Forty-One
I’ve been surprised at how much I like going to school here.
The townhouse is close to everything, and if I decide to take classes full-time in person, HU is within walking distance.
But I don’t want that. Especially not with Gabe here.
I do everything online and only run over to campus for network meetings or when I’m working on stuff for school.
My grandmother chaired the alumni events for years and donated so much money that the library has our last name above the door. I’m a third-generation Pierce to go to Havenwood University, and being here is helping me get some of my pride back.
After the news broke about my dad, I felt like my name was dirty. I was the daughter of a bad man, and I was convinced that everyone thought that. I was aware of how everyone saw me now; they all thought I was just as bad as he was. So I stopped going out. I didn’t want to be seen anymore.
Honestly, I’m glad that he’s dead. What he did to those girls was awful.
And they’re only the ones that I know about.
I’m sure there’s more, there always is. It’s one of the reasons that I can’t wait to be Payton Garcia one day.
Then I’ll be Gabe’s wife and no longer thought of as Mason Pierce’s daughter.
I could’ve dealt with the drug charges that he was originally arrested for with no problem. I don’t care about the coke or the other drugs that he used to do. I didn’t care then either.
I know all about Gabe getting the products that Val would sell to our classmates.
The first time he called drugs that, I had no idea what he was talking about, and he had to explain it to me.
And then he explained everything else. He’s always been honest about who he is and what he has to do. He’s never lied to me. Not once.
We had a plan to make it work after Kings, and he’s still promising me that it will.
But things are different now. We lost so much time.
His cousin stole it from us, and I think I hate her more right this second than I did when all of this was happening three years ago.
Even now, lying naked next to him in our bed, I feel cheated.
She took him away from me for 441 days. That’s 10,584 hours and 635,040 minutes.
And because of Valentine, I’ll never get that back.
It makes me hate her so much that I can’t help but smile thinking about it; it’s like all my passive aggression has become present again.
I’ve been taking it out on her hockey boyfriend whenever I can, making him the fucking star of social media.
He may be used to the spotlight, but I know that Val can’t stand it.
I hope it makes her uncomfortable to open her phone and see his name everywhere.
I can’t believe little Valentine got herself a man. Gabe was in total shock when I told him that I found her kissing some hockey player in the library. I have no idea how she got him to even look at her, but I’m so glad that she did.
After I saw him, I looked him up. It was easy to figure out who he was, even amongst all the other good-looking men on his team.
He was handsome and rugged and looked like he could be from New York.
He looked like he could handle it. He also looked like someone who was going to make both my grandmother and the boys happy.
My grandmother told me not to embarrass her and is expecting me to live up to her name.. Even while on a permanent vacation in Europe, she’s still pulling the strings that are tied to me. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I also had no idea how I was going to live up to it.
And then I had an idea—that idea turned into a plan—and now, Gabe and Dylan are gonna use that plan to proposition Val’s boyfriend. Not only will we own Val, but if her boyfriend wants Val’s debt paid off, then he’s gonna need to pay too.
I might have money coming to me in the future, but it’s not here now. Gabe wants to pave his own way, and right now, until he can get back on his feet, he and Dylan are moving forward with the plan that we created.
Dylan was Gabe’s cellmate, and they became good friends while they were inside.
He’s twenty-five and did two years for running bets, scamming credit card companies, and playing cons.
A few months after he finished his parole in New York, he asked Gabe if he could live with us, and after he was here for a few weeks, he talked to us about an idea that he had.
He started partying as soon as he dropped his bags off in the guest room, and I don’t think we saw him for the first seven days that he was here.
According to him, he was “living the college experience he never got.” He loved going out where all the athletes live and the sororities were. Those were his two hangouts.
One night, last November, he asked us to come with him to this hockey party out on Jock Row, and we watched him sell out of the product that he brought within thirty minutes.
I remember standing on the sidewalk in front of the big football houses and Dylan telling Gabe that they should run HU like they were each doing before they were in Danbury.
Make some money like they talked about doing when they were on the inside.
I told them no date-rape drugs, and Gabe agreed. Dylan just smiled as the ambulances and cop cars raced to the other side of campus. I heard that some girls got attacked in a dorm that night.
They started selling and set up a delivery service. The extra money helped. My dad’s estate is still tied up in court, which means so are my bank accounts.
My grandmother is generous, but there’s always a condition attached. She used to call it “a penny and a promise,” and I try not to ask her for more than my monthly allowance, which isn’t a lot, considering who she is and what she’s worth.
She also thinks that I need to “learn some responsibility,” so I told the two of them that I’d handle the orders and make sure it all goes smoothly. Right from our living room. In my grandmother’s townhouse.
We were good for two solid weeks before Dylan brought this guy home from one of his trips to Jersey.
Evidently, he and Dylan had run in the same circles and went way back.
His name was Jeremy, he had a coke problem, and no redeeming qualities.
He was thirty-two and creepy, and I didn’t want him in the house. So Gabe sent him out.
We had a crew of people who pushed for us, and they ran all over campus doing deliveries, but I didn’t want him at school. Instead, I had Gabe send him downtown and further into the Havenwood Hills, and I really didn’t care how he felt about it. He was gross, and I didn’t like him.
He wanted us to start selling GHB, roofies, and Special-K. I saw the way his cloudy eyes lit up when he mentioned each date-rape drug, and I just knew by the eagerness in his voice that he’d used those before. Ick.
He would do this really creepy thing before he left to go out, and it took me a few times seeing it to put it all together, but I did. He wears a body camera, and I’m pretty sure he records himself. Double Ick.
He’d put it on and he’d stand around the house, looking for an angle that he liked while checking his phone to make sure it was recording. He said it was for “people watching” before he asked me to stand in front of him so that he could adjust the camera to be eye level with my tits. Ewwwww!
Gabe threw his sorry ass out, and Dylan had a tantrum about it. A week later, Dylan woke us up in the middle of the night to tell us that Jeremy had been stabbed to death in the back of an alley. I remember thinking that he probably deserved it.
That was a few days ago. And now Dylan’s got his friend’s phone and body cam footage. When we watched it, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and what I was feeling. Because there was Valentine Garcia stabbing this asshole to death… and for the first time, I hated her a little less.