27. Lilah
LILAH
Heavy, curdled, bile-inducing embarrassment kept me from sleeping Saturday and Sunday night.
Yesterday, I’d fled early to a library a bus ride away to avoid him, but now it was Monday and I’d have to see him.
Bleary-eyed, I left the house at nearly dawn to avoid my morning ride with Mason.
At least it was March and I could no longer see my breath.
After months of riding to school in Mason’s warm car with a melty breakfast sandwich on my lap, the walk felt like a grind.
I’d taken my top off, for once trying to be a little adventurous, and what had it gotten me? My maybe-boyfriend dragging me out of the hot tub and tossing my clothes at me.
Nothing to see here, only Lilah Byrd making a complete fool of herself while trying to get a little more than over-the-shirt action from Mason Shaw.
I stared down at my chest, currently covered by my coat and my Hawthorne Prep uniform, and tried to figure out what about my breasts had switched off the light of desire in his eyes.
I’d been on his lap, grinding with wild abandon, wondering if tonight was the night we took the next step.
I could feel his thick length between my legs and couldn’t ignore the molten, pulsing feelings between my thighs.
And Mason had only been thinking about getting me the hell off him.
I folded in on myself, the hot flames of humiliation burning up inside of me.
He would come looking for me—of course he would—so my normal hiding spots wouldn’t work. New plan.
After my concussion, I’d been given a free pass to go to the nurse’s office if there were any lingering headaches or issues. I hadn’t used it yet, so he’d have no reason to check here.
By the second day, the nurse and I had become best friends, but it was only a matter of time before he figured it out. When I was home, I kept all the lights off if he wasn’t at a game or practice.
During school, I did my classwork in a dark nurse’s room, sitting on a cot with a surprisingly soft blanket on it. But it was so cold that my teeth chattered and the throat-lozenge-and-rubbing-alcohol smell made me a little dizzy.
I ducked out in the period before lunch and headed to the sewing lab. There wasn’t a class in there this period, and if I was lucky, I could do a little work on the dress I needed to finish by the end of the week, then leave before lunch, when Mason would probably show up to see if I was here.
The fabric slid along my fingers as the needle and thread turned my pinned work into a permanent gather at the waist of the halter top dress. I tugged one of the pins out and stabbed myself. Sharp pain lanced through my thumb.
I sucked on the side of it. The thin metal had slid in right at the sidewall of my nail. The worst possible spot and so hard to keep a Band-Aid on. Stupid move on my part. Ugh, it was bleeding more than usual. Luckily, there was a bathroom right across the hall.
The hallway wasn’t too busy. But the flawless chestnut beachy waves of Sophia’s hair caught my eye.
Keeping a tight grip on my finger, I jogged over to my fellow senior.
“Hey, Sophia.” I pointed to the sewing room. “I’ll be done with the dress by tomorrow. All I need to do is hem the bottom. If you want, you can try it on, so I can make sure we got the length right.”
She clenched her teeth and sucked in a breath in an oopsie expression. “You didn’t get my text.”
“I haven’t looked at my phone since last night.” Since we weren’t allowed to have our phones on in school and I was avoiding all messages from Mason.
“My mom has a specific aesthetic she was going for with the party, and when I showed her what you’d come up with, she didn’t think it was the right fit.”
An ego blow.
Her hands shot out to grab my arm. “I loved it. But you know how moms can be.”
Double gut punch.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Oh shit, Lilah!” She pointed down at my hand. “You’re bleeding.”
Red beaded and streaked from between the fingers pressed to my thumb.
“Sorry for the late notice,” she said. “You can sell it to someone else, though, right?”
“Right.” I backed away and rushed into the bathroom, cranking on the faucet and running my throbbing finger under it. The blood slowed and I wrapped a paper towel around it to keep pressure on it.
I went back inside the sewing room and added tape to my makeshift bandage.
My finger pulsed with its own little heartbeat.
The dress I’d been excited to sell and make some extra cash with was now wasted time, material and money.
