Halston

Nobody smiles here.

I walk behind the headmistress Tuesday morning as she spouts impressive facts to Uncle Victor, reassuring him he did the right thing.

“Our success rate is second to none,” she says. “Many of our girls go on to be doctors, lawyers, and CEOs. Of course, most of those girls started with us in their younger years, but I just know Halston will do wonderfully here. We’ll be sure to make the most of the short time we have with her.”

She doesn’t look at me when she speaks, and she seems quite smitten with Vic. He’s wearing his power suit, his gray hair slicked back.

He keeps a stern presence, rarely making eye contact with me. I didn’t speak to anyone Sunday, refusing to leave my room. It wasn’t until my stomach was growling at two in the morning and hindering my sleep that I finally snuck down for a bowl of cereal.

Aunt Tabitha tried to hug me goodbye Monday afternoon when we left for the airport.

I kept on walking.

And as for Bree, I hope I never see her again.

The headmistress is still schmoozing as we pass the cafeteria. Girls glance up at us with dead eyes, their mush breakfasts resting on beige trays, mostly uneaten. This place feels like a bad dream and a horror film all mixed into one with its limestone, Gilded Age exterior, the weeping willows lining the circle drive, the sconce-lined walls, and the sweeping ceilings that make every footstep echo. The only thing it’s missing are bars on the windows and ravens quoting “nevermore.”

“The rooms are this way,” the woman says, pointing down a long corridor lined with oil portraits. “Each girl has one roommate and each hall has one communal bathroom. Twenty girls to one bathroom. The curtains rise at five o’clock each morning and lights are out by eight PM sharp. We have one hour of recreation before bedtime each night, and we encourage our girls to work on their homework between dinner and their final class of the day.”

We pass an exit with glaring red letters. It seems out of place in a home that appears to have frozen in time one hundred years ago, and for half of a second I think about walking away.

But I have no money. No car. Nowhere to go.

And I’d be throwing away a free college education, my only shot at a decent future.

Girls in gray dresses begin to fill the hall, all of them walking in a straight line, eyes forward as they disperse to their rooms.

“Would you like to meet your roommate, Halston?” the woman turns to me, her pencil-thin mouth curling.

Victor turns to me. I nod.

Stopping outside a room labeled “The Katrina Howell Suite,” the headmistress tells Uncle Vic about “Our dear, sweet Kat, who went on to become the US Ambassador to Norway before meeting and falling in love with the Duke of Pendleton …”

When she finally stops rambling, she raps on the door three times before barging in.

A girl with shiny dark hair and deep set aquamarine eyes gazes up from a thick book. She doesn’t seem the least bit startled about anyone barging into her room. Didn’t even flinch.

“Lila Mayfield, I’d like you to meet your new roommate, Halston Kessler,” the woman says.

The room is small, the two twin beds maybe five feet apart, but the ceiling is sweeping and the windows run from floor to ceiling. We each have a desk and a wooden wardrobe but nothing else. This is nothing more than a glorified prison cell in a gilt mansion.

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.” The headmistress places her hand on Victor’s forearm. “If you’d like to come with me, we have a few forms we’ll need signed. I’ll send someone for her bags shortly.”

She leaves the room first, and Victor’s eyes meet mine.

I’ve never known him to be an emotional man. He holds his cards close, his heart forged of tungsten and coal. But his eyes shine, glassy.

“We’ll visit in—,” he says.

“Don’t bother,” I cut him off. I don’t want them to visit. I don’t want them to call or write. I don’t want to see them a month from now and have to pretend like everything’s kosher, like he didn’t just toss me to the side like I’m someone else’s problem now.

He stops, lingering for a moment, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s regretting his decision, though even if he were, it wouldn’t matter. Victor Abbott doesn’t apologize for anything, and he never admits he’s wrong.

Turning my back, I wait for the shuffle of his footsteps and the gentle click of the door catch.

Lila’s quiet, observing me, and I hope to God she’s not another Emily Miller.

“You’re going to hate it here,” she says after a moment of silence.

I stand, feet planted in the center of our tiny room and arms folded across my chest. “How long have you—”

“Eight years,” she answers, exhaling as she draws her knees against her chest and rests her back along the headboard. “Eight fucking years of this bullshit. You know they actually have a class here called Charms and Graces 101? We have to walk around with books on our heads and learn to make tea like we’re some British fucking aristocrat.”

I glance at her nightstand, a thick, leather-bound book catching my attention. “You read?”

Lila laughs. “I do. Here.”

Grabbing the book, she tosses it to me. “Great Expectations.”

“No. Open it up.”

