The Girl You Know

Chapter Thirty-One

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Izzy takes me down to the Kincaid basement. All hesitance I have about following her into a dark, dank hallway melts when she opens the door marked Authorized Personnel Only and a gust of warm air rushes out to greet us. Every part of me eases up, my body thawing with each step we take into the warmth. The overhead lights come to life as we walk down the hall, revealing a room with simple, outdated furniture. A wooden table with a microwave and a couple of chairs next to a bare-bones kitchenette—cabinets, a sink, and a hot plate on the counter. A ratty brown couch sits on the opposite end of the room beside an end table decorated with a stack of old magazines. All of it goes pale in the fluorescent lighting, highlighting the dust and specks of grime. The light flickers on and off, bathing the room in darkness every few seconds. Leaving me with nothing but the shadow of a girl I barely know and a paper-thin sense of trust.

“How’d you know about this place?” I ask as Izzy opens up a cabinet and pulls out a box of peppermint tea.

“Used to be a study lounge my freshman year,” she explains while pulling an electric kettle out from under the sink, carefully examining the outlet before plugging it in. “Got shut down after they found asbestos.”

“Shouldn’t we not be in here, then?” I’m overwhelmed by the sudden urge to pull my collar around my nose.

She shrugs and continues brewing her tea. “Only way to get privacy around here.” In the blink of an eye, she’s in front of me, holding out a chipped orange mug. “Ten minutes won’t kill you.”

Accepting the peace offering, I head over to the couch while she waits for the kettle to warm up.

“Wouldn’t sit there if I were you,” she warns seconds after I sit down on the edge of the couch.

“Why?” Cotton is leaking out of rips in the cushions, and it smells like a pet store, but I wouldn’t call it dangerous.

“Because that’s the couch everyone used for hookups.”

Izzy stifles a laugh when I leap off it, wiping the back of my skirt in case any dried bodily fluids rubbed off on me. We exchange a wordless glance as I walk over to the equally beat-up armchair opposite the couch. She gives me a thumbs-up, and I settle back down.

While we wait for the water to boil, I go over all the things I want to ask her. What she knows about Hunter and Solina. Why Solina’s incident was listed in her file at all. And Laura … whether she knew about what happened to her, or if even the people closest to her didn’t know the truth.

Izzy’s hostility when she first spotted me brings up its own new set of questions. What went down between her and Solina to make her run away like that? She may be playing nice now—taking her sweet time as she brews her tea—but there’s no telling how long that’ll last.

Once the kettle switches off, Izzy buzzes around the room, opening cabinets and drawers until she finds a half-empty jar of honey. She holds the bottle up and waves it at me, shrugging when I shake my head to turn down the offer.

“Have it your bland way.” She stirs the honey into her tea before bringing the kettle over and filling both of our mugs. Steam fogs up the space between us. When it clears I watch her brow furrow as she gives me a once-over. “Wow,” she mutters under her breath and takes a seat in the armchair opposite me. “You really do look like her.”

“That’s the thing about twins.”

It was meant as a joke, but based on the way she recoils, I’m as awful at comedy as I am at chemistry.

Izzy ducks her head, avoiding my gaze as she runs a finger along the rim of her mug. “I’m sorry about … what happened to her. We weren’t exactly friends, but nobody deserves that.”

I shrug instead of replying. I’ve heard enough “I’m sorry”s to know that nothing I say will ever measure up to what people want out of me. I’m not the grieving, heartbroken sister they’re expecting, holding back sobs and letting them feel self-righteous for acknowledging my pain. I don’t have time to pretend to be that girl, either. I’ve spent enough time pretending.

“Did anything seem off about her before you left?” I ask.

Izzy barks out a humorless laugh. “You could say that.” My eyebrow arches, urging her to keep going, but she takes her time getting to the point. She blows on her tea, takes a sip, then another, before setting her mug aside and finally meeting my eyes. “Look, we weren’t close, if that’s what you’re looking for. We had two, maybe three classes together. We barely knew each other.”

“Then why were you avoiding me when you thought I was her?”

Her posture stiffens as she replies through gritted teeth. “Because the last time I spoke to her it was because I found out she was fucking the guy I was dating.”

