by Keilan Shea
“Yeah.” I fold my arms. “Now we’re even.”
“You’re hot for each other.”
“That’s not true.”
It’s not true for me, and it can’t be true for him. I’m no Earnshaw fan, but I’ve seen clips of Blake and Chloe’s romance. People are always praising how wholesome they are and how they prove love isn’t dead. This can’t be him carrying through with his threat to make my life hell. It hurts him more than it hurts me, doesn’t it? What he did makes absolutely no sense—unless Harvey’s story about the drugs is true, maybe. He could have played the victim by showing them the bruise I gave him—it should be nice and purple—but then he’d have to surrender his man card. If he hasn’t already done that by being an accomplished pianist.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Sarah says. “Johan, did you cheat on Teagan?” She mimics her favorite Superwoman pose.
“No! I mean, we haven’t heard from her all summer and Mia asked me out to lunch yesterday—”
“So you kissed her, maybe you had sex in your monster truck too?”
“I only kissed her. Once. One time. Yesterday. It was because I hadn’t heard from Teagan all summer, thought she was done with me, and because Mia initiated it.”
“Cheating messes up everything, Johan!”
Why is she getting so angry? “Sarah.” I touch her shoulder.
“Will cheated on me,” she rushes out. “I found out three days ago. You know how I crawl in through his bedroom window when I get upset sometimes. I was going to do that. I just wanted to be with him, but he was with someone else, in the middle of climaxing. And he was screaming this girl’s name. ‘Selene!’ I don’t know who she is, but I’m sure she doesn’t go to Raindrop High. I left without saying a word, and they didn’t see me. I haven’t spoken to Will since. Why would he do that?”
I embrace her. She starts crying against my shoulder and blubbers, “I should confront Will and ask why. I’ll have to eventually.”
“Because he’s an idiot,” I say. “Dump his ass.”
“I can’t believe he did that.” Johan frowns.
“Johan, you’ll talk to him, won’t you?” Sarah says, this higher, hopeful note swathing her voice. “I’ll cry if I do it. There has to be an explanation. Will still loves me, doesn’t he? Don’t accuse him of cheating. Get him to confess.”
“You don’t need a confession when you know the truth,” I say. “He wouldn’t do that to you if he loved you.”
“I’m not good at games like that,” Johan adds. “I’ll talk to him at lunch to get an explanation at least, but I’m with Teagan. He’s an asshole.”
Sarah hiccups. “Y-yeah. I guess. Maybe she seduced him. Not everyone is as perfect as you, Johan.”
Johan and I exchange looks, but we don’t say anything.
Sarah clears her throat. “I didn’t mean to yell.” She rights herself and carefully wipes her eyes to spare her waterproof mascara. “Teagan, you can’t blame Johan for what Mia did. We both know he’d never cheat on you. Johan and I tried to be there for you, but you wouldn’t let us. This, sharing our deepest, darkest secrets and pain is what friends are for.”
“I know. You’re right.” I tell her the same story about my phone and vacation that I told Johan. “No more fighting or blaming and we’ll get the Will situation straightened out.” I know she loves him, but there’s no justification for what he did. As far as I’m concerned, he never gets to touch her or speak to her again.
Sarah sighs. “That means things can go back to normal between the three of us at least, right?”
Johan holds out his hand to me. “Tea?”
“Right.” I lace my fingers through his as I have a thousand times before. It’s familiar, should be warm. It is, but it’s that clammy, uncomfortable warmth. I remind myself it’s only until after graduation. The next time I disappear, it’ll be final. But first things first. To protect Mom’s, Dad’s, and Corey’s memories and everything they loved, Earnshaw has to go.
CHAPTER 7
My first period is AP Calculus. I’ve spent most of my school life in advanced classes because I’ve always excelled, so it’s to be expected but unfortunate. The accident mangled my mental bandwidth. I’ll make it work, though, because I don’t have a choice. Somehow.
The rage-induced high Earnshaw set off didn’t last long enough. My determination is waning. I’m a ghost in the hallway, forgetting to smile at the stragglers who greet me. It’s a good thing Johan’s and Sarah’s first periods are in the opposite direction.
