Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

After putting a few smudges of Atomic Red on my cheeks, she floats out the door. It will be good for her to meet her girlfriends, even if they are a pack of conniving hyenas. She hasn’t been this excited since before Robert the day trader asked her to marry him.

And besides, it wouldn’t help for her to hover over me. I really am going to drive myself crazy in the final hours leading up to the exhibit. This piece will get auctioned off at the end of the night, and the money will go to a charity to help victims of rape and abuse. There’s every chance that Daddy will be the highest bidder, not because he likes the painting but because money is the only way he knows how to show his support of my weird interests. Even knowing that, I can’t help but obsess over this piece.

The other pieces show Medusa in various stages of her life; with her three Gorgon sisters, beautiful and pristine, being held down by Poseidon, being cursed by Athena for the “crime” of being raped in her temple, her hair turned to snakes, her face turning every man to stone. You would think that’s enough tragedy for the Greeks, but then they had to behead her.

The other pieces tell the story of her life and death, but the centerpiece of the show is a simple portrait like the one that appeared on the wall of the gymnasium, sprung from my rage and fear and helplessness, the look in her eyes mirrored in every girl who walked the hallways with me.

I had only a few hours between when the custodians went home and when school staff arrived in the morning, which meant I had to work fast—and that was good; the time limit gave me the intensity I needed to complete the piece. The painting in front of me is good. Maybe even my best work, but there’s something missing. A sense of necessity. That I would have painted the wall of that gymnasium or died trying.

Maybe it’s impossible for something created to exhibit to match that intensity.

Or maybe I’ve just failed at art in a spectacularly public fashion.

My phone vibrates with a text from across the room. It’s probably Avery, my best friend from Smith College, who’s staying at a hotel in Times Square. If she offers to get drunk with me, that’s how I’ll be spending tonight, I already know.

It’s Christopher.

Two words and suddenly I can’t breathe. Is he texting me to wish me good luck the night before my big show? Does he even remember that it’s tomorrow? Or is this some random Christopher in a city that must have thousands of them, who somehow got my number and is now going to send me an unsolicited dick pic?

My hands are shaking, which I prefer to attribute to nerves about the upcoming show than about the fact that Christopher is texting me for the first time. Heyyyy, stranger.

There’s a full two minutes, during which my heart beats approximately twelve thousand times and I think of ten terrifying ways he might have been injured after texting me.

I’m at the airport about to get in a cab. Do you have plans for dinner or are you going to an uber hip artist spot where they drink kombucha and complain about capitalism?

A smile spreads over my face before I can stop it. He’s here in New York City. For me. And he’s possibly inviting me to dinner? The suite suddenly becomes a fun-house mirror, everything in all different shapes, leaving me dizzy and out of breath.

Actually I’m in my hotel room, thinking about slashing this painting, but they only sent up a butter knife with room service. After a moment I send another text, You can come hang out if you want. There’s no kombucha but we can raid the minibar.

No vandalism until I get there.

I might have a sensitive artist’s soul, but I’m still a girl.

A girl with an unfortunate, painful, and totally inappropriate crush.

Which means I spring up and raid my closet for something other than a paint-splattered tank top and ripped shorts. I pull a brush through my hair, which is about all I can do before falling back on my bed, wondering why I want to impress someone I barely know. It’s not like I’ve never been on a date before. I’ve been on lots of dates, with frat boys who think I’m going to fawn over them for knowing how to kick a ball or making a reference to Kant. Whatever.

I don’t think Christopher has ever tried to impress me. I also don’t think he wants to get me into bed. At least, he had me naked once and didn’t try anything. So where does that leave us? I’m not fifteen anymore, if that had ever been what kept him away from me. I’m eighteen now, and ironically more fully aware of my cluelessness as a sexual being

than I was back then.

It’s another hour until he knocks on the door.

And I definitely don’t run to the door or stand in front of it for two whole minutes, trying to catch my breath and pretend like I haven’t been waiting for him since he sent that text. Since before that, if I’m totally honest. Since I sent the invitation, pretending I didn’t care if he ignored it.

Since he dived in after me through the water, the first person to meet me where I was instead of where they wanted me to be.

When I open the door, he looks rumpled and travel-worn and so handsome after being on a plane that it’s indecent. “Hey, stranger,” he says softly, his eyes a sleek ocean surface at night. It’s been three years since I’ve seen him, and he looks harder and softer at the same time.

There are lots of ways I can say hello to him that will make me seem mature. Instead I throw my arms around his broad shoulders and press my face into his neck, breathing him in. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever made, and everyone’s going to look at it, and I want to die.”

He stands stock-still for a moment, as if too surprised to even move. Then his arms wrap around me. He holds me like the whole world could batter us from every side and we would still be safe clinging together like this. He holds me like I’m running out of air and he knows the way to the surface. “It will be okay, Harper. I promise you.”

There are embarrassing tears on my lashes when I pull back. “This would be less humiliating if I were throwing an artistic tantrum and throwing things. Crying is so pedestrian.”

“I’m sure that vase would make a satisfying crash,” he offers gently.

The weird thing is I know he would let me throw it, if that’s what I needed. Or cry on his shoulder if that’s what I need instead. “Come inside,” I say, dragging him by the hand so he has to scramble to grab the handle of his carry-on before the heavy hotel door slams behind him.