11. Penelope
Iam a mess of contradictions and I cannot stop.
Monday morning. First day back since the hospital.
I’m standing in my bedroom in the uniform—plaid skirt, white button-up, tie, blazer with the crest, black knee socks, Converse—and I’m staring at the closed guest room door across the hall where Xander Anderson slept last night.
Eight feet of hardwood between my door and his.
Eight feet between the girl who overdosed in a treehouse and the boy who found her.
Eight feet between the person I hate most and the person I want most and the fact that they are the same person is the particular cruelty that my life has chosen to specialize in.
I hate him. He called me slumming it. He walked away in the hallway. He posted photos of me on GlossX. He took my virginity in a closet without asking and then gave me money like I was a transaction.
I want him. His hand on my throat last night. The way he said “don’t ever take that away from me.” The whimper I made that I didn’t authorize. The way my body leans toward him like a compass needle finding north, regardless of what my brain is screaming.
I hate him.
I want him.
I hate that I want him.
I want him to know that I hate him.
I want him to not care that I hate him and put his hands on me anyway.
The loop runs. I brush my teeth to the loop.
I do my eyeliner—hands still shaky but steady enough for a passable wing today—to the loop.
I braid my hair to the loop. The teal is almost gone.
I should re-dye it. The fact that I’m thinking about re-dyeing my hair feels like progress, or at least like the ghost of the girl who used to care about things like hair.
I go downstairs. Xander is at the kitchen island.
Coffee. Uniform—blazer on, tie actually tied, which tells me Alice got to him because Xander Anderson has never voluntarily tied a tie in his life.
His hair is damp. He smells like the guest bathroom soap, which is eucalyptus, which is not what Xander smells like, and the wrongness of the scent on his skin bothers me more than it should.
We don’t speak. We eat cereal at the same island three feet apart and don’t speak. My dad reads the paper. My mom drinks her coffee and watches us not speak with the particular expression of a parent who is practicing the “give them space” strategy while every cell in her body wants to intervene.
We drive to school separately. I will not be in a car with him. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The last time I was in his car, he told me whatever we had was over and my friendship bracelet caught the gear shift and everything that has happened since then has been a consequence of that ride.
The library at Edgewood Prep is the one place in this building that doesn’t feel like a cage.
High ceilings. Old wood. The smell of books and dust and the particular quiet that comes from a room designed to contain ideas rather than people.
I’m at a table near the back, calculus book open, headphones in—Turnover, “Peripheral Vision,” the album I play when I need to feel something gentle while the world is being sharp.
Iz slides into the chair beside me. Close. The proximity of Issac Walsh—deliberate, warm, the physical vocabulary of a boy who speaks fluent “I see you” without opening his mouth.
“Sup, Pretty Penny.”
I pull one earbud out. “Hey, Iz.”
“You look like you’re trying to murder that calculus book with your eyes.”
“I’m trying to waste as much time here as possible so I can spend less time at home.”
“The program?”
“The program. And the boy across the hall. Both starting today. Both making me want to crawl out of my skin.”
Iz leans back. Studies me. The assessment of a boy who helped his mother build the program I’m about to enter and has opinions about it.
“The program is good, Penny. I helped my mom design it. The structure, the levels, the group dynamics—it’s not some bullshit twelve-step meeting in a church basement with stale coffee and folding chairs.
It’s real. And it’s going to help X too, whether he wants it to or not, because my mom doesn’t take no for an answer and neither does the curriculum. ”
“It’s not the program I’m worried about.
” I close the textbook. “It’s doing it with him.
Sitting in a room and talking about my feelings while Xander Anderson is three chairs away looking at me like I’m either the worst thing that happened to him or the only thing keeping him alive, and I can never tell which one it is on any given day. ”
“Both.”
“What?”
“It’s both, Penny. You’re both. The worst thing and the best thing. That’s what you are to each other. And until you both stop running from that, you’re going to keep hurting each other.”
I look at him. Really look. Iz’s face has changed in the last few weeks—not physically, but in the way he wears it. There’s something underneath the easy grin and the warm voice. Something heavier. Something that wasn’t there before.
