BAD WICKED TWISTED: A Briarcrest Academy Box Set (65 page)

I shook my head. “He wouldn’t want me there.”

He chuckled. “I do. I think you might be what he needs.” He arched his brows as if I should know what that meant.

“Hmmmm, maybe you missed it, but out in the hall this morning, Emma had her hands all over Cuba. And I’m not interested anyway.”

“Forget them. Just come and have fun. If you say yes, I’ll add you to the limo list. Only the sexy people get to ride,” he said, doing a goofy shoulder shimmy.

I laughed. A party sounded like fun.

But wait.

I had a cache of drugs sitting in my dance bag for crying out loud.
That
was my priority, not Cuba and his party.

“Earth to Dovey. Are. You. Coming. To. The. Dance?”

“Were you not in this room when he went off on me? When he told me I was a curiosity to him? Hello?”

He nodded. “And I saw what his face looked like when you left.”

My breath caught. “How?”

“Like you fucking slayed him.”

Hope sprang up, but I slapped it down.

“Whatever you think you saw—”

“Dovey, he hung his head and wilted right there. I don’t know what happened between you two because I wasn’t at BA then, but he—”

“Yesterday was the anniversary of the day his mom killed herself.”

He straightened up, eyes wide. Apparently he hadn’t known. Or maybe he had but hadn’t realized it was the one year anniversary. It made me like him more.

Because he was the kind of guy people didn’t gossip to.

“And that’s what you saw, okay? Not some left over feeling for me. He made it plain how he feels about me, so let it go.” I put my finger on the poem. “Now, let’s see what happened to this poor albatross, shall we?”

THE REST OF the school day dragged.

The bathroom seemed to be the primo spot to sell drugs, so I hung out there in between classes, often staying long after the bell had rung. If I kept this up, my grades would suffer, and I might even be sent to the Headmaster for all my tardy slips. I cringed to think of how that would look on my transcripts for the ballet company.

In between European History and Calculus, I psyched myself up and approached a senior girl in the bathroom. Rumor was she’d been kicked out of a private school out East for drug use, but had gotten clean and then come to BA. And, here I was, planning on sucking her back into the vortex of addiction.

I waited until the restroom cleared out.

“You wanna buy some blow?” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth as she looked in the mirror above the sink and applied her pink lipstick.

She startled. “What did you say?”

My mouth flapped open and shut as I tried to find the words.

Don’t be a chicken.
Just say it. Think of Sarah.

She narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? You look weird.”

I swallowed. “You—you think it’s gonna snow?”

She shrugged and turned back to the mirror. “I dunno. Maybe. I hope—”

But I didn’t hear the rest because I ran out of that bathroom like I was possessed, dragging my dance bag with me.

“I didn’t want something I needed. I wanted Dovey.”

–Cuba

I’M GOING TO be a father
kept banging around in my head like a pinball.

The thought made my hands clammy, and I wiped them on my jeans as I stood in the foyer at BA, waiting for Emma to sign out of school in the office. It was Friday, and she was headed to the OBGYN today to get the official confirmation. But I’d seen the pregnancy test stick she’d shown me.

There was no doubt a baby was coming.

I slumped down in one of the leather chairs and pulled out my phone, grimacing when I saw a message from my dad. He was coming home tonight, which meant I’d be telling him the good news.
Hey dad, I know we don’t talk much anymore, but you’re going to be a grandfather. Surprise.

Dovey’s smooth gait caught my attention as she walked down the hall. Dressed in a zebra print skirt and a tight shirt, she passed by the other students, her head bent. I wondered what she was thinking about. Was she remembering the night at her house this week when I’d confessed about Cara? I’d thought about that night a lot, and how good it had felt to have her arms around me. I felt like I couldn’t talk to her right now because of Emma. Fuck. It was frustrating the hell out of me…because we’d crossed a bridge this week, and I wanted to explore it.

In Lit class this morning, I’d gotten annoyed with how she and Sebastian seemed to be hitting it off. They’d giggle at something, and friend or not, I’d wanted to yank him up out of his seat and pound his face. I was a douche for being jealous, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Now, I kept staring at her, willing her to see me. We’d always seemed to have this little connection between us, as if we could sense the other, but it didn’t work today. I sighed, wishing I could go up to her right now, pull her aside, maybe get her to leave and go outside so we could talk. Yeah, right, like that’s all I wanted to do to her.

