7. Lilah
LILAH
My hands shook when the notification for the scholarship portal showed up in my inbox.
I yelped and drew a curious look from the librarian and Paige, who’d just walked through the door.
My heart drummed in the back of my throat as I read through my eligibility confirmation and invitation to apply for the Windsor Award.
“Lilah getting rowdy in the predawn library? What’s going on?”
“I got the Windsor invite.” My whisper came out as more of a strangled squeak.
She grinned and squeezed me in a breath-stealing hug. “You knew you had that, brainiac.”
“I hoped.”
“Then this sounds like the perfect time to celebrate. We’re going to a party—tonight.” Paige slid into her seat across from me at the library.
That statement sliced straight through my excitement.
A churning gnawing settled into my stomach at the thought of what fresh hell would be unleashed on me if I showed up at one of Galen’s parties.
Not that I’d ever thought about Galen’s parties, the ones everyone talked about for at least a week after they happened.
And not like Paige would be thinking of feeding me headfirst directly to the gaping jaws of the bloodthirsty sharks.
“Pretty sure I’d be kicked out of any Hawthorne Prep party.”
“Good thing this one’s twenty miles away. It’s a party with some of my friends from my old school.” She pressed her palms together, stuck out her bottom lip and blinked with extra wide puppy dog eyes. “Tell me you’ll come, please.”
“Parties aren’t for me.” She’d invited me out last year, but my long commute hadn’t made anything other than school or studying easy.
“You don’t have to take the bus anymore. There’s no excuse now.”
“Why do you need me to go?”
“I don’t need you to come. I want you to. It’ll be fun. You come here every day, where Mason is a dick, and I imagine he’s no better at home.”
“It’s not like we live in the same house.” But anytime I approached a window or walked outside, I felt like he was watching me, even when he wasn’t there.
“Still. Same property, whatever. His scowling presence probably makes the whole place smell like a burnt asshole.”
I choked back a laugh. “What does that even smell like?”
“Shitty, but I’ll say anything to get you to come. A taste of normalcy not run by the hockey fanatic freak club. We need fun. You need fun.”
Fun. I rolled the word around in my head. When was the last time I’d had fun? Inwardly, I winced. With Mason. That was the last time I’d had fun. Now, he made every day a stomach-knotting game of tag where Mason was always it and there was nowhere for me to run.
“Probably not a good idea.” The last thing I wanted was to be a third wheel, or worse, forgotten about at a party where I didn’t know anyone.
“So you’re going to not go to parties, even the ones Mason hasn’t banned you from?”
“I never—”
“You’re letting him win. Do not let him win.” Paige planted her hands on the table, eyes locked onto mine. “We’re going out and we’re going to have a great time. Fuck these assholes. Don’t let them stop you from enjoying your senior year.” She knocked her knuckles against the table.
The concept of enjoying this year felt foreign in my mind. My path had been so straightforward with no deviations. A pit stop to rest up and be somewhere I didn’t feel the glowering nearness of Mason all around me sounded good. Maybe I needed to throw in a little unexpected.
“If I say yes—”
She made a little gasp of excitement. “It’ll be so fun.
I have a million things you could wear. An outfit to show you off a little.
This uniform makes everyone look like a moldy bag of fridge salad.
I’ll do your makeup too. Please.” Her eyes were comically large, glistening with hope and manipulation.
How could I say no?
“Fine.” I closed my notebook. “I’ll go.”
She covered her mouth with her hand and squealed, grabbing my arm.
At least there was one person here who didn’t hate me.
“If you make me try on one more pair of jeans, my skin is going to fall off in large chunks and I’ll stain your pretty sheets with blood.”
Paige held up one shirt and another to my body and squinted. “I thought you didn’t like drama.”
“You sure your sister doesn’t mind me wearing her stuff?”
“She does not care. Plus, she’s in California.”
“Not sure how distance changes me wearing her jeans. We’ve been at this forever. I can wear my own clothes.” The sequins on the halter top scratched my skin.
“I’m not saying you can’t, only giving you options, if you want to change it up.”
All the clothes Paige had me try on were way nicer than mine. But walking into a party in her or her sister’s clothes, all I’d be doing was freaking out they might get spilled on or stained.
“What about this one?” She held up a piece of fabric that could’ve been a headband.
“Do you have any shirts that don’t require pasties to pull off?”
