Chapter 2 – Dakota
FROM THE FIRST DAY I MET YOU, YOU WERE LIKE AN ANTIDOTE
DAKOTA
“Are you smoking again?!”
A booted foot kicked my shin, and I almost dropped my cigarette. Pain shot up my leg as I glared at my brother.
“What the fuck, Val,” I grumbled, stubbing it out in the dirt and putting the butt back in the empty carton.
He had his camera aimed at me, and the click of the shutter made me roll my eyes as he lowered it and glowered at me. “You said you were quitting!” He waved the camera. “I’ve got evidence of your lies now.”
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“Ugh. You know what, I’m just gonna carry around a bucket of water and dump it on you when I see you with that crap in your mouth. You said you were gonna quit.” He scowled down at me, and shame nipped at my conscience.
“Yeah, well, it’s been kind of a stressful month.”
Val hummed in sympathy, then muttered, “And what the hell is this? You’ve got twigs and crap in your hair.
God you’re a mess.” He crouched near my shoulder to start picking out bits of nature from my hair.
“Rolling around on the ground like an animal.” He kept muttering under his breath, and I tilted my head to give him better access.
When he was done, he plopped down on his butt right next to me and rested his head on my shoulder, heaving an enormous sigh.
“So what’s today’s word?”
Val let out a little laugh. “It’s ‘provident’, which is fitting.”
“Why? What’s it mean?”
“Demonstrating great care for the future, which I wish you’d do.”
“Eh.” I wanted to say what future?, but that would spark up a whole conversation that I really wasn’t feeling at the moment. Or ever. I knew Val loved me and just wanted me to care about my life, but I didn’t have the heart to ask him why I should bother. To ask him what was the point?
He’d really go off on a tangent then, and it was such a nice day—I glanced at the sky, which had more clouds than it did ten minutes ago. Well, it had been a nice day, and I didn’t want to ruin it with boring talk of a future that I didn’t really care about.
“You talk to dad?”
“Albert? Nope. I ditched that little meeting.”
Val punched my leg. “You can’t do that, it’ll only piss him off even more.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t in the mood to see him today.”
Or any day.
“You’re never in the mood. Whatever, it’s your funeral. Have you met your new roommate yet? I—”
Val started coughing, and a flash of panic sparked through me as I began rubbing his back. “Are you sick again? Have you not been taking your meds?”
Val brushed me off with impatient hands. “I’m fine,” he rasped. “A bug flew into my mouth. Ugh, fucking gross.” He cleared his throat a few times while I laughed at him, pretending that the fear his coughing fit had dug up wasn’t still lingering.
“Anyway,” Val said, making a sour face. “Have you met your roommate yet?”
I plucked a blade of grass from the ground and started fiddling with it.
“No. Not sure why anyone would transfer here, especially after the semester’s already started.
” I didn’t really give a shit who my roommate was anyway because it didn’t matter—I probably wouldn’t like them regardless of who they were.
Everyone who came to Ashbrook was an elite asshole.
“I overheard dad saying something about a fight, but who knows. You’re probably gonna just spend all your time outside anyway, so I guess it doesn’t really matter what he’s like.”
“Yeah, probably.” I’d always preferred to be outside and away from people.
Everyone was either boring or they wanted something from me, and because we’d grown up under the cozy umbrella of wealth, every interaction was a calculated move.
Nobody took the time to get to know someone unless there was something to be gained.
Genuine feelings towards others didn’t really exist.
It was the same in my family.
Love was a transaction, conditional and coercive; it didn’t truly exist. Love was wielded as a weapon whenever necessary, a way to get something if I gave something.
So I gave them hell.
I got it in return, but I didn’t really care and Val was the exception. He’d always been different from Everett and our parents—an outcast in their eyes, just like me.
Too different—in a bad way—to be fully accepted into the circle.
We had each other, and that was enough.
