He glances over at me when I come in, but he doesn’t stop. His eyes narrow, glittering with some unreadable motion.
Me, I just stand there gaping, completely and utterly shocked by the sight in front of me.
“You gonna stand there and watch?” he snaps at me after a minute. Backing away, I turn and run from the bathroom, turning the corner and leaning my back against the stone wall. I’d thought Tristan was dating Miranda behind the scenes, but … that most definitely wasn’t Miranda. Pretty sure that was Kiara Xiao, another first-year student.
For some reason, my body feels hot with frustration, and I want to punch something. Mostly I want to punch Tristan. He doesn’t care about that girl. He doesn’t care about anyone.
When I tell Miranda about it later, she chokes on her iced tea and raises huge eyes to me.
“Right there in the girls’ bathroom?” she asks, blinking rapidly. “He’s usually more discreet about it.”
“More discreet?” I whisper back, face flaming. All those times he touched me or got close to me and I felt sparks … make me sick. What a creep. “So … all the girls know he’ll sleep with whoever he can get his hands on, and they don’t care?”
Miranda shrugs her shoulders and takes a sip of her drink. We’re the only ones in The Mess, taking advantage of the early dinner service. I’ve tried to come in here while everyone else is eating, but it’s just too much. I’ve been relegated to slinking around the halls. Believe it or not, for someone who tried to hurt themselves, the constant flashes of red-lined wrists, and the bottles of pills are pretty triggering.
“He’s handsome, popular, and rich. Of course they all want to sleep with him.” Not for the first time, I wonder if she is also sleeping with him. I hate to think that of my friend, but she disappears randomly and doesn’t tell me where she’s been. She sometimes shows up places with him, and he’s always giving her looks.
Honestly, I don’t want to know.
I focus on my food, but I don’t feel like eating. My stomach feels like it’s been encased in ice.
“Well, I don’t want to sleep with him,” I murmur, putting my fork down as anxiety prickles across my skin. I’d like to get out of here before anyone else shows up for dinner. Frankly, I feel like I’ve been wrung dry, my last reserves of strength bled out along with the words to my essay. I’m dreading getting my phone back tomorrow. What if Creed posts my essay online? That’d really be the end of me.
Besides, I’m afraid to hear what my dad has to say to me. There’s no apology in the world that can make up for what he did. I’m desperate to know what this ‘news’ is that he received that supposedly upset him so much, and damn Zack for not telling me what it was.
“Is there anyone you do want to sleep with?” Miranda asks, putting her fork aside and scrambling to stand up and follow me out the door. “Like … maybe Zack?”
“Would you let the Zack thing go?” I turn a glare on her, but Miranda just smiles back at me. “He used to bully me, you know? That, and he said some weird stuff to Tristan when he confronted me about my grades.”
“What sort of weird stuff?” Miranda asks, her shoulders stiffening up. Yet again, a single mention of Tristan and she gets all cryptic.
“It was pretty clear the two of them have met before. Zack challenged Tristan to come at him during fall break, and Tristan insinuated that Zack applied to Burberry Prep and didn’t get in.” Miranda’s chewing on her lower lip, a habit that’s usually left to me. She doesn’t look at me, just attempts a half-hearted hair flip.
“Well, I’ve never seen Zack before,” she adds with a shrug of her shoulders. She twirls around to face me, her red-pleated skirt spinning. “Maybe they met during summer break or something? Tristan’s family always goes to the Hamptons.”
I have no idea where Zack goes for summer breaks, only that he’s rich enough to go to a private school like this one, but had gotten kicked out of so many before he was relegated to Lower Banks Middle School. No clue where he’s going to school this year. If he were here now, I wonder if we’d be friends?
“Your family doesn’t go to the Hamptons, too?” I ask, and Miranda flushes, like she’s been caught in a lie.
“Sometimes, but not for the whole summer like some people. We have a cabin in Lake Tahoe …” she trails off, and then switches up our conversation with a rapid change of subject. “Are you sure you’re not going to the Halloween party on Saturday?”
