A Deal With the Devil (Boys of Preston Prep 2)

“There was…fire,” I explain, shifting my shoulders uneasily, “and she was in the middle of the road, so I had to move her away from the wreck, even though…” Vandy already knows this. I know she does. She was more conscious than not for that part. I can still remember the way she looked up at me, eyes dazed and full of agony as I carefully dragged her to the side of the road. It doesn’t make it any easier to say this aloud. I wet my lips, finishing, “Even though you’re not supposed to move someone with spinal injuries.”

Everyone’s quiet, and I know they’re looking at her more than me. Looking at her leg. Thinking of how she walks. Maybe even remembering how much worse it used to be. I know at one point, early on, she couldn’t even walk at all. I should feel relieved that she can. I should be able to see her merely limping and think ‘thank fucking god’, instead of the constant internal stab of ‘I did that’.

But I can’t.

It’s Carlton who ultimately breaks the silence. “Didn’t you already do time for that?”

I finally lean back in my chair, knee bouncing. “Yeah, a little. I was in juvie for a few months, after the hospital. They let me plead down my sentence as time served, plus probation and community service, on the condition that I enrolled in Mountain Point for four semesters.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “But you’ve already done the time. Everyone already knows.”

“That’s the best part,” I say, giving him a bitter smile. “I’m having my record expunged when I graduate. Once I get out of here, it’ll be like it never happened.”

That’s what the lawyer had said.

Like it never happened.

They must all sense the truth of it—that it isn’t fair that Vandy has to walk around with the consequences for life, and that I can just move on and do anything I want. I could be a football star. I could be a doctor. I could be a lawyer. Sky’s the fucking limit for me.

But if this video got out, that’d be a different story.

They seem to accept this as ‘good enough’, which is fortunate. It’s not my fault my ‘biggest sin’ just so happens to be something I’ve already been caught for.

Everyone in the circle looks to Vandy, but my eyes are the last to land on her. She’s still got her arms crossed, but her face is hidden from me now, obscured by a curtain of her pretty blond hair.

Emory sighs. “Vandy, you have to—"

“I know.” She pushes her hair away from her face and finally I can see that she’s not stalling. She’s just slipping into some armor, building some defenses. Her eyes are guarded but resolute when she begins, “It started a few years ago.”

Inside, I freak out a little, because I thought for sure being here would be her big sin, and it’s suddenly occurring to me that a lot of these girls' confessions are about something sexual, and it’s all been dubiously consensual bullshit, and I just…

I can’t hear about someone doing shit to Vandy.

I can’t.

Just the thought of it makes me want to get up and pace.

She goes on, voice soft, “I had a few surgeries that first year, and they had me on morphine for a while.” Fuck fuck, no. Now I’m the one who wants to cover my ears. “Eventually, they put me on other painkillers. They were patches sometimes, but usually pills. I was almost always hurting, so I was almost always on them. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.” She takes a breath, and I can tell she’s chewing the inside of her cheek. “At some point, the pain stopped being so bad. Or, at least, it wasn’t bad all the time. I could have stopped taking them.” She looks up, into the camera. “But I didn’t.” Her shrug is tight. “I kept telling them it hurt, and they kept giving me the pills. For a long time, it was really easy. Getting an oxy script was like asking for a drink of water. Everyone just automatically believed me. I can’t even remember most of my Sophomore year, I was so stoned out of my mind all the time.”

I chance a glance at Emory. He’s watching her, wide-eyed, like she’s someone he doesn’t even know. I’m too busy being grateful that I’m not hearing about some doctor’s bad touch to feel much of anything else.

Vandy looks down at her wringing hands. Her cheeks are red. “It’s really hard to come off that stuff. The doctors tried to wean me in stages, last year. I acted like I was following the protocol, but I wasn’t. I had built a nice stash over the two years, so I could keep taking them. And taking them. And taking them.” Her smile is something tight and guilty. “Eventually, the stash grew a lot smaller. I tried playing up the pain, but it just led to more procedures and prodding and babying. I knew no one here would sell it to me, but I’ve even bought some off a couple Northridge guys.” Her eyes move to Carlton, who’s been watching passively. “Yours, I assume?”

Carlton’s wide eyes snap to Emory. He points to her, voice insistent. “Bro, I didn’t know about that.”

“It was hard getting money, though,” she continues, picking at a fingernail’s chipped polish. “My parents would always ask what it was for, and it got easier to just steal it.”

Emory runs a hand down his face. “Jesus, V.”

She stiffens, almost imperceptibly. Her voice is harsh and biting when she says, “You don’t know what it’s like, okay? You have this whole life that has nothing to do with—” She swallows down the rest, exhaling in a hiss. “It was the only thing that got me through, and it’s not like it’s something you can just quit, cold turkey.” She flattens her palms to her thighs, pushing her shoulders back. “It’s taken me all year to get my dosage down to a point where I wasn’t getting sick.”

Caroline cautiously asks, “Are you still…?”

Vandy looks up at her, and then around at the rest of the people in the circle, Emory last. “No,” she finally mutters, head shaking. “I’m done with it now.”

There’s something she’s not saying. Mayb

e the others don’t notice the slight crack in her voice, or the way her shoulders twitch when she says the words, but I’ve seen enough liars—been enough of a liar—to know when something’s being held back. Maybe she’s still addicted. Maybe she still gets sick. Maybe she still thinks about lying to the doctors.