“So…I keep hearing stuff about what happened last spring,” Val said softly. I glanced over at him, tensing up. He was picking at a loose thread on his shorts and not looking at me as he spoke. “Maybe we should—I dunno, maybe we should try to talk to Dad again? I feel like—”
Resignation edged with a weary sadness coiled in my chest as I took Val’s hand. “Hey. It’s okay. I’ll be out of here soon. It’s not like I got in any real trouble for that, especially since there was no way to prove it was me. So just…just let it go.”
Val gripped my hand in both of his. “How can you say that? After everything he’s done, don’t you want—”
“I don’t care.” And I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Val brought it up at least once a month and tried to get me to talk to Albert again, but if he didn’t believe me our entire childhood, why the hell would he start now?
There was a long moment of quiet, and I stared off at the dark clouds on the horizon. They were getting thicker and rolling in fast.
“You don’t care about anything,” he finally said. Val’s sigh was filled with something hopeless, and that cut into me deeper than I wanted to admit.
“I care about you.” I bumped his shoulder with mine.
“Yeah, and that’s it. You don’t care about anyone else, you don’t care about consequences, you don’t care about yourself—”
I stood up and brushed off the butt of my pants. “Okay, I’ve heard that enough times that I already know how it ends. I’m starving, I’m gonna grab some food and see if my new awesome roommate is here yet.”
Val stayed seated and looked up at me with big, dark eyes. “I’m just saying. I worry about you.”
He didn’t need to worry and I wished he wouldn’t, but I understood completely because I worried about him constantly.
“Yeah, well, there’s nothing to worry about so stop wasting your energy.” I crouched beside him, then booped him on the nose. “And if you keep flapping your mouth, you’ll just catch more bugs.”
Val rolled his eyes as I stood up, and when I held out my hand, he took it and let me haul him to his feet.
He was a lot smaller than me, and even at nineteen he looked much younger.
He’d been a premature baby with a lot of health issues that still lingered to this day, but he had the strongest spirit of anyone I’d ever met.
He was the only reason I put up with the awful family I’d been adopted into. The only reason I knew that real love did exist.
Growing up in the Voss family had taught me many things, like how much of a disappointment I’d turned out to be.
I’d learned the only way I could get any kind of attention was to evoke a negative reaction from someone.
Doing the right thing and listening and following orders didn’t get me a single glance; but breaking things, saying the wrong things, picking verbal fights?
Then I was showered with attention, and, in some perverse, twisted way, I enjoyed it.
I hated being ignored, so I’d settle for a stern talking-to or a raised hand or disgusted look over nothing any day of the week.
Nowadays, though, I could barely stand being in the same room as them.
They were selfish to the bone, my family; driven by a need to create the appearance of perfection. I wondered what they saw when they looked in the mirror, because the versions of themselves that I knew weren’t anything like their public personas.
Evelyn Voss was entirely checked out from reality.
Albert Voss was cold and calculating.
Everett Voss was sociopathic.
But Valentine Voss…well, he was an angel.
The only person on the planet that had ever truly loved me.
“Looks like it’s gonna rain,” he said as we walked back to the main part of campus. “Ugh. I’m gonna run ahead, I don’t want my camera to get wet.” He stopped and set his hand on my arm, smiling up at me. “Love you. Text me later, okay?”
I kissed the top of his head. “Eh, maybe. I’ll think about it.”
He smacked my arm and gave me a fake glare, then started running back to his dorm or wherever he was going.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept walking, ignoring the stinging snap of loss that always came when Val left.
I felt the crinkle of a wrapper, then smiled and pulled out the little bag of candy I’d shoved in there earlier and forgotten about.
Hell yeah.
A little hold-me-over before I could get an actual meal. I hoped they had something good today; yesterday had been a disgusting assortment of things I hated. I wouldn’t say I was a picky eater, but I was definitely particular.
Maybe I should get something for my new roommate? A little olive branch? Start off on the right foot?
