1. Petra
PETRA
Radcliffe, New England
Present Day
I smell the fire before I see it. Acrid, plasticky, thick—it singes the cold night air as shouts and yells echo around me. In the next few seconds, I see a flaming figure in a mascot costume leap off a balcony, heading straight for the pool underneath the ivy-trailed railings.
Then I hear a loud splash followed by silence.
“What the hell?”
“Was that Benny?”
The kids who have just entered the compound behind me are aptly shocked as well, drawing together and murmuring among themselves.
We all stand rooted to our spots, waiting for whoever the lunatic was to resurface.
“ANSELM WARRIORS, BITCHES!!” a brash voice shrieks from somewhere inside the mansion as the glowing blue waters of the pool roil and break apart.
Soon after, Benny’s shaggy-haired head emerges from the depths, like some dollar-store Poseidon.
Instantly, the music is back on—when had it stopped? I don’t think any of us noticed—and people are crowding around the pool, hooting and cheering Benny as he slowly wades out onto the steps and plonks himself into a nearby lounge chair.
“Dude, that was so sick!” says a burly football player, poetically named Dick or Chad (I don’t really care enough to find out), while Benny chugs down beer from a can like it’s manna from the heavens.
But the sight of another guy near them halts me in my tracks. He’s tall, taller even than most of the football players actually, and athletic. It feels like he’s looking straight over Benny’s head to where I’m standing, an unreadable expression in his piercing blue eyes.
A warm flush covers my face; I have seen him on campus before. Sin something—
“Benny, what the fuck, man?!” Elias’s scream breaks through the swirl of my thoughts. “Why’d you do that? My parents will kill me if they find out!”
“Dude, relax!” Benny rolls his eyes. “Me and the boys were just messing about.”
“You were ON FIRE!” Elias’s eyes are bulging with dread, while others around them are busy creating looping videos of Benny’s jump and posting them to their socials.
And these are my peers, I think with a dejected sigh.
When I look back at the scene, I realize that the blue-eyed guy—Sin—has disappeared.
As I stare back up at the grand facade of the house looming above me, its dark stone exterior softened by the moonlight and the glow from the windows, I realize that coming to Elias Rutherford’s party was probably a mistake. I mean, I could have just stayed home and sketched.
On my eighteenth birthday. That even my parents forgot.
Who am I kidding? That last part is the very reason I’m here.
Look, I get that my parents are busy. Their million-dollar tech company wouldn’t function without my father, who is the CEO, and my mother, the CTO. The same company whose skyrocketing revenues bought me the vintage Prada Mary Janes on my feet and my Valentino crossbody.
But they could spare one day, couldn’t they? For their only daughter?
These gloomy thoughts threaten to overtake my mind, even as the bass from the music inside pulses through the air, vibrating in my chest.
I take a deep breath, steeling myself.
Enough of the pity party.
Time for an actual party.
Tonight, I need to do something different. Amelia’s voice echoes through my errant thoughts: “Celebrate your birthday, Petra. You deserve it.”
By now, I have reached the half-open oak doors of the Rutherfords’ mansion. The artist in me can’t help but admire the building’s ornate stonework and looming towers that seem to yawn toward the sky.
As I step up to the door, sounds of the revelry from inside drift into my ears. Someone has put on a Lorde song, and the melody soothes my frazzled nerves.
Hey, maybe this won’t be so bad, I tell myself before taking a deep breath and entering.
Once inside, Lorde’s husky voice resonates in the air. I look around the rooms, hoping against hope to catch a friendly face, at least one kind glance.
Like most students who go to St. Anselm Hall, the extremely elite, private, co-ed school where I spend the larger part of my days with the sons and daughters of billionaires, Elias Rutherford is rich.
Adding to that, he’s the captain of the school football team, the St. Anselm Heroes. Unsurprisingly, his multi-hyphenate status means that any party he throws is sure to blow up into an all-night event.
Tonight, the grand foyer is bathed in a warm golden glow from the chandeliers overhead, and somebody’s set up a smoke machine in a corner of the living room.
Strobe lights cast colorful patches on the walls, and there are people everywhere.
Raucous groups of jocks exchanging lewd jokes, giggling Instagram fashionistas posing in front of the wall-length mirrors in the hallways, stoned punk-rock kids jamming away in the corner of the drawing room . . .
The party has them all in attendance. And abundance.
Normally, the dense, milling crowd would make me feel suffocated. To be honest, I’m already experiencing a faint sense of claustrophobia from all the smoke and mirrors.
