HATE CRUSH Page 2

  “I stayed at my cottage in Nantucket,” I inform her as I reach into the wooden box designated with my name.

  “That sounds lovely.” She sighs dreamily. “Were you there with family?”

  “No.” I tuck the mail into my briefcase and duck through the door before she can ask any more probing questions. I imagine her standing there, mouth agape as I make my way across campus to my living quarters.

  Teachers at Loyola Academy live in a separate village on the north side of the campus. Far enough from the dorms to have a reprieve from the endless chatter of students, but close enough that they could still knock on your door if they really want to. Since our job is to act as surrogate parents throughout the school year, we are encouraged to develop bonds with our students. It isn’t uncommon to see them traipsing across the quad in the middle of the night to knock on the math teacher’s door when they have a fight with their boyfriend or a pressing need to discuss some other teenage drama. However, in the three years I’ve resided here, only one visitor has bothered to darken my doorstep. After I’d numbly accepted Misty’s welcome basket of baked goods, she hasn’t bothered to come back, and neither has anyone else.

  The house I chose when I moved in happens to be the one that affords the most privacy on campus. Tucked away behind a thicket of New England trees, there is little chance of others accidentally stumbling upon it. And given that most of my students refer to me as some form of Satan, it’s unlikely they would ever bother to seek it out.

  I dust off the doorknob and turn the key, hesitating in the entryway as I step inside. There’s a faint note of my cologne along with the musty smell of a house that’s been locked up all summer. Other than that, everything else remains the same.

  I drop my mail onto the table and set my briefcase aside as I hit play on the answering machine. The endless reel of voicemails from my father echoes through the space as I discard the letters he’d sent over the summer months. Numb to the pleas to return his calls, I delete his messages and spend the evening unpacking in the tomb of silence that’s become my life.

  In my restless state, I consider going out for a run. But when I scoop the necklace from the bottom of my suitcase, I find myself collapsing into the nearest chair instead. In my haphazard packing, I knew it had been stuffed somewhere in the void of my clothes and toiletries, but I’d managed most of the summer without looking at it once. Now, it can’t be avoided.

  I roll the chain between my fingers, studying the symbol rooted in Dharmic religion. I’m not a man to believe in the afterlife. Once things are gone from this earth, they just cease to exist. But if there were such a thing as signs, this would be hers. The ever-present reminder of why I’m here in the first place. What I came here for, and what I’ve yet to accomplish.

  Katie told me once that if she could just change one person’s life, then she could say she’d really lived. I never got the chance to tell her that she already had. It was her dream to come back here and show these students that there’s more to life than Ivy Leagues and test scores and corporate jobs. She believed she could save someone else from the acute misery she felt growing up under the dictatorship of my father and the pressures bestowed on us. But Katie never got the chance to prove herself. She lost her life because of me, and now the only way to make it up to her is to follow through with what she started. That has always been the goal. But in the three years I’ve been here, every one of my projects have failed. I am not a teacher. I am not a mentor. I am simply a man without passion trying to honor the memory of the most passionate person I knew. And as I clench the necklace within my fist, I know this year I have to leave my mark. Leave my mark or be done with this existential crisis.

  But for tonight, the necklace will remain in the cabinet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  STELLA

  “IS IT JUST ME, or is the tension at this table so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw?” Sybil whispers under her breath.

  “It’s not just you,” I assure her.

  “I have a headache,” my mother mutters before she drains the last of her wine from lunch.

  “Unfathomable.” My father eyes the empty bottle in front of her.

  She shoots him a withering glare. Sybil and I stare at our plates, shoveling in food as fast as we can so this train wreck can be over already.

  Unlike me, Sybil is a boarding school veteran. She’s an actual descendent of American royalty, and it just so happens that her father works with mine at the Arthur Group. That connection is how she came to be tasked with hosting me for the summer at her family’s house in the Hamptons. Neither of us were exactly thrilled at the prospect, but we quickly learned that despite our lack of common ground, we have a keen ability to be real with each other, which goes a long way in our world.

  In just a few short months, we became fast friends. Friends with a double lack of parental supervision and a lot of time on our hands. Trouble seemed to find us. We spent countless nights raiding her father’s liquor cabinet and sneaking out past curfew to parties on the beach while Sybil single-handedly charmed every wealthy heir to their father’s fortunes on the East Coast. A few times, to my utter dismay, we even ended up in New York gossip columns because of Sybil’s socialite status.

  Beside her, I found myself identified as the “unknown friend” in photographs, which suited me just fine. But while Sybil’s parents write off her shenanigans as harmless teenage fun, my parents seem to think I’m in a field of lava, narrowly avoiding a PR disaster for our family at every turn. Though they don’t exactly care for Sybil, they like the fact that her family has connections, and therefore, our friendship is beneficial to them. Naturally, when my mother heard that Sybil attends Loyola Academy, she decided that was the place to send your daughter when you’d rather not deal with her yourself. The only silver lining in this whole equation is Sybil. At least I won’t be facing my senior year entirely alone.

