eighteen
Rumor Has It… The newly minted prom king was seen cavorting about with the disgraced leper who usurped the throne last year. Did his brain damage lead him to forget who the true queen is, or could a substance be responsible for the lapse?
Gloria Walton
“This seems a bit excessive,” I say as Colt sits down and arranges me on his lap while I set our two plates on the table in front of us.
“A bit?” Harper asks, shoveling rice into her mouth.
“Shut up and eat,” Colt says, scooping up a forkful of food and lifting it to my mouth. I give him a look, but he just waits, his gaze cool and unrelenting, until I open my mouth. He slides the fork in, giving my thigh a squeeze with his other hand. “Atta girl.”
I chew slowly, forcing myself not to look around at all the people who are whispering and staring. The kings occasionally bring a new girl to their table if she’s fire in bed or they want a challenge and are trying to seduce her into sleeping with them. They don’t associate with girls of lower status, at least not publicly—unless it’s to force me to sit at their feet and worship them, that is. But no matter how pretty or unattainable a girl is, they never leave their table for her. That’s what makes every spot at their table precious, exclusive, and so coveted that girls will pull each other’s hair out in locker room brawls over a fucking chair.
“I thought you were the king now,” Magnolia says to Colt, watching him take a bite with the same fork. I squirm in his lap, watching that fork that was just inside my mouth slide into his.
“I am,” he says, forking through the bowl for the next bite. He looks so unconcerned you’d never know the gossip circling the room was entirely about him.
“What are you doing over here at the loser table?”
“Watch it, Blondie,” Harper says.
“Yeah, yeah, you were queen for like one day, a million years ago,” Magnolia says, waving a hand. “No one even remembers last year. Colt was king yesterday.”
“And here I thought you sat with me because I was your hero,” Harper says with a wry smile. “What happened to me being Katniss Everdeen?”
“What happened is that you gave up the rebellion to go have babies with PTSD Peeta,” Magnolia says. “Or Gale? Hmm, I’m not sure which one Royal is. I think he’s a little of both. Anyway, point is, you ran off with Pale Geeta. Meanwhile, the rebel queen became the regular queen, and now there is no rebellion.” She sighs in defeat. “Mama Katniss is the best I can do, so here I am.”
Harper laughs and catches my eye. “No babies here.”
“Look at you, setting an example for our youth,” Colt says.
I reach for the fork, but he gives my thigh a firm smack before picking up the fork and sliding the next bite into my mouth.
“You’re really going to sit here and feed me my entire lunch?” I ask. “My mouth works fine.”
“Yes, it does,” he says with an exaggerated wink.
I roll my eyes, my cheeks heating.
Harper grins and shakes her head.
“What?” I ask, hugging my arms around myself and cradling my elbows. If there’s one person whose opinion I still care about, it’s her.
“Nothing,” she says. “I wouldn’t have predicted it in a million years, but y’all are cute as hell together.”
“Why not?” Colt asks, feeding me another bite. “She’s been obsessed with my dick since you joined the Swans.”
“A lot longer than that,” I mutter.
“Okay,” Harper says nodding as she studies us like she’s putting it all together.
It doesn’t bother me when she does it. I told her about us, so she knows our history, but this is the first time she’s seen us being together. I don’t mind it, though I’m not quite ready to see the rest of the school’s reaction. For now, I pretend the other tables don’t exist, that they’re not all craning their necks to see the restored king now back at the pariah table. At least I don’t have to be scared for Colt anymore. He’s royalty no matter what he does, and graduation looms. No one at Willow Heights is going to mess with him again.
“What do you think?” Magnolia asks, looking to Harper. “Do we ship them or no?”
“I can get behind it,” Harper says. “If anyone can tame Colt, it would be a girl like you, Lo.”
“I’m not trying to tame him,” I say.
“And that’s why I love her,” he says, depositing another bite into my mouth. I nearly choke on the food, my head spinning with the way he just dropped that bomb on the whole table, completely nonchalant, like they’re not the most important words spoken since humans created language.
