3. Lilah #3
A group of girls who always hovered near Mason and the rest of Havoc like circling vultures stood on the other side of the hallway. A gauntlet of high school treachery. And here I thought I’d been making life easier by being late.
Head down, I kept to the side of the hall with the girls, hoping to slip by Mason unnoticed.
Mistake. A massive mistake.
“Wow, I think that’s the uniform shirt our housekeeper donated last year.” The unexpected yank on my collar nearly toppled me backward.
My bag flew out of my grasp and slid across the floor, banging into the lockers across the hall.
“Aww, yeah, those are my initials.” Brooke Weller, the blonde senior with the blush mini Kelly bag, tugged my collar up, gaping the buttons at the front of my chest and laughing with her friends. “You must’ve had to let this shirt out a lot to get it to fit.”
I jerked back, but her grip slipped and tangled in my hair with a yank. Ow!
I shook off her coffin-nail-manicured hold, only to be grabbed from behind. “Let go.”
I hadn’t had to alter the shirt at all, but I’d grabbed this one from the secondhand uniform store in the office after the dining hall spaghetti incident and hadn’t had time to anonymize the top like I usually did.
“Pretty sure that’s my skirt too. I didn’t have those stupid little stars on there, but I had our tailor raise the hem.” Morgan Greene—another senior with a thousand-dollar balayage and a berry Lowe Puzzle bag—tried to pull the hem up, but I yanked it from her and shoved at her hands.
“Get off!”
“So touchy.”
Kelsey stood at the end of the hall with her friends. Her eyes locked with mine before she ducked around the corner without saying a word.
Now we were worse than strangers. All my thoughts of living together and getting closer this year—talk about a gasoline-soaked backfire. I was radioactive to half of my four-person family.
I shoved away from their pawing hands with my scalp throbbing and heart racing marathon-fast.
A red blur shoved into Morgan, who yelped and flew back a solid five feet.
“What is your problem?” Paige glared at her.
All five feet and four inches of her red-haired, pissed-off and always-ready-to-fight self.
She could’ve easily fit in with the other Hawthorne students, but from the second she’d arrived, she’d seemed tired of their BS, which was probably why she was still the only person who talked to me.
“Chill the hell out, Paige. You’re both so sensitive.” Brooke rolled her eyes like we were the insane ones. This place changed people. Turned them into feral, unfeeling creatures who only took pleasure in making everyone else around them feel small.
“We were only trying to help your little friend,” Morgan sneered.
Paige bristled with fury, and in that moment, the hopelessness didn’t feel like a black hole of solitude. “Help yourself right the fuck out of her face.”
Morgan ran one hand across her skirt like she’d touched something gross.
She plucked an aerosol can out of her bag as though she’d been waiting for this moment and shook it at me.
“All I’m saying is, she might want to borrow my dry shampoo.
It’ll help with the greasy hair thing she’s struggling with. ”
Paige slapped the can from her grasp.
I backed away, glancing around for my bag. It wasn’t on the floor.
“Just trying to be helpful.” Morgan’s faux concern shot off sparks of anger behind my eyes.
“Help this.” Paige flipped her off, looking a second away from slapping her.
A shadow loomed over my shoulder, and the yawning pit in my stomach pushed me closer to the edge.
My bag appeared in front of me, Mason’s arm dangling it over my shoulder.
I didn’t have to see him to know it was him. Feel it was him. The heat from his body burned behind me. I refused to look back.
“You’re already late, Little Byrd.” He dropped the bag, not waiting to see if I’d catch it.
But I did, and Paige took my hand, dragging me along with her until my legs started working properly again.
Only when I hit the safety of the end of the hallway did I glance back.
Mason had the pair of girls with their backs against the lockers, arm extended overhead in what looked like an intimate scene. Probably congratulating them on doing one more thing to make my life miserable.
In the empty hallway, the shakes started, so hard I couldn’t hold my bag, and it fell from my grasp. Paige scooped it up and pulled me into the bathroom.
Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them away, surprised I even had tears left to cry. I hadn’t cried since the year my mom died, and I wasn’t going to start over Mason. You’ve been through worse, Lilah.
“I swear,” Paige fumed, “they are all such assholes. They think because they can play with a puck on the ice they can do whatever they want? And don’t get me started on Brooke and Morgan. I bet you those bags are fake.”
She cranked on the faucet and ran some paper towels under the water before handing them to me.
I put the damp towels on my neck and let the cool water calm me while Paige shot me sympathetic looks.
Don’t let them get to you. You’re stronger than this.
Don’t ever let him see you cry.