  “I’m going to rest in the car,” my mother announces dramatically as she gets up and leaves without waiting for a reply. What she really means is she’s going to sneak off with our driver, Luis, who I’m pretty sure she’s having an affair with. I caught them kissing in the car once, and she tried to play it off like he was helping with her necklace. She never could explain the lipstick smeared all over her face.

  “Your mom is super-hot.” Sybil wiggles her eyebrows and laughs as she watches Lila Monroe sashay out of the restaurant with the authority of a first lady.

  “She was a model.” I offer the stock explanation I use whenever someone remarks on my mother’s appearance.

  “And she’ll never let anyone forget it,” Dad chimes in, tossing his napkin down onto his plate. “Excuse me.”

  “Ouch.” Sybil glances at me as he leaves the table. “And I thought my parents were bad. At least they make an effort to hide their resentment. How are you still sane?”

  I laugh because sarcasm is the only defense I have left. “My mom feels like we ruined her life. She had a glamorous career and then she got knocked up by a photographer. My dad promised her they could make it work. He believed he could make her happy. I still don’t know if he did it to keep her or me.”

  “Yikes.” Sybil cringes, obviously at a loss for words.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know what?” She reaches into her purse and pops a piece of gum into her mouth. “Forget them. You’re about to start a new chapter in your life. And the best part is, you’ll have me by your side. Pretty soon, we’ll be eighteen, and we can rule the world.”

  I swallow the acid in my throat and nod even though I know that isn’t true. Sybil has dreams of being a dancer, and her parents are happy to foot the bill while she follows her heart. But my parents have made it more than clear what they expect from me. It’s Cornell or nothing. My mother won’t be satisfied until she can brag about her daughter with the inside scoop on all things fashion. I guess it’s not as easy to brag about the smartass daughter who really wants to be a photographer.

 
“Ready to go?” My father reappears with the lunch receipt in his hand. “I think it’s about time to drop you girls off.”

  LOYOLA ACADEMY ISN’T FOOLING around when they boast about superior educational resources on their website. In today’s tour, with Sybil as my guide, I’ve learned that there is a dedicated building for almost every subject. College level classes are the norm, and there are a billion languages to choose from. In addition to the plethora of athletics on offer, there’s also an Olympic-sized swimming pool at our disposal. Oh, and a student who actually went to the Olympics at fourteen.

  If I wasn’t intimidated before, Sybil’s offhand comments aren’t helping as she throws out statistics about how thirty to forty percent of students matriculate at top colleges. I knew coming here that the academics would be rigorous, but Sybil’s word of choice is cutthroat. While I’ve always done well in school, this isn’t just about keeping up good grades. It’s about being the best at everything, full stop.

  “This is kind of insane,” I murmur as we stroll across the quad.

  Sybil laughs. “Tell me about it. You’re in another world now, Cherrybomb. There’s a hierarchy here. The girls will see you as a threat, and they will test you. And the boys will all want a piece of the fresh meat. You have to remember these are kids who have been top performers since the age of five. They expect to be the future one percent, and they will accept nothing less. That means trampling over anyone they see as competition.”

  “Great.”

  “It’s not all bad, though.” She shrugs. “The pressure really gets to people. We have some rager parties. The headmaster’s deadbeat son will supply weed and alcohol for a price.”

  “Really?” I question. “Don’t people get caught?”

  “Nah.” She smooths back her long brown hair and knots it at the base of her neck with a hair tie. “I mean sometimes. But usually the teachers here don’t pay attention. There are a couple you have to avoid, but for the most part, a lot of shit flies under the radar. Last year, when I was sneaking into my boyfriend’s dorm, I crossed paths with my math teacher, who was sneaking into the married science teacher’s house. We both just stopped and stared at each other, then went on our merry way. Neither of us ever said a word.”

  “Holy crap.” I glance around the mammoth-sized campus, noting the distance between buildings. In the dark, I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to fly under the radar, particularly with teachers who are too busy looking the other way to care.

  “Yeah, and that’s not even the worst of it,” she says. “There are quite a few hookup spots around campus. Let me just say that more than a couple of teachers have been caught making out in the dark too. I guess they get just as sick of these confines as we do.”

  “I’ve heard stories about boarding school,” I admit. “I just never put much stock into it.”

  “What do you expect when you put a bunch of kids with affluenza and little parental supervision into one giant melting pot?” Sybil shrugs.

  “True.” I nod. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

  She considers the question for a second before she starts pointing out the dorms and rattling off their reputations. “That’s the coke dorm. Don’t ever go there. If you needed Adderall to cram for a test, which you don’t, you could get it from Lyon’s Hall. And if you do ever decide to sneak into the boy’s dorms, always work out a system with someone on the lower level. It’s so much easier to climb through an open window and work your way to the top inside.”

  “Right.” I smirk. “I’ll remember that.”

  Except boys aren’t even a fleeting thought in my mind right now. I have more important things to worry about. Like keeping up with my academics this year and focusing on the extracurriculars I’m expected to cram into my schedule. Long after my father left this afternoon, his words have continued to haunt me. I put everything on the line to send you here.

  “Well, I think that about concludes the tour.” Sybil cranes her neck from one side to the other, stretching it out with the elegance of a dancer. “You ready to venture into the dorm? We can go over our class schedules.”

