MALICE: A High School Bully Romance (The Heirs of Westhaven)

by Raina St. Clare

  I thought all of the blood vessels would burst from Donovan’s eyeballs.

  I’d already lined the nails of the coffin, might as well start hammering it home so he’d know that I was serious. “Besides, you’re gonna have to get used to me being outside of Eastside. I was gonna go away for college, remember?”

  Donovan took slow breaths through his nose, and let them go slowly out of his mouth. He did that a few times, even counting out a few beats to get him more calm, and less eye-bulge-y.

  Made me wonder if he had been using a meditation app or something.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “You’re right. You’re the one that has to deal with…changes. It’s just so far away,” he added in a mumble.

  For a moment he looked like a child. It was only a moment, where his features softened and he looked a little lost. I almost gave in, like I always would.

  I would change my mind, and do whatever it was that he would want to do. I would make him happy and live out a life that he thought would be best.

  I made myself really look at him. At the hard angles of his face. The large body that could take football tackles and lift engines into cars.

  He wasn’t a child. He was an adult and he needed to live his own life and let me life mine.

  Whatever tethered us together and helped us to survive until now, kept us from growing and moving forward.

  I couldn’t give in. For both our sakes. “It’s only an hour away from the city,” I said. “I live an hour away now. Basically.”

  “On the opposite side,” he snorted.

  “At least my aunt’s house is close by.”

  “Oh, you’re gonna be living with your aunt?” He perked up.

  “She’d have to occupy that space to consider it a ‘living with’ situation, but yes, I was hoping to crash there.”

  Donovan’s demeanor shifted. “So, I get to visit, right? Make sure you’re okay?”

  “Maybe,” I said. My guilty heart betrayed me as it beat wildly in my chest. Donovan and Cade thought I was so innocent and naive. If he knew what I have planned, he would lock me away.

  Was this what Maeby felt like? This need to protect me from the truth?

  To shelter me?

  “Sure, the commute from Cade’s shop is easy peasy during rush hour,” I deadpanned.

  Donovan lifted the corner his mouth. It was a guarantee panty-dropping smile that worked on most girls. “I’d visit around my days off.”

  I leaned against him, and went on tip toes to kiss him on the cheek.

  He turned his face at the last minute and captured my lips instead.

  I mocked annoyance at being duped into kissing him on the lips, sputtering at him about cooties while he laughed at me.

  As the sun shone down, my heart bloomed knowing that Donovan for better or worse had learned to accept a decision of mine that he didn’t approve of.

  If everything went as planned, he would soon be cutting me from his life.

  That was something else I needed to prepare for. For now, Donovan and I held hands and walked to the park to feed the squirrels and pretend nothing between us has changed when everything changed.

  Metamorphosis

  “I’m gonna miss your violet hair, doll face.” Amy, my hair stylist, had lovingly maintained my hair’s varying color changes over the last few years.

  She made sure my hair was not only a vibrant lilac, she also made sure it was healthy.

  Now, after years of double processing my hair to bleach it light enough for purple to show through, she was replacing my natural black.

  When she was done, I didn’t recognize myself. Gone was what had been my signature look for three years. My waist-length lilac hair was now just slightly past my shoulder blades in long layers.

  “I know it’s just hair color, but I look so different,” I said in awe. “It’s like I look older…and younger at the same time. I can’t explain it.”

  “I think you look more like yourself,” she replied. “Like you’re growing into yourself, and that’s okay.”

  I nodded and smiled. Considering that this was the first step toward transforming me into the person that would find Maeby’s killer, I wholeheartedly agreed with her. “You know what, Amy, I think you’re right.”

  I laid out the uniform that I’d be wearing on my bed. It was the last bit of clothes that I needed to pack.

  The rest were already forwarded to my aunt’s house. Patrice had already made herself busy calling everyone in Westhaven to make sure I had the best suites in case I’d want to have the option of a room on campus as well.

  I wouldn’t bring any of my clothes from my life here. I’d have to blend in perfectly with Westhaven.

  Maeby had left me clues, but someone else was working against me. Someone else knew what Maeby knew, and stole her legacy from me.

  She had died in the most horrific way I could imagine dying. There was no way I would silence her words now that she was powerless to speak them.

  I sat at my vanity, brushing my newly glossed hair, and picked another makeup tutorial to follow along with. I was easily racking up rewards points from buying at so many makeup stores.

  I flicked my eyeliner to create a cat eye with expert precision. I learned to over line my lips to make it look like I had a naturally bee-stung pout. What I had once considered frivolous would now be my disguise.

  No one would see me coming.

  Journal Entry: Maeby Frost

  My mom was being basic as always, telling me to stay home, do my homework, as if I don’t already have straight A’s.

  I just let her yell at me until she went away. He waited for me at the park, even though I was way late, and it made my day better.

  God he smells so good. He doesn’t even wear cologne. Engine grease, smoke, and leather…that’s what little boys are made of. I told him that.

  And he said, “And what’re you made of? Sugar and spite?”

  I made sure he fucked me hard that time.

  Part 2

  “They say the best type of love is unexpected, but they forgot to mention falling in love unexpectedly with someone you can't have is the most painful.”

  ― Tilicia Haridat