sea green hair tousled by the wind. After a moment, he ashes his cig against the side of the table and burning embers crumble to the bench seat below.
“Because, I don’t understand you. We … treated you like shit. And then you came back all dolled up and ready to kill. Then the girls …” Zayd just stops talking and sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, he looks at me. “This whole year is for fucking nothing if you go to this party with me.”
“It’s not. It’s your chance to say sorry, if you’re sorry at all.”
Zayd freezes and reaches up to run his fingers through his hair. My skirt rides up my thighs as I adjust myself, and he notices right away, taking in my garters and thigh-high socks with interest. My finger reaches out and teases around the edge of the Burberry Preparatory Academy crest that’s sewn into the pocket of his jacket.
“The girls have been after your blood since before winter formal last year, you know that right?” Zayd looks over at me, and the stark truth is written all over his face. My hand moves from his pocket to the bit of tattoo I can see on his chest. When I dive my fingers underneath his shirt to touch his skin, he doesn’t stop me. Instead, he reaches up and presses my hand against him. “I can’t just undo everything that’s happened. That’s what going to this party with you would mean.”
“It would mean the world to me, is what it would do,” I tell him, and our eyes lock. Tentatively, he hooks an arm around my waist and pulls me into his lap. It feels so good to be sitting with him again that for a moment, I just close my eyes and relax into it.
“You don’t have any business hanging around with an idiot like me,” he says, and I can hear it in his voice now, guilt, thick and heavy and weighing him down. “This is a den of wolves, Marnye, and you shouldn’t be here.”
“And yet I am,” I say, thinking of the tattoo on my hip. “Go to the party with me, Zayd.”
After a moment, he sighs and puts his chin on the top of my head.
“Fine, but shit, this is stupid,” he grumbles, growling a little under his breath. “You’re going to get yourself fucking killed, Marnye.”
The scary part about his statement is that … he’s almost right.
The academic battle royale at the end of the year almost kills me. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, and my test scores are so alarmingly close to Tristan’s that it comes down to just a few assignments. Namely, that poor essay score and test grade he earned himself by messing with me. If he hadn’t done that, he might’ve won.
“Congratulations, Marnye!” Miranda cheers, throwing her arms around my neck and giving me a squeeze. Andrew is holding balloons and chocolate, while Zack’s got a case of beer and a congrats card, and Windsor spins a freshly delivered pizza on his palm that he snatched from the end of the year pizza party in The Mess. Nobody actually hangs out at the pizza parties: students just jack food and run. The staff doesn’t even mind. Why should they? Today’s the last day of exams, and tomorrow is the official last day of school and the graduation gala.
None of us will be there however because we’ll all be on a four hour drive to Lake Tahoe, and the Royal Pointe Lakeside Lodge and Guesthouse. It used to belong to the founder of the academy, Lucas Burberry, but was gifted to the school’s foundation after his death. It’s worth over seventy-five million dollars, and houses a massive dock that’s become a hangout for the super-rich. Most of the students at Burberry have parents who keep boats there.
My friends pile into my dorm, and we pass around the pizza, beer, and sodas while a movie that nobody’s watching plays in the background. Vaguely, I wonder where the Idols are right now. The girls have backed off quite a bit since the drowning, but I don’t think that’s out of charity or because they feel bad. Oh no, I imagine things are about to get way worse for me.
Windsor lays on the bed with his head in my lap, and I get these strange tingles all over my body. I know he’s just naturally flirty and touchy-feely, and