Halston

“Who’s Kerouac?” Bree barges into my room Sunday afternoon, my phone in her hand and a smug sneer on her thin lips.

I’m pretty sure my heart stopped beating for a second, but I manage to keep my shit together. Closing my copy of East of Eden, I sit up on the edge of my bed and shoot her a dead-eyed stare.

“Who?” I play dumb.

“Apparently the two of you have had a lot to talk about over the past couple of months.” Her thumb scrolls up and down the screen, her mouth twisting into a wicked grin. “Who is he, Halston?”

“Nobody I’ve ever heard of.” I exhale, lying back down and unfolding my book.

Her dull blue eyes flick up. “If he’s nobody, then I probably don’t need to read you this email he sent about ten minutes ago.”

My heart races.

“It was really sweet too,” she adds, her tone mocking and saccharin.

“You’re bluffing,” I say. Kerouac doesn’t do sweet. He never has.

She flips the screen toward me, though from here I can’t read it.

“No, no. It says right here. Sent today at one twenty-one PM.” Bree presses the phone against her chest. “I’ll show it to you if you tell me who he is.”

“It’s an anonymous dating app. We’ve never met.”

“I knew it. And you’re such a liar.” Her face is pinched, yet there’s a satisfied gleam in her eyes. “Just last night you two were chatting about a kiss. Fess up.”

“I’m not telling you a damn thing.” My fingers twitch, my skin boiling just below surface level. I’m tempted to lunge at her and rip the damn thing from her bony little hands.

“What’s eight months from now?” She glances up at the ceiling, counting on her hands as she whispers, “October … November … December … January …”

May.

Eight months from now is May.

The end of the school year.

Oh, god.

I need to see that email.

“May,” she finally says. “What’s so special about May?”

“How should I know? Guys say a lot of shit that doesn’t make sense.”

Lifting the phone to her face, she smirks. “If things were different, I’d have made you mine the moment we met. Wait for me, Absinthe. Eight more months and I’ll make you mine forever. I love you.”

He loves me …

Kerouac loves me.

My stomach flutters, yet at the same time all I see is red.

“Give me my phone,” I say, teeth clenched. “Now.”

“Never.” She shoves it in her back pocket. “It’s no longer your property.”

“Give it to me!” I’m not one to scream. I generally find it pointless and weak, a last resort that does nothing more than declare to the other person that you’ve lost all control, but I do it anyway. I don’t recognize my voice like this, but it’s me, screaming at the top of my lungs like a crazy person.

I suppose love makes you do crazy, insane, lose-all-control-of-yourself things.

He loves me.

And fuck. I love him too.

Charging at Bree, I reach around, attempting to take it back, but in the process, I push her against the wall, knocking down a gaudy abstract portrait that falls to the ground and shatters on the hardwood floor, sending the two of us to our knees.

We’re surrounded by glass. Tiny invisible shards dig into my stinging palms.

“If you don’t tell me who it is, I’m going to show this to my father,” she says, carefully flicking broken glass off her bloody knuckles. Bree’s out of breath, but she doesn’t seem deterred. “If you tell me who it is, I’ll delete the app. Nobody will ever know.”

“I’m not negotiating with you.” I will not be blackmailed by this bitch.

“Fine,” she says, pushing herself to a standing position. Brushing the hair out of her face, she holds her head high. “Eight months from now is May. May is … Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, and … graduation. This guy says he can’t be with you until May, so … is it a teacher?!”

I say nothing.

“Oh, god,” she says, expression fading. “It’s Principal Hawthorne.”

My nose wrinkles. “No, it isn’t.”

“He couldn’t stop staring at you that night at dinner. He got all weird watching you and Thane, and then he left when you guys left. And that one time, after school, when he needed to talk to you alone … and I saw you two talking at the drinking fountain that day …” She paces the room, stepping over the shattered art. “Wow. Oh my god. Wow. This is … this is major.”

“Aren’t you a real fucking Nancy Drew.” I roll my eyes. “Too bad you’re still wrong. You’ll never figure it out.”

“It’s absolutely Hawthorne. I see it on your face. Your nose twitches and your voice gets a little higher. You’re lying,” she says. “As a future education administrator and mandatory reporter, I need to report my suspicions to the appropriate authorities.”

“Bree.” The broken, guttural tone in my voice is both a plea and a threat, though in this moment she doesn’t appear to care either way.

“I’ll tell my father what I suspect and let him take it from there.” She heads to the door, only it swings open, banging against the wall and startling us both. “If he’s innocent, as you say he is, then he’ll have nothing to worry about.”

My uncle stands in the doorway, eyes bugging. “What’s going on up here?”

His gaze lands on the shattered frame, and I suspect he senses the thickness of contempt in the air.

“We were just talking about her little love affair with Principal Hawthorne.” Bree slides my phone from her back pocket, handing it over. “Sorry. Alleged love affair with Principal Hawthorne.”

“Why do you have this?” he asks, taking my phone, my entire life, with a single impatient grab.

“It was going off earlier,” she says. “I went to shut it off, but a message popped up on the screen. I think you should take a look. Just press that green app right there. You can see every email and message they’ve exchanged since summer.”

“It’s not Hawthorne,” I say. I’m a terrible liar, but I’m not going down without a fight. I’ll fight for him. He doesn’t deserve this. He did nothing wrong. It was all me. I pushed him. I wanted him, and I recklessly crossed the line every time he told me not to.

Victor’s gaze moves between the phone and my bewildered expression. How one botched homecoming night could go from bad to worse over the span of a few hours is beyond me, but there’s no going back.

I’d say the damage has been done, but I have a feeling it’s only just begun.