afar. It chills me when I think he would notice me in the crowd. Then it would thrill me because I’d fantasize that he never forgot me, or about the way he kissed me that day.
Soon after all that mushy rubbish, reality would set in and I’d remember how doomed we were right from the start. I mean, who kisses a wall-punching, angry, asshole stranger?
Even though our schools always have something going on with each other, I haven’t seen Julian face-to-face since the party, but I knew that was coming to an end soon. Even though I stay in the shadows, watching him and his brother from a distance, I’ve heard that Liam asks about me—in a mocking, angry way of course.
I have a feeling that the time is coming where he’ll make good on the promise I saw in his eyes the night he stared me down after his brother ripped him a new one.
A shiver goes down my spine. I have two brothers that might blow my life up at any second, but they’re the least of my concern.
“Mia!”
“What?” I snap.
Brantley scoffs, watching me with narrowed eyes. “Aren’t you also one of those bitches that lust after them?”
Fury, hot and nasty, rises in me. I’ve been told that I have a short temper, something I inherited from my father, which in turn, upsets my mother now since he’s nowhere to be found.
The good news is, I don’t want to be my father. So, I take two deep and calming breaths, staring up front at the board. On the third, I turn back, with a perfect smile on my face.
“Careful B, the fact that no one lusts after you or wants you quite like all these poor girls do for those brothers you hate so much says more about you than it does about those ‘bitches’ you love to name drop.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “You could learn a thing or two from them, don’t you think?”
“I don’t have a thing to learn from them, Ice Queen. They’re cheaters,” Brantley seethes.
Yup, keep riding that card to make up for your superiority complex.
“We’re going to get proof, then we’re going to bust their asses!” Dante interjects, hyping his friend and they fist bump.
“That’s good for you, then,” I finish, giving them an enthusiastic thumbs up and an exaggerated wink before I turn back toward the front, pretending to listen to Mrs. Henry as my head floods with thoughts of Julian.
When he was with Liam, he was almost human. I could almost see more than just anger in his eyes. I saw concern. Which I caused.
I shiver in my seat again, thinking about Aiden.
I have a neatly wrapped shoebox under my bed where I kept the newspaper clippings of Aiden’s story. One of the papers mentioned that a ‘close female friend’ of the Fitzgeralds confirmed that Aiden had Down syndrome.
I knew it was me they were referring to. And judging by the trashed, ugly puppet on rusty strings with rubber tongue taped to its forehead that I came home to a week after the party, Liam knew it too and wasn’t going to forget any time soon.
I threw up when I saw it the first time, then cried myself to sleep for two weeks, all while wondering when Julian and Liam would come for me for real.
Now I read each newspaper clipping every other week, in the middle of the night, sitting beside my mother’s hospital bed in her large bedroom that’s been stripped of every priceless piece of art it once held, and the gold miniature statues she decorated her room with.
I read them to remind myself of the day I became an emotionless, heartbroken, icy bitch.
“It’s more than good,” Brantley growls and I chuckle.
“All the best, B,” I whisper. “You’re going to need it.”
Everyone starts snickering again.
People know that Clintwood Academy has nothing on St. Jude and quite frankly, no one can touch the golden boys of St. Jude High. The notorious gods of Palos Verdes. They did whatever they wanted, answered to no one. Used, discarded, and never seem to care for anyone other than each other and whoever was in their inner circle.
“That was dry,” Brantley whispers back.
“Ice Queen, remember?” I glance over my shoulder at him, making sure my eyes are wide with innocence.
“Mia, you used to be so into the pranks with the rest of us. And now, you just don’t care,” Dante says, his cheeks still red. Seriously, the guy needs