Eleven Diamond Necklaces
Preston Darling
Thunder rumbled overhead, trembling through the wide halls of the Darling estate as I made my way along the east wing, a bottle of whiskey in my hand.
There was a party going on tonight, but it wasn’t here this time.
The big house was quiet, the kind of place that had a looming presence, so you imagined dangers lurking in every dark corner.
I was the danger, though. I knew that after Dolly and Devlin started hooking up, and I had to hear her sickening giggles and see his smug little smiles as he indulged her.
She loved him, even loved fucking him. I had hurt her, and if she ever knew I’d been the one to do it, it would crush her soul—and mine.
Devlin got her a necklace after their first time, a thin strand of gold with a ballerina charm.
He gave it to her at lunch, and we all watched her open it.
Every girl in the school swooned over it and fell more in love with Devlin.
Only I seemed to remember that Dolly hadn’t done ballet in years, and in fact, she was sensitive about it.
She had been devastated when her instructor told her that her body type would never make it in the cut-throat world of ballet. She’d quit immediately.
How could her own boyfriend have forgotten that?
I waited for her to tell him she didn’t dance anymore and hadn’t for a long time. But she didn’t say anything except that she loved it. I sat there raging, thinking he should know her better than I did if he was going to be her boyfriend.
She wore it every day after that. She was too polite to say it, but I knew it had to hurt her in some little way, even if she was too enamored with Devlin’s shining reputation to acknowledge her own feelings about it. She was putting him before her own needs, and I knew he didn’t do the same.
She should see that he didn’t care enough to know what she liked, what would hurt her.
But I’d lost the right to say something when I’d hurt her.
I opened the window at the end of the hall and climbed out onto the roof.
Lightning sizzled across the sky, nearly blinding me.
I sat down on the back side of the gable roof, overlooking the gardens.
I’d started coming up here a few years before, when my parents had started sending me to Grampa Darling’s most weekends to give them a break from my attitude.
After dinner, Grampa would always retire to the west wing, and I had free reign over the rest of the estate.
I’d stood at the window watching the lightning one night, and then I’d figured why not go out on the roof.
After that first storm rolled in while I was here, I was addicted.
I’d skip a party to watch this shit. That’s how spectacular it was.
Or maybe I just wasn’t into parties lately.
It should have been a great year—I’d started high school, made the team, kissed Carmen, been declared a future king by Devlin’s decree, and lost my virginity.
It looked good on paper. But I was glad it was March, just a few months until the end of the worst year of my fucking life.
I lay back on the rough shingles, and I imagined a bolt of lightning striking me.
Everyone would come to the funeral—I was a founding son, after all, the title given to all the generations that proceeded the original founders of the town.
That meant the whole town would turn out to watch them lower my blackened carcass into a hole in the Northside Cemetery, where all Darlings were buried.
I wondered if anyone but my mother would cry.
I didn’t think so. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have waited for the lightning. I would have just jumped.
A noise caught my attention, and I turned my face up toward the window.
The curtain was spilling out the open window, and from out of its filmy whiteness, a spectral figure appeared.
She stood there for a second, the curtain wrapping around her small, delicate body and billowing in the wind.
Finally, she fought herself free and stumbled out onto the roof, a bottle of wine in her hand, long ribbons of her black hair whipping around her.
She saw me and came to an abrupt halt, a little shriek of surprise escaping her.
“Shit, sorry,” I said, standing carefully on the steep slope. “I’ll go in.”
She held up a hand and said something in Thai. I was still embarrassed to be around her after the day in the guesthouse, and being completely lost in translation when she spoke didn’t help.
I didn’t need to hear her words to understand. I was in her house, and I was being chased away.
She pulled out her phone and spoke into it. “You don’t have to leave,” her phone said.
I lowered myself warily. Kamlai sat beside me and showed me the app she had on her phone, where she could speak into it, and it would spit out her words in English. I downloaded the app, and she helped me set it up, and a few minutes later, we could talk.
“What are you doing up here?” I asked into my phone.
