53. Haven #2
I give her the finger over my shoulder, and hear her thundering after me in big floppy steps. “Wait, wait! Please. I’m sorry.”
“You okay there?” I ask dryly as she clings to me and tries to walk and breathe and laugh at the same time. “Need an ambulance?”
“Just the video,” she wheezes, her lips rolling into a line as she tries—and fails—not to giggle.
“Fuck off!” I shove her away, but now I’m giggling too, and my arms are too weak.
“Argh!” She drags out a stool from the kitchen counter and snatches me as I pass, forcing me to sit. “I’m gonna make you the best snack ever. It’s so good, you’ll be hitting that record button—“
“Enough!” I hold up a finger. “I’m warning you.”
She covers her hand with her mouth, turns to the fridge.
“Didn’t figure you for a closet slut,” she says, her head buried inside.
“I’m not any kind of slut.” Weird how she can call me that, and I barely blink. But Kai? Hearing him say that is like a burning knife to the gut every time.
As if thinking about him reminds me, the cut on my side aches. I found a band-aid large enough to cover it in the first-aid kit in the kitchen this morning. The only other time it hurt today was when I was struggling in and out of those pretty dresses at the boutique.
“Please. You paraded that notepad around like a pink flag.”
She takes out some fat-free yogurt. Blegh.
Blueberries. Mmm.
“Notebook?”
She glances at me over her shoulder as she takes out two bowls from the cabinet. “Seriously. You’re gonna deny that, too?”
“Deny what?”
“Oh my God.” She rolls her eyes and storms out of the kitchen.
“Wow.” I lean over the counter, cracking open the blueberry container and popping a few in my mouth. “Mmm.”
I almost swallow one whole when Melissa reappears a moment later, slamming her e-reader face down on the table in front of me. She points to one of the many stickers covering the back of the device.
It’s a long sticker, just a bunch of random letters, that runs the entire length of the e-reader.
“What?”
“Come on. Say it with me.” She points to the first row of letters. “Shut…?”
STFU
“Shut the fuck up.” I roll my eyes up at her. “And?”
“Take…?”
I stare down at the letters. “Take?”
She points at the next letter. “That.”
“That.”
“Come on, Haven, you know this.” She taps on the D.
“Down? Dog?” Because apparently I’m fluent in yoga.
“Dick!” she yells, tapping harder. “Dick!”
“Dick?”
“Oh my God.” She runs her hand along the sticker, rambling off the acronym like a word champion speed reader. “Shut the fuck up and take that dick like a good girl!”
She slaps the countertop. “Like a good girl, Haven! Like a good girl!”
I can’t breathe. I’m laughing so hard, blueberries almost come out of my nose.
“That’s what it says?” I’m surprised Melissa can even understand me, because I can hardly force the words past my constricting lungs.
“You didn’t know?” she wheezes.
“I didn’t know,” I wheeze back, shaking my head as tears stream out of my eyes.
Melissa slaps the countertop, then she’s holding on as her body slides to the floor, legs incapacitated by laughter. “Oh my fucking God…”
If the doorbell hadn’t rung right then, I think we’d both have passed out from oxygen deprivation. Since I’m not the one sprawled on the floor like a giggling dead person, I go answer the door.
I didn’t even stop to think who might be on the other side. It could have been Bastian, trying to apologize by making things worse somehow.
Or Kai. With another knife.
Thank God it’s neither.
“Delivery for Miss Lee?” the courier says, giving my tear-stained face a concerned look. “You okay, ma’am?”
“Yessir.” I haul a breath through my lungs, dragging my finger over the touchscreen of his delivery machine thing and taking the parcel from him. “Too much weed.”
I slam the door in his face, leaning my back against it as I savor the feeling of air in my lungs.
God, my stomach hurts.
“Who was it?” Melissa comes out of the kitchen, using the heels of both hands to wipe her face. “Oh my God, was that ? I was waiting for—”
“I think it’s for me.”
“Oooh! What did you get?” She brightens up so much, you’d swear this was her delivery.
“I’m not sure…” But as I say it, my brain finally catches up. “Oh, fuck.”
“What? What?” She plucks the parcel out of my hands and holds it over her head as she charges back into the kitchen. “I’m opening it!”
“Melissa!” I run after her. “Hey, that’s mine!”
“Oh come on! It’s been days since I got a delivery. I need a hit, man.” She’s got my parcel under her arm, trying to open a drawer without dropping it.
“Well it’s been years for me, so give!” I come up behind her and grab it, tearing it out from under her arm.
She spins around, eyes wide. “Years?”
“I’m exaggerating for dramatic effect,” I lie, turning my back on her. Then I turn back and hold out my hand. “Knife?”
“Ew, no. You’ll cut yourself and get blood everywhere.” She hands me a cute pink box cutter. Because, of course, everyone just has one of those in their kitchen drawer.
I had half-empty butane canisters and crack pipes.
Melissa goes back to fixing our snack, adding bananas and some weird monk fruit sweetener to the mix while I struggle to open the package without cutting myself. I’m kinda grateful she didn’t give me the knife.
There are two boxes inside the larger one. As soon as I see the shoebox shape of one of them, my suspicions are confirmed.
Melissa comes around the counter and slides a bowl over to me, picking up the delivery note.
“Ooh, Ashwood Crossing.” She slaps the paper down on the counter. “Laramie? You fucking kidding me?”
She doesn’t know our professor bought it. That he watched me strip down to my underwear before trying it on. That, if I accept this, I’m about to walk into that gala wearing his money, his choice, his claim on my body.
I quickly close the box flaps. “It’s a mix-up. It shouldn’t have—“
“I swear to God, open that box or I’m fetching a knife.” There’s a feral look in her red-rimmed eyes that I don’t have the moxie to challenge right now.
“I’m still not goin—“
“Shut the fuck up and take that dress out of there like a good girl.”
The words hit different now.
After what Bastian said.
After what Kai did.
Like the universe is conspiring to turn me into exactly what they want me to be.
Their good girl.
I set the shoebox on the counter. Melissa doesn’t seem interested in it at all. Her eyes are glued to the large, flat parcel.
She claps her hands over her mouth when she sees the label.
“Fuck me, it’s an Elie Saab.” She gives me a frantic look, nodding her head and whimpering. “Can’t believe Kai’s got such good taste!”
“Kai’s got fuck all to do with this,” I mutter as I take out the box and pull off the ribbon.
Melissa snaps her fingers at me. “Faster, woman, faster!”
“God, would you please calm down? It’s just a fucking—“
Dogs in Riverside hear Melissa squeal when I lift a length of gorgeous blue fabric out of the tissue paper. I frown at the dress. Stunning as it is, it’s not the one I tried on.
Oh. Right.
That one had a huge wet stain on it the last I saw.
Melissa grabs my shoulders and shakes me like I’m a vending machine that didn’t spit out her soda.
“Don’t just stand there! Move! We’ve still gotta do hair and makeup. Do you need to shower? Of course you need to shower. How else are you gonna fucking shave? Jesus, I need to shave.”
She snaps closed the lid, and shoves my bowl into my chest, pointing to her mouth. “Food in hole. You’re gonna need the calories.”
I walk mechanically, thoughts moving like a thick sludge.
This dress probably costs a year of rent in my uncle’s shitty apartment. More than a year of groceries. More than my dad’s piece of junk car is worth.
And Bastian didn’t just buy this dress. He bought everything.
I’ll be wearing a small fortune tonight. Everyone will know I didn’t buy it.
They’ll know I’m just a good girl who takes what she’s given.
A good girl who does what she’s told.
How stupid of me to think I could fight them.
How stupid of me to think I could change.