The door to my quarters slams shut behind me. I grimace, snarling angrily at the nerve of its loudness.
Fuck, I need a drink. My head’s still pounding from the hangover of the night before, but I need to stabilize. I need to even out.
I kick away the empty beer cans as I shuffle through the room, past filthy dishes stacked on a side table, past old laundry heaped across the sofa in my living area, past framed pictures - the glass cracked and shattered as they hang lopsided or on the floor.
It’s hot in here. Or maybe it’s not, it could just be the sweats. I’ve been getting those more and more these days, which probably isn’t a good sign. “Probably” nothing - it’s most definitely not a good sign as Dr. Moreland reminded me the last time he came by to check in on my leg and refill my prescriptions.
The truth is, booze shakes and sweats are a sign that I’m falling the fuck apart. The other truth is, I could honestly care less at this point.
My eyes narrow on the mostly empty bottle of bourbon sitting on my bedside nightstand.
Yeah, that’ll do.
I grab an empty coffee mug from the mantle of the huge fireplace, sniffing it and deciding I don’t mind the hint of coffee smell before I unscrew the bourbon and pour a healthy double. I bring it to my lips and swallow deeply, feeling the familiar warmth of the booze creeping through my broken body.
It burns. It ignites my veins and clears the haze from my eyes. It brings that sort of fuzzy focus I’ve learned to prefer over reality in the last few months. And reality is something I’m happy to escape from today. Because I underestimated the feelings having her back here would bring. I underestimated what it would do to me.
Anastasia Bell.
Years later, and I’m still getting the same damn look from her.
The disdain.
The indifference.
The looking down on me for what I am, instead of worshipping me for something I’m not like most people always have.
And worst of all, the pity. It’s not because of the accident, either. I got this shit from her years ago too - like she pitied me for being me.
I scowl as I slug back more whiskey. I’d say that’s the reason she’s here, instead of literally any other girl on the planet - to finally Lord who I am over who she is, or a chance to remind her that she’s not better than me, despite her misplaced belief that she is - but that’s a lie.
She’s here because she’s her, and she’s here for much more than saving her father’s job, she just doesn’t know it yet.
She’s here to save an empire - my empire.
But fuck her pity.
Fuck her disdain.
Fuck her indifference to me.
I own her now.
The whiskey clears my head as much as it buries it. I slump down into the high-backed chair near the massive fireplace of my room, clearing away more empties and pulling a sour face at the makeshift ashtray in what used to be a cereal bowl.
Mrs. Tottingham grows a new wrinkle every time I refuse her entrance to my quarters, which have slowly become more of a health and safety hazard than a living area. But this place is my sanctuary, and no one comes in here but me. Not Mrs. Tottingham. Not the few friends I’ve got left. Not the nameless women, though even those have stopped since the wreck, and my leg.
My quarters are a dump is what they are, but it’s me. Broken and shredded, and torn down from the opulent, old-money prestige and pedigree it once was. A bit like me.
Almost killing your best friend and then being put under house arrest will do that.
I don’t remember shit about the crash the night of my twenty-seventh birthday six months ago. I’d say that’s a good thing, except more and more these days, I want to remember. I need to remember because I need the pain.
I deserve the pain.
Deep down, I know it should be me in that hospital bed, not Dylan. It should be me lying broken and breathing through fucking tubes, not wasting away in this old house, counting down the days until the life I know gets taken from me. I swig back more of the whiskey, trying to blur out the memories of coming to in that hospital bed - my leg in a cast, my head in a fog, and three state troopers standing solemnly over me.
Not my finest birthday, I’ll say that.
Glancing around my room here, at my parents’ house, the only saving grace of this place - the only thing that points to humanity of any kind is the makeshift glass and metal structure in the corner near the double doors to my balcony. I’ve got the heat lamps going twenty-four hours a day, I’ve got the drip water system hooked up as best I can, and I’ve got the “crushed, fossilized mineral protein” that cost a fucking small fortune from the horticulture place I found in Paris that apparently specializes in rare flowers.
But I know it’s a losing battle. I am not Hank fucking Bell with his magic green thumb. I’m not even my mother, with her love of these roses. I mean, they’re pretty, I guess, but to me, they’re just flowers. And yet, here I am keeping the one surviving plant from that fire alive as best I can, like it matters.
Who the hell knows why we do the shit we do.
This is why I drink, by the way.
The whiskey goes down quicker than I imagined it would. I fill my coffee cup with the last of it before I throw the bottle vaguely in the direction of a trashcan.
Why the fuck did I bring her back here.
There’s the disdain, and the pity, and indifference that I remember from the day-to-day of existence with Anastasia Bell in my orbit. But then, there’s the one other look from her that’s forever seared into my memory. That look I only saw the once, but once was enough for it to have tattooed itself across my memory. It was the last look she ever gave me, on that night years ago. That look of betrayal, and anger. The look of understanding.
It was the look of finally truly realizing just how much of a monster I was. Am.
The look she gave me just now is different, in a way, but deep down, it’s the same one. Shit, it’s been nine damn years, and though time and life have dulled and eroded the rawness of that hurt from before, it’s the same fucking look.