“It’s the best place to watch the lightning,” she said, setting her phone in her lap and picking up her bottle. “Do you want some wine?”
I held up my whiskey bottle, and we both laughed, a tentative, careful laugh.
“I like that better,” she said. “Mine’s not open.”
I took a swig of whiskey and handed her the bottle. She took a swig that would have made my dad proud—if she’d been his son. He’d probably say ladies didn’t drink like that.
“Do you come up here a lot?” I asked.
“All the time,” she said. “Do you?”
“Every time it storms.”
And thus began the odd friendship between me and my step-grandmother.
It was spring, and the storms were plentiful.
For the next few months, we met up there and drank whiskey and talked.
At fifteen, I didn’t have the word for what had happened to her.
She’d told me she’d come here thinking she’d work as a maid and go to school.
She hadn’t known she was getting married until she was getting fitted for a dress.
One night when the storm was taking a while to arrive and we’d drunk more than usual, I told her that I loved my cousin’s girlfriend. I’d never told anyone that before.
Kamlai told me that she hated my grandfather, and in fact she’d been seeing my cousin Walker Delacroix on the side since the night before the wedding, when she’d lost her virginity to him during a game of hide and seek.
After that admission, my own betrayals didn’t seem so bad, so I told her about what I’d done to Dolly, and how it had backfired.
“Maybe you just need a little more practice,” Kamlai said, giving me a flirty little smile.
I leaned in, and she didn’t lean away. I kissed her, tasting the whiskey on her tongue as the first drops of rain began to fall.
Soon, it turned to a deluge, and we ran back across the roof, stumbling and slipping in the rain, and climbed back inside.
We looked at each other, soaked and drunk and laughing, and then we were kissing again, and then I had her pinned against the wall next to the open window, and I was inside her, and then it was over.
I was humiliated. It was worse than the first time.
But Kamlai didn’t cry, and she told me to come back and practice more tomorrow.
For a few weeks, I went almost every day.
It was May now, and the pool was open, and it wasn’t odd for me to spend a lot of time at my grandfather’s.
Even though I’d only turned fifteen that spring and didn’t have a license, I had a car and knew how to drive, so I came over whenever I wanted.
There were tons of parties after the games, but the three most important parties of the year were all held at Grampa Darling’s.
There was the back-to-school party, the New Year’s party, and the end-of-school party.
They varied in tone and exclusivity, but they were always held at the estate, even when no Darling children were in high school.
They weren’t just for high school, but for the town.
College kids came to all of them, along with some parents, although the adults broke off and did their thing in another part of the house.
At the last party of the year, I was just drunk enough to think it wouldn’t be suicide to go seek out Kamlai. But just as I was about to go in search of her, I saw Walker casting a covert glance over his shoulder before sneaking away from the party.
I slouched back into my seat in the hot tub.
“You’ve been awfully quiet all night,” Carmen said, slipping an arm around my neck and sliding into my lap.
“I’m always quiet,” I pointed out.
“Always?” she asked with a saucy little grin. “Sounds like a challenge.”
“You want to see how loud you can make me?”
“I might,” she said. “We never did get to finish what started last fall in that box.”
“We didn’t?” I asked, giving her a cool grin.
“And our plan to start shit with that condom wrapper definitely didn’t go anywhere,” she said. “Let’s give ‘em something to talk about tonight.”
Which is how I ended up fucking Carmen Saravia, self-proclaimed lover of gossip and drama, in the treehouse that night.
She had a different story to tell than Dolly had. Not that anyone knew Dolly had been talking about me that day. Only Destiny, Becca, and I had even heard her proclaim me to be shit in the sack, and Destiny thought it was Devlin. He didn’t seem to be suffering from it, and now, I wasn’t either.
In fact, bless her fucking heart, Carmen told everyone at the party that I was better than Wade Montgomery, who’d played her at the start of the year.
She was probably lying, just wanting to get back at him.
Or hell, maybe he sucked bad enough to be worse than me after a bit of practice, or more likely, just didn’t care to try to make her feel good.
