Chapter 9
NINE
“No one does [play fair] if they think they can get away with it.”
—Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland
“Watch where you’re going.” I can overlook the snide tone. However, it’s the muttered, “Stupid bitch,” Scarlett attaches to the end of the sentence that I can’t pretend I didn’t hear.
Fucking awesome.
Because dealing with Scarlett is precisely what I need after the debacle of Saturday night.
After I epically left my dignity at Maddox’s feet in his bathroom like some pathetic Hathorne groupie.
I shouldn’t have kissed him, which I swore would never—ever—happen again.
But I got swept up in the moment. Surrendered to the loneliness and misery of having kept him at a distance all these years.
It seemed harmless.
What harm could one kiss do?
Well, it’s now been three days, and I can still feel the press of his lips against mine.
Still taste the bourbon flavor in his mouth.
Three full days with me spent replaying every second of that night, from the moment I walked inside Folly House intending to be a thorn in Maddox’s side to the horrific realization that I was in over my head.
I wish alcohol were to blame for my disastrous decision-making, but nope, that shit was all me. I was stone-cold sober, skulking out of there with my pride in tatters.
Here I thought I returned home as an older and wiser version of my younger self. Ha, wrong! I’m still the same person who easily falls victim to Maddox’s charms.
In a bathroom, Alice, really?
But I hush that annoying inner voice, for once thankful that Maddox’s shenanigans have given me an astounding tolerance for a shocking amount of bullshit.
In fact, I hold my chin up high, my feathers unruffled, as I stop dead in my tracks.
The soles of my black Doc Martens scrape the cobblestones of the path that cuts through Brakel Green.
With one hand curled around a much-needed iced coffee, I use the other to slide the drooping strap of my bookbag back up on my shoulder. “What did you call me?”
How Miss Scarlett-High-and-Mighty-McQueen sneers down her aristocratic nose at me, despite being a few inches shorter, astounds me. A customary smirk twists her cupid-bow red lips, and I roll my eyes at her blatant pretentiousness.
Apparently, today, I chose violence rather than simply walking away without a fight. “Pardon you?”
“Pardon me? No, Alice, I don’t think so.” Hostility laces her tone when she spits, “Move. You’re in my way.”
I love how she punctuates each word as if I’m supposed to be intimidated.
“By all means, Miss Thing. Go right ahead.” I step aside and make a grand gesture for her to pass.
At five feet three, I tower over Scarlett, and yet she somehow manages to be a giant pain in everyone’s ass.
“A bit of advice? Tuck in that fucking attitude.” I rake my gaze over her, from the top of her bright red curls down to the tips of her ebony Louboutins.
“Because, trust me, Scar, the last thing on earth I want is to even accidentally touch any part of you with any part of me.”
Most people are afraid to stand up to Scarlett.
Not only is her temper hot, but she’s also known for running to her daddy so he can dispense swift and cruel punishment on anyone foolish enough to irritate her.
Problem is, she can’t pull that shit with me because, as Ivory’s best friend since we were kids, I’ve practically become a member of the McQueen family.
Roman never retaliates against me when I give Scarlett the same deplorable treatment she dishes out at me.
Honestly, I think he’s secretly glad that someone in Wonderland has the balls to knock his bratty daughter down a peg or two.
“I don’t like you,” Scarlett sneers, as if we hadn’t established this years ago.
I slap a hand over my heart. “Oh, no, the horror! I’m practically shivering in my shoes.”
“As you should,” she snaps.
I take a sip of my coffee and, with a shrug, drawl, “Yeah, no, sorry. I’m not afraid of you, Scarlett. But it’s cute that you keep trying to terrorize me.”
With a flip of her hand, she sends those riotous red curls cascading over her shoulder to spill down her back. “You’re not as untouchable as you think.”
Jesus Christ, there’s so much venom in her tone. “For fuck’s sake, why do you hate me so much? What the hell did I ever do to you?”
I inwardly cringe, suffering from instant regret the second the question flies out of my mouth.
My nemesis narrows those violent eyes on me, and I swear, a blast of frigid air seems to come out of nowhere. She doesn’t answer, of course, and instead hisses, “Why didn’t you stay gone?”
“Why do you care that I came home?”
“No one wants you here,” she grinds out between gritted teeth, jabbing her index finger at me.
The blood-red nail is inches from my face, and when a passing couple slows their pace to stare, she yells at them to keep walking.