I burst into the beginning of a too-long list of classrooms I’ll visit today. It’s bustling, students deliberating over unassigned seats while the teacher retrieves a couple of tablets from a box at the foot of her desk. Her name is written in sweeping cursive on the SMART Board: Ms. Layton.
“It’s not that hard to find seats,” she says. “Get settled so we can start a real lesson.” She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and adds, “Mr. Earnshaw and Ms. Hackett, come to my desk so I can assign you your tablets for the year and so you can stop wasting the rest of our time.”
Earnshaw?
And there he is. The first face I’ll see every morning for my entire senior year. Until I give him the boot, that is. Earnshaw knocks his elbow against mine. This predatory grin he tosses over his shoulder gets my heart pumping double-time. It’s definitely predatory, more of a snarl, lacking that charming pretense he conjured up for the crowd.
The charm’s back on in full force at Ms. Layton’s desk. She steals glances at Earnshaw as she gives us our usernames and temporary passwords, which we’re supposed to change immediately after she’s ensured we’ve logged in and that our styluses work. For all her bluster about us wasting the class’s time, she’s doing an excellent job of it herself. She hovers over Blake, asking him if he has any questions or if he needs any help. He taps stupid things on the touchscreen and asks for clarification, demanding her attention for as long as she’ll allow.
My jaw clenches so tightly that I envision it popping out of its socket. I excuse myself and claim one of two remaining seats in the classroom; this one is on the first row. Everyone whispers and eyes Earnshaw, and occasionally me, until he finally saunters away and Ms. Layton remembers she’s a teacher. She clears her throat, says something, but I miss it. Why? Because Earnshaw goes to the guy sitting next to me. I’m on the end, so there are no desks to my left. The other empty desk is on the back row, but Earnshaw dares to say, “Mind if I sit here? I lost my contacts and can’t see well from the back.”
He sounds so damn polite, or the guy is afraid of who he is, and is given the seat without question. I bet he doesn’t even wear contacts.
“You’re a real piece of work,” I say under my breath.
Earnshaw makes no indication he heard me. He’s intent on the teacher. Then his hand flies up so abruptly that I slam back into my seat with a start. He spits out an answer with lightning speed.
“That is correct,” Ms. Layton says. She slow-claps, much more impressed than she should be. “It seems one of you already knows today’s lesson.”
Earnshaw says, “I’m here to learn with everyone else. I did some studying last night to make up for my absence yesterday.”
“That, class, is called dedication, and it will make all the difference in your futures.”
So, now he’s being a model student? I can handle that. I switch gears, giving Ms. Layton my undivided attention. It’s mostly quiet as she teaches her lesson. When it comes time to test the class, it becomes a battle between me and Earnshaw. Ms. Layton asks us to solve the problems she writes on the board, gives us time to do them, and then two synchronized hands rise without fail. Earnshaw and I are evenly matched, so evenly matched that Ms. Layton has to make a conscious effort not to choose one of us and wait for someone else to raise their hand.
Whatever “drugs” Earnshaw was playing with certainly haven’t fucked up his brain. The more I learn about him, the more I hate him. Ric
h, charming, and smart? He’s the kind of person who rules the world and gets away with it. If you’re practically a prince and everyone loves you, there’s nothing to criticize. But he slipped in the parking lot. Earnshaws don’t flaunt flings (if they even have them) or gossip: me. Earnshaws don’t laugh at victims: Mia. Either the media has been paid off to leave out Blake’s worst qualities, or they’ve missed all of the juicy moments—which can’t be. Eve recorded that scene in the parking lot and has uploaded it to one of her millions of accounts, I’m sure. It’s possible his bodyguards watched everything from a distance and are adept at controlling leaks with threats of physical violence, but there’s no way they’d have caught her. Really, I’m grasping at straws. I didn’t see Blake’s bodyguards anywhere.