“Good,” Harper says. “She’s my best friend, so you better treat her right.”
“Hey,” he protests. “I’m your friend too.”
“Yeah, but you can handle yourself,” she says.
“I can handle myself,” I say, giving her a look.
She shrugs. “I know. You’re a survivor. Just sometimes you need help. And that’s okay—that’s what I’m here for. But I know Colt’s track record, and I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
“Hey,” he protests again. “I’m not some dickhead who can’t keep it in his pants.”
She gives him her no-bullshit look. “Aren’t you?”
“He’s not,” I say, giving his knee a reassuring squeeze. “He just needed to find the right fit. And you were right, Harper. He does have the big dick energy—for good reason.”
“Eww,” Magnolia squeals. “That’s my cousin. I’d rather believe the rumors that he doesn’t have a dick.”
“Fair enough,” he says to her. “I feel the same about you. As long as you make it to graduation with your chastity belt intact, I won’t have to lecture you.”
“Ugh, spare me,” she groans. “Preston does that enough.”
“Just looking out for the baby in the family.”
“Don’t worry, I see how everyone in this family fucks their whole lives for love,” she says with a shudder. “Not for me.”
“And that’s why there’s hope for you yet,” Colt says.
Magnolia sighs dramatically. “Long after y’all are gone, I’ll be here, sitting on the empty pavement and worshipping the Mockingjay graffiti left on the side of a building. All that’s left of an icon.”
“Or you could become an icon yourself,” I suggest.
“Don’t give her ideas,” Colt says. “Her plan sounds a lot safer.”
“You can be anything you want,” Harper assures Magnolia. “Rebel, queen, or anything in between. We’re all graduating. The school will be yours next year.”
Magnolia snorts. “Do I look like a queen to you?”
I exchange glances with Harper. “Uh, yes,” I say. “You’ve got everything it takes. The looks, the money, even the name. You’ll have all the status you want with a snap of your fingers.”
“And yet, I sat here even after our name was restored, while Colt sat at the table with the same royalty who tried to beat him to death.”
Before anyone can argue, a hush falls over the café. I turn, dread falling into my stomach like a stone.
Dixie is marching toward us.
I tense, filled with the urge to jump off Colt’s lap. Even though he told me he broke up with her, guilt still knots inside me, like she caught us doing something wrong.
“Shit,” Colt mutters. “I figured she went home already.”
Lunch is halfway over, and at least half the seniors leave instead of sticking around to eat at school. But the rest of the grades are still filling the café, and as Dixie approaches, everyone who wasn’t already staring turns to do it now. This is the confrontation they’ve been waiting for.
“Put me down,” I mutter under my breath. “You’re going to get me killed.”
“I won’t let her hurt you,” Colt says. “I promise.”
It’s too late anyway. Dixie arrives at our table in her usual goth get-up, looking flustered and out of breath. I know she’s going to go for me, not Colt, and that will be the end of curious glances in our direction and the beginning of another wave of relentless bullying. There’s only two more weeks of school, and I know I’ll survive it, but I don’t want to. I’m tired of barely surviving, holding on and praying for it to be over. I’ve been doing that for three fucking years.
I also know what it takes to stay on the throne. She has a long way to fall. I’m already in the dirt. But I have experience with her kind. I dealt with them for three years too. I know how to fight like a queen. I glance around, making sure I have every eye in the café before I take the first shot, my voice ringing through the silence in the lunchroom.
“Did someone order a queen off Wish?”
A few people stifle snickers around the room, but most wait in silence for the verdict.
“Nah,” Colt says, lounging back in his chair. “She comes too fast. She must be from Temu.”
The laughter grows into a quiet chorus rippling over the students. This time, they’re not laughing at me. They’re not laughing out of obligation to me, either. I’m no longer their queen.
She is.