The shock of it stings like oil popping from the pan. It’s been clear since my first day that the Solina who went to Kingswood wasn’t the one who came home to Luster. I could understand her wanting to twist the truth about who we are when survival at Kingswood is rooted in the people you know and the person you’ll become. I could understand her choosing to ignore Claudia in favor of Hunter and Poppy because of the doors they opened. I could understand her cheating because it felt like the only way forward.

But I can’t understand this. Being unnecessarily cruel to a stranger. A stranger who faced the same uphill battle as her—another scholarship student. There’s no way to spin it where Solina doesn’t come out the villain.

“W-what?”

Izzy sighs before unzipping her puffer jacket and tossing it aside, revealing a Kingswood Fencing crewneck. She makes herself comfortable, crossing her legs beneath her and cradling her steaming mug just below her nose before she continues.

“Hunter and I were a thing for most of last year.” I can’t help the way my nose wrinkles. The thought of Hunter with anyone makes me uneasy. Izzy laughs bitterly when she notices my expression. “I know. Big mistake.”

Her gaze locks somewhere across the room as she trails off. After a long, slow exhale, she speaks up again.

“Dating Hunter isn’t like dating other guys. You’re not really his girlfriend. No hand-holding while he walks you to class or weekend dates or forehead kisses or any of that Hallmark bullshit. You’re a flavor of the month. He gets rid of girls faster than he goes through clothes.” She shudders slightly. “But I held on longer than the others. Probably because I was one of the only girls he ‘dated’ who didn’t care that he was screwing Poppy on the side the entire time.”

No surprise there. I figured Poppy and Hunter’s story went back way further than his and Solina’s ever did. On the edge of my seat, I wait for her to continue—waiting so long the muscles in my neck start to ache from craning to look at her. When she does, her voice is quiet. Shaky. Like the wound tied to the story is still fresh.

“Hunter can be … pushy. He’s gonna be a great businessman someday—he knows how to get what he wants. But it could be scary, sometimes. Telling him no.”

I swallow hard. “Did you?”

“Sometimes. Or, I tried to … Things always seemed to go his way in the end, though. Most of the time it was just easier to say yes.”

“Did he ever hurt you?”

“No,” she answers quickly. “But a guy like him doesn’t need to use his hands to hurt you.”

The purple bruises on Solina’s throat would beg to differ, but I’d thought the same thing after watching him shut down Poppy. He doesn’t need to use force to get what he wants, yet he still did anyway.

“We were at a party the first week of the semester near this cabin Hunter’s parents have out in the woods. Shit was creepy, like something out of a horror movie.”

Chills trickle down my spine at the thought of that cabin. Hunter’s hands on me, fingers gripping me so tight the bruises have only just started to fade. My fingers clench around my mug until the heat starts to burn. A much-needed distraction.

“Hunter always pregames. Thanks to Gabe, he’s got hookups for the good stuff. But he was going extra hard that night. Wanted to ‘start senior year with a bang.’ ” She rolls her eyes. “Parties aren’t really my thing. The music sucked, and it was freezing even though it was September. I didn’t want to leave, though, because it seemed like everybody from our class was there … including your sister.”

“Did she not usually go to parties?”

“If she did, I never noticed her. She mostly kept to herself. That’s probably how her and Claudia wound up as roommates. Makes sense too. To be the best at anything around here, you’ve gotta give up your social life.”

“Was she there with anyone?” I press, digging for that missing link.

She shakes her head. “Not that I saw. But I wasn’t really paying attention to her. Not that night, at least.” Her body shudders as she inhales deeply, her breath ragged when she exhales. “Hunter, uh … brought me over to the cabin. No one really noticed, since some guy had just started passing around shots of Fireball. I hoped he would just let me crash on the couch in the cabin and call it a night. But …”

The silence stretches on for what feels like hours, our tea going cold while I watch her from the edge of my seat. Her dark brown eyes are glossy, full lashes blinking back tears. Even though none of them break free, she still wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand, a silver ring in the shape of a bat glinting in the dim light of the room.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I say, later than I should have. While I still want answers, I won’t find them by forcing a stranger to relive her trauma.

“N-no, it’s fine,” Izzy replies, shaking herself off and setting her mug aside. “He wanted to have sex,” she says bluntly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “I didn’t. You can imagine how that went.”