I’m relieved when the bell rings because I’m exhausted. If that video goes viral and people decide to pay attention to the girl Blake Earnshaw kissed—which the Blake fangirls will—it could be a hassle. I wish I had broken Eve’s phone when I went for her water bottle. Not that it matters. Any of the students watching could have recorded the same thing. It’s best not to worry about it. It was just a kiss. Eve caught me with the water bottle too, so that’s proof that I’m not into Blake Earnshaw and that this is all his fault. I’ll deal with the repercussions if it comes back to bite me in the ass. With Eve and other fangirls around, there are bound to be plenty of videos with Blake Earnshaw. As long as I’m not the only girl he decides to mess with, it won’t matter at all.
That makes me feel slightly better.
“Don’t forget your homework!” Ms. Layton calls while several traumatized students bolt from the classroom.
I shove my tablet and stylus into my backpack, and someone’s fingers brush the back of my neck to catch the thin chain holding my mom’s locket. I freeze because I don’t want to risk breaking it. Earnshaw leans against me, resting his arm on my shoulder. “Is this real gold?” he asks.
“Why? Do you want it if it is? I thought you were so wealthy you could afford to throw it all away. That’s why you’re giving me ‘enough money to choke on’ to stay in my ‘ramshackle cabin,’ isn’t it?”
He releases the chain, my shoulder too, and I neatly step away. But he follows me. And flicks my ear. “I was certain something like this was out of your price range before me.”
“You’re one to talk, Gilded.” He withdraws from my personal space when I swing my backpack at him. “Your club name implies you’re not pure gold either. So, what does it mean? Are you hollow or is there a human being underneath that shell of metal somewhere?”
“You would know” are his parting words, and they stop me in my tracks. He said them so easily, offhand, as if he knows anything about me. As if I’m the hollow one. I made a decent jab, but Earnshaw snubbed me. One of us has experience with this type of warfare and the other does not.
Or maybe I’m hurt too easily.
I’m already fractured. The looks everyone gives me, the whispers, my friends … Portraying normal is chipping away at me. It isn’t hard for Earnshaw to dig in his fingers and pry me open.
My eyes burn, but I push the sensation aside and join the throng of students in the hallway with my head held high. I block out the noise and the many gazes lingering on me. Whatever rumors Earnshaw’s kiss has already started, they won’t last long here. Johan won’t let the lies slide. He believes me, and all I have to do is be his girlfriend. It was so easy before. We fell into place. But now a lump clogs my throat at the thought of intimacy.
Never let them see me choke.
CHAPTER 8
The rest of my classes are quiet. There’s no Earnshaw and no friends. Even though I get stares wherever there are people, I can deal with it. They don’t ask questions and let me be. I don’t have to act, but it’s not beneficial. My mind wanders into indecipherable thoughts and autopilot takes control. My last class was dismissed early, so I have ten minutes before lunch starts. The halls are empty.
I shove my backpack into my locker, but Mom’s locket gets caught on it. I untangle the gold chain by shaking my backpack, which produces a muffled metallic tinkling noise. Nails. I stowed away a little sack of stolen nails before leaving this morning. Harvey won’t miss them, and I need them. I almost forgot about Earnshaw.
After reclaiming my backpack, I hightail it to the parking lot. No one’s out here either, but I need to be vigilant. I weave through the quiet cars and stop at my Prius. Earnshaw’s red Roadster isn’t far. It imprinted its position onto my body this morning and my eyes drift to it; it’s a couple of cars to the left of mine. Damn. He parked next to a lamppost. That’s where the surveillance cameras are mounted, so this one must have a good all-around view of his car and more than enough of mine. I’ve heard Teslas can be touchy, too. They’ll record video or sound an alarm to bust vandals, depending on various factors.
This will be risky to execute without getting caught, but I have a delinquent idea I never would have come up with before this summer. Before him. If I’m going to do it, there’s no time to lose.
I open the driver-side door of my Prius, reach over to grab Corey’s slingshot from the passenger seat, and snag that little opening in my backpack, where I didn’t zip it closed tightly, on the door handle. I tug and it rips open. Everything spills out, clattering inside or outside of my car before landing. Loose papers flutter underneath the car to my left. I make a dive for them, but what I’m aiming for is the sack of nails.