I was a monster back then, and time’s only made me worse. The accident’s only buried me deeper into that darkness inside. Putting Dylan into a coma, being chained up inside this house that’s more a mausoleum to my parents than anything else, and finding out that all of this and everything I have might get taken away by the time I turn twenty-eight?
I was horrible before, but what Anastasia Bell might not know is that everything that’s happened since that night has only done one thing.
It’s made me worse.
My gaze slides to the table beside my chair, my eyes landing on the little lines of what’s definitely either crushed up Percocet or cocaine from last night on top of my laptop.
Perfect.
I could dwell more on why I brought Anastasia back here with her disdainful looks, and her hatred for me, and the demons she brings back with her. I could go deep and really mull over why it’s her, over anyone it could be.
Or I could do what I do best these days.
Slip into darkness.
The liquor and the drugs and the broken, shattered sanctuary of my quarters come easier anyways.
* * *
9 Years Ago:
It started how all stupid, fucking idiotic high school dares start.
With alcohol, of course.
Picture a ten-bedroom mansion on the beach. Now picture a hell-raising teenager with full reign of the place. Now remove the element of parents from the equation.
…Needless to say, basically every party that happened during my four years at South Neck High happened at my house, and every single one was balls-out, pedal-to-the-metal insane.
“You left some, you pussy.”
Dylan rolls his eyes and flips Tyler off as he brings the plastic Solo cup back up to his lips and slugs back the last gulp.
Ty shakes his head. “You know the whole point of chugging is that you’re supposed to finish on the first run, right?”
“Guess I haven’t been working on my gag reflex like you have.”
Ash snorts as Tyler flips the rest of us off. He reached for the pump of the keg we’re all standing around. We’re up on my bedroom balcony, the sounds of the party roaring through the rest of the house and out across the back lawn by the pool. It’s not even that late, but things are already getting wild. There are definitely some bare tits out in the pool, and at least two partygoers already passed out in the grass. Mike Garmon has Jen Blake - both seniors - on her back in one of the pool chairs while he fucks the shit out of her, heedless of the crowd around them.
You know, typical Friday night at the Crown Estate.
Some nights, I’d be down there with the rest of them, playing beer pong or taking body shots off Bethany Miller’s epic tits or something. But some nights - nights that’ve been increasingly more frequent recently - I prefer to just sit up here with Ty, Ash, and Dylan and watch, like the four kings we are, surveying our court.
“Surprise, surprise. Guess who’s not coming to your party.”
I blink, turning to see what Tyler is nodding at. Ana, who’s not at the party that’s going down two hundred feet from her cottage, of course. She’s outside on the small little hedged-in patio behind the gardener’s cottage, hidden from the rest of the party. But I’ve got a direct view from up here into her little hiding place.
I sometimes wonder if she knows that.
Tonight, she’s got her big clunky headphones on - of course they’re big and clunky and “vintage” or whatever. As if “I have to be different from everyone else” Anastasia Bell would ever be caught with little white Apple earbuds like literally every other person ever. And she’s playing her guitar. I can’t hear her, of course, over the ruckus of the party and the thumping hip-hop music, but I can still watch.
She does this a lot, actually - sit out on her patio and play around quietly on her acoustic, usually with those damn headphones on. I never really can hear what she’s playing, and I can’t imagine why I’d care beyond basic curiosity. But for some reason, that night, I wonder what it is.
“The fuck is wrong with her?” Ty shakes his head, taking a slug of beer.
I say nothing.
“She doesn’t, like, do anything.”
“Looks like she plays guitar,” Dylan says with a shrug.
Tyler frowns. “Man, I mean she doesn’t party or fuckin’…I don’t know. Shit, she doesn’t even go out with anyone.”
Ash shrugs, taking a pull from the bottle of whiskey in his hands. “She went out with that Stedman kid.”
I look away at the mention of Josh Stedman, the guy Ana was dating last year.
Was.
“Yeah but then he was fucking Kendra Wallace or something behind her back.”
Tyler snorts. “Jesus, what are you, the Cosmo gossip section of South Neck High?”
Ash flips him off as he takes another swig of whiskey.
I just watch Ana play.
“You think he ever tapped that?”
That pulls me out of my trance, my eyes narrowing and my jaw tightening as I turn back to my three buddies.
“What?” I hiss.
Tyler shrugs. “Josh. I mean he must have banged Ana, right? They went out for like a year.”
I scowl. “How the fuck should I know?”
I do know. I know because knowing the answer to that question ate at my mind for fucking months before money and vague physical threats dragged the answer out of Josh.
He didn’t.
Tyler gives me a look. “Relax. Just a fucking question.” He turns his gaze back to her. “You think she’s a virgin?”
Dylan whistles. “Naaaaah. No way. She got way too hot last year to still be holding onto that.”
“You ever see her go out with anyone?” Ty turns to me. “C’mon man, you’ve gotta know. She ever bring any dudes over? I mean, hell, you can probably see into her room from up here.”
And I can, actually.
