“What do you want?” she snaps, her voice thick and gravelly. This is clearly not the first time she’s snuck out for a smoke in the last weeks. Her face turns to look at the lake, and she puts the cigarette back between her trembling lips. “Here to gloat?”
Two weeks ago, my answer would have been yes.
I was riding high on the last few months—not least of which was defeating her at what now seems like a stupid high school dance. That’s all it was, after all.
And still, looking down at this disheveled version of Hawthorne’s once-queen, it was all it took to break her.
To her obvious surprise, I slump down to the tree beside her. I lean back, feeling the press of the rough bark through my sweater and the wetness of the snow seeping through my pants.
I hold out a hand, and after a brief moment of hesitation, Victoria passes me the cigarette.
I turn it over in my hand once, then take a slow drag. The taste is bitter, followed by a slight head rush.
“Look at us,” I say, quietly. “All this … for what?”
I motion out across the lawn, then glance at her as I pass the cigarette back her way.
She holds it limply between two fingers.
The gloss is gone from her hair, leaving it as limp as the addiction in her hand. It may be dark, but I can still make out the dark circles under her eyes and gauntness of her cheeks. When we came back from break, I hardly noticed she was gone. She slipped under the radar, hiding in her shame.
I should have worried about her; thought, at least once, how this sort of thing would affect her.
I’m strong. I was strong. No matter how much they bullied and tormented me, I never really broke.
But Victoria, she never had the same strength. I see that now.
“What you did was unforgivable,” I say, and she glances my way. There’s no malice in my voice, no accusation. “But I made mistakes too.”
She laughs bitterly. “He didn’t cheat, you know.”
“What?” It takes me a second to realize what she means.
She laughs again, looking out into the night. “He’s more chivalrous than he lets on, that Astor.”
I shake my head. “I still don’t get—”
“He and I, we broke up months ago!” she snaps. She flicks the ash off the end of the cigarette aggressively. Her eyes have taken on a ferocity I haven’t seen in a long time. It’s comforting, somehow. “He promised not to tell until after we graduated.”
She laughs again, and it’s darker than ever. “You’re not the only one who has to meet the terms of her trust fund, Teddy Price.”
“It’s White now,” I say, my head still struggling to wrap around what she says. “I signed the paperwork last week.”
“Then it all really worked out for you, didn’t it?”
Astor. He and Victoria …
I leap to my feet.
Everything is imploding inside me. Astor was willing to give me up to do the right thing? All these weeks, these months … he’s been suffering the same as me.
“Just promise me one thing,” Victoria says to my shuffling, retreating footsteps. I don’t know where I’m heading. I don’t even see anything.
I stop and glance back, only half listening now.
“And what’s that?”
Victoria throws her cigarette on the ground and smothers it beneath one of her designer boots. “Don’t make the same mistakes I did. I tell you this … the blacklist is no joke. If I’d known, really known …”