Rich Prick – Tijan Page 0,50

before the hall was flooded. Piss-poor timing.

“I never asked you to do that.”

“You wouldn’t have touched me if I hadn’t. And I know you liked that I kept myself for you.”

The doors opened, and people streamed out.

Mara didn’t seem to care. She shoved me against the locker. Someone gasped, and then the whispers started, the buzzing rose in volume as word was already getting around. This shit would be all over social media in two seconds, and I saw the first camera snapping our pic. Someone else was out and out recording us.

I flipped it off. “Take it down or I’ll bust that phone to pieces.”

The guy’s eyes bugged out and he quickly deleted it. He was gone in the next second, scurrying off through the crowd.

Mara glared like she wanted to kill me. “We’re going to make her life hell. Full disclosure,” she sneered. “I’m the nice one in the group. Not anymore. That girl is going to wish she was dead by the time we’re done with her.”

I saw red and started for her.

Someone screamed beside me, startled at how quickly I’d moved, but I caught myself, holding back.

“Don’t,” I warned, and I was real serious. “Don’t you dare hurt her.”

“She’s a loser, Blaise. What are you doing falling for her? Claiming her? You’re a loser.” She gave me a onceover, but she’d lost her heat. She didn’t mean what she was saying, and then she was just crying. “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

“Mara.” I reached for her, but I didn’t know why. To hold her? Comfort her? I couldn’t do either.

“No,” she choked out, turning and pushing her way through the crowd.

I hung my head. “Fuck!”

25

Aspen

I was sweating bullets, my phone next to me.

Blaise was in school for the last Thursday of the year, and I was sitting in my room. I wished I could talk to him.

Was this dumb of me? A stupid idea?

What sister was nervous about calling her brother? I mean, that alone made me a freak, right?

It wasn’t that Nate didn’t like me, but he was older than me. When he went back to Fallen Crest, he’d been angry, and with reason.

Owen and I had understood it even back then.

Nate had been close with his friend, and then Mom and Dad pulled him away. If someone pulled me away from Owen, I’d—well, maybe that wasn’t a good comparison.

But anyway, Nate and I had always gotten along. When I saw him, he was kind. He said all the things a big brother should say. He asked me how I was, teased me about dating. He asked about school. He asked who my friends were. And those questions were all easy to answer, but they were surface questions. Nate and I never went deep. I never felt like I had a right to ask him about his life, so I sat back and let Mom do the talking. What if he told her the kinds of things I told him? What if he wasn’t fully truthful because he didn’t want Mom and Dad to actually know how he was doing?

He had reason not to trust them. I got it. I wasn’t honest with my parents either. It was easier for them to think everything was fine, and for the most part, everything was fine.

I mean, really, what was my problem?

I had anything I could ask for, except maybe friends.

Having Blaise in my life was opening my eyes. It was as if I’d been living in a room with the shades drawn, the windows closed, and the light off. And I didn’t know it. I hadn’t known there was a world with lights on, the windows open.

Now I wanted things I’d never had before, like friends. How did I get some? Were they worth it? Or maybe not? Maybe they’d just leave too?

This made me feel like a dramatic, angsty teen because yeah, yeah, everyone leaves. That’s how life works. The world goes around and relationships start and end, but saying that to taunt myself and actually living it were entirely different things.

Blaise had chosen me. He’d broken through the walls I had up, though I didn’t feel like I’d really had the chance to build them with him. He was just in, and that terrified me.

But I couldn’t do anything about it now, except ride the wave as long as I was on it. When he would leave, I’d crash and hope to survive it. Because that’s what was going to happen.