not true. You know it and I know it. I know Will maybe better than anyone.”
She should be trying to destroy me right now.
She went on. “He really does like you, and the way you look at him . . . the others have seen enough to know that hurting him would hurt you. And they’ll use it.”
I let out a long breath. If what she was saying was true, then I had left a gaping, vulnerable hole in my plan.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, suspicious.
“Because I care about him too much to let that happen,” Lola said, her eyes darting away again. She took a breath. I’d assumed that Lola only saw William as an object, someone she could use to rebel against Francis. Another thing she could play with and control.
It would be so easy for her to say that, to hide the fact that she was protecting herself by using my feelings against me.
“Why?” I asked harshly. If she was going to play on my emotions, then I wanted to know hers.
“Why do I care about him?” She sighed heavily. “It’s a long story. One I don’t even understand. I love Francis. Or, I loved him. I’m not so sure. He’s everything a boyfriend should be, charming, handsome, from a good family . . .”
She shook her head, as if dispelling whatever thoughts had entered her mind.
“But he’s . . . a locked cage. A sealed deal, with the way our families are tied together and all. His way of caring about me is caring about what people think of us. He terrifies me as much as he makes me fall for him. Sometimes I sneak out just to clear my head and work it out. Escape it. It’s like everything he does he apologizes for so well that it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m an idiot.”
I thought back to the sound of the vase shattering through the wall.
“Will was my attempt to find his weakness. To get back at Francis for all the things he does to me. Cheating. Yelling. Controlling. That’s when I saw how good Will is, and I realized how bad I am. How messed up this world has made me. After Monica . . . I couldn’t pretend anymore. I let Will go, because I only deserve Francis. Pretty on the outside, evil within.”
“That’s . . . messed up,” I said after a long silence, letting my thoughts simmer. An abusive relationship as self-punishment. I almost wanted to reach out and touch her—to comfort her. But then I remembered who I was talking to, the whole spectrum that was Lola Davenport. “So why do you manipulate people if you know how bad it is? Why do you bully even your own friends?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing this whole time? Manipulating people?” she asked, giving me a sad smile. “Maddy adores you, you know. She really thought you were friends. The rest of the school is obsessed with you for dating Will, and obviously he’s crazy about you too. You have a lot of people wound around your little finger.”
To a degree, she was right. My whole plan involved manipulating people. And it wasn’t hard to understand the gratification of popularity, the rush of having people interested in you. I sighed, tucking my hair behind my ear, my gaze fixated on the flagpole opposite us.
“As for the control, it’s the only way I can keep things from falling apart. We were all thrown under a pact after Monica. Those tapes were always supposed to be fun, another secret that brought us closer together—the dirt from parties and the stunts from our games. It let us do crazy things without worrying about who would slip up when it came to having each other’s backs. I know. It shouldn’t be like that. But in our world, we can’t take any risks. When Monica . . . well, things got scary. Our parents pressured us to keep quiet. I can’t give you an exact answer, but every day it feels like the only way to survive is to keep together. Francis and Sophie, William and Zach. Maddy.
“You have every reason to do it. To just release it. But I don’t want you to. I don’t want Will to be the one who suffers for her. I can promise you that despite whatever masks you see on our faces, the guilt of what happened to Monica Pennington eats at us every day.”
I clenched my