Chapter Five I defy you, stars #2
Instead of shaking her hand, I crossed my arms, being careful not to let my fingertips touch the fabric of my own clothes. I gestured to one of the students sitting behind me, a girl who was openly gawking at me.
“Should we switch? I think I heard them say they had a few questions for you about Westfield.”
Of course, the girl behind me hadn’t said anything to that effect in the slightest. But she’d been whispering my stage name to one of the other freshmen, and the chain reaction had caused others to recognize me as Baby Mozart.
Even with the roar of the fan boat, their whispers curdled against the backs of my ears.
That’s her, isn’t it? Baby Mozart.
I heard she got arrested.
I heard she stabbed some man in an alleyway.
I heard she saved him.
I closed my eyes, tuning it out. After all, this was why I’d come to Westfield. But hearing speculation from strangers—no, future classmates—all of it was suffocating.
After the stabbing, reports that the victim had been a Saint James were everywhere.
I’d already been spotted talking to Kasem at Gus’s shop, after all, and given my exceedingly public connection to the fire at Westfield University, I’d been brought in for questioning.
Some claimed my motives had been a revenge killing for Westfield not doing more for the families who had died in the fire.
Other internet sleuths pointed out how some bloodied bills had been found, while others were missing, and started rumors that I’d worked with the attackers because I was a washed-up star who’d turned to robbery to survive.
For a while, I’d seriously thought I’d go down for it.
But then the police questioned the girl on the phone, the one who’d made the actual call to the paramedics.
Her testimony had cleared me, and a few stories started cropping up about how Baby Mozart had reported the crime and helped save the victim.
I’d been let go and the search for the true suspects had started again.
There were speculations that two men had been arrested in connection with the attack and that they’d been let out on bail, but I couldn’t find anything further.
“Don’t worry,” Honey said. “They’ll get over it.
There are tons of famous people at Westfield.
Most of the students—at least, most of us upperclassmen—are low-key about celebrities attending classes with us.
And there are actually a lot in your year.
I think there’s a Hearst, and the usual admits whose parents are senators, and at least one person whose dad starred in another reboot of A Star Is Born.
Do they call them reboots? There are, like, a million of them.
” Her words trailed off into a sigh as she turned to face me, her eyes shifting to my hands before darting to my third-degree-burned fingertips and the bracelet I wore on my left wrist.
It stood out against my dark brown skin, gleaming bright and iridescent under the emerging sunlight. When the RA didn’t speak and just kept staring, I yanked on my sleeve, hiding the Westfield heir’s bracelet from her view.
Her eyes glanced over the rest of me and I could feel her judgment: the out-of-season jeans and yellow turtleneck that I was sporting, the canvas book bag I’d brought with me—all of it I’d gotten from the decrepit alleys of Center City Mall and the free-ninety-nine aisles of its dumpster diving department.
Not exactly the haute couture expected of a former child star.
“None of them have a criminal record, though,” Honey continued. At my expression, she gave me a sheepish look. “Sorry, I overheard. Plus, like I said, a lot of famous people are in your class, and that stabbing was just a few months ago. Did you know he was a Saint James when you tried to rob him?”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read online,” I said.
Luckily for me, she hadn’t made the connection that my bracelet had belonged to the victim. None of the reports had mentioned its existence.
But her line of questioning brought back memories of that night in the alleyway, from the asphalt street streaked in bloodied hundred-dollar bills to our fingers touching, just a brush, and the Westfield heir—Kasem—drawing me closer.
“People are going to wonder if that’s why you enrolled after all these years,” she continued. “Like, are you going to finish the job or something?”
“If the school thought I was a threat, they wouldn’t have let me attend,” I snapped. Heat warmed my cheeks, and I took comfort in the fact that my anger was imperceptible against my dark skin. “Besides, I’m here on a music scholarship.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not entirely.
“I want to play again,” I said. “Like I used to. And I thought being at Westfield for the next few years would help me get back into music without all the baggage.”
“Oh,” the RA said after a long pause, before adding, “That’s so empowering.
Like, that you’re doing music, even though you”—she grimaced—“have been through so much. Like, I always thought, why don’t underprivileged people become doctors or lawyers or financial brokers or something that actually makes money?
But doing art or music or acting or sports totally makes sense for someone like you.
Because art is suffering. And I think that’s really beautiful.
” She took a breath, finally exhaling at the tail end of her tangent.
“You’re so going to love the scholarship student dorms,” she said, smiling.
“There are a bunch of you there with underprivileged backgrounds.”
I didn’t know if she was being condescending or genuinely believed what she was saying, but she seemed to realize the optics of her words, because she added, “Greek life gets their own houses too. Kin to kin, each like to its like—or something like that. That’s how Westfield builds its communities. ”
“And what are you studying again?” I probed. Not that I probably needed to even ask. She seemed like the type of person who’d tell you the last four digits of her Social Security number if you breathed long enough in front of her.
“Math, with a minor in history and fashion,” she said. Then she leaned forward, cupping her hand over my ear before whispering, “But actually, I’m studying to be a part of a coven.”
At my startled expression, she burst out laughing.
“It was a joke, girl. A joke. There were rumors that you were doing psychic readings at the mall where the stabbing happened. You know, Westfield has some sororities that are into that woo-woo stuff. You could probably join, if you’re interested in that new age thing.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” I said, unnerved that she’d once again mentioned the night in the alleyway.
“So then you weren’t doing readings at Center City Mall,” she said. “Damn. You really can’t trust the tabloids.”
This time, I didn’t answer her.
But she was already staring into the distance and, so too, I realized, were the others in the fan boat. A hum of anticipation churned among us as the foggy swamp waters slowly gave way to land.
“There it is,” she said. “Do you see it in the distance?”
Whispers filled the boat. A guy next to me leaned forward in his seat, while another girl cleaned a set of golden theater binoculars that she’d brought with her to get a better look.
My gaze followed hers to the canopy of trees that shrouded the sun-cast morning sky.
Yet even as the first hints of light shone across the swamp, the trees’ tangled branches and drooping leaves were melancholic, like a procession of swooning husks and brittle bones leading to Westfield.
The air was tinged with dirt, and the bitter taste of sulfur burned at the back of my throat.
Here lay death and decay, where the discarded dregs of upper society, nepo babies, the affluent, and the scholarship kids lucky enough to carve out a spot among them, were desiccated into ash and resurrected into something shinier and newer: degree-wielding members of the new elite who could run their parents’ businesses or start their careers as fully formed members of society.
I’d come here for answers. Yet, like the others, I found myself waiting breathlessly for a full view of the school, and when it emerged, I gasped in tandem with them. Honey smiled, as if she too was recalling the first time she’d seen the university grounds.
“Welcome to your new home,” she said to us all. “Welcome to Westfield.”