“Iz.”
“Yeah.”
“I need to tell you something. And I need you to not fix it or solve it or turn it into a strategy. I just need you to hear it.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want to feel wanted.” The sentence comes out smaller than I intended.
“That’s the thing I can’t say to Cat or my parents or Darla.
I want someone to look at me and not see the girl who overdosed or the girl in the GlossX photos or the girl who got kidnapped.
I want someone to look at me and want me.
Not rescue me. Not protect me. Want me. Like I’m something worth wanting and not just something worth saving. ”
Iz is quiet. His hand finds mine on the table. Not the performance hand-hold from the hallway—the real one. The one that says “I hear you” without words.
“You are worth wanting, Penny.” Quiet. Serious. The Iz underneath the grin. “You are worth wanting and I need to be honest with you about something because I told X and it’s only fair you know too.”
“What?”
“I caught feelings for you.”
The sentence lands between us like a dropped glass. Not shattering—just the sound of something unexpected hitting a surface.
“Real ones,” he continues. “Not the hallway performance. Over the last few weeks—walking you to class, sitting with you, being the person you leaned on. I started to feel things that went past friendship. I told X because that’s what we do.
And I told him I’m stepping back because you chose him and I respect that. ”
I stare at our hands. His thumb is running along my knuckles. Gentle. The touch of a boy who is being honest about something that costs him and is choosing transparency over strategy for the first time.
“But I also need to tell you something else.” He grins. The Iz grin returning. “I also wanted to make Bella jealous.”
“What?”
“The hallway thing. The ‘babe.’ The arm around you. Part of it was for X, yeah. But part of it was because I knew Bella was watching. And I wanted her to see me with someone else and feel something. Because she won’t feel anything when I ask her to directly, and sometimes the only way to get someone’s attention is to give your attention to someone else. ”
“Iz.” I pull my hand back. “You used me to make two people jealous at once?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds bad.”
“Because it IS bad!” But I’m laughing. I can’t help it. The absurdity of it—Issac Walsh, the emotional anchor of the Elite Five, the boy who gives speeches about honesty and healthy communication, running a two-front jealousy operation using me as the weapon. “You are a disaster, Issac Walsh.”
“A lovable disaster.” He reaches over and brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. Slow. Deliberate. His fingers lingering on my cheek for a beat longer than friendly. “And for what it’s worth—the feelings were real. Even if the strategy was messy.”
Over Iz’s shoulder, I see him.
Xander. Across the library. Standing between two bookshelves, half-hidden, watching us. His eyes are locked on Iz’s hand on my face. On the strand of hair Iz just tucked behind my ear. On the particular intimacy of two people sitting close in a quiet room.
His jaw is set. His fists are at his sides. The stillness of a predator who is deciding whether to pounce or retreat. The green beast. I can feel it from here—the possessive fury broadcasting across fifty feet of library like a frequency only I’m tuned to receive.
Iz sees my eyes shift. Follows my gaze. Finds Xander. And what Iz does next is not accidental. He leans in. Close. His mouth near my ear.
“He’s watching. And he’s dying. Which means it’s working.”
“Iz—”
“Trust me, Penny. Two more days of this and that boy will be on his knees telling you everything you need to hear. I know X. He doesn’t respond to distance. He responds to competition.”
Xander turns. Storms away. His footsteps echo through the library—sharp, angry, the cadence of a boy whose control is being tested by the one thing he can’t control: another man near the woman he considers his.
I look at Iz. “This is either going to fix everything or destroy the Elite Five.”
“Same risk either way. At least this way is more fun.”
He stands. Offers his hand. I take it.
I want to feel wanted. Iz made me feel wanted.
And somewhere between the real feelings and the strategy, there’s a girl who is so starved for someone’s hands on her that don’t come with a price tag or a power play that she’ll take almost any version of it.
Even the complicated version. Even the version that’s partly performance.
At least Iz asked before he touched me. That alone puts him ahead of every other man in my recent history.
Three-thirty p.m. The MacHale living room. The first day of the rest of my life, apparently.