I reach for the doorknob, but a figure blocks me.
“No cuts, bitch,” a kid says. He’s wearing a Northridge football sweatshirt. Number 29 stamped in the middle. I file that away in case I need it.
“Move.” The word comes out shaky, hissed, a barely restrained verbal punch.
“She’s sucking dick, not eating pussy,” the door blocker says. “But if you wait in line, she may be willing to give it a go. ‘Cause like, straight up? I don’t think she’s that picky.”
My long, measured inhale releases in a grunt as I fist his shirt with both hands and shove him roughly aside. He slams into the guy behind him, footing lost in his surprise. The ensuing ripple effect as guy after guy gets knocked and bumped into elicits curses and complaints.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the kid says, tipping himself to rights. “I’ve been in line for an hour!”
An hour?
“Get the hell out of my way,” I spit, lunging for the door and flinging it open.
I stare at the scene inside. A guy sits on the bed, pants down at his ankles. My sister is bent before him, blonde ponytail bobbing in rhythm. His jaw is soft, mouth gaping. His eyes barely register me in the door.
I must say something. I must, but I don’t remember anything other than the guy finally pushing my sister away and fumbling to shove his cock in his pants. Sky looks back at me with glazed, confused eyes, and I see her then. The same girl I always see. So sweet and determined and desperate like a deep, gnawing ache. For a moment, I wonder how. How do other people not see this?
And then I wonder if... maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe they do.
She wipes her mouth and rasps, “Gwen?” and my eyes move to the boy. The ugly, pig-faced, sweaty boy.
I want to choke him. I want to choke all of them. I want to find something big and heavy and bludgeon my way through the house. Instead, I lunge for him, screeching, “Get the fuck out of here!”
He makes a pathetic squeaking sound as he rushes from the room, fingers fumbling with his jean buttons.
I follow him out to look down the hall, but the line of guys is gone. There’s only one person standing a few feet away, hands shoved in his red and black jacket; Hamilton Bates.
That deep bludgeoning urge returns in a dizzying rush, and I can almost imagine doing it, because never. Never in all the years he’s said cruel things to me, about my family, the vicious jabs day-to-day, the unending spew of his disdain, would I have ever thought Hamilton Bates of something so monstrous.
The worst thing is the odd sense of loss I feel in this moment. A deep-down pang of shocked hurt. As if he weren’t already lost to me, as if all the vile things he’s said and done over the years could have been wiped clean, maybe, some day. I hadn’t even known I’d been holding on to that, until right now. But now he’s finally gone to me. Wholly. He’s finally done something so entirely unforgiveable that it’s easy—easy as breathing—to level him with the same cold hateful stare he's giving me.
“It might not be today,” I say, voice eerily calm despite the tears in my eyes and the lump in my throat. “It might not even be tomorrow. But I swear to god, Hamilton, you’re going to pay for this.”
I don’t give him the chance for a witty retort, because I’m scared of myself, just then. Of what I might actually do. Instead, I go back into the room, closing the door behind me, to take care of a girl who’d felt like a princess.
1
Gwen
Summer lasts forever in the south, inching way past Labor Day and almost to Halloween. I walk out of my residence hall on November first with a sweater on over my school uniform for the first time all year. The chill still caresses my bare legs. However, I’m grateful the orange and black decorations that have infected the dorm lobby for the last month will be taken down by the end of classes that day.
I hate Halloween. It’s too much of a reminder that I’m forced to wear a mask every day at this godforsaken school. For the students at Preston Prep, wearing a mask once a year is fun. For me it’s about survival. I won’t let these people see the real me. They can see the version of Gwen who overachieves, the Gwen who handily wins swim meets, the Gwen who keeps to herself, or most importantly, the Gwen who feels nothing. Because even the smallest inkling of vulnerability in this place is like blood in the water, and I won’t let them.
I won’t let them ruin me.
Not like they did Sky.
The good news is that I’m basically invisible anyway, especially after what happened last year. “Cancelled” is a more accurate word. I’d been cancelled after I busted up the party. Cancelled after taking my sister home and sitting through a tearful, gut-clenched discussion with our parents about what had occurred. Cancelled after the school administrators, the board, the parents were all called in and forced to acknowledge the behavior of their star students and athletes.
I can’t imagine what would have happened if someone had actually called the police.
But on some indulgent nights, lying in bed and staring at the heart-shaped stain on my dorm room ceiling, I really do try.
For the last six months, since the fallout from the party, a wall of silence had been wrapped around me. I’d never been that popular to begin with. I was an Adams Family Freak, after all. One of five kids adopted by Mark and Becca Adams. That was enough to mark my siblings and I as different; born out of wedlock to four different dirt-poor, uneducated, addict parents, and worst of all; my twin siblings are bi-racial, so it’s not even like people can pretend. And the elite of this town, they really do love a good old-fashioned self-denial.