Ugh, I should’ve made her give me a deposit or pay upfront.
I’d just been so relieved someone wanted me to design them a dress again that I’d jumped at the chance.
Dropping the presser foot back down, I pushed the dress the rest of the way through to finish the waist seam.
Natalie burst into the sewing lab, eyes ringed red, chest heaving and fists clenched at her sides. “You couldn’t even give me a fucking heads-up?”
I stood from my machine, concern and confusion rippling over me. “A heads-up about what?”
She stabbed a finger at me. “You said you weren’t applying.”
“Applying to what?”
She scoffed, eyes burning with anger and unshed tears. “You knew I needed this. You have so much, Lilah.”
Our conversation might as well have been in Latin and Sumerian.
I crossed the room. “Natalie, take a deep breath and explain what is going on.”
“The Future Fashion Award.”
Crickets chirped inside my head. “What about it?”
She whipped her arms out to her sides, knocking mine off her shoulders. “You applied when you said you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t. I didn’t.”
“Then how are you a finalist?” She shoved her phone in front of my face.
My eyes couldn’t focus on the bobbing phone in her trembling hand. I took it from her and scanned the words in the email announcement.
There were five finalists for the Future Fashion Award and my name was number two on the list.
Natalie snatched her phone from my grasp. “Remember now?”
Confusion continued to swirl and I rubbed at my temple. “I didn’t do that.”
“Why even try to pretend at this point? You fucked me when you’ve already got enough scholarship money coming out your ass.”
“I haven’t won anything yet. And I didn’t apply, Natalie.”
The door opened and Mason burst in wearing a wide grin. The kind that normally made my knees all soupy, but then I remembered the hot tub and now an ominous plunge swept through my stomach.
His smile faltered when he took in the scene in front of him.
Natalie looked me up and down, eyes pouring venom but filled with tears.
“Oh, so you didn’t apply, just got your new rich boyfriend to pull some strings.
And here, I thought you weren’t like them, but you’re exactly like them.
No—worse, because I expect them to fuck us over, but it didn’t take you long to want to leave being one of the poor scholarship kids behind.
” With a hard shoulder hit on her way past me, she sent me banging into the solid sewing desk.
Her pain tore at me. She’d been nice to me even when Mason had tried to tear me apart. But I hadn’t applied. The confusion throbbed behind my eyes.
I rubbed at my sore hip. My design notebook had gone missing. I’d figured it had fallen deeper into my trunk. Then it was back and I brushed it off as my brain just not braining when I’d looked for it. But a curdled-milk feeling licked the back of my throat.
Mason rushed over to help me stand. “What the hell is her problem?”
“Did you apply to the Future Fashion Award for me?”
A stunned look flickered across his face. “Are you okay?” He reached for my hip where I held it.
I stepped away. “Did you?”
“Do you need ice? Why’s your finger all wrapped up?”
I glared at him. “I asked you a question.”
He dragged his hands over his head and then down over his face. A screamed confession would’ve been louder.
I staggered back. “You stole my drawings.”
“Borrowed. Only because you wouldn’t have applied yourself.”
“For good reason, Mason.” My voice bordered on a shriek.
“How can more money be a problem? All I was trying to give you were options. You were freaking out about not getting in anywhere. So—”
“And I wasn’t turning to you to fix it, only to be someone to be there for me while I figured it out.
I had a plan. Now I’m in the running for a scholarship I didn’t want in a major I didn’t want to pursue, and if I get it, then I’m out of the running for the Windsor Award.
How’s the Hawthorne Awards committee going to look at me and think I’m serious about the Windsor when they see I’ve also applied for the Future Fashion Award, Mason? Other people need scholarships too.”
“So you should hamstring yourself because some people can’t hack it? You’ve got talent. You deserve it. You could go to Rhode Island Design.” He raised his voice, nostrils flaring.
“I’m not going to Rhode Island! That would be an insane, off-plan decision.” Why’d he even want me there? He hadn’t even wanted me this weekend.