My throat tightens at the familiar pattern, the memory of those photos of Solina coming back full force this time. “You said he didn’t hurt you?” I choke out, clinging to that small assurance to keep me afloat.

“He didn’t,” she says quickly, the sadness hardening into anger. “It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. Most of the time, I just gave in and it would be over pretty quick. But something was just … weird. Maybe because the woods were so damn creepy or because half the class was partying twenty feet away, but I couldn’t do it. So, I said no. Next thing I know he’s flipping out and begging and pleading like a goddamn dog in heat.”

From the corner of my eye, I can see her grip on the arm of her chair tightening until her knuckles go as white as her mug.

“Someone came pounding on the door all freaked out. My roommate, Laura, she …” Izzy pauses to inhale sharply and wipe at her cheeks. “She wasn’t used to parties and got in over her head because some guys kept giving her stuff to try. Things went south pretty fast, and of course none of the guys wanted to take responsibility. I went with her to the ER, made sure she was okay, before I caught an Uber home. I crashed and thought I could talk to Hunter in the morning, start fresh. Next day, I went to go meet up with him at our usual spot behind his dorm and guess who’s there with him instead.” She turns to face me with a deadpan look, nudging her chin for me to actually give a guess.

“My sister?”

“Mm-hmm,” she hums. “Turns out she was happy to take my place after I left the party. Pounced on him as soon as I left, apparently. Hunter couldn’t give two shits about me at that point. A warm body is a warm body. So, that was it. She was in, I was out. But she was different. Not just from me, but all the flavors he tried before me. She’s the one who got to hold his hand. Sit with him and his little crew in the dining hall. The forehead kisses, the insufferable need to touch each other every two seconds. She got everything .”

“Why her?” The phantom memory of Hunter’s lingering hand sends chills through my body, to all the places he once touched. “Why not just date someone like Poppy?” I ask, still not sure why he bothers with girls like us when he already has someone like her—beautiful, loaded, and willing to drop everything for him.

Izzy scoffs. “Apparently Hunter’s mom never liked Poppy.”

My brow furrows as I remember the conversation with Poppy before the bonfire, her hinting at Hunter’s mom being tough on his girlfriends. “Why?”

Izzy lets out another humorless bark of a laugh, giving me a scrutinizing once-over before replying, “The same reason he was never going to date me for real.”

At first, it’s puzzling. Why Solina was so different from the two of them. Why she got the touches and stolen kisses and trips to meet his mother over spring break. I think back to the first time I was in Poppy’s room, the way she ran her hand along my cheek and called me pretty. As I take in my reflection in the mirror slung over the door to my left, I understand what Izzy means. Finally able to read between the lines of what Poppy said that night.

Suddenly, I can see why Hunter flaunts me while sneaking around with them. My pale skin. Limp brown hair and dull amber eyes. If you don’t look at the frayed threads on my blazer or the ill fit of my shirt, I fit in easily. Going by a name like Stella, I don’t even have to explain our roots—how our names have special meaning in our first language. I’m not Solina, not a runaway, not Puerto Rican, not a scholarship kid whose sister has to work eighty-hour weeks for me to survive. I’m a blank slate.

I’m exactly what he wants me to be.

I’d made the mistake of thinking Poppy was just like the others. Kids with money and little consequences. She may be rich enough to run with the elite, but they’ll never look at her the way they look at Hunter. Or Gabe. Or me. They’ll see the color of her skin and decide she’s too “other” to really be one of them.

Poppy’s right, though. Neither of us will make it to the finish line with Hunter. He’ll leave both of us behind when he finds the real girl he’s been looking for. White, blond, and with a bank account that rivals his. The type of girl his parents expect him to bring home. The type of girl he thinks is worthy of being the one he ultimately chooses.

Biting my lip, I weigh how much I’m willing to tell Izzy. I’ve already given her the biggest secret—the truth—just to get her to talk to me. But I’ve still got some cards close to my chest. The pictures, the bruises, the report. I don’t know how much she knows, or what Charlisa told her when they brought her in. Being with Hunter may have come with its perks, but Solina didn’t get everything without paying her own price.

