at fifteen. Even the court agreed she wasn’t fit. After she blew through half my lifetime earnings on fuck knows what, I had no choice. I put her up in a nice condo in California and send her a generous check every month, but it’s never enough. It will never be enough. She’s a leech, and I’m never going to be free of her or the vultures that follow me like a bad rash.
A fist rattles my window, and I glare up at Carson. He shrugs and makes a face.
What the fuck are you doing?
Good question. The people who consider themselves my friends are already waiting for me inside. Friends isn’t the term I’d use for the devoted followers who trail me everywhere I go. I don’t claim anybody. If I had it my way, everyone would just leave me the fuck alone, the way I prefer it. But I guess they are good for one thing. Background noise to the constant static in my life.
I tuck my phone back into my pocket and check my reflection one last time in the rearview mirror. Haunted, empty gray eyes stare back at me. The scarred flesh on the back of my elbow itches and burns where a surgeon tried his best to piece it back together. There are more scars on my hip and back where they took skin and bone to make me whole again. I can’t forget I’m only ever one bad choice away from losing control. Those scars remind me why I can’t give a fuck about anyone or anything.
“Let’s go.” Carson huffs as I unfold my rigid body from the car.
We glance at each other, a faint acknowledgment that this is the way things are now. We aren’t friends anymore. Not after that night two years ago. After Kailani left, I booted everyone out and broke Carson’s nose in the middle of my front lawn. Message received, loud and clear. Don’t touch what doesn’t fucking belong to you. Shit has been tense between us ever since, but we have a mutual understanding. We’re both on the football team. The same clingers-on follow us around like puppies. We can’t let them see that anything bothers us. We have to play the part, all while we self-destruct in ways of our own choosing. We haven’t gotten over what happened, but neither one of us is ready to pull the cord completely on this fucked-up friendship.
We walk into the school together, shoulders squared and faces blank. A few bright-eyed freshman girls try to stop us inside the door, asking me for an autograph.
“Go away.” Carson bats the air like they’re flies, and usually, he’s the nice one.
I give him the side-eye, wondering what the hell crawled up his ass. Typically, I’m the one known for being an asshole, but today, he’s walking around like we just lost the playoffs.
“What’s your deal?” I sling my backpack over my shoulder and wade through the crowd that rushes to get out of our way. “They run out of mood stabilizers at the drug store?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he mutters under his breath.
The undercurrent of tension in his voice coils every muscle in my body. I don’t know why my eyes drift to her locker. Maybe it’s a habit. Maybe it’s instinct. I haven’t had my fix of staring at that empty space for the entire summer. The school tried to reassign that locker several times, but nobody wanted it. It had been vandalized so often they had to replace the door twice. At one point, they were painting a fresh coat over the words etched into the metal every day. There were several assemblies where the principal uttered threats about the destruction, and it finally seemed to stop when they assigned a temporary hall monitor to watch during breaks. It’s been sitting there like a coffin ever since. But the bright red paint can’t hide the decay underneath. And now, again, it’s become a canvas for someone’s black Sharpie.
Demon slut.
Tension seeps into my shoulders, and the world around me narrows. Why now? Why again?
I don’t realize I’m stopped in the middle of the hallway until someone breezes past me, and I catch a hint of perfume. Notes of jasmine, frangipani, and ocean breezes short-circuit my nervous system. I’ve carried that scent with me for two years. All I ever had to do was close my eyes, and there it was. Kailani, sitting on my patio, leaning in to explain the same math