by Eden Beck
He’s shown his true colors. I know now who and what he really is, and I know for a fact that I don’t really matter to him. All that matters to Astor is money and titles. Social positioning. Business and financial politics.
I have nothing more to say to someone like him.
“Get the hell out of here right now,” I say again. “I don’t want to see you again, and I sure as hell don’t want anything to do with you! Out!”
He can see that I’m furious and serious as hell. He grabs his clothes and pulls them on quickly.
“I can’t believe you’re taking this so personally!” he shouts at me. “This has nothing to do with who you are as a person.”
“And that is exactly the problem,” I snap at him as I yank the door open and wait for him to leave. “It should have everything to do with who I am as a person, and nothing at all to do with the money. Of course that never crossed your mind. Goodbye, Astor.”
He glares angrily at me and storms out, and I slam the door closed behind him and fall back into my bed, weeping bitterly into my pillow for a long time.
I am such a stupid, stupid girl.
I knew that my life was going to change, but I never saw this coming, and I wasn’t ready for it. My heart is broken, and I can’t believe that I was stupid enough to fall for Astor Hawthorne’s cold-hearted game.
Again.
Chapter 5
It’s only the next morning and everyone in the school already knows. I thought they’d at least try to be subtle about it, but almost everyone is treating me differently, literally overnight.
People who used to hate and ignore me are staring at me now and talking about me in awe. People who refused to acknowledge my existence are suddenly trying to become my best friends.
Everyone has an agenda, and most of them are agendas that I want nothing to do with. It’s alarming how many people can only see the money and the shiny new name who never saw me before.
All that, and I haven’t even decided if I’m going to change my name.
It’s all so much. All too much.
Astor is watching me nonstop again, his eyes trained on me like I’m a juicy piece of meat. He shouldn’t even be here at the school. He should be home, with his family, or at least on vacation to some exotic destination.
But here he is, and I know there’s only one reason why.
Just as I’m heading out of the dining hall, he pulls me into an empty room and closes the door behind him. His eyes are intense and I can see that he’s overwhelmed with his emotions.
“What the hell do you want?” I demand, planting my hands on my hips. I really had hoped I wouldn’t see him again for a long while. Maybe now that I’m not the school’s unwanted charity case, I thought I might be able to sway my next class schedule to keep us out of the same classes for once.
Astor reaches for me and I pull away from him before he can close his hands around my shoulders. It’s a near miss and his hands fall to his sides.
“I want you! Damn it, Teddy! I can’t stop thinking about last night.”
“Oh right. Because suddenly my pockets are deep, now I matter.” I scoff, rolling my eyes and looking away from him disinterestedly.
“No! You matter because I love you! Does that mean nothing to you?” he shoots at me passionately, and I turn and stare right through him.
He loves me.
But his form of love is twisted and cruel. I’ll have nothing to do with it.
“Unfortunately, those words don’t mean anything to me now.” I shake my head and he looks devastated. He looks completely gutted.
It hurts me to see him like that. I love him. I do, but I’m not about to sell myself out to someone who wouldn’t have me when I was a nobody. If I don’t matter to myself, I’m not going to matter to him; not really.
The love I have for him is enormously overshadowed by my rage and newfound desire for revenge. It’s something I’ve never felt before, but the truth is that some things just can’t be forgiven.
“They should mean everything to you! I love you!” he reiterates with a fiery blaze to his eyes and gravel in his voice.
I shake my head. “No. You love Victoria. Did you even bother to break up with her before you came to me? Or was I just a quick roll in the money last night?”
He sighs and looks away, his shoulders falling. “That’s complicated. I’ve told you before—breaking up is not an option. But we’re not …” he hesitates, “that way anymore.”
“No way. Fuck you Astor. I’m not about to share you with her. I’ve made my position on that very clear.” If I keep tugging at my hair, I’m going to end up bald. “Everything that happened between us last night was nothing more than a mistake. A huge, regrettable mistake. I wish it never happened!”
My eyes are burning through him, and he hates it. I can see it in him. It’s twisting him into knots. For the first time, probably ever, he doesn’t have the upper hand. I feel some incredible satisfaction in that.
“I hope you understand what that means,” he demands, pointing a finger at me. “Either you’re mine and you’re with me, or I’m going to have to be against you. You aren’t going to want that!”
I laugh and cross my arms over my chest, shaking my head at him like he’s just told me the lousiest joke ever.
“You must be kidding. You’ve been against me nearly the whole time I’ve been here. You think that’s something new for me? You think you can make my life here any more miserable than you already have?”
He shrinks before me, but I don’t stop.
“Well let me tell you this, Astor Hawthorne,” I say. “You couldn’t possibly make it any worse. You want to try? Give it your best shot. Bring your A-game, buddy, because I can promise you right here and right now that you’re no match for me. I’ve made it through all of your bullshit up to now, and I can take anything you try to throw at me and throw it right back to you two-fold. You want to take me on? Go for it, Astor. Bring it. You haven’t seen anything from me yet.”