I steel my spine, ready for the blow. She’s as ruthless as I ever was. She won’t hesitate to kick me when I’m down.
“You were never queen at all,” she says. “You’re nothing, Gloria Walton. Nothing but a cheap knock-off. And now you’re trying to come in here and steal my man, and you think I’m just going to let you?”
“I didn’t steal anyone,” I say. “I don’t have to trap a man to keep him around. Colt is a free man. He can make his own decisions, and he chose me. That’s all.”
She snorts. “You really think Colt cares about you? He’s so fucked up he won’t even remember this tomorrow. He didn’t choose you, Gloria. The pills did.”
“You mean the pills you give him when you want him to agree with you?” I ask, even though my heart is twisting inside my chest.
Her eyes widen just a fraction as she glances at Colt, but then she returns her attention to me. “As soon as he’s sober, he’ll come back to his senses, and he’ll come crawling back to me the way he always does. Our love is real. Yours is a sham.”
“You’re delusional,” I say, standing from his lap and facing her squarely. “He broke up with you, Dixie. He doesn’t love you anymore. Move on.”
“You think you won because you convinced a feeble-minded addict to pick you?” she asks. “You’re the one who’s delusional. He’s too messed up to see that you’re a gold-digging liar. You built everything on a foundation that can’t last, just like your reign as queen. What happens when he sobers up?”
“Then I’ll love him just as much.”
I remember him swallowing those pills the night he interrupted me with Maverick. How, afterwards, he wanted to spend time with me. She’s right. They do make him sweet. It makes me sick to know that, to realize I did exactly the same thing she does. I enjoyed how loving he was, how he couldn’t get enough of me. Is that how he acts with her after a few pills? And if he does, is she right? Maybe none of it was real. Not the love confessions, not the promises to take me to see the stars again.
For a moment, we stand facing each other across the table. Our eyes meet, and I can see an understanding there—this is it. It was always going to come down to this, to us. We both know it. We both know what we’re fighting for, and that the other is an equal opponent. She knows what to say, the blows that don’t just sting but crawl inside and fester, sowing doubts that won’t be uprooted easily.
I hold my head high despite the devastating ways she’s exposed my darkest shames to be judged and ridiculed—the fact that my own mother sold my underwear to creeps was used to make me look dirty and desperate; the fact that the Dolces forced me to perform sexual acts on other girls was used to make me look like a nympho who would fuck anyone; the fact that they shared me with their friends against my will was painted as me letting them run trains on me.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks now, her lip trembling as she starts in on her usual victim routine, as if anyone’s ever done or said anything remotely unkind to her. In truth, that’s probably why no girls flirt with Colt—they’re terrified she’ll destroy them like she did me. They don’t throw themselves on him in front of her the way they did Royal when I was with him, as if daring me to stop them. They always sensed that I had no real power. Dixie has more than an illusion bestowed upon her by her masters. She has real power—more than she knows what to do with. Instead of glutting herself and getting drunk on it as she tries to get her fill, the way Duke does, she wields with deadly precision, as calculated and dangerous as Baron.
“Because you did it to me,” I say simply.
Her eyes widen, and then she turns to Colt, trying another angle. “Why are you with her? Whatever she said, it’s a lie! She’s just trying to get back at me for telling the truth about her.”
“She didn’t say anything,” Colt says. “But you’ve said plenty. And not just today. I heard what you said at prom before you got me so drunk I blacked out. I know you’re not looking out for anyone but yourself, Dixie. I should have seen it all along.”
“What are you talking about?” she cries, her gaze moving around in panic as she sees all the silent faces waiting for the truth about her to be exposed at last. Even the elite are listening.
“I’m talking about you telling Lo you’d rather have Royal kill me than let me go,” he says. “I’m not your puppet, Dixie. I’m not your anything. I’m with Lo now.”
Her furious gaze swings back to me. “You—homewrecker!” she hisses. “This is all your fault.”