I shrug, reaching for my pack of cigarettes and avoiding looking at him. “No fucking clue. I doubt it. It’s a small house, and her dad’s there all the time.”
Ash shrugs. “Well, she’s got that guitar and her plants. Maybe she’s just one of those girls that’s not into it.”
Tyler snorts a laugh. “Maybe she’s just waiting for someone who actually knows what the hell he’s doing to show her how.”
I hate this conversation - the reasons why as confusing as the rest of the feelings mentioning Anastasia brings up inside of me.
Asher laughs, coughing on his whiskey and doubling over slightly before he comes back up, holding his side.
“Shit, you mean you, you moron?”
Ty grins. “Step aside, gentlemen, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Dylan and Ash laugh and shake their heads. I fill my lungs with as much burning hot cigarette smoke as I can.
“You?” Dylan waves Tyler and his infamous bravado off. “Bullshit. You couldn’t.”
“The hell I couldn’t.”
“Maybe after I showed you how,” Ash says with a grin.
I’m just glowering in my silence, destroying my cigarette as fast as possible, the red Solo cup in my hand crinkling slightly as my hand grips it tighter and tighter.
“What about you, Crown?” Tyler turns, nodding his stupid, handsome chin at me.
I don’t really understand the anger I feel in that moment, at these other guys talking about fucking Anastasia. It’s rage. It’s something unhinged.
And it’s confusing as shit.
“This is fucking stupid,” I growl, sticking a fresh smoke in my mouth and lighting the tip of it with the cherry of the last one.
“Hey, if you don’t want to play in the big leagues, you don’t have to.”
He grins, knowing me well enough to understand he’s pissing me off, even if he might not fully know why.
“We could make it interesting. You down?”
I’m seething beneath the surface as I turn my forced smiled on Tyler. Dylan frowns, his eyes darting between us, sensing the friction here even if he too isn’t quite sure what’s gotten into me.
“All right, why don’t we chill. I got an ounce of that Cali kush from my guy. I could roll us a nice—”
“Fuck it,” I shrug as casually as I can. “I’m in. How interesting?”
Ash laughs. “Oh, shit. Now it’s on.”
Tyler’s lips pull back in a smile. Like I said, he knows me, and he knows the odds of me and my competitive streak stepping away from something when it turns into a bet is approximately a million to one.
“A hundred bucks each? Whoever taps that first gets the pile.”
The Solo cup crushes in my hand at my side. Beer drips from my fingertips.
“What are you, poor, Van Der Haus?”
Tyler grins even wider.
“Make it a grand each.”
Ash’s brows go up. “Four thousand dollar pot to whoever fucks Anastasia Bell first?” He nods as he slugs back another belt of whiskey. “Shit, I’m in.”
This is stupid.
“Trust me,” Ty grins as he snatches my pack of cigarettes off the balcony ledge and sticks one between his lips. “I’ll be in. Balls deep in.”
For a second, I want to literally murder one of my best friends. I actually want to throw him off the balcony, and piss on his broken body. I find restraint, but I’m imagining it in gory detail as I pull on the cigarette, my eyes narrowed darkly at him
Tyler’s laughing eyes dart to mine, and his brow furrows.
“Jesus, Crown, it’s just a dare.” He laughs. “You wanna quit with the fucking beast-mode eyes?”
I take one more pull of the smoke, filling my lungs and swallowing back the darkness.
And then it’s gone. Well, then it’s back to being hidden. I force the usual mask of a smiling face back on as I shrug casually and grin. “I’m just fucking with you, man.”
Tyler holds my gaze a second longer, frowning slightly as if trying to see past the mask.
He won’t. No one does.
He laughs, the sound tinged with just enough nervousness to let me know I’ve made a point, even if it’s subliminal.
“Man, trying to get inside my head, huh?”
He laughs again, and the sudden tenseness of our group on the balcony dissipates. The mood lightens. My head doesn’t.
Dylan nods at Ash. “Hey, you still trying to get with that new girl, Liz?”
“I was.” Ash shrugs, his face pulling into a grin. “Got a blowjob in the upstairs library after English yesterday.”
Dylan groans. “Motherfucker.”
Ash just grins. “You want some?”
“Not after you, Jesus.”
In all of our fucked up glory as “kings” of the school, that’s a rule: we don’t touch a girl who one of the other one’s has been with. It’s us pretending we have standards I guess. It’s also a power thing because word is out on that. So if a girl is getting with you, it’s because she wants you over the other three, since getting with you means trying any of the others is off the table.
Like I said, it’s stupid.
“Yeah, fuck that,” Ty wrinkles his nose. “Unless you wanna kiss a girl who tastes like Ash’s dick.”
The three of them crack up like I should be too. After all, we’re young, we’re the one percent of the one percent of the one percent, and we’ve got the whole school on their knees begging for us. Sometimes quite literally.
But I ignore them as I turn back to the gardener’s cottage. She’s still out there on her little hedged-off patio, strumming a tune I can’t hear and mouthing words I can’t read.
“Can’t” isn’t a word my brain is used to dealing with.