“Why would that be so bad? Why would it be a fucking nightmare to be ten minutes away from me?”
“It hasn’t been a picnic being that close so far.
” Was I being mean? Maybe, but I couldn’t care at that moment.
“What happens when I can’t get internships because I can’t afford to eat or pay rent?
What happens when I graduate and need to do two years’ worth of internships or apprenticeships in New York or London or Paris and have no money?
You’re ready to bankroll me? Become my patron? ”
“Yes, if that’s what it takes.”
I stepped toe-to-toe with him, an angry flush rushing through my body. “How stupid would I be to depend on you for my entire future? To hang my safety and security on your feelings for me? Can you hear how insane that is?”
“Me wanting to take care of you, not wanting to have to go months without seeing you, isn’t insane!”
“Four months ago, you were ready to ruin my entire life, Mason,” I shouted so loudly my voice cracked.
The bell chimed, slicing through the heavy breaths coming from both of us. I whirled around and yanked my bag off the floor.
“We’re talking.” Mason stormed after me.
“Some of us still have to report to class and keep our grades up to graduate.” I ducked around the drafting table and out the door at the front.
Mason called after me, but I took off running, not able to have this conversation now.
This whole day had been craptacular. Things had been going so well.
I’d forgotten I’d been wait-listed at every single college I’d applied to.
That was how good the past few weeks had felt.
But in the back of my mind, the weight of that rejection was piled up with even more stress.
I’d been avoiding it rather than facing it.
The little dream world I’d been hiding in had been ripped away.
Wait-listed everywhere. A dress with no buyer. A maybe-boyfriend who didn’t want to see me naked. Natalie’s furious anger.
Her sharp words sliced deep. She’d thought I’d lied to her and purposefully tried to screw her over.
Instead of taking my spot in the front row of World History: Modern, I settled at the back, yanked out a piece of paper and folded it to keep my hands busy.
Too bad they were shaking like I was on a rocket into space while my finger continued to bleed through my makeshift bandage.
How could he do that? Steal my work that only a handful of people had even seen and apply for a scholarship without letting me know? Then it struck me. An avalanche of realization.
His Christmas gifts had been equal parts med school and fashion.
I had thought he was acknowledging all the parts of me, but now the fashion things felt like he’d been priming me, getting me to think even more about designing clothes, getting the creative juices flowing to make it easier for him to convince me to leave my med school dreams behind and trail after him like a starstruck puppy depending on his kindness and feelings for me on a given day to hang my future on.
I hated that what he had done made me second-guess his intentions.
Raw, aching pain radiated from my chest throughout class.
My future was one I’d decided before Mason.
It would be so easy to give in to everything he said and go for those other dreams that had lived in a fantasy world in my head, but who would be there to catch me when I fell? There was always a fall.
Mason wanted to believe things wouldn’t change, but I had to face reality. Even my own dad barely knew what to do with me. I’d been too much. He’d only ended up stuck with me because foster care was the alternative.
Whatever Mason felt for me burned with a heated intensity now, but he’d gone cold after I tried to get closer to him and embarrassed the crap out of myself.
Wanting him didn’t mean I could bank a pipe dream of a career on anything other than myself.
Medicine. Even that wasn’t guaranteed, but there were other paths I could pursue if I failed along the way.
Paths that would pay well and keep me from living out of a car I didn’t even have.
What had this past weekend been about? He wanted me to follow him to college, but the second I stripped down in front of him, he pushed me away?
Mason’s plan sounded so easy. The path of least resistance at this point. Complete the scholarship requirements. Maybe win, maybe not, but put in an application to Rhode Island Design to see if I even got in and let him handle it all. We’d be minutes apart for however long it took him to go pro.
Then I’d be alone all over again, forgotten, the girl he’d once cared a lot about but who didn’t compare to professional-level attention. Because I couldn’t believe what we had would last. If I thought it would, the shattering of my heart would be irreparable when it all ended.
It always ended.