“I’m just giving you a taste of your own medicine,” I say. “You should know by now, Dixie. Everyone loves to see the fall of a queen.”
I gesture around to the crowd that’s forming around us, a circle of eager faces who couldn’t quite hear us from the corners of the café so they tossed their trash and came closer, ready for a fight.
“What did I ever do to you?” she cries, a tear spilling down her cheek.
“Besides making my senior year a living hell?” I ask.
“I didn’t mean to,” she says, checking the crowd from the corner of her eye as she wipes at her crocodile tears. “I just wanted people to like me.”
I can’t help but laugh. “That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. You wanted to hurt me. I don’t even take it personally. I know you’re a sadistic narcissist. You probably would have delighted in ruining anyone’s life. I was just an easy target, being in the spotlight. And convenient, since you could put yourself in my place and get all the fame your greedy little heart desires.”
“That’s not fair,” Dixie cries. “You of all people should understand, Lo. We both wanted the same things—to be popular, to win prom, to get the crown. Even Colt.”
“Don’t call me Lo,” I grit out. “And don’t pretend you’re anything like me.”
“I am,” she cries. “Except you have it easy because you’re pretty and blonde and skinny. You were, anyway.”
“We are not the same,” I grit out. “You wanted all that. I was forced into it.”
“What difference does it make?” she asks. “We both capitalized on our status when we could. That’s what smart girls do. Using our assets to our advantage to get what we want.”
“I didn’t want it,” I say again. “And I didn’t destroy anyone to get where I was.”
“I’ve been at the bottom too,” she says. “I’ve been where you are. At least you had a leg up. I had nothing going for me. I was the Darling Dog. I was bullied, just like you.”
“Except you’re the reason I was bullied,” I say, my impatience with her poor-me act bubbling up. “I never said a bad word about you, Dixie. And I’m supposed to feel sorry for you because for a couple months, four years ago , some guys with a humiliation kink put a collar and leash on you—which, if the rumors are true, you wanted and enjoyed? How is that in any way comparable to what the Dolce boys do? What they did to me for years?”
“That has nothing to do with me,” she cries.
“No?” I ask. “You’re saying you didn’t know? Everyone knows what they did to girls in the basement. But never to you. You had immunity. You could have changed things with that all-powerful blog you love to brag about. Instead, you ingratiated yourself to them, even behind your boyfriend’s back. You were their little lapdog every bit as much as you were the Darlings’ freshman year.”
“I wasn’t,” she cries, her gaze flying to Colt. “What could I do? I was just a gossip blogger.”
“Liar,” I snap. “You were their informant. And even if you couldn’t have stopped them from doing what they did to me, you didn’t have to use it against me. Not when you knew I wasn’t a willing participant any more than your cousin was.”
She gasps, looking for Quinn at her old table. Quinn, the cousin she ditched the moment she became queen, who now looks like she’s been slapped in the face with a truth she didn’t want to acknowledge. Before Dixie can make an excuse, Quinn jumps up from her table and shoves through the crowd, disappearing into the mass of bodies now spreading into the rows of tables as more students gather closer.
“How was I supposed to know anything about you?” Dixie snaps, turning back to me.
“Oh, but you know everything about everyone, don’t you?” I ask. “You work in the office. You access our records, dig into our financial situations, probably go through our sessions with the school psychologist. Right? You sure had all the ammunition you needed to take me down.”
“I didn’t,” she snaps, stamping her foot. “I just wanted people to give me a chance.”
“People always liked you,” I point out. “They always gave you a chance. You were on homecoming court every year. You’re popular. You have a hot, rich boyfriend. What exactly were you missing out on?”
“I wanted to win prom queen,” she shrieks.