He growls deeply and turns on his heel, grabbing the handle on the door. He shoots daggers at me from his eyes as he yanks it open.
“You’re going to regret that choice.”
“The only thing I regret is being with you,” I fire at him coldly.
He leaves and slams the door behind him, and I seethe with anger and a consuming desire to get revenge on him and Victoria; especially Victoria. My thoughts turn to her and I turn and stare out of the window across the grounds of the school.
I can almost imagine her out there, her long dark hair flipped casually over one shoulder—while that evil mind of her runs over and over all the ways she can try to ruin my life again.
This time, I won’t let her.
“I’m going to make you pay for what you took from me, Victoria Waldorf. You cost me my father, my family, and the only chance I’ve ever had at a real family. No matter what it takes, no matter what I have to do, no matter how much time I have to devote to it … you’re going to pay for it.”
No one else can hear me, but it doesn’t matter.
Now that I am no longer alone in this world, I can do it. “Nothing can stop me, and nothing matters more to me than getting my revenge.” I vow darkly in a low voice. I mean every word.
She’s mine, and I’m not going to stop until she’s paid the price for what she took.
Only she and I really know that she’s the murderer who started the fire. There’s no proof, though, so the only way she’s going to pay for her murderous crimes is if I make her pay.
The officials called it a boiler explosion, but I know the truth, and she knows it too. Now there’s nothing I won’t do to exact my revenge against her and bring some justice to the people who lost their lives or who were hurt.
She’s going to pay for her sins, and I will be the jury, the judge, and the jailer.
Especially after Astor. Thanks to her, he’s poisoned for me.
It doesn’t matter that he saved Dana. It’s his only
redemption, but that doesn’t change the fact that at his core he’s just a huge, inconsiderate, ass.
I spend the next few days thinking of everything I know about Victoria and her small circle, of everything they’ve done to me and to the people I care most about, and what she cares most about, and how I can best get her back. I avoid calling Wills and Blair, even though I know they’re probably worrying about me.
I wonder if they know now, too, or if they somehow escaped the rumor mill since they’re away from school. If they do know, neither of them brings it up. I know they’re grieving in their own way, for their own friends. Dana escaped alive. Two of their close friends were not so lucky.
Just another reason to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.
I think back to my first days in Hawthorne Academy.
I remember finding out about a blacklist that Astor was in charge of. A list of those people who had done wrong to the point that a dark mark would follow them right out of high school, into college, and even beyond into the rest of their lives.
Being named on the blacklist was the equivalent of making the person a social pariah forever.
I wish I could add Victoria’s name to that list—if it even exists. It would be the best way to get even with her, and to get vengeance for the lives that she took and all the pain that she caused.
That would be the most effective way of getting Victoria back, but getting Astor to put his girlfriend on it would be pretty difficult to do. He lords the list over everyone, reveling in the power that he holds and the way that he can control everyone with it. He’s obsolete from it, of course, which makes him the maker of kings and paupers, in a very real way.
In his eyes it makes him a god of sorts, and I suppose it’s true.
I want to give this new project of mine, this revenge on Victoria, the attention it deserves. I will spend some time thinking about it and find just the right way to bring her to justice. In the meantime, I’ve got other things going on.
I’m washing my hands in the girl’s restroom one morning when Laura Brighton, the surviving brunette member of what most of the school calls the ‘Malibu Twins’, comes up to me. Alisha was the blonde version of the Twins, until she died in the explosion. Laura has been completely lost without her best friend, and I feel so bad for her since the night the whole tragedy happened.
She’s one of the few students who elected to stay at the school over break. I imagine it was to feel closer to her old friend, to a sense of normalcy. I can understand that.
“Hey Teddy …” She gives me the merest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, or what would be a smile if she could manage to make one.
“Hi, Laura. How are you doing?” I ask her sincerely. I know she must be beyond devastated. She and Alisha did everything together, and though they have been Victoria’s constant entourage since I first came to the school, Laura has been noticeably absent from her mistress’ side since that terrible night.
Laura sighs and her face twists with pain as she tries to hold it in. “Not great, actually.”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her, meaning every word of it. I really am, despite everything she and Alisha did to me in the past.
“I was actually wondering if I could talk with you. I thought maybe we could get a coffee or go for a walk or something.” She looks at me hopefully, and I nod.
“Yeah, anytime. I can talk with you now, actually, if you want,” I offer. My boys, Wills and Blair, aren’t due to show up until later, so for a rare moment, I’m free.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” She turns and walks with me out of the bathroom, and I lead us off to the library. There are a number of spaces tucked away throughout the library which make perfect hidden spots to have a private conversation.
We’re seated in a couple of thickly cushioned red velvet chairs on the second level of the library, in a reference section that no one uses because Google has made it basically obsolete.
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking at her in earnest.
It takes Laura a long minute, but she draws in a deep breath and finally begins to open up to me. “I’m so ripped up about Alisha. I can’t believe she’s gone. It just seems so unreal. I mean, she was just here. We were making plans for the Christmas holiday, we were talking about New Year’s Eve … I mean, we talk about everything. College, boys, school, our futures. We were sisters, and now she’s gone.”