“Hunter hurt her,” I say, my voice coming out a croak. “I don’t know the details, but I know there were pictures. Of bruises. Lots of them. On her neck.” I run my hand along the column of my throat, my skin prickling under my fingers like I’m leaving those same bruises down their path. “She went to a guidance counselor about it, tried to file a complaint with the school board. But they shot her down. Said there wasn’t enough evidence, even though they had the pictures.”

I can hear Izzy swallow. “Oh.”

“I saw your name,” I say, making sure to keep my voice carefully controlled. “They talked to you about the case.”

Izzy shakes her head, her eyes frantic. “I didn’t know it was about her, I swear.”

“What did you say?”

She inhales sharply, pinching the bridge of her nose. “They asked me if Hunter ever tried to push me into … stuff. Things I didn’t want to do.”

The truth clicks into place. “And you said no.”

Tears dot the corners of her eyes when she looks back up. “I didn’t know,” she says again, the words holding new weight. “They never said there was an open case. I-I just thought there was a rumor going around or something. It wasn’t a secret, not if you knew him. And I knew it wouldn’t matter anyway.”

I want to reply that maybe it would have mattered, but I bite my tongue. She clearly has more to say.

“Hunter could shoot someone dead in the cafeteria tomorrow and get off with two weeks of detention.” She leans in close enough that her braids graze my arm. “And she’s probably not the first girl he hurt either.”

A combination of nausea and hope shoots through me, making my spine straighten and stomach churn. Other girls going through what Solina did isn’t a win, but it could still mean something. Administration wouldn’t listen to one girl, and there’s no guarantee they’d listen to two, or three, or even more, but there’s strength in numbers. A case that we could build. Hunter isn’t the one who pushed Solina off the side of that cliff, but I can still make him pay for the other ways he hurt her.

“Would you come forward?” I ask urgently, already thinking up ways to collect names, stories. Proof. Anything to get Charlisa and the board to listen. “If we spoke up together?”

Izzy shakes her head, and my confidence leaks out of me like air from a flat. “I already tried.”

That brings my brainstorming to a halt. I can’t think of any other reports in her file. Anything that might point to her trying to bring him down. “You did?”

Her gaze drops to her ring-clad fingers, picking at the remains of the black polish on her nails. “Hunter … has this camera …”

“He records girls,” I finish for her when it’s clear she can’t do it herself. She blinks up at me with confusion and what looks like concern. “Poppy told me.”

She stays quiet at first. Takes her time chewing on her bottom lip before continuing. “I told a guidance counselor about it. After we ended things. Tried to get them to look into it and get him to stop or erase everything on his drive. But they didn’t do anything. Didn’t even ask him about it. They thought I was some pissed-off ex and brushed it off within a day. A day .” Her voice cracks and her hands tremble as they curl into fists. “Then told me not to cause any more trouble.”

Anger bubbles up until my skin prickles and hums. How could this place promise so much just to let so many people down? Or were those promises never meant for girls like Solina and Izzy and Laura? Did they let them believe they could have everything just to crush them?

“Do you know where he keeps it? Whatever he’s filming?”

She nods shakily, wiping at her cheeks. “There’s a purple flash drive tucked at the bottom of a watch case he keeps on his bookshelf. I think that’s it. I saw it once when he accidentally left the case open.”

I nod slowly, committing that to memory.

“I could’ve taken it …,” Izzy says, trailing off.

“Why didn’t you?” I ask with a raised brow.

“Because nothing ever happens to him.” Her voice quivers and, finally, breaks. “I hated him … but I loved what being with him meant. For the first time in three years, I understood what it was like to be them. ” She waves her arm behind her. Toward the direction of the dorms that feel like they’re miles away from here. “To get everything easy. To not have to try to get what you wanted. Being with Hunter meant something. People who didn’t even know my name at the beginning of the year acted like I’d been one of them for years. Invites to parties with kids whose parents have Wikipedia pages. Passing answers to exams around like party favors. Study sessions with tutors who wrote the goddamn textbooks. Then, less than a day after that party, I’m nothing to them again. Like the last six months didn’t even happen. I’m back to square one, while he gets to keep everything.”

Izzy staggers to her feet, her hands trembling as she sets her mug down on the table. “I don’t blame your sister for taking him from me. I would’ve done the same thing.”

