watched me walk around here for the last week, knowing that you ripped my fucking heart out, and still sleep at night.”
He finally looks at me then, blue eyes meeting my own. It’s like an electric shock down my spine, even just this minor connection. Even though he’s watching me with that same blank mask. Even though his eyes are heavy and bruised with a lack of…
Oh.
Right.
“Sebastian. Bass.” My resolve to play this all cool and aloof completely crumbles. “Why?”
He looks away, emotionless, jerking his chin at Hyperion. “This isn’t real. You should show something else.” His throat bobs with a hard swallow. “You should show something honest.”
Feeling defeated and too heavy for my own legs, I reach for my bag and walk away, leaving him with the reality of his own reflection.
“So should you.”
I have to hand it to Preston Prep. When they do something, they go all out.
Despite being held in the gym, the art exhibit feels professional, as fancy as the field trip I took in the tenth grade to the High Museum in downtown Atlanta. We’re instructed to stand near our work so that we can talk about our pieces. That’s the part I’m most uncomfortable with. It’s one thing to have my work, my life and feelings, displayed for everyone to see. It’s another to have to talk about it.
When the waiter walks by with a glass of sparkling cider, I grab one, just to have something to do with my hands.
“Sugar!” Vandy cries, coming around the corner. “It looks so good!”
Aubrey stands beside her. I peer around in search of Georgia, but I don’t see her red hair anywhere.
“Thank you.” My fingers grip the glass like a lifeline. “And thanks for letting me keep the dress for a few more days.”
Vandy waves this off, eyes wandering back to the photos. “This is one of my favorites,” she says of the overpass from the first race.
I awkwardly shuffle my feet, knowing they’re avoiding talking about the huge face—literally, the biggest piece in my showcase—staring back at the three of us. “It’s making me paranoid, to be honest. Like I keep expecting someone to come detain me.”
“I think the police are going to be too busy with other things tonight,” Aubrey says with a small smirk on her lips.
“What are you talking about?” I glance around again. “Where’s Georgia?” They exchange a guilty look and I press. “What’s going on?”
“So, Sebastian is fighting tonight—” Vandy starts.
“V!” Aubrey hisses, jabbing her friend in the side. “We agreed!”
“No, you agreed! I don’t like secrets.” Vandy steps toward me, pitching her voice low. “Carlton got word this morning that Sebastian is supposed to fight tonight. Some awful thing his brother set up. Georgia tried to talk him out of it earlier, but he won’t talk to her. He swears up and down that there’s no way out of this.”
“For me,” I whisper, putting a voice to the suspicion that’s been nagging at me since our meeting before. “I think he’s fighting because of me.”
Again, the girls share a look. “What are you talking about?”
“That day, after we…” I swallow, “After we had sex, but before everything went to hell, he and Heston were bickering in the kitchen. Heston mentioned something about this weekend and Bass said he wouldn’t do it. I didn’t connect the dots at the time, but then later… in the car, on the way home, he kept getting all these vague texts from Heston. Talk about a winter transfer. Someone’s ‘poor dad’. A scholarship, and how they can be ‘fussy’. Someone’s tits. And then…” God, I just feel so stupid for not realizing it all sooner. “Something about needing a fix for his sweet tooth, and tasting it for himself.”
Vandy face screws up. “Because your name is Sugar.”
“Yeah,” I say, eyes rolling. “After that one, Bass completely shut down. I’m thinking… I’m guessing it was a threat.”
Aubrey winces. “Fuck, no wonder he freaked out.”
“But I don’t understand,” I say, shaking off the uneasy feeling. “What do Sebastian and Heston have to do with Georgia?”
Aubrey looks over her shoulder, checking that we’re alone. Once she’s sure we won’t be overheard, she leans in, eyes serious as she explains, “She’s going to the police to report him for that fucking video. And she’s going to try to get Sydney to go with her.”
I let this sink in slowly, rolling it around in my mind. I flash back to yesterday—her insistence that she could never do such a thing.