“You probably would have,” I say. “I wasn’t even eligible this year. But you still reveled in my downfall. You crushed me. You might have everyone else eating out of your hand, but I’m not buying it. You’re not a victim. You just played the role to manipulate people to give you what you wanted, like any good narcissist. And you succeeded. You’re the victor. You won. You got everything you ever wanted. And you know why I never fought you for it? Why I never tried to get back on the throne? Because I never wanted any of it. Don’t you get that? I never chose that, never schemed for it, never prayed for it. Not for a single breath.”
“You wanted Colt,” she says quietly.
“Yeah,” I say simply. “I did. And you know what I did about it? I broke up with him to protect him, because I knew the Dolces would kill him if they found out. I didn’t know you would be the one who got him killed instead.”
Dixie’s mouth falls open and then snaps shut. She swallows visibly, her eyes widening as they catch Colt’s expression.
“What did you do?” he asks, his voice so calm and flat it sends an icy shiver straight down my spine.
“Nothing,” Dixie cries. “She’s lying!”
“Go on, tell him,” I say. “Last time he broke up with you, you got him almost killed. Are you going to finish the job this time? If you can’t have him, no one can, right?”
“No, you can’t have him,” she seethes. “You get everything! Everyone! I just wanted one person who would love me.”
“Bullshit,” Colt growls. “If that’s all you wanted, you would have found him years ago, one of the hundred times I broke up with you. But you wanted someone you could control. Someone who couldn’t walk away because he had no other options.”
“That’s what she wants,” Dixie protests, poking a finger in my direction. “She’s painting me as the bad guy, so she’ll look better after all she did to ruin your life. You can’t believe her!”
“I can’t believe you,” he says flatly.
“After all this time, how can you doubt my intentions?” she wails, hiding her face in her hands. “How can you take someone else’s word against mine? You can’t really think I’m as bad as Gloria Walton.”
“No,” he says slowly. “You’re worse. She never pretended to be anything other than a self-serving bitch. Now give me back that fucking ring.”
There’s a gasp and a murmur around us as Colt holds out a hand.
“No,” she cries, clutching her hand protectively to her middle. “You’re not thinking straight. She’s a snake trying to poison what we have because it’s pure and real, and she’s jealous. She has nothing. But we have each other. We’ll always have each other.”
“No,” he says simply, his outstretched hand still hovering, waiting. “We won’t.”
“Colt,” she whimpers, her eyes filling with tears again. “You have to see her for what she is. She’s nothing, just a dirty liar, a pretty fake who’s seducing you and taking advantage of your injury because she knows you don’t know better. How can you not trust me after all I’ve done for you?”
“I don’t trust you because you’re a better match with Baron Dolce than me,” he says quietly. “You’re the only monster in this world who might be more self-centered and sociopathic than he is.”
He turns away from her, his blue eyes like storm clouds as they sweep over the crowd. At last, his gaze comes full circle and lands on me, the fury there taking my breath.
“What did she do?”
I swallow, my pulse fluttering like a swarm of moths, sticking in my throat and silencing my voice. Fear rises inside me, the old familiar shadow that’s hidden me so many times. It reminds me that being seen always, always leads to consequences, and consequences are never good. Silence keeps me hidden, keeps me frozen, camouflaged in stillness, like prey that has no chance of escape once the predator sees her. Silence is protection. Silence is safety.
But I’ve never been safe, no matter how still and empty and quiet I made myself. No matter how limp I made my ragdoll body when they pounded into it with bruising force, no matter how hollow I made my numb heart when they shattered it with casual cruelty, no matter how silent I stayed while a thousand screams tore me apart inside, it never saved me.
Maybe I can still save me, though.
If silence isn’t the answer, then maybe my voice is.
“She told Royal you were hanging out with Harper that day,” I say, my voice a scratchy croak, as if it hasn’t been used in years. “That’s how he found out.”
“That’s why Royal almost beat me to death.”
“I told you that’s why,” Dixie shrieks, pointing at Harper. “It’s because of her!”
His jaw clenches, but his gaze never flickers in her direction. Sharp and remorseless as a surgical instrument, it holds me pinned like the butterfly he calls me. “You knew?”