  “Sure.”

  Lawrence Hall is already at full capacity when we arrive, and most of the students have gathered in the common room. Chatter about their summer activities floats through the space, but an undeniable cloud darkens the room when I step foot inside. They look at Sybil, and then their eyes fall on me, deadly and sharp as they appraise me from head to toe.

  “Ladies, this is Stella LeClaire,” Sybil announces. “Or Cherrybomb, as I like to call her. She’s a transplant from Greenwich.”

  Silence. That’s what I’m greeted with. Until the girl who I can only assume fancies herself as queen bee decides to pipe up. “Who let the scholarship student in?” She snickers.

  Red creeps into my cheeks as my fists curl at my sides. Before I can say anything, Sybil answers on my behalf.

  “Careful, Louisa. You’re letting your green-eyed monster show. Stella’s not a scholarship student. Her father works for the Arthur Group, and her mother is Lila Monroe. You know, the model?”

  “Right,” another girl with a yellow blazer chimes in. “I think I’ve heard of her. Wasn’t she famous in like… the eighties? I heard she’s more into day drinking than runways these days.”

  “It must be hard to swallow what your own future will look like,” I bite back. “After all, that’s what this machine is all about right? Churning out suburban housewives whose husbands cheat on them while they raise the next generation of trust fund brats to be just like you.”

  Sybil snorts beside me, but I know I’ve hit the nail on the head when the trio of girls at the front pierce right through me with looks that could kill. “You better watch your back, Cherrybitch. You’ve just lost any chance of making friends at Loyola. You’re blacklisted.”

  “Let her reputation forever rest in peace,” another girl adds, dabbing at her eyes theatrically.

  “I’m shaking in my Doc Martens.” I roll my eyes.

  “Looks like you won’t have another spineless clone to follow you around this year, Louisa.” Sybil smirks. “You’ll have to let one of your other bots do the grunt work.”

  We leave them standing there, slack-jawed and fuming while we venture toward my room. Vaguely, I hear Sybil congratulating me on surviving my first standoff with the self-proclaimed Loyola sisterhood. But internally, I can’t help feeling like it wasn’t an accomplishment at all. Deep down, I know there will be a lot more where that came from to contend with this year.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  STELLA

  “DAMN GIRL.” Sybil whistles as she pulls up a seat at my table in the cafeteria. “Your outfit is on point today, and I think everyone in here has noticed.”

  I glance down at my clothes, wondering what the big deal is. According to my Pinterest board, my white blouse, navy blue cardigan, and polka dot tights are all standard issue boarding school fashion. The only difference is that my dress code compliant pleated skirt is crimson, not black. A signature splash of color to match my Mahogany red hair and iconic lipstick. If there was one thing my mother imparted on me, it was my own sense of fashion. While she always insisted I should wear green, I rebelled by buying everything red I could get my hands on.

  “People won’t stop staring.” I glare at some of the faces who still haven’t turned away. “I feel like I’m on display.”

  “That’s because most of the girls have to pay for what God gave you naturally,” Sybil teases. “And the boys want to be the first to get under your skirt. It’s a huge challenge with the new girls. Don’t be surprised if you have a different male suitor trying to escort you to class every day.”

  “Ha.” I fling a noodle across the table onto her plate. “Says the graceful swan of a dancer. Don’t think for one second I haven’t noticed how many admirers you have here.”

  “They’re just stupid high school boys.” She sighs. “This year, I want to dip my toe into the college water, if you k
now what I mean.”

  Sybil is unashamedly boy crazy, and I foresee a lot of lonely nights without her this year while she’s off chasing trousers. In some ways, I envy that she’s able to be so carefree and happy. She knows who she is and what she wants, and she doesn’t apologize for it. But those traits are luxuries I don’t have.

  “Well, you have fun with that,” I remark. “I’ll just be back at the dorms, painting my nails every weekend.”

  “Not likely.” She snorts. “You’ll make friends in no time.”

  “I have plenty of friends.” I count them off on my fingers. “Chaos. Neurosis. Psychosis. Anxiety. The list is never-ending.”

  “Don’t we all.” She laughs. “How were your first three classes?”

  “They were interesting,” I admit. “There was a lot more talking than I thought there would be. Like the teachers actually want to hear what you have to say.”

  “Most of the classes here are discussion based.” She takes a sip of her water and tosses a gummy bear into her mouth. Something I’ve noticed about Sybil is that between every healthy bite, she rewards herself with a gummy bear.

  “I like it.” I shrug. “But when I do speak up, there is inevitably someone waiting to challenge me.”

  “Just try to ignore them,” she says. “It will get better. They’re testing you out, trying to break you. Eventually, they’ll get bored and move on to someone else.”

  I nod. Everything is a game here, and like a Shakespeare play, I’m merely one of the many players. “We have AP Research together next.”

  A funny look passes over Sybil’s face. “Right. I forgot about that.”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Nothing.” She shakes her head. “Just be careful about speaking up in those classes. Mr. Carter is a grade A asshole. We call him Lucifer. Or the hot teacher of doom. Depends on who you ask.”