Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
HARPER
The mansion rises up in front of me like it was built to make poor people feel small—four stories of blinding white stone, thick marble columns, and so much warm, bright light beaming from the windows it’s practically a lighthouse.
Even the bushes look expensive—perfectly squared-off hedges lining the circular driveway that have their own, individual lights.
I tilt my head back to see the roof and regret it immediately. The whiskey I pre-gamed with sloshes in my stomach.
Three hours ago, I was suffocating in that house.
In my room. In my own skin. Unable to breathe past the weight of Caleb being fifteen feet away in the next room, the ghost of his hands on my body from days ago.
And the sick twist in my gut every time I caught myself wanting him to touch me like that again.
I want strings attached with you, Harper.
So I did what I do best.
I ran.
Borrowed Silas’s spare truck keys—borrowed, not stole, there’s a difference—and drove until the pressure in my chest eased enough to let oxygen back in.
Until I could think about something other than the way Caleb’s voice cracks when he says my name, or how his control was so close to fracturing when he touched me, or the terrifying realization that I might actually care what happens to him.
Fuck that noise.
I’m eighteen in two days. Just two days until Z and I execute our brilliant plan to escape his psycho stepdad and my… whatever the Grahams are to me. Family? The word tastes wrong in my mouth—too sweet and sticky, like artificial cherry flavoring. I fucking hate cherry flavoring.
So tonight’s my last hurrah. One final night of being exactly who I’ve always been—Harper Tucker, the girl who makes bad decisions and doesn’t apologize for them—before I chain myself to a fake marriage and a future that feels like a trap, even if it’s the only way out.
McKenzie’s party was supposed to be exclusive, invitation-only, but high school secrets leak faster than cheap eyeliner.
I saw the crude hand-drawn map taped inside the handicapped stall in the east wing bathroom—the stall everyone uses when they need to skip class or cry or both.
I snapped a pic before it got ripped down.
Of course, I didn’t plan on actually going.
But here I am, because the alternative was staying in that house one more second, feeling like a feral cat trapped just a door away from the stepbrother I have no business having feelings for.
Stepbrother. Jesus Christ. The word should be a bucket of ice water. Should kill whatever this thing is.
Instead, it just makes it more fucked up. More wrong. More something I need to drown in beer and bottom-shelf whiskey until it stops mattering.
The bass from inside the mansion isn’t just music—it’s a heartbeat, thumping through the pavement and up my boots. I take another pull from the flask in my jacket. Dad’s Jack Daniel’s. The good stuff. “Liquid courage,” Mom called it—though in her mouth it always meant “liquid excuse.”
For me, it’s liquid fuck this.
Forget the way Caleb looks at me in the mornings across the breakfast table.
Forget how Helen smiled so huge at me last weekend when I cleared my plate and put it in the dishwasher without being asked.
Forget that damn cat and how, when Silas called me “kiddo” the other day, like it was the most natural thing in the world, something in my chest cracked open just a little.
I push through the front door of McKenzie’s mansion before I can chicken out.
The noise hits first—a wall of sound so thick it’s physical, hammering into my ribcage and rattling my teeth.
Then the lights: laser beams slicing through fake fog, strobing everything in neon pink and electric blue.
Bodies everywhere, pressed together, perfume and cologne as thick as the chemical haze.
A red Solo cup appears in my hand. Some guy, already several drinks past coherent, grins at me with unfocused eyes. I take a sip, bracing for watery beer, and nearly choke.
Jack and Coke. Real Coke. Smooth whiskey that actually tastes right.
These kids don’t fuck around.
I drain half the cup in one go, chasing away the phantom sensation of Caleb’s fingers tangled in my hair, his mouth on mine, his voice ragged against my throat—
No. Not thinking about that.
That’s the whole point of tonight. Drown it all. Forget.
He’s too good for me, and we both know it.
Tonight I just need to lose myself in the noise and lights until there’s nothing left but a warm, heavy body with no inconvenient feelings attached.
The living room’s been gutted into a dance floor, furniture shoved against the walls like they’re in time-out. The fog machine works overtime, pumping white clouds that curl along the hardwood like ghosts. Laser lights cut through the haze in knives of green and blue.