How in the hell had I avoided her for an entire year?

Because my lust for her still burned white hot. And the love? Who the fuck knew.

Whatever. It didn’t matter. I had Emma. I had responsibilities.

But at least I felt better about the whole Barinsky thing since she’d told me it had been a big misunderstanding…

“Okay, I’m off now,” Emma said, coming to a stop in front of me, blocking my view of Dovey.

I blinked, letting go of Dovey. I had to.

I stood. “I still don’t see why I can’t come with you.”

She jangled her keys at her side. “Because you don’t need to miss class. You’d said you wanted to try to do better. You still have a chance at getting into Southern Methodist, remember?”

I sighed. Yeah. At least, out of all of this, I’d made a conscious decision to wake the fuck up and improve my grades so I could get back on track with pre-med.

But still. Emma was worrying me with her long face and the way her shoulders had seemed hunched over these past few days. She’d withdrawn, barely talking to anyone except me, and it worried me. It reminded me of my mother.

“Text me if you need me,” I told her.

She bit her lip. “It’s fine. I’ll tell you everything they say tonight.”

I smiled, trying to be brave for the us both, when I felt anything but. “Let’s celebrate at dinner tonight, and then we’ll go tell your parents, okay?”

She agreed and left, walking out the double doors. I watched her the entire way, wondering what our future was together. Was I ready to be tied to her for the rest of my life?

I didn’t have a damn clue.

“
I took a pair of leather shoes, and turned them into a dream
.”

–
Dovey

FRIDAY ARRIVED, BRINGING with it the realization that tomorrow was D Day. I shuddered to think what Alexander would do if I didn’t have the drugs sold.

At school, I wasn’t thinking clearly. In Calculus, I’d flunked a math quiz when I ran out of time. I drifted from class to class, barely noticing what was going on around me.

At lunch, I sat across from Spider and Mila, silent while they chatted. His eyes bounced around the cafeteria, never meeting mine. Yeah. We’d crossed a line when he’d asked me out, and I didn’t know how to backtrack and fix it. I wanted to talk to him, perhaps even confide in him, but every time I’d see him, either he had a girl with him or he’d pretend to be in a big hurry.

Our easy going friendship had disappeared.

In dance, I couldn’t get anything right; my jumps were flat and my pirouettes pathetic. After a dismal session, I trudged out the door to snowflakes that fell like fluffy white feathers, a rare thing in Texas. I got to the quad with all the stark oak trees and stopped, watching the barren landscape ease into a white wonderland. On a normal day, I’d be fascinated by the picture it made, but not with the threat of Alexander hanging over me.

I sat down on a bench and called Spider. I’d reached a point that I didn’t care that he’d side-stepped me all week. I needed him. He was all I had.

He answered on the fifth ring, right before his voicemail kicked in.

“What up?” he said, and I heard the wariness in his tone.

“Can’t I just call?”

He sighed, and I heard fluttering in the background like clothes flapping around. “I’m getting in my car to go out.”

I gripped my phone. “You have plans?” It was Friday night.

“Yeah.”

“Bathroom girl?” I asked, feeling a tad jealous. I hadn’t been with a guy since October. My ballet partner Jacques had been the last, and I’d used his body frequently to erase the image of Cuba from my mind. Then one day he’d stopped calling me because he’d gotten serious with another girl. I’d barely noticed.

“Dovey,” Spider groaned, like he was irritated. “Do you really want to know the details of my sex life?”

“Just forget it,” I mumbled and hung up.

Why did I care if he had someone? Didn’t everyone?
I had ballet.

I stared at my phone thinking he might call me back, but it didn’t ring. I called Heather-Lynn and Sarah, and they were out running errands and planned on seeing a movie later. They asked me to go, but I declined, saying I was tired. It wasn’t a lie. But I was lying to them about the whole Alexander thing, and it was putting a strain on me. After a few minutes of checking Facebook, I rose up and headed to the parking lot.