All I can think about is seeing him in the flesh. Making sure that he’s really okay and if I somehow get to do that, if I somehow get to see him again, who’s to say I wouldn’t act on that urge of mine?
Who’s to say I wouldn’t try to ruin their relationship?
I’m already in love with my sister’s boyfriend. I’m already so corrupt and despicable. I’m already so hopelessly in love.
Who’s to say I wouldn’t take it one step further and try to steal him away from her?
So I need to stay away from him.
I need to control myself like I’ve done for the past eight years.
Which is why tonight, I’m breaking a big, huge rule of St. Mary’s.
Because the alternative is that I sit in my dorm room and cook up scenarios about how to steal my sister’s boyfriend.
This rule that I’m breaking though will definitely banish all my privileges.
But even the thought of that can’t deter me – or Callie, Poe and Wyn – from doing what we’re doing.
Sneaking out to a bar to go dancing.
It’s a whole process, too.
You have to go to bed, wearing what you will for going out, so when the time comes to actually sneak out, you don’t go around hunting for clothes and waking up your roommate.
Then you have to stack all your pillows under the blanket so even if your roommate does wake up at some point while you’re away, she can see your dark silhouette and suspect nothing.
After that, you tiptoe out of the room at a specified time and slowly, carefully walk down the darkened hallway so as to not alert the 24/7 warden, who sits all the way in the front at reception with her TV going.
If someone does intercept you, you say you’re going to the bathroom. Hence you can’t wear anything too flashy so the lie looks convincing.
Once you’ve reached the end of your hallway, you take a left, and you come upon a heavy metal door with a red EXIT sign on it. That’s where all your friends will be waiting for you.
That’s where Poe, who’s done this a million times in the past because she’s been here since her sophomore year, will jiggle the latch in a precise manner that will get the door open. And Callie who’s also done this a million times before because like Poe she’s been here since sophomore year will usher me out into the night. Then Wyn, who’s been here since her junior year, will carefully wedge a rock between the door and doorjamb so we can get back in easily.
Then, we’ll run and fly through the massive expanse of green grounds that surround the campus to get to a very special spot on the brick fence. This spot has dents and gaps, big enough that we can rest our feet in and scale the wall to get to the other side.
And so, ten minutes after we’ve broken out of our dorm building, we’re making our way through the woods, in the middle of which our reform school sits, to get to the highway.
Poe has already arranged for a cab through her phone when we were in the third-floor bathroom.
How did she pay for it though, the cab I mean? She also has a secret credit card that she stole before coming to St. Mary’s, and if she uses it in a very limited capacity, charges sort of go unnoticed. Or at least they have so far.
And how are we going to get into a bar even though we’re underage? That’s Callie’s department. She says that the bartender at this particular bar is a friend and he’ll let us in as long as all we do is dancing and no drinking.
I don’t care about that.
I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to dance either.
I’m not sneaking out for any of that.
I’m sneaking out because my heart is witchy and I have dangerous urges.
The bar that we’re at is called Ballad of the Bards.
I’ve heard of it, actually. It’s a bar famous for its love songs. Meaning they don’t play the regular, dancing music. They play the music of the bards, the poets. The songs of sad love and misery.
I’ve always wanted to go here. It’s at the border of the town of St. Mary’s and another town called Bardstown. And since I was sorta happy to know that we were coming here, I even let them put lipstick on me, on the way over.
“Every girl deserves a little lip lovin’,” said Poe, while painting my lips with Teenage Decay, which is a dark coral color.
It reminds me of the sun.
It reminds me of him.
With that on my lips, I feel like he’s close.
He might as well be. The press conference was a couple of days ago. We, at St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers, move slower than the rest of the world.