I shoulder deeper into the chaos, watching the hierarchy of high school social dynamics play out in real time.
The chosen few glitter in the middle, snapping selfies every thirty seconds.
Satellites orbit around them, desperate for proximity to popularity.
The wannabes hover near walls. The jocks have colonized the kitchen doorway—red-faced, loud, and sweating booze already, I swear.
And the girls. Jesus. They’re like a cloned species—all wearing heels, barely-there dresses, and chemically identical beach waves in every shade of blonde the salon could produce.
Lips so full of filler they should come with a hazard warning.
They move in synchronized flocks, scanning for cameras like the whole night’s really about content for later.
I catch sight of myself in the massive mirror above the mantel.
Dark hair in a messy ponytail. Trucker hat from a gas station. Thrift store Doc Martens. Walmart jeans with a rip in the knee that’s genuine wear, not designer distressing.
I look like the before shot in a makeover montage.
Perfect.
The whispering starts before I can even move.
“—isn’t that the girl who—”
“—stepbrother’s total social suicide—”
“—trailer trash, obviously—”
Heat flares in my chest, bright and familiar. Part of me wants to walk right over and give them a live demonstration of trailer trash up close. Show them exactly what this East Texas girl learned from years of survival in places that would eat them alive.
But what’s the point?
I’m gone in two days anyway. Let them whisper.
I finish the Jack and Coke and grab another red cup. The drink’s stronger this time. Good. I want the edges of this night to fuzz. I want everything to feel like it’s happening to someone else.
The kitchen’s less crowded, so it’s a little easier to breathe in here.
At least until I see McKenzie herself—wearing an actual fucking tiara—holding court by the giant kitchen island like she’s filming a reality show confessional.
Her friends huddle around her, a flock of concerned blonde heads bobbing.
“My parents will literally kill me if they find out,” McKenzie’s saying, voice pitched high enough to communicate with dogs. “It was supposed to be exclusive. Invitation only. Not a… a… fucking rager.”
She says it like she’s describing a natural disaster.
I bite down on my lip to keep from laughing and down my drink.
This is what stress looks like for these people—Mommy and Daddy getting mad about too many people in the mansion while they’re globetrotting through Italy.
Not wondering if your mom’s boyfriend is going to corner you on the couch again.
Not calculating how many more months until you can legally escape.
Just… rich girl problems.
A guy at the back counter mixing drinks slides me a fresh Solo cup with a smile. I don’t recognize him—he’s older, maybe graduated already—but I take it anyway.
The alcohol’s doing its job now. Warming at the edges, softening the spikes in my chest, turning everything into a low hum instead of a knife to the ribs. The music swells, and I can’t tell if my pulse is syncing to the beat or if the beat’s syncing to me.
Either way, it’s better than all those awful feelings I couldn’t seem to escape, back at the house. I fucking hate feelings.
I drift back toward the living room, weaving past couples making out against walls and clusters of kids capturing their perfect party moments for the algorithm. In the formal dining room—formal, as if—they’ve set up beer pong, and the whoops and groans bleed into the bass.
It’s all hazy now. Not just the booze, though that helps.
The whole scene feels like I’m looking through dirty pond water.
These kids with their orthodontist smiles and trust funds, playing at rebellion in a place where nothing bad can really touch them.
They’ve never learned the math of survival.
Never had to choose between food and keeping the lights on.
Never had to lock their bedroom door against their own mother’s boyfriend.
They’re playing dress-up in someone else’s nightmare.
And that’s fine. I’m not here to educate. I’m here for the noise. For anything loud enough to drown out the voice that’s been getting harder and harder to ignore—
You could stay. They want you to stay.
I kill my drink—third or fourth maybe—and the room starts to smear. The laser lights drag tails across my vision like someone’s smudging neon paint. The bass vibrates in my bones, rattling my teeth.
Someone jostles me hard, and half my drink splashes down my shirt. Normally, that’s where I might shove back and start a fight, but right now?
I just laugh.
Everything’s soft. Muffled. Beautifully meaningless.
Exactly what I wanted.
I get it now—why people live for this shit. If you pretend hard enough and pour enough poison in your bloodstream, it’s almost like being untouchable. Like problems can’t swim through this much fog.
Until the floor tilts.
Too far.
Too fast.