Chapter Six
Six
Scarlett
I’m a bad person.
That’s a terrible thing to realize when I’m volunteering.
For four years, I’ve been coming to the women’s shelter.
Once a month on Sunday, we host a special brunch so the moms can relax while half the team takes the kids to the park down the block.
But watching these women, who were forced to uproot their lives just like my mom, makes me feel like a terrible person.
Sometimes, it’s the sound of the weekend cartoons, or the donated clothes they’re wearing.
Or the whispers of court hearings and police records.
All of it reminds me why seeing Victor is a terrible idea.
And yet there’s this tiny hope that maybe, after all these years, he regrets it.
“Scarlett,” Neha, the coordinator, calls. “Do you want to end the session today?”
I startle, putting the waffle batter I’d been mindlessly mixing to the side. When I approach the group, she hands me the talking stick, gesturing for me to sit on her chair.
I’ve done this a few times, and I’m always excited to talk to the women. Neha knows I’m getting my social work degree, so she lets me, and it’s because of her reference letters that I was able to transition from premed so quickly.
“Hi, I’m Scarlett,” I say to the group.
“Hi, Scarlett,” they repeat in somewhat cheery tones.
“How about we end on a positive note?” I say, earning a few nods.
“Some of you know I spent time here as a kid with my mom. It was tough—there was a point when we thought this place was the only good thing we’d ever have.
But I want you to know it doesn’t end here.
There’s so much more waiting on the other side of that door.
Sometimes I still wonder if it’s a dream, but I’m in my final year at university, about to be the first in my family to graduate.
“And my mom is making art again. I thought she never would. So I’d love for everyone to share one thing you hope to achieve when you leave here.” I remember that being the hardest part, imagining that there was a future away from the fear.
The women talk about attending community college, putting their kids in better schools, and wanting to open businesses. They light up, dreaming about a possibility outside of this.
There’s a warmth in my chest from volunteering that always lingers even as I head back to campus.
In the dining hall, the kitchen’s cleared out, and the cooks are already off the clock. My best option is to snag a cup of instant ramen.
I stare at Sierra’s Coming! text for the third time.
If she’s with me, it’s unlikely anyone would approach her.
We’ve become an odd duo this semester, and I don’t mind it one bit.
But for good measure, I pull my hood low and tuck away my hair.
A year ago, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in a sweat suit, but right now it makes me feel invisible, and I need to be invisible.
Crystal Yang and some frat guy appear when I’m reaching for a fork. I pull my arm back, but it’s too late. She already saw my tattoo.
“Scarlett? I almost didn’t recognize you in…that.” Crystal is the real-life form of a character from The House Bunny.
I let my hoodie slip off my head and face her with a sheepish smile. “Hi, Crystal.”
She turns to the guy beside her, filling him in on who I am, but when I see his face under his Mets baseball cap, my breath catches.
He likes being degraded. That knowledge springs to the front of my thoughts unprompted. The thing about sleeping with a lot of people on campus is that I’ve got all these intimate details about their sexual preferences logged in my brain like a useless Rolodex.
He recognizes me—I know because his eye contact becomes dodgy.
I wish I could erase my past. Not because I regret having casual sex—that’s never bothered me—but because of the way people labeled me after. And now, when I have decided that it isn’t for me anymore, I’ve become a prude or a liar or someone who thinks they’re better than everyone.
“You’re in Iona now, right? That sucks. I mean, communal showers? No, thank you.” Crystal grabs a yogurt cup from the refrigerator. “You could come back to Beta Phi. I’ve been elected chapter president. I can get your old room freed up.”
The three-story mansion has a wraparound porch, arched windows, and rooms twice the size of a dorm’s. No water-stained ceilings or leaky faucets, and it always smells like a Victoria’s Secret. “I appreciate it, but I like rooming with Sierra.”
Crystal places a hand on her chest. “Poor girl. Can she walk now?”
“That’s the girl who got her shit rocked, right? I’ve watched the video of her fall a million times,” the frat guy says.
I’ve become accustomed to the misconstrued facts about my best friend, but they still make me grind my teeth. “Of course she can walk. She’s skating again actually.”
Crystal hums. “There’s another party later, you two should come by.”
“Yeah, you should,” the guy adds, eyeing me expectantly, suddenly too forward for my liking.
My palms grow sweaty. I wish I could ignore the insinuation. It makes me pity freshman me who lived off this kind of attention. It’s like I only picked guys who I was sure could never give me what I needed to avoid feeling any real loss when they inevitably left.
They look at me, waiting for my response, but I drop my gaze, focusing on pouring water in my ramen. “I’m a little busy.”
The frat guy nudges my foot. “It’s one night. You’ll love it. I can make it fun.”
“She said no.” Sierra’s smoky voice cuts in. She’s glowering, arms crossed like she could take them both. She probably could.
Crystal’s eyes widen like she’s staring at a ghost. “Uh— Okay. Nice to see you, Si! We gotta go. Sorority meetings, you know? Text me when you get sick of Iona,” she says to me, making the guy follow.
I give her a half-hearted wave. Sierra stands beside me in her training gear, her pink gym bag hanging off her and still glowering after them.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, staring at my half-cooked noodles.
“He’s not allowed to talk to you like that.”
“But that’s for me to decide!”
Sierra flinches at my tone. We’ve had this conversation a lot through the years, but my best friend can never just stand there while someone disrespects me. I love her for it, but I don’t need her to fight my battles. She has enough of her own.
“Okay,” she concedes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” I sigh. “Don’t apologize, Si. You were trying to help.”
“No, you’re right. I’ve been overstepping. I won’t do it again.” Then she pauses before amending, “I’ll try not to.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“I’ve got an hour, then I’m back on the ice. Please tell me there’s real food that isn’t instant noodles.”