My heart stops, and fear tightens its grip again, screaming for me to shut my mouth tight and endure, that we will get through. Or maybe it’s not the voice of fear, but the voice of my mother, the mantra she hammered into me as hard as the walls of the iron fortress she built around us while she told us it was a golden castle.
“Everyone knows,” I whisper. “It was on Rumor Has It .”
He inhales sharply through his nose, the muscle in his jaw ticking, his teeth clenched. His gaze is the white-hot of the blue part of a flame as it blazes over the crowd. At last, it settles on the girl on his other side. Harper’s mouth presses into a tight line. For once, she doesn’t have a smart comeback. She’s as silent as I am, as Colt is when, without a word, he turns and walks away. The crowd parts for him, a shadow of fear in every eye as it refuses to meet his gaze. The students shuffle backwards, then stitch themselves back together behind him, swallowing him as if he were never there at all.
Pain pierces through me, a corkscrew of cold steel dragging me after him like a cork being pried from a wine bottle. I can’t let him walk away, can’t let him hold the pain I saw in his eyes by himself. It’s not just Dixie who betrayed him. It’s all of us.
I take a step in that direction, but before I can part the crowd, a thud to the center of my back sends me stumbling forward.
“You bitch,” Dixie screams, her fist ramming into my spine again.
The pain pierces through my body, throbbing in my belly like a punch to the solar plexus. I turn back, rage slowly churning inside me, building like a tidal wave.
“I thought you told him everything he missed when he lost his memory, Dixie,” I say through clenched teeth. “I guess you left out what you did to make it happen.”
“I didn’t!” she snarls, her face red with fury as she jabs a finger at Harper. “It’s her fault!”
“You put it on your stupid gossip account,” I snap. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d throw your boyfriend to the wolves for a few minutes of fame. How many likes is Colt’s life worth to you?”
“They didn’t take his life,” she points out. “And how was I to know Royal would lose it like that?”
“You knew,” I grit out. “You knew exactly what he was like. You knew better than Harper at that point, probably even better than Colt. You can stop playing dumb now. Colt’s not here to see it, and I know you’re as far from stupid as you are from innocent. A queen always plays up her best assets, Dixie. Why not let the whole school know how manipulative and conniving you really are before they graduate and it’s too late? Don’t you want them to worship your brilliance?”
“I am brilliant,” she snaps. “I beat you, didn’t I?”
“Interesting choice of words,” I say. “Is that what you think you’re going to do now? Condemn me to the same fate as Colt? Royal’s gone, and even if he hates me, he wouldn’t hit a girl. He always thought you were a pathetic little worm anyway. But Duke’s still here. How are you going to turn him against me, convince him to kill me?”
“You act like I did it on purpose,” she says. “I was just posting gossip. I didn’t know Royal would try to kill him. You think I’d do that to my own boyfriend?”
“But he wasn’t your boyfriend, was he?” I point out. “He broke up with you, and you just couldn’t stand that, could you? He had to be punished. Maybe you didn’t know Royal would try to kill him, but you knew he’d give him a good beating. Put him back in line for you, like he did all those other times, so you could swoop in and prove your loyalty again.”
“I did prove my loyalty,” she screeches. “I sat by his bed all that time! It’s not like I wanted him to lose his memories.”
“No, you couldn’t have predicted that,” I say. “But you sure as hell took advantage of his amnesia to spin the story you wanted him to hear. You waited to pounce the moment he woke up so you could make sure he saw you as a doting girlfriend and never found out what you did.”
“I love him,” she snaps. “I would never hurt him.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” I say. “You let other people do your dirty work. You knew Royal’s buttons, knew which ones to push and where to aim him to get the job done when he was in a blind rage. Maybe you didn’t want him to kill Colt, but you sure as fuck were willing to risk it.”
“I just wanted to get him back,” she cries. “After you stole him. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours!”
