My stomach drops, and I can’t decide if that was a victory … or a defeat.Zayd is the last one of the Idols that I seek out. Maybe because I feel like there really was something between us, so his betrayal stings the worst? I don’t know. For whatever reason, he’s pulled away from me even more so than Tristan. The texting’s been helping, but whenever I approach him in person, he seems to find a reason to run.
We’re in the middle of a long text conversation when I find him sunning himself outside on a picnic table. Boo is the last thing I send before I poke him in the shoulder and make him jump.
“You’re running away from me,” I say aloud, and he sits up, crossing his legs and raising his pierced brow at me.
“Um, no? I’m just sitting here,” he says, giving me a cocky, stupid little smile that’s one hundred percent fake. “If I were running, Charity, you’d know, because you’d see my tight ass booking it across the field.” He grins as I climb up on the table to sit beside him.
“Do you still have the trophy?” I ask, and I swear he chokes on his own spit. He tries to cover up the motion by getting out a cigarette and a lighter, and peering around to check for any staff members before he starts smoking it.
“Maybe, why?” he says softly, and I can feel it, that gap between us widening again.
“Could you bring it to Royal Pointe?” I ask, and he looks at me like I’m a crazy person. “It’d be cathartic for me to have it.” I glance up at him from under a fall of rose-gold hair. “Be my date to the party.”
Zayd scoffs.
“Why would you want to go with me? Charity, really, are you a glutton for punishment?” I glance over at him, put my hand on his knee, and then lean forward like I’m going to kiss him. Surprisingly, he pushes me back. “No. No, I’m not doing this.”
“Why not?” I ask, and I feel all those horrible emotions bubbling up inside of me. Zayd sighs and looks away, smoking his cigarette, his sea green hair tousled by the wind. After a moment, he ashes his cig against the side of the table and burning embers crumble to the bench seat below.
“Because, I don’t understand you. We … treated you like shit. And then you came back all dolled up and ready to kill. Then the girls …” Zayd just stops talking and sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, he looks at me. “This whole year is for fucking nothing if you go to this party with me.”
“It’s not. It’s your chance to say sorry, if you’re sorry at all.”
Zayd freezes and reaches up to run his fingers through his hair. My skirt rides up my thighs as I adjust myself, and he notices right away, taking in my garters and thigh-high socks with interest. My finger reaches out and teases around the edge of the Burberry Preparatory Academy crest that’s sewn into the pocket of his jacket.
“The girls have been after your blood since before winter formal last year, you know that right?” Zayd looks over at me, and the stark truth is written all over his face. My hand moves from his pocket to the bit of tattoo I can see on his chest. When I dive my fingers underneath his shirt to touch his skin, he doesn’t stop me. Instead, he reaches up and presses my hand against him. “I can’t just undo everything that’s happened. That’s what going to this party with you would mean.”
“It would mean the world to me, is what it would do,” I tell him, and our eyes lock. Tentatively, he hooks an arm around my waist and pulls me into his lap. It feels so good to be sitting with him again that for a moment, I just close my eyes and relax into it.
“You don’t have any business hanging around with an idiot like me,” he says, and I can hear it in his voice now, guilt, thick and heavy and weighing him down. “This is a den of wolves, Marnye, and you shouldn’t be here.”
“And yet I am,” I say, thinking of the tattoo on my hip. “Go to the party with me, Zayd.”
After a moment, he sighs and puts his chin on the top of my head.
“Fine, but shit, this is stupid,” he grumbles, growling a little under his breath. “You’re going to get yourself fucking killed, Marnye.”
The scary part about his statement is that … he’s almost right.The academic battle royale at the end of the year almost kills me. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, and my test scores are so alarmingly close to Tristan’s that it comes down to just a few assignments. Namely, that poor essay score and test grade he earned himself by messing with me. If he hadn’t done that, he might’ve won.