I reach out and squeeze her hand. “I know you two were really close. It doesn’t seem real to anyone that all three of them aren’t here with us anymore.”
Laura looks at me seriously then and her tone grows cold and dark. “I have to tell you something. I haven’t said it to anyone else, but I think you’ll believe me.”
“What is it?” I ask curiously.
“I think that Victoria had something to do with the explosion.” She speaks in a hushed tone. “I saw her back by the boiler room then the explosion happened. I mean, I’m not sure, but … no one else was around, and then all of a sudden there’s the explosion and the fire, and the only one back there was Victoria. It just seems too coincidental not to be connected.”
I exhale slowly and bite at my lower lip, wondering how much of what I know to share with her.
Then a terrible, evil idea forms in my mind. This is my first chance. The first chip in Victoria’s armor. All I have to do is tell the truth.
“Laura, you’ve lost so much, and I feel like you deserve to know the truth. You’re right about Victoria. She did cause the explosion and the fire.”
If Laura truly cared at all about her best friend, she’ll have nothing to do with Victoria now. That’s what I tell her.
Laura’s eyes flood with tears. She breaks down sobbing as she closes her fingers over her eyes and tries to hold everything in. When she finally wipes her face and manages to get her breath, she looks at me, and I can see so much pain in her it breaks my heart.
I didn’t like Alisha much, but I think I know how Laura feels. It would be like me losing Dana, and I know I couldn’t handle that. I don’t know how Laura is getting through it.
She grips my hand tightly. “I don’t think I can stop speaking to her! I don’t want to talk to her ever again, especially now that I know the truth, but what about Astor’s blacklist? I can’t be added to that! I mean, I’m not destitute … but I also don’t have a fortune like the White’s to protect me. I’ll be ruined for the rest of my life!”
That’s a bit of a low blow, but I take it in stride. Of course this is why she’s coming to me now.
Fire burns in me and I look Laura directly in the eyes.
“Listen, things are changing here. Half the school is against Victoria because she’s such an unbelievable bitch. You don’t have to put up with that if you don’t want to.” I take a deep breath and plant the next part of my plan. I have to force a welcoming smile on my face, something between sympathetic and simply friendly. “You’re more than welcome to hang out with me anytime. I know the boys like you, so they won’t mind you being around if you want to be. You don’t have to be glued to Victoria’s side or made to feel that if you turn your back on her that you’ll end up paying such a high price for it.”
I shake my head. “That isn’t real friendship.”
Laura’s eyes fill with dim hope, and I can see that she wants to. “I’ll think about it. I just … I’m going through a lot right now and I don’t quite know what to do. But I’ll think about it. Thank you. That means a lot.”
She takes a different tack then and I watch as her sorrow gives way to some shame. “Listen, I know that you already forgave me for this at the funeral, but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for the way that I treated you in the past. Not because of who you are now … I mean, I was sorry before. We only did what Victoria made us do because she pressured us so much. I actually like you and I think you’re really brave. You were the first person I ever saw be truly courageous, and I admire you for that.”
There have been
a lot of people coming out of the woodwork to suck up to me since my true identity came out. So far no one’s come out and said it, until now. Most of them are full of it and I know it, but I think Laura is being totally honest with me.
Sure, she might be sorrier now that she knows I have something to offer her, but she does mean it. In her own shallow way, she really is sorry.
I can see it in her face and hear it in her voice. I’ve spent my life listening to lies from people of just about every age, and I know when someone is telling me the truth or not, and she is.
“Thank you, Laura. I appreciate that. I meant what I said too, about hanging out with us if you want to. Come to the other side of the tracks. We’re nicer.” I smile at her and she gives me a little smile in return.
I give her a hug and she leaves. I watch her go and hope that she’s going to be okay. I don’t have to wait long to find out what she decides to do.
Blair and Wills show up right before noon. Winter vacation isn’t officially supposed to start for another few days, but most of the students chose to leave after the funeral. They wouldn’t have come back at all if it weren’t for the final memorial service set for tomorrow night.
We’re supposed to have a candlelight vigil and unveil a memorial stone to commemorate the tragedy. I didn’t have to ask them to come, and I’m glad. I’m not sure I could handle to be alone for that.
I’m still struggling to come to terms with everything, but I know I don’t want to do it alone anymore.
Without classes or anyone to distract me, the days have begun to drag. I should be glad, excited, something … but instead, I’m just empty. My whole life was supposed to change, but really, it still all feels the same.
I didn’t even realize how much I missed them until I spot them heading up the hill across the lawn.
Blair hands me an envelope. “They had this for you at the front.”
I take it and turn it over. The thick textured paper is embellished with what I strongly suspect must be real gold ink lettering spelling out the name ‘White’ across the top. It’s a hand-written note from my aunt Ellen, inviting me to the house for Christmas. I sigh and chew on my lip a little.