“Except I would never have told anyone about us,” I say. “I didn’t even tell him, even though it made him hate me, because I didn’t want any chance of the Dolces finding out. You jumped at the first opportunity to spread your nasty little rumors, and for what? A post you deleted. You don’t even get to see those likes. How many followers did you get for that post?”
“It’s not like that!”
“Isn’t it?” I ask. “Did you consider what would happen if he died, how much fame you’d wring out of that tragedy? Then you would have gotten to play the victim again, the grieving widow, like you played grieving best friend when Crystal disappeared. Imagine how many comments you would have gotten on your blog post announcing his death. You could have leveraged that into a spot at the popular table, maybe even bagged one of the elite guys for some sympathy play. And then you’d have sunk your claws into him just like you did Colt, once you got rid of the stain of Colt’s reputation on yours, of course. Was that the backup plan, in case he died?”
“You’re the psycho,” Dixie says. “I would never think of something so devious. I just made a mistake! If I was so scheming, would I make a miscalculation like that?”
Suddenly, I know how to destroy her, how to turn her sycophants against her, to give her a taste of her own medicine. She curried favor with the Dolces from day one, and ever since, she’s been the luckiest girl in school, untouched by their cruelty, immune to the consequences the rest of us face. She calls herself the people’s queen, but she’s as removed from her subjects as Marie Antoinette, watching the destruction caused by the Dolces from the safety of her ivory tower. She should know how easily alliances are forgotten, but it’s never happened to her, so she’s never had to face that kind of betrayal.
I shrug. “Okay. Maybe you’re not a mastermind at all. You never thought through any of the gossip tidbits you posted. They were just a little bit of dumb fun. You didn’t mean for him to get hurt. And you didn’t hide anything, you just got sloppy and forgot to tell him about the post when he woke up.”
Her eyes narrow, her nostrils flaring as she glares at me. “I’m not sloppy.”
I shrug. “Sure seems like it. I mean, it’s one thing to make a miscalculation, but for it to be an accident… It didn’t take a genius to know Royal would be mad.”
“I didn’t know he’d go that far,” she insists, stamping her foot.
“Okay,” I say. “If you think about it, I guess that makes sense, since your blog success is basically a fluke too. Anyone could regurgitate the drama every day. You just thought of it first. Really, you’re more lucky than brilliant.”
“It’s not luck,” she fumes. “I work my ass off for it.”
“Seems like luck,” I say. “Everyone posts on social media. Yours just happened to go viral. Everything always works out for you, but if you didn’t plan it, then you can’t really take credit for it.”
“I did plan it,” she explodes. “I plan everything! Nothing works out for me! I work myself to the bone for every drop of success, every like, every comment. I have to plan fifteen steps ahead because you plan ten! You have no idea how hard it is. I can’t get famous for my looks. I have to be smarter, and work harder, than anyone at this school, to dig up every morsel of gossip to feed the bloodthirsty mob, so they won’t come for me!” She stops, breathing hard, her face flushed.
“And there it is,” I say, throwing my arm wide, toward the crowd. “You plan everything. You really are the mastermind, Dixie. And now everyone knows it. They know what a scheming bitch you are, and how you played them all while thinking how clever you were to stay ahead of the game. They know what you really think of them.”
“I will end you,” she grits out. “You won’t get away with this.”
“All I want is to get away from you,” I say, turning away.
“He’ll never love you as much as he loves me,” she calls after me. “You’ll always share him with his addiction.”
When I shove through the crowd and don’t see him, I hurry outside, heading for the bleachers, my pulse fluttering madly, a butterfly trapped against a window, unable to break through and get to what it needs. I need Colt, need to know he’s okay, to tell him I’m sorry and beg for forgiveness on my knees.
I remember what I said about fighting for a man, but I was wrong. Colt was always worth fighting for. It’s not when you find someone worth fighting for that you throw away all you believe in and break all your own rules. It’s when you lose someone worth fighting for.