I laughed and threw some of the fruity-flavored candy into my mouth, chewing the gooey pieces.
Nah.
I wasn’t feeling that nice today.
I spotted the boy with the strange mark on his face as he cut across the courtyard.
I was almost back to my dorm, wishing I’d gotten something to eat and debating whether or not I wanted to make the walk across campus to get something. Part of me wanted to just so I could avoid my new roommate a little longer.
But as soon as I saw the smaller guy, I stopped walking. I kept eating my candy, though.
He did not look like he belonged here. Not one bit. Especially with how he was gazing around at the buildings like he was on a different planet.
And that mark…
A massive pinkish-purple spot sat on his right cheek. It crept under his jaw and ended just below his ear.
It kind of looked like a butterfly, if you tilted your head.
He also had a black eye and heavy bruising around it.
His hair was a messy mop of light brown waves threaded with deep reds and deeper browns that curled over his forehead and brushed against his ears, and by the way he kept shaking his head, I thought he was trying to get it to cover the mark.
It wasn’t doing a very good job because he continuously tilted his head back to look at the gothic architecture of the campus’ various buildings.
I’d been coming here—well, was forced to come here—my entire life, so none of it was new or the least bit exciting to me, but to him…he was acting like he’d crossed some secret vail into fairyland.
How na?ve.
I watched as he carefully traversed the weather and timeworn brick pathway and headed straight toward the far side of the Hoffman building.
The campus was crawling with students, but he gave them all a wide berth, skirting around everyone in his path, never making eye contact or stopping to say hello.
Most of them ignored him, but some…some gave cursory glances that turned into double takes that elevated to full-on staring.
A few whispered to their friends, a few snickered and laughed.
Assholes, the lot of them. The urge to stick my scarred-up face right in theirs was strong.
When wealth abounded, so did judgment.
Curiosity got the better of me—it usually did—and because I really didn’t have anything else to do, I followed him.
He was fast for such a short guy.
He wasn’t dressed for August in upstate New York; he had on a heavy moss-colored sweater and thin jeans that looked old, like he’d gone sifting through the bargain bin at his local thrift shop.
The clothes were too big and hung off his small frame, the sleeves of the sweater going well past his hands. For whatever reason, it bothered me and I wanted to roll them up. To see his hands.
Was he a student here? Did he play an instrument? Or was he an artist?
When he rounded the side of the Hoffman building, leaving the brick path for an unmarked dirt trail that went deep into the expansive woods limning the west side of campus, I picked up my pace.
Did he even know where he was going? What was he like? Shy? Introverted? Quiet? His appearance and mannerisms suggested those things, but he could very easily be an outgoing little brat. Or a scrappy fighter, like a yappy little dog or a ferocious tiger cub.
Probably the latter, based on that enormous black eye.
He had no idea I was following behind him as the trail headed deeper into the woods. Or if he did, he didn’t acknowledge me. The canopy of trees muted the intensity of the sun, and it was damp in here. The smell of dirt and plants filled my nose, and I loved it.
He reached the drooping sign held by a rusted, heavy chain tied between two trees that read Do Not Go Beyond This Point.
He read the words, made some kind of sound, then carefully ducked under the chain.
So. Not a follower of the rules.
Someone should tell him the sign was there for a reason.
I ducked under the chain and followed after him on the almost-hidden path. Thorns and shrubs had begun taking over, weeds springing wildly from the earth, reaching toward the little bit of sun that made it through the canopy.
I treaded carefully so I didn’t make any noise, then glanced up ahead to see that he’d rolled the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows, and I wanted to just do away with my shirt because it was so hot and muggy.
Not my favorite weather in the least; I’d much rather be in my air-conditioned room right now.
His hands were big for his size, with surprisingly long fingers. Did he play piano?
He paused, staring ahead at something, then stepped off the path.
Where was he even going?
With an exasperated sigh, I picked up my pace and followed after him.