Whatever the reason, Carmen’s rumor was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Even though school was over, it’s a small town, and people hang out over the summer.
By the time school started for sophomore year, the rumor had morphed into something along the lines of, Preston Darling is better in bed than the senior guys.
I wasn’t complaining. I’d had a lot more practice with Kamlai by then, and I was more confident.
I took Lacey’s virginity at the back-to-school party, and feasted on the look on Dolly’s face when she found out.
A few weeks later, when I told Lacey I didn’t want a relationship, she lured me back into bed with the promise that she’d bring Carmen along, too.
Knowing Carmen would do her thing and not keep her mouth shut, I couldn’t resist that chance.
I thought about Dolly as I rolled on a condom, wondering if she’d think I was disgusting for this.
A stab of spiteful hope went through me.
If I couldn’t have her, what did I care? She could think whatever she pleased. She didn’t want me, and she’d made that clear. She said I sucked. She wasn’t waiting around for me, so why should I wait for her?
As expected, Carmen told the entire school about our threesome that night, and my reputation was solidly established.
There were solo party hookups with Lacey and Carmen and a few other cheerleaders after that.
And then, at the last party before everything changed, Dolly walked in on Colt and I sharing Destiny.
I made eye contact, holding her gaze while I slid my cock to the hilt inside her best friend in the world, making her moan in pleasure.
Dolly turned positively green. It was the best and worst day of what was turning into my golden year.
One day not long after that, I looked around at our tables and realized I’d fucked every girl there except Becca.
Becca was still a virgin, and I doubted she’d hook up with me now that I had such a reputation.
I looked over at Dolly, wondering if I’d ruined my chances with her, too.
She was talking to Devlin, fingering the necklace he’d bought her while she leaned into his side and giggled.
That afternoon, I asked Devlin where he bought it, and I went to the jewelry store and asked about it.
They’d only sold one so far, the one Dolly wore around her neck.
The guy looked at me like I was insane when I said I wanted to buy all eleven that remained.
Diamonds weren’t cheap, but then, neither was I.
I presented one to Becca the next day.
“Did you steal my necklace?” Dolly asked incredulously. Her hand flew to her neck before I could answer, and she touched her charm and then raised her gaze to mine. She looked confused and wounded.
Becca just looked confused.
“What the fuck is that?” Devlin asked.
“You get Dolly,” I said, staring him down. “I figured me and Colt would pick a Darling Doll, too.”
“You want me to be your girlfriend?” Becca asked.
“Not girlfriend,” I said quickly. “Just the girl who’s special to me right now.”
I fucked her that weekend, completing my path through every single one of Dolly’s friends. I watched Dolly gulp when Becca told her, watched the envy in her eyes when Becca told her how good I was, how good her first time was. Finally, I felt vindicated.
I gave Colt one of the other necklaces so he could choose a girl.
To no one’s surprise, he gave it to Destiny, whom he’d been smitten with since losing his virginity, even though she didn’t want to date.
He casually hooked up with her whenever she wanted him, but he wasn’t driven to make a reputation for himself.
As the first quarter of my sophomore year came to a close, I was on top of the world. It was turning out to be my year, and it felt like nothing could go wrong. I’d finally hit my stride, and everything was going right, as if fate were making up for the shit year I’d had as a freshman.
After Carmen started some drama about the necklaces, I knew I had to give her one.
I owed my entire success to her, even though I wasn’t interested in her.
So the necklaces became a thing, and the Darling Dolls became a label girls would strive to achieve.
I still had eight diamond ballerinas, and despite Devlin’s annoyance, we passed them out to a couple girls we wanted to fuck.
I liked that we’d made the one he gave Dolly less special. It was a shitty gift to begin with.
Everything was going so well I almost forgot that I was still stuck, that everything I did was for Dolly. Every girl I fucked, every necklace I gave, was with the thought of her in mind. What would she think of this? Would she notice? Would she care?
Then, at the party after Homecoming, the first blow fell that would change everything.