When I’ve got a nail in hand and I’m flat on my stomach on top of the asphalt underneath my neighbor’s car, I take a shot. I’m no expert, not like Corey, but he tried to teach me how to use his slingshot a few times before. It worked because I hit Earnshaw, and now there’s a nail propped up against one of his back tires. It’ll pierce it when he drives forward. I wonder if I can do that again. No way. That was one hell of a fluke. You’d think I was a professional with skills like that.
I’ll take it.
One nail doesn’t seem like enough, but more than one is suspicious. It’s a start, anyway. I doubt Earnshaw has ever been inconvenienced. We’ll see how he handles this, and what I come up with next. I can’t expect my luck with the slingshot to last forever, but it’s been fitting. Corey would have hated Earnshaw as much as I do if not more. If I were the type to believe in ghosts, I’d say Corey aimed and released both of those shots.
I brush off my top and jeans, silently praising myself for having the foresight to wear dark colors today. Then I gather my things and load them inside my backpack in time for the lunch bell to ring. My phone vibrates two seconds later. I take it out of my back pocket. A text notification from Big Hunk is on the center of the screen, and I tap it to read Johan’s message: Meet at sports tables.
Yeah. All right.
Reluctantly, I re-enter the school and its congested halls. Most of the chatter distorts, but I catch bits and pieces of a last-minute football-themed party being held tonight to celebrate the win yesterday. Apparently, Johan has been nominated to host it because his parents are out of town on their annual honeymoon-esque anniversary trip, and because their lakefront property includes one of the best beaches Bloom Lake has to offer. His popularity skyrocketing last year and carrying strong into this year has something to do with it too. He’s the school’s brightest star.
When I’m inside the cafeteria, I home in on the centered sports tables. Sarah is the first person to catch my eye. I’m about to squeeze in next to her and tell her to scoot over, but then I see who’s sitting on the other side of that table. It’s Blake Earnshaw. The girls on my old cheer team fawn over him while the shunned boyfriends pout. I’d try to apologize to Mia again, who’s settled for a less gaudy version of her makeup, but she’s as preoccupied as the others, and sitting in a coveted seat beside Earnshaw. Did she miss him laughing at her this morning? Zoe is beside him too.
I’m in the middle of traffic, forcing students to avoid me; they sporadically conceal me and bump into me. Johan isn’t here, and no one at the table has notice
d me. I debate withdrawing. Johan must be running late, which works out in my favor. I can call him to meet me elsewhere, then I’ll avoid an altercation with Earnshaw—whose voice slices through the din when he says, “There she is.”
I’ve been detected.
Sarah waves me over and I have no choice. Eve shimmies her butt right to make room for me at their table. I plop down between her and Sarah, across from Earnshaw.
“We were just talking about you,” he says, “and Eve’s viral video. She works fast.”
Eve blushes and takes a sip from her new water bottle.
“I thought you were dating Johan,” Mia says.
I scowl. “I am. He’s my boyfriend.”
Mia turns to Earnshaw. “Blake?”
“Sealed lips. Right, Teagan?”
“You had your laugh in the parking lot,” I say. “Don’t you think it’s time you put everyone’s thoughts to rest with the truth? Tell them it was all a joke. Better yet, have Eve record another video of you doing it. What must Chloe think?”
“That kiss was no joke,” Eve blurts. “All the comments agree. A lot of girls hate you now. GlitterKitten reminded everyone about that time a fan tracked Blake down and tried to seduce him, but his love for Chloe was too strong.” Eve cautiously wipes her weepy eyes to spare her fake lashes. “That was when we all vowed to keep their romance safe. Then this morning happened. What the heck? Tell us what that was about. Chloe deserves the truth.”
Eve whips out her phone with no trace of shyness left in her. Zoe swipes it. “Enough. Don’t you think you’ve caused enough drama?”
“I-I didn’t do anything!”
“Chloe and I have been exclusive for eight years, as you pointed out.” Earnshaw wraps his arm around Mia’s waist and pulls her closer. “I don’t know what I’m missing, and this is my last chance to find out. Besides, if Chloe wants me, she’ll chase me.”
“Did you two fight?” Mia asks. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the season finale of Hideaway, does it? That was in July.”
