BAD WICKED TWISTED: A Briarcrest Academy Box Set (102 page)

I played furiously, letting all the pent-up anguish out, showing my parents that I still had it what it took to be a star.

I didn’t play for grief or loss or even for Sebastian. I played for
Violet
. Me.

And it was good. Euphoric.

The next morning, I drove to Lyons Place and parked in the front. I got out of my car and went inside on unsteady legs. Mrs. Smythe, a longtime friend of my parents, met me at the door and shook my hand. She’d been the perfect choice to oversee the everyday operations of the hundred-bed facility, and I was glad I’d chosen her.

She gazed at me and patted my hand. “Are you ready? If you are, they’re all waiting for you in the cafeteria.”

I nodded and followed her, muscles rigid, a cold sweat popping out on my skin.

“What do I say?” I gasped out, barely able to talk as we approached a door where I could already hear the low rumble of kids’ voices behind it. My heart was banging in my chest and my tapping was out of control.

“Tell them your story, Violet, or don’t. They pass no judgment. They’ve all got their own demons, and knowing that you’ve been through the same things they have—it means something.”

I lifted my violin from its case. Stroked the soft wood. “May I—may I play for them?”

“Of course, my dear,” she said.

And so, I walked into the cafeteria that I’d helped design. On the back wall was a mural of the lion at Central Park, his big slumbering eyes golden and full of mystery as a comet zoomed overhead. On the right side was a portrait of my parents. Not a formal one where you’d sit down in front of a photographer, but a casual shot of my dad messing around with his guitar, and my mom gazing at him adoringly. And there I was—sitting on a chair watching them, wearing the soft smile of a girl with fairy dust in her heart.

It was a moment of frozen happiness.

I took a giant breath and looked into the eyes of the kids who waited for me. They stared and I stared back, fighting the panic, and for the first time …
winning
.

In a low, halting voice I talked about my parents.

“My father only had one goal in life and that was to make my mother happy.
She
was only happy when she was helping others. They took me to Africa, the Ukraine, even China … and through all of our adventures, the lesson they taught me was simple: I was an extremely lucky girl,
but
I was not the only person in the world, and that we only truly know ourselves when we give back. When they died, I—I forgot that for a while. Their legacy and that lesson is why I’m here today. For two years it was the one reason I never could take my own life.” I inhaled. “So today, I’m here to commit myself to Lyons Place and make it a home worthy of you.”

Silence followed my speech.

And then, among the artifacts of my past, I lifted my violin and played for them.

“Sometimes reaching your dreams isn’t all you’d thought it would be.”

—Sebastian Tate

“PUT YOUR FINGERS here for the C note,” I instructed Kevin, one of the students at Lyons Place as we sat in the music room. About six other students sat around in a circle, all of them here for their second guitar lesson.

I glanced over at Spider, who was helping another group of wide-eyed students in another part of the room. Truth be told, the brass son of a bitch looked quite at home as he pranced around in his blue ensemble, explaining how to hold your instrument.

When I’d come home from my initial visit with Mrs. Smythe and had told him about the place, he’d been surprisingly enthused. Of course, I’d given him a pep talk this morning about his language and behavior before we’d arrived. So far, he’d been clean and chipper. Thank goodness, Mrs. Smythe had been on board with him too. Turns out her husband was English, so she’d been quite taken with him.

Kevin adjusted the guitar and strummed out a basic chord. The music reverberated through the room and I grinned. “Not bad,” I said and showed him the next one by placing his fingers where they were supposed to be. “We’ll have you playing like Stevie Ray Vaughan before you know it.”

He turned red, and I clapped him on the shoulders. “What’s wrong, man?”

“You-you-you’re actually teaching me to pl-play the guitar,” he stuttered. “It’s the coolest th-thing ever.”

I smiled, careful to not interrupt his stumbling words. Mrs. Smythe had given me the low-down on how to handle his speech impediment last week as well as explaining how he’d lost his mom in a house fire years before. He was ten years old with fuzzy red hair and a big hopeful smile. His enthusiasm was infectious.

“You’re a natural, Kev.”

He straightened his shoulders at my praise. “I-I really want to si-sing,” he pushed out. “Be fa-famous like you. When I sing, I don’t stu-stutter. Gi-girls will like me then.”

I squeezed his shoulder. Dude. Been there.

“We can do that, no problem. Chicks dig guys who sing, but being famous isn’t all it's cracked up to be, ya know? It comes with a downside too. Sometimes just being yourself is all it takes to get the girl.” I tossed him a grin and flipped through some of the music I’d brought along with me.

“Do y-you have a gi-girlfriend?”

My mind went straight to V, and I blinked, feeling that familiar pang I got when I thought of her. I hadn’t seen her since the coffee shop two weeks prior. I watched her house each night, of course, scouring her property to look for any sign of her, but she hadn’t been playing outside except for once, nor had she been dropping by to make us green drinks. Her car was often gone from her circle drive, too, and it was killing me wondering where she was. Mila assured me she hadn’t left for New York with Geoff. I was glad for that at least.