“Hey, this is a perfectly nutritious meal.” And the only one that I can chow down fast enough to get back to studying.
“Right. Who doesn’t love consuming enough sodium to make your face puff up like a balloon?”
“Don’t give me a health lesson. I’ve taken enough biology to last me a lifetime.” Only for it to go to waste because I switched my major. Good call, Scarlett.
“Sorry. My brain is in training mode. That does smell good though.”
I tilt my chin toward the chalkboard with today’s specials scribbled in white marker: Sloppy Joes. Sierra wrinkles her nose, grabs a tray, and stalks toward the salad bar. I watch her squint at the nutrition card like there’s a secret ingredient hiding beneath the spinach.
When I sit, I open my laptop to my sociology syllabus, but it’s pressed shut the moment Sierra takes a seat across from me. “Just eat, Scarlett. A few minutes won’t kill your GPA.”
I almost scoff. This is the girl who’s skipped countless meals so she could spend every hour training instead. But this is how Sierra’s always been, looking out for me with no regard for her own detrimental habits.
“Okay, but only if you stop rehearsing your routine in your head,” I challenge. “And instead we can talk about a hockey player.”
She furrows her brows. “Please don’t tell me they’ve got video of me yelling at the guy now.”
I chuckle. “Nope, but another one of my dad’s players is in my study group, and he was asking me to tutor him.” I leave out the fact that it’s Kian Ishida. She doesn’t know about my stupid crush on him, and I’d like to keep it that way.
“Seriously? Man, if these guys knew Kilner was your dad they wouldn’t dare breathe the same air as you.” She laughs, and I put on a plastic smile, not liking how true those words are.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve never made that fact known. Nobody could tell anyway, but it felt safer to keep that part of me close. That way I could just be Scarlett, not the coach’s daughter.
But my dad has warned both me and Sierra away from hockey players for years, so crushing on one of his players now is the ultimate betrayal.
The guy thinks no one’s good enough for me, and if he found out how close I was to drawing hearts in my notebooks about the player who’s caused him to plan an early retirement, it wouldn’t bode well for anyone.
I’ve eaten only half of my ramen when Sierra stands with her empty tray. “See you back at the dorm?”
I nod just before she takes off with her bag. I notice the way she shrinks herself as she passes the groups of athletes, trying to slip away undetected. I go to toss my empty cup of ramen when someone calls my name.
As usual, my stomach tightens, because at Dalton you never know who’s going to approach you. But when I turn, I see Kian Ishida walking toward me.
My gaze catches on the sliver of skin at his exposed midriff, his wrinkled white shirt stiff and short on his long frame. I don’t dare look at his veiny arms, or the rings adorning his thick fingers. He’s got on faded blue jeans, ripped in some places, and white sneakers.
“You weren’t at the library,” he says, slightly out of breath when he reaches me.
“Huh?”
“The library? We were supposed to meet there to talk about our new arrangement, remember?”
Arrangement? Oh my God. The deal.
This can’t be real.
“That was a joke. Y-you were drunk,” I remind him.
“I wasn’t,” he says. “Well, drunk, yeah, but I wasn’t joking. You shouldn’t have to deal with those creeps. I can keep them away, and you can help me graduate. That’s what we decided, right? Your reputation, my graduation?”
My words catch in my throat as I blink rapidly. “Do you realize what hanging around me would do to your reputation?”
I expect him to realize I’m right, that this won’t be worth it for him.
“Well, it’s a good thing their opinions don’t mean shit to me. Which, by the way, is lesson one: Fuck. Everyone.” He pauses. “Well, excluding the people you actually care about.”
I shake my head hard enough to rattle something loose. “Look, it’s a nice thought and all, but you don’t need to do that. You don’t have to associate yourself with me. I can find you someone who actually tutors Dunn’s students—”
But Kian’s already moving. He climbs onto the table I was just eating at, right in the middle of the dining hall, startling a guy who is now seated there, and the sound of Kian’s sneakers hitting the wood makes half the room look up.
“What are you doing?” I mutter, my pulse skyrocketing as people start whispering. Even the professors pause mid-bite, like this is their entertainment for the day.
“Scarlett.” His voice booms across the room. Then he crouches down and whispers, “Wait, what’s your last name?”
“Why?” He just stares, waiting for my response. I hesitate, feeling the name on my tongue before saying, “Rose.”
There’s a deep, almost instant swell of guilt in my stomach when he tilts his head, as if he’s wondering if that’s my real name, before he stands tall again.
“Scarlett Rose, will you be my friend? I cannot”—he clutches his chest dramatically—“I cannot continue this cruel, meaningless life without you by my side!”
I nearly choke on air. “What the hell are you doing? Get down!”
“It’s a grand gesture, Scar. Let it happen,” he whispers, before straightening to his full height. “So…is that a yes or a no? Only one will shatter my heart, but hey, that’s not your problem.”
Every set of eyes in the room lands on me, and I can feel my entire face heating up.
“Put me out of my misery, Scarlett!”
“Okay! Yes. I’ll be your friend,” I shout.
A grin splits his face as he bows to the crowd, earning a smattering of confused, hesitant applause. Then, with the kind of grace that shouldn’t belong to someone his size, he hops down from the table, landing light as a cat.
“Perfect. So, tutoring tomorrow at four?” he asks casually, as if he didn’t just cause a scene. Or that his sneakers didn’t make contact with that poor freshman’s oatmeal.
“See you later, Scar.”
Scar?
I can only blink at him, caught between awe and disbelief, before I manage a nod. He takes my hand, gives it a firm shake, and then he’s slinging his gear bag over his shoulder and disappearing through the double doors.
What the hell just happened?