Then back to me, she says with an ungodly amount of vitriol, “Even your mother was happier when you were away. Leave Wonderland, Alice. Or better yet, do everyone a favor and this time, actually kill yourself.” Her laugh is bitter and slaps me about as hard as her words.
“Couldn’t even do that right,” she mutters.
Well.
That’s unnecessarily harsh.
And seriously shitty, even for her.
“See, the thing is…” I keep my tone light despite itching to punch her right in her nasty mouth. “I thought about staying in Riverton. But I missed you too much. I had to come back just to be near you.”
Scarlett’s milk-and-honey complexion turns an angry shade of red. Even the tips of her ears are ablaze. It wouldn’t surprise me if her head popped clean off like a burst pressure cooker.
“You’re going to regret that decision. See if you don’t.” Her furious promise is saturated in violence, and for a moment, I’m actually afraid.
But I cover it up with another splash of sarcasm. “Wow.” I sip my iced coffee again before adding, “Keep this up and you’ll make me think you’re obsessed with me.”
Scarlett, the audacious bit of good that she is, plucks the drink from my hand and, with a smirk, stomps to the trash near the curb.
“Obsessed?” She drops my delicious brown sugar oat milk espresso into the bin.
When she strides back, she uses the same false saccharine tone I used on her.
“I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. ”
Nodding, I say, “Sure, you keep telling yourself that, but we both know you missed me. After all, babe, I’m your favorite target.”
“Go fuck yourself!” she yells so loudly that the group of nearby girls sitting on the grass giggle at her outburst. “What are you looking at? Mind your own goddamn business.”
One girl rolls her eyes and whispers something to her companions.
“I see you’re still marvelous at making friends,” I remark.
“I really do hate you,” she practically growls.
“No shit.” I glance at my wrist, checking an imaginary watch. “My, oh my, where does the time go? Wouldn’t want to be late for class. As always, Scar, it’s been an immense displeasure.”
“Bitch,” she spits as I push past her.
“Twat,” I yell over my shoulder, but I keep on walking because I’m so done with her it’s not even funny.
I half expect Scarlett to stick a knife in my back, and when the stab doesn’t come, I breathe a little easier.
A moment later, I hear her heels strike the pavement as she marches behind me.
Forcing myself not to turn around, I forge forward up the path toward Juniper Hall.
Unfortunately, we’re in Painting IV together.
Thankfully, though, I have plenty of backup by way of Ivory and March, and as soon as I step inside the art studio, I spot my best friend at her easel. She’s hilariously ignoring March.
He’s also pointedly ignoring her.
These two have been actively pretending not to have a crush on each other since forever.
I swear, they’re worse than Maddox and me with denying the obvious.
When I’m at my easel, I slide off my bookbag and dump it on the floor beside the stool. “Had a run-in with the Red Queen,” I whisper loudly to Ivory before her sister arrives behind me.
Scarlett earned the moniker when she was sixteen and showed up to a Halloween party dressed as the Queen of Hearts.
That night, she ‘accidentally’ cut Joshua Snyder’s shoulder with scissors.
Scissors. Personally, I think she was going for his throat and missed.
No one knows the entire story, but the girl has always been a sore loser, and she and Joshua were on opposing teams in the chess club.
He beat her fair and square the day before.
Seemed to me that his win didn’t sit well with her.
Next thing we all knew, she charged at him, brandishing those scissors.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say she tried to cut the kid’s head clean off.
He quit the team a few days later.
Ivory, paintbrush mid-stroke, lowers her arm. She doesn’t take her gaze off the lovely flower that’s coming to life in vibrant yellows and greens on her canvas. “Oh, Lordy, what in the world did she want?”
“Same old bullshit.” I shrug before donning the smock I keep neatly folded in my bag. “She tries to make me miserable. Then her panties get all in a wad when I scoff at her shenanigans.”
Ivory’s laughter has the twelve other students glancing our way.
One of those people is March, whose ferocious brown eyes linger longer than necessary on Ivory before returning to his canvas.
He’s actually a talented artist, his sketches surprisingly delicate.
Dare I even call them pretty? And when he refocuses back on the canvas, he leans toward it, scowling as he returns to the shadowed skull he’s working on.
“I’m sorry my sister is such a pain.”
“Not your fault,” I tell her. “She is who she is, and as long as I avoid her, I’m fine.”