I just missed her.

“Do
I
have a girlfriend?” I mused. “Hmmm, that’s a good question. Apparently, there’s a ton of reporters wondering the same thing. You don’t work for TMZ, do you?”

He scratched his head. “Don’t watch that sh-show.”

I chuckled. I liked Kevin more and more.

Of course, there was Blair. Everything in me rebelled at posing for more fake relationship pictures, but I had allowed Mila to release a press statement saying we were still an item. It was a compromise of sorts. Reporters were following us around separately, wondering what was going on, but so far we’d been tight-lipped on the entire thing. Obviously, she still wanted to cling to me because of my younger age, and I still wasn’t ready to give up on Hing and the zombie movie. But I wasn’t with her in public anymore. She wasn’t happy about it.

I glanced back up at Kevin. “I got all sorts of music here. What do you want to do next?”

“G-got any Nirvana?” He sent me a hopeful look.

Hell yeah.

I gave him a fist bump. “Keep that kind of music in your heart, my man, and you’ll be playing on the stage with me someday.”

His face shone.

A flash of purple hair went by the room and caught my attention.

“Wh-where you going?” Kevin called as I took off for the door at a slow jog.

“Thought I saw someone,” I called back. I reached the wooden door, which was much like a classroom door with a thin glass panel above the doorknob. I flung it open and stepped out in the hallway. There was no one there, and I exhaled and paced around. Not only was I dreaming about her, but I was seeing her in places where she clearly wasn’t.

I went back in to Kevin.

“Y-you okay?” he asked.

I thought about it. I took in Kevin, seeing how everything I said or did would make an impression. I pushed my melancholy behind me and instead thought of V and how she played like every note was a physical touch. “Music makes everything better, Kevin. Never forget that.”

Spider and I left soon after. We walked out to my Hummer and climbed in. Before I started the car, I paused, needing to share. “Teaching those kids—shit, man—that made me feel good. It’s like they’re teaching me something.”

He sent me a long look and I could see from his face that he too had felt it. “Yeah.”

I cocked an eye. “Better than the
The Vampire Dairies
?”

He snorted. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, mate. Nothing beats The CW.”

THE NEXT DAY, V opened her door at seven on the dot ready to run, her hair scraped back in a high ponytail.

And I was waiting. Patiently doing leg muscle stretches on her driveway.

She came to a halt, her eyes big as she took in my running shorts and Vital Rejects T-shirt. “What are you doing here?”

Good question. “I’m sick of not seeing you.”

She stood there, a wary expression on her face. It made me ache to soothe her.

I clenched my fists. “I know you’re still mad at me, because I never hear you play anymore, and I’m sorry for it. It kills me to think I hurt you. I was a total douchebag to you at the coffee shop when I told everyone you played naked for me. I was a callous dickhead at Masquerade when I just assumed you wanted to have sex with me. I’ve been full of shit, and I don’t deserve to have a girl like you give me a second chance, but I’m asking. Right here. Right now. You are a hundred times better than me. You’re beautiful and your music makes me fucking happy, and all I did was make an ass of myself. And if you want Geoff—pompous nitwit, sorry—I’ll try hard to be good around him. For some reason that I can’t explain, I need you, V.” I paused and took in some air. “Will you—will you be my friend? I hope so, because I need to bitch about Spider and Mila—who are probably having sex. Not to mention, Harry called today and told me that Hing is vetting new guys for the role I wanted.”

She still stood there. She swallowed.

“Do you want me to go?” I asked.

Had I gone too far with the nitwit remark?

A car went by. A bird called out.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, she spoke. “Douchebag, dickhead, and an ass? Wow, you didn’t hold back. I’m impressed.” She gave me a grin.

Right then a fluttering took up in my gut. Like butterflies. I didn’t try to analyze it or dissect it. I just sucked in a sharp breath and went with it. “Do you forgive me?”

She nodded.

I relaxed, letting go of some of the tension that had ridden me for two weeks.

She frowned. “I’m sad for you about the movie, though. If you hadn’t helped me—”

“No, V, stop. Please don’t feel guilty for that. I wanted to help you. It’s done and over and I’m moving on from it.”

She cocked her head. “You’d take it if Hing offered, though, right?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I’ve been chasing this film for three months—ever since Harry approached me with it before I moved here.”

She smiled. “Spider and Mila, huh? The girl who wears pink and the boy with blue hair?” She snickered. “God, it’s too much. Can I say anything? Can we tease them?”

I snorted. “If I catch them together, he
will
marry her.”

She laughed. “You really do try to be a hero. You try to hide it, but I see it in you.”

I tingled all over. “I’m no hero.”

But her thinking I was? Shit, that made me giddy.

“You ready to go?” I asked, checking my watch after we’d talked some more, catching up.