Before I can respond, she grabs her coat and heads for the door. “This place fucks with your head,” she says, stalling in the doorway but not looking back at me. “Until you start doing shit you never thought you’d be willing to do. My roommate killed herself because she got expelled over an OD they caused. Everyone at the bonfire treated her like a circus act, pumping her full of stuff she had no idea about because they thought it was funny, until it almost killed her. And she’s the one who got punished for it, not them.”

I swallow hard at the mention of Laura, questions sitting on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t dare ask another one.

Tears roll down her cheeks, her grip on the doorknob so tight her entire arm vibrates from the force of it.

“That’s why I left,” she spits, already turning to walk up the stairs. “Because this fucking place ruins you. And I’d rather give up and go back home than stay here and let this place rot me from the inside out. Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here at all.”

Izzy slams the door behind her, the force of it rattling a frame on the wall so roughly it tumbles to the ground and shatters. Glass sprinkles across the dingy tile, some of it skittering over to the stained carpet. I don’t try to fix it. Don’t try to go after Izzy to stop her. All I can do is sit there with everything she’s told me, wonder what it all means and if it’s gotten me any closer to finding who did this to Solina.

Still, one thing is clear now. Kingswood wants us to think we’re all welcome, that we all have the same opportunities, but none of that was ever true. This place has only ever been made for one type of person: boys like Hunter.

Minutes or hours go by. Long enough that the overhead lights turn off, not detecting any movement. I’ve spent enough time here that the dust starts to settle in my lungs. The urge to hack into my sleeve is so strong it feels like a hand around my throat, but I stay frozen in my seat. So lost I can’t even pick myself up again.

This place ruins good people, and it ruined my sister. Made her someone who used people like pawns. Who made up a version of me that fit her narrative because the real me wasn’t enough. The whole reason I came here is because the Solina I know never would’ve thrown herself off the edge of that cliff. Never would’ve left me with the loneliness and the fear and the guilt after everything we’d been through together. But the girl I’m pretending to be isn’t the girl I know. My sister was a stranger, and maybe that stranger did have it in her to hurt me.

Who wouldn’t want to hurt someone like me? The overbearing sister with the smart mouth and bad attitude who gave up everything without being asked because she was never brave enough to tell you she was the one who cost you your home. Who acted like you owed her the world because you were hers. A sister who claimed to love you enough to build a life around you, but didn’t notice the fading bruises on your neck or the tremble in your voice.

A sister who wanted to send you back to the place that hurt you.

What if I’m out of leads for a reason? Maybe I’ll never know what happened to Solina. Whether I pushed her to the edge of that cliff or someone else did. I can stay here and eavesdrop on more conversations and look through rich kids’ dirty laundry until I find an answer, or accept that maybe there’s nothing to find.

I can go home. And try to start my life over for a second time.

Part of me still thinks leaving Kingswood means leaving Solina behind. But there are sides of me I locked away after we first moved here and I decided to put Solina first. The girl who plucked untuned guitar strings while sitting on her dad’s lap and loved planting fresh strawberries in her mom’s garden. I’d like to get to know that girl again. With the people I do still have, the people who made Luster a home.

Picking myself back up, I trudge up the stairs. Every step takes so much of my energy, I slump at the top of the landing just to recharge. Making it all the way back to my room takes nearly twenty minutes, sweat beading along my forehead despite the chill that seeps through the cracks in the windows.

Our room is empty and freezing thanks to the window Claudia must’ve cracked open after I left. The cold sinks its claws into me quickly, my teeth chattering by the time I make it across the room to slam the window shut. My forehead feels tacky and stiff from the cold sweat. With my luck I’ll have a hundred-degree fever by the end of the night.

Across campus the chapel bells start up their song. Another hour gone, but getting to class is the last thing on my mind now. Sitting on the edge of my unmade bed, I pull my knees up to my chest and calm my racing heart before I pick up my phone and start writing a text.

Tomorrow I’ll head home and put Solina to rest the way I should have almost a month ago. The thought makes my knees weak, and in some ways still feels like I’m betraying her. But I’m ready to learn how to make peace with the truth, and the answers I’ll either never get or never understand.

Before I can go home, though, and pick up the pieces of the life I left behind, I’ve got one more loose end to deal with.

Think I can come over tonight?

His reply is instant.

You’re always welcome babe ;)

Making sure Hunter goes down for good.