She turned her fingers into a frame, sizing me up. “You’ve got the equipment to keep this up.”
I snatched the shirt from her and tossed it onto the discard pile. “That’s a no.”
“Fine, I’ll put this in the me pile.” Paige scooped it up and cycled through at least five other tops that were in the barely covering anything territory.
I didn’t even want a gap between my shirt and the top of my jeans.
I’d only been swimming once in the past two years and it had been under the cover of night with Rye.
She went to the back of her closet and flicked through until she tugged out a shirt. “How about this one?” A sage-green top with lace sleeves and a deep v-neckline that had a lace detail providing a little extra coverage.
Not exactly what I’d have chosen, but it wasn’t like I could wear my T-shirt. And this provided about 1000 percent more coverage than the previous options. I grabbed it. “I’ll take it.”
She finished up my makeup and her own before she got dressed in a sheer top with a sparkly bra top beneath it. Her confidence was staggering. To be fair, if I looked that good in literally anything, I’d be wanting to go out at every opportunity too.
Paige took care of the ride share to the party, which I felt less guilty about when she dropped that her dad loaded her up with four-figures of credit that she’d barely touched.
The driving music reverberated in my stomach from the sidewalk as we approached the three-story colonial, its wraparound porch crowded with partygoers.
Nauseous nerves fluttered in my stomach.
Would it be weird if I puked before having anything to drink?
Not that I planned on going crazy. I still had homework and a history project to finish this weekend.
I peered down the suburban street. Cars sat in driveways and on the street, and the house lights were mostly off. “None of their neighbors care?”
“College rentals. They’ll all probably be doing the same thing tomorrow.”
I gaped at her. “I thought you said friends from your old school.”
She tugged me toward the stairs. “Yeah, friends who graduated already.”
The houses weren’t as spread out as they were near Willowcrest, but they weren’t close enough to see into your neighbor’s window like in Rye’s neighborhood. People spilled out of most doors and some windows, shadows moved upstairs. My stomach went full balloon animal.
Would college students even let us in? What if they kicked us out? I tried to play it cool behind Paige, who walked right in like she’d done this a hundred times. Maybe she had.
Throngs of people were packed into the first room. A few friends of hers called out her name, pushed their way through the crush and hugged her. Everywhere we went, she knew someone, and we’d only been there ten minutes.
Paige always introduced me, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was the awkward charity case in the background while they caught up with her.
When she mixed rum and Coke into a red plastic cup at the makeshift bar, I took a gulp just for something to do. The burn made my eyes water.
I winced and held up one hand like I was feeling my way around the room. “I’m seeing sounds, Paige.”
She finished making her own drink. “Lightweight.” And took a swig. Her face twisted, eyes squinting and mouth puckered. “Okay, I might’ve been a little heavy-handed with the rum.”
I sipped the drink, each gulp lighting a blowtorch in the lining of my throat, but the warm, tingly rush flowing through my veins relaxed me enough to laugh and not be afraid to jump into the conversations Paige had with her friends.
We wandered through the party, past the beer pong and flip cup games in the dining room, where the hanging light was duct-taped to the ceiling to keep it out of the way. The whole ground floor of the house was a big loop.
The music rumbled beneath my feet and I swayed to it. We danced our way to the other side of the house, which was even more packed than the front room.
Bodies swayed, squeezed into the living-room-now-dance-floor, although it was more of a sweaty mass of people bumping into each other. It was hard to even keep hold of my drink with so many people crammed in.
“Fuck.” Paige shout-cursed into her cup.
“What happened?” I tried to look down, thinking she’d dropped something and with how tightly packed everyone was, she’d never be able to recover it.
“Don’t freak out, okay?” She squeezed in front of me face-to-face, eyes worried-wide, and spoke into my ear.
“Well, now of course I’m going to freak out. What’s wrong?” I whipped my head around, searching for what had set her off.
That’s when I spotted him through the throngs of people.
Only the second worst person I could’ve run into.
Sitting on a chair with a brunette in short shorts and a halter top balanced on his lap—Calder.
The girl’s hand was snaked under his shirt, her lips all over his neck and he looked bored as he took a pull from his beer. Oh god, did that mean Mason was here?
Ice cubes trickled into my previously warm veins.
“Why’s he here? Is he alone? Does he know I’m here?” I shouted at Paige.