Flipping the cover open, I see where the inside has been hollowed out and a Harlequin paperback is tucked neatly inside. The woman on the cover is half-naked, her dress barely containing her ample bosom, and the long-haired, broad-muscled man holding her looks like he’s seconds from devouring her.

“Oh, honey, we need to fix this.” I shut the cover, tossing the book back.

Lila shakes her head. “I like my smut.”

“Read Fanny Hill or Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I promise you’ll never touch one of those again.”

“Anyway,” Lila sits the book back. “What’s your story? Why’d your parents ship you off?”

I move to my new bed, taking a seat on the edge. The mattress is springy and thin, and my palms trace the lumps beneath the coverlet.

“My aunt and uncle sent me here because I was becoming too much of a burden or some shit like that,” I say. “And I don’t have a story. I’m just the girl that nobody ever wanted.”

Lila pouts, placing her hand over her heart. “You say that like it’s not the saddest thing in the world.”

“It’s not sad. It’s a fact.” I shrug. “Got over it a long time ago. What about you?”

She rolls her eyes. “I was an oops baby. My parents were in their forties when they had me. Their first three kids were already grown and off to college and they were looking forward to retiring early and traveling the world when I came along. They kept me around the first ten years or so, hiring nannies and all that. Then one day they just decided I should come here.”

“Just like that?”

Lila nods. “Pretty much.”

“Were you sad?” I imagine how difficult it would be as a ten-year-old girl, being left here while your family carries on without you.

“Not really.” She glances down, focusing on the rug between our beds. “Honestly, I barely know my parents. They were never around growing up … maybe holidays and stuff but nothing else. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just a couple of spoiled rich assholes who gave me their last name and these dashing good looks.”

Lila smirks, lashes fluttering. She’s kidding, but she doesn’t need to. It’s true. She’s beautiful, striking really, even covered in a drab gray dress and sitting in this dimly lit dungeon of a dorm room.

“Look at us,” Lila says. “Just a couple of girls nobody wanted. God, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.”

“What are you doing after graduation?”

“Reinventing myself,” she says without hesitation. “I’m going to be the girl that everyone wants. The girl no one wants to be without. I refuse to spend the rest of my life as someone else’s afterthought.”

I cross my legs, leaning back on my palms. “And how are you going to do that?”

She laughs. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. But I’m going to do it. I’m going to be that girl.”

“I want to be that girl too,” I say.

My mind returns to Kerouac for the millionth time today, unexpectedly and out of the blue like it does, only this time I’m not wondering what he’s doing today or when he’ll find out I was shipped off or if he’s been searching for me in the halls at school.

I’m thinking about that last email, wishing I could talk to him and tell him I’ll wait because he’s the only person who’s ever truly wanted me.

And now I have no way to reach him.

Uncle Victor took my electronics. The headmistress says we’re an ‘electronics-free’ school, save for the computer lab, which has no Internet access. I never knew Kerouac’s real phone number or real email. We only ever communicated through Karma.

“You’re thinking about someone,” Lila says, squinting. “Who is it? You have a boyfriend back home?”

“No boyfriend.”

Her mouth pinches, like she’s unsure if she believes me. “Some guy you love?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re not going to wait for him, right?” she asks, chuckling.

I search for the right words, something that won’t make me seem lovesick or pathetic. No one could possibly understand what we had, why I loved him, or why I would wait a hundred lifetimes for him if I had to.

“Oh, god. Please. No. We’re way too young to wait around for these assholes. I did that my sophomore year. Met a boy on summer break. Told him I’d wait for him so we could be together the following summer. Found out later on that he had three different girlfriends during the school year.” She makes a gagging sound. “They lie. They always lie. Especially the hot ones.”

“My situation is different.”

“Everyone says that.” Lila rolls her eyes. “I promise you it’s not. Boy meets girl. Boy charms girl. Boy says he loves girl. Boy asks girl to wait for him. Boy fucks other girls.”

“We never dated … we just talked.”

Her head tilts, like a confused toy poodle. “So, you’re hung up on some guy back home that you only ever talked to?”

“We had a connection.” I don’t know how to say this without sounding trite. Saying we had a connection makes it seem so much less than what it was when it was so much more than that. “We wanted to be together, but we couldn’t.”

“Oh, god. Married man?”

“No. Principal.” My gaze flicks to hers. I expect to get a reaction from her, judgement or disgust or something. Instead she climbs off her bed, walks toward me, and places her hand in my face, palm-side up.

“High five, Halston. That’s fucking awesome,” she says. “I knew you were bad ass, but this takes it to a whole other level. Love a girl who’s not afraid to go after what she wants in a world that doesn’t want us to have anything.”

I laugh, slowly lifting my hand. I hate high fives, but I like Lila.