Dirty Liars (Hawthorne Holy Trinity 1)

Then there’s nothing either of us can do.

Chapter 10

The school is buzzing with news about the argand lamp by the next morning. Students are excited and teachers are furious. I don’t understand why until I overhear that the lamp wasn’t the full extent of the damage—someone smashed the vase of flowers over the secretary’s desk and the water completely fried her computer and destroyed some of the student records.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I must’ve put it too close to the edge of the counter when I ran off. Now what was supposed to be a mostly harmless prank has turned into something more.

I do my best to keep my head down and avoid any more trouble, but it doesn’t last long.

As soon as class starts, the principal addresses the entire school over the intercom and makes sure none of us are going to be forgetting the whole thing any time soon. I catch Blair looking in on my English class during the announcement, and he’s losing it. Astor just barely smiles, but for him … that’s basically the same thing.

I don’t pray, but I find myself pleading with whoever runs the universe that somehow I won’t be caught. Something has to go right, doesn’t it?

I do my best to stay out of everyone’s way all morning, but at some point all my books go missing. They eventually turn up much later that afternoon when I’m approached by Mr. Davis who’s carrying them. I eye him curiously.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for those! Where were they?” I ask as I take them off his hands.

He grimaces. “They were in the boy’s bathroom on the fifth floor.”

I sigh. Great. I’d never have found them there.

“Thanks,” I say. He looks at me sympathetically.

“They’re hazing you. You’re new. It will stop in time,” he tries to reassure me.

It doesn’t work. I don’t feel reassured … I feel bitter and angry. It doesn’t help that Mr. Davis reminds me of tonight’s detention before leaving me with an armload of the stolen books. I’m not really sure of the message he’s trying to send here.

How am I supposed to succeed in school with these jerks stealing my essays, hiding my books in boy’s bathrooms, making me steal ancient things and commit a crime like breaking and entering … if the teachers all know about it and aren’t going to do anything.

I almost feel like it’s not worth it, but then I remember where I came from. I can’t go back. An opportunity like this doesn’t come around more than once in a lifetime. Hell, it isn’t guaranteed come around in every lifetime. Anything I have to put up with at this school is actually going to be worth it because it’s going to ensure a solid future for me. If it doesn’t kill me first.

I avoid lunch altogether and sit with Dana at dinner in the hopes that it will keep Victoria away, and it works. At least I can relax around my roommate. It isn’t lost on me how lucky I really am that we got paired up. It takes her all of two seconds to know something is wrong, and though I swore to keep her out of it, I end up telling her the whole thing just to make her shut up.

She shakes her head. “I told you to watch out for that group. They’re bloodthirsty.”

“I know,” I say, and it’s my turn to want to flop out on the grass in utter denial … but I don’t because the last thing I want is for one of the boys to walk by and think I’m defeated. I already skipped sailing class to avoid Wills, but I can’t keep this up forever.

I promise Dana I’ll do my best, but I don’t really believe myself. Even if I wanted to stay away … I don’t think the boys will let me. At least … not until they’re finished with me. They are the cats and I’m the mouse. Right now they’re circling, toying with me, but eventually they’ll grow bored—and either leave me alone, or eat me.

I have detention tonight thanks to Blair, so I leave Dana to finish eating and head back out across the quad towards class. I’m about halfway across, my mind wandering to the events of the weekend, when Astor steps out from behind one of the big old trees and stands directly in front of me. He slides his hands into his pockets and his eyes move slowly over my face. He has a curious look about him, and it makes me wary. It’s something I haven’t seen in him before.

“I thought I told you to stay out of my way,” he says, though it doesn’t carry any of his usual disdain. It’s quiet, calculating.

I scowl at him. “Just let me by.”

I try to step around him, but he just steps up to block my path. After everything, all the abuse, the stolen books and papers, the lighthouse … I just snap.

My feet plant firmly on the grass, and I glare up at him with all the force I can muster. “What is it you want, Astor Hawthorne? Don’t you think you’ve done enough already?”

I couldn’t help it. That’s all Teddy and not one little bit of Sadie. I’m not sorry one bit.

He only cocks his eyebrow slightly and tilts his head as if he’s thinking about something and didn’t hear a single word I just shouted at him.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asks out of the blue.

I blanch and stare up at him. I can’t believe he just asked me that. I know that I must have heard him wrong, because that is the absolute last thing I expected to come out of his mouth.

“What?” I ask, knowing that I have to have misunderstood him.