. She was unusually sweet and kind, even complimenting my makeup on the drive to school this morning.
When I got to lunch, she asked if I wanted a cupcake as it was her friend’s birthday. I saw they were all eating the cupcakes, so I agreed to have one. Only something was in it. I ran to the bathroom a half hour later and had diarrhea. I still didn’t feel great and was afraid to eat anything.
Arabella said she must have put a laxative in my cupcake.
I went around the house
to the gate and made my way to the backyard. Looking up at the big house, I wondered what it looked like on the inside. I had yet to be invited inside. Based on the mayor and his wife’s reaction to me, I bet I’d never get a glimpse inside their world.
The one lucky thing about my stay here.
I heard voices inside the pool house as I reached for the doorknob. Pressing my ear to the door, I couldn’t make out what was being said but the voices were deep and male.
I pushed open the door and threw my stuff onto the table by the front door.
“Hello?” I called out.
“Violet. Come in the living room. There are some people I want you to meet,” the mayor said.
I had been lucky. The past several days I hadn’t seen him or his wife.
My luck just ran out.
Pushing my shoulders back, I braced myself and hoped he wouldn’t try anything in front of his friends. He was the mayor, after all.
I turned the corner and saw a glass decanter half-filled with dark amber liquid, which had to be scotch or brandy, in the middle of the glass coffee table. Something only rich folks drank.
Then I noticed the men, three of them. Ties askew, tumblers dangling from their fingertips, some of the amber liquid swirling in their glasses.
They all had smiles, and not the kind that portrayed happiness and welcome. No. Their curled lips told me one thing—they wanted to have fun and I was their entertainment.
The mayor waved me over to the leather chair with the wide arm rest where he sat.
“Come, Violet. Sit here. This is John Lenker and David Sherer. You two must meet Violet. Isn’t she beautiful?” I stepped closer, but nowhere near the mayor or any of those men. I kept myself close to the entrance of the room in case I needed to escape.
The name Lenker sounded familiar. I wondered if he owned the Lenker tractor company. Probably.
“You were right about her, Ichabod. She is gorgeous,” one of men said as he stared at my legs.
“When they’re young like that, John, they’re so soft,” the mayor added.
