These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

What. Have. I. Done?

Seriously?

That muscle on his cheek stops at my words. That last throbbing piece freezes over as if to prepare for his anger, hot and explosive, to go off.

And it does.

“No,” he says. “You will bow down at my feet because I’m your new soccer coach. And because if you don’t, I’ll teach you such a lesson in obedience that my threat of stopping your graduation will feel like a Christmas gift. It will feel like the best thing anyone’s ever done to you and you’ll thank me for it.” While keeping his eyes on me, he raises his voice slightly and addresses the rest of the girls. “Is that clear to all of you as well or do I need to repeat myself?”

Initially no one says a word.

Not until he swivels his gaze away from me and onto them.

Then a burst of nos sounds all around me.

And he speaks again. “I’m not sure how things were done before I got here and I don’t really care. What I care about is how things will be done from now on. I’ve got one rule and one rule only: obedience. This isn’t a democracy. What you want doesn’t matter. I’m not here to listen to your opinions or your life story. From now on, you will do as I say. If I ask a question, you will answer it. If I want you to form a line, you will form a line. If I want you to run a lap around the field, you will run a lap around the field. And if I want you to be here on time, you will be here five minutes early. Is that understood? This might only be a team building exercise for you. But if you want to pass this class, you’re going to have to put in the work. You’re going to have to play soccer.”

He grinds his jaw once before continuing, “And you,” he says, his eyes traveling back to me, “I’ll see you in my office. Tomorrow after school.”

***

Conrad.

His name is Conrad.

I finally know.

It’s been elusive to me for the past year, his name. Even though I heard it a million times from Callie’s mouth.

But I know now.

And so when my roommate goes to sleep, I crawl over to the barred window and under the moonlight, I draw his name.

Up on my thighs.

Really high up, with thorns and roses snaking through it.

It seems both silly and appropriate at the same time.

Because his name sounds like thorn.

Sharp and protective.

Conrad Thorne.

People think I’m predictable.

They think that I have a routine. A schedule that I follow strictly. A schedule I don’t like to deviate from.

They are not wrong.

I am predictable. I do have a schedule that I follow stringently.

For example, for at least the last decade, I’ve gone for a six-mile run at the same time every morning. For years I’ve shopped at the same grocery store, eaten at the same pizza place, worked out at the same gym. I’ve bought the same brand of milk, the same brand of detergent and the same brand of cereal. I’ve driven the same kind of truck, gotten gas from the same gas station and slowed down at every yellow light on the way back home instead of flooring it through them.

I also never text and drive.

And everyone who knows me knows that.

So when I took this job at St. Mary’s, people were surprised.

They weren’t expecting me to quit my old job — coaching soccer at my town’s high school, Bardstown High — and take a job at a different high school, in another town. Without any prior indication.

First because I’d had my old job for at least the last decade. And second, along with my predictability, people who know me also know about my hatred for this place.

For St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers, an all-girls reform school.

To be fair, I didn’t have any opinion of it up until two years ago. It was just a school, a different, more extreme kind of school, located one town over from mine and nothing more.

I’d never given it any thought whatsoever.

But then I was forced to send my sister, Callie, here.

I was forced to watch her leave the safety of her home — where she belonged; where she still belongs — and walk through those black metal gates to go live with a bunch of delinquents.

That changed things a little bit.

That changed my apathy to hatred. To anger.

That she was trapped here.

Still is, until she graduates, and I can’t do anything about it.

I couldn’t do anything to protect her. To stop her from going, and I regret that.

I’ve regretted it every single day for the past two years.

So then it’s not such a surprise, is it? It’s not so unexpected that given the opportunity, I would take a job here. Because I’m predictable, yes, but I’m also one other thing.