Right, time to find a safe corner, my instincts tell me, so I head for the kitchen and pour myself a much-needed drink.
Thankfully, whatever jungle juice these football bros have mixed together warms me up and calms down my nerves, and I lean back against the cool counter, taking a minute to gather myself.
As I try to relax, I again remember my chat with Amelia from earlier today.
I still remember the first time I stumbled into the chatroom on Instafriends. It was late at night, and the house was quiet, except for the AC’s soft hum. It was another birthday made memorable by my parents’ absence.
My fourteenth, if it matters—it obviously didn’t matter to them.
That was the night I had first clicked on the “Misc Midn8 Meets.” I had shied away from all forms of social media before then, probably because of my utterly bleak outlook on most human beings, borne out of a special kind of isolation called “homeschooling.”
But that night, something about the chatroom called to me. It had been relatively empty, with just a few usernames drifting in and out. I hesitated for a moment, then typed a simple message.
Petrified: Hello, anyone here?
A few moments passed before a reply popped up.
AmeliaEarheart: Yo, love your username! What’s up?
Petrified: Thanks! I like yours, too.
AmeliaEarheart: Why you up so late? Can’t sleep?
Petrified: Yeah it’s been a rough night tbh.
AmeliaEarheart: Sorry to hear that! What happened?
And the rest was history, as they say. That night, I found my soul sister, a girl who lived somewhere in New York while I was in Radcliffe, a few miles away from New Haven. Over the next few weeks, Amelia and I chatted almost every night.
Despite her laconic style, there was a warmth to her messages that made me feel seen, even when she couldn’t actually see me.
Petrified: So, what’s it like going to school in New York?
AmeliaEarheart: Girl, it’s DA BEST! Classes are great, and there’s so much to do. Museums, parks, random street performances that could put bloody Hamilton to shame. It’s like living in a movie sometimes, I kid you not.
Her enthusiasm was infectious. The more she talked about New York, the more I wanted to be there. To walk the same streets and visit the same places with her.
I had long wanted to attend college there, perhaps at the School of Visual Arts or even Parsons, if they’d have me.
And when I met Amelia in that dingy little corner of the internet, it felt like homecoming in a way. Like I had finally found my people.
My happy musings are rudely interrupted by a sudden onslaught of visitors streaming into the kitchen, so I make my way out into the dining room.
The full-length French windows are draped with expensive fabric. The room is lush with potted plants, but these have been moved to one side to create more space for the party.
As I hesitantly push through the crowd, trying to not poke or prod anyone and draw the least amount of attention possible, I can hear snippets of whispered conversations.
“Isn’t that Petra Valentine?” someone says.
“O.M.G. The Petra Valentine? Can’t believe she deigned to come down among us mortals,” a snarky voice responds quite audibly.
The words sting, but I keep my head held high and continue sipping my drink.
“Why’s she here, slumming it out with us peasants?” I hear next, and it takes everything in me not to turn around and walk out instantly. “She’s so stuck up that even her own parents can’t stand to be in the same house.”
Ouch, that really, really hurt.
At this point, I’m desperate to be alone, so I turn the knob on the next visible door, step inside, and close it behind me with a loud bang, not caring who heard it.
Turns out I’m in a guest washroom. I splash some water onto my face and stare at the mirror, not even recognizing the brown-haired, dark-eyed girl looking back at me. When did she—I—become so cynical, so aloof from all the other kids my age? Are my parents the only ones to blame here?
Of course, family has always been a sore subject for me. It’s not like Mom and Dad don’t love me; it’s that they don’t care enough to show it in ways that make me feel valued.
I think back to our last conversation.
“I don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn about this, Petra,” my mother had said in a sharp voice. “Yale is one of the best universities in the world. It’s close to home, and it will give you all the networking opportunities you need.”
“Don’t you ever listen to me?” I’d snapped back. “I don’t want to go to Yale. I don’t want to study law or business or whatever else you think I should do. I want to study graphic design.”
My father had stepped forward, his brow furrowed.
“Graphic design is fine as a hobby, Petra, but you can’t make a living out of it. Think about what you could do with a degree from Yale! Be realistic, Petra, you can always pursue graphic design on the side.”
“A hobby?” I’d repeated, my voice rising. “Can you just . . . It’s not a hobby to me, Dad! It’s what I love. It’s what I want to do with my life. Why can’t you just support me for once?”