HATE CRUSH Read online

  “I’m leaving.” I reach for my briefcase, and he slams his hand down on top of it, holding it hostage.

  “Goddammit, Sebastian. I need to speak with you. If you leave now, I’ll be here when you get back. Either way, you can’t avoid me any longer. Take a seat like a man and get it over with.”

  Our eyes clash, and for the first time, his betray a weakness I hadn’t noticed until now. He’s still the same hard-ass man who raised me. The man who designed my entire life and accepted no alternatives. But beneath that, there is a frailty I’ve never seen in him before. As I study him, it occurs to me that it isn’t just in his eyes.

  My father is tall, like me, but his usually muscular frame has diminished considerably since I last saw him. His previously well-tailored suit now hangs loose on his body, and the hands that were always hard as bricks seem weaker than before. Is it the natural evolution of time, or simply misery?

  At sixty years old, it can’t be merely his age responsible for the rapid decline. The last I saw him, I’d resolved to hate him until he died, and I anticipated he would live forever just to spite me. But now, it seems the opposite is true. There is no room in my heart for sympathy, not when it comes to him. He might be blood, but I owe him nothing. Not even my time. However, knowing my father as I do, I take his words as a promise. If I leave now, he will still be here when I come back. If I don’t deal with it now, it will only prolong the headache.

  With a sigh, I retrieve my phone and email the administration, alerting them to my absence today. It will be the only absence I’ve ever taken in my three years at Loyola Academy. I fetch the bottle of Japanese twelve-year whisky I keep in the cupboard, pouring us both two fingers.

  “What do you want?” I take a seat across from my father and squeeze the life out of my glass.

  Harrison Carter drains the whisky I poured him and then shoves it aside, his lip curling in obvious disapproval.

  “It’s time for you to quit this nonsense.” He folds his hands together and examines me. “You’ve made your point. Come back to New York and take your place at the company. I have an office set up for you. An assistant, car service, a penthouse on hold ten minutes from the building. It’s all yours.”

  “It’s all mine regardless.” I scoff. “Or did you forget that I’m the majority shareholder?”

  The barb that was once effective at riling my father seems to fall short of even ruffling his feathers now. When my mother died, she left her family’s legacy to both of us with the majority to me, specifically. It was her way of trying to bring us closer, but all it ever managed to do was drive us further apart. My father still believes he’s in control while I’ve waited patiently for the day I can pull the rug out from under him. If or when I ever take my place at the Carter Holdings empire, it will be when my father no longer has a seat there.

  “Sebastian.” Harrison sighs. “What’s it going to take? Do you want me to confess my sins? Is that it? Do you want to hear the words from my mouth? Will that make you feel better?”

  “No.” I shoot up from the table and knock my chair over in the process. “I already know what you did. I don’t need to hear you say it. This was a mistake. You need to leave.”

  “It isn’t logical,” he replies, ignoring my request. “I understand that now. But I was goddamned furious with you. I spent years investing in you for you to turn around and throw it all away. Telling me you’d rather kick a ball around on a field than work where you were needed. It was a slap in the face. It was disrespectful. I was blinded by my rage, and I couldn’t accept it.”

  “You couldn’t accept that I was done being your puppet,” I bite out. “You couldn’t accept that I had a mind of my own, and a path that might not be yours.”

  “I’ll give you that.” He bows his head. “I never meant for anyone to get seriously hurt.”

  “But they did.” I turn my back to him and slam my glass down on the counter. “In your desperation to end my soccer career, you ended my sister’s life. Your own fucking flesh and blood. Don’t try to deny it.”

  “I won’t deny it,” he echoes softly. “I hired those men to rob you and fuck up your knee. Katie wasn’t supposed to be there. That was never supposed to happen.”

  His admission comes as no surprise. I’ve known for years the truth about that night, even if I couldn’t prove it. I’d begged Katie to come out with the team. I wanted her to help me celebrate my decision to play soccer professionally. I was finally breaking free from our father’s hold, and she was so happy for me she couldn’t say no. And now, because of my request, she’s gone.

  Whenever I close my eyes, flashes of her death come back to me in vivid detail. They are the only fragments I remember, but they never leave my mind. We left the bar, drunk and happy. We weren’t paying attention, and I should have been paying fucking attention. Katie screamed when three men cornered us. They demanded my wallet, and I handed it over, but they didn’t leave. Instead, they shattered my knee with steel batons and beat me into unconsciousness while my sister fought to get to me.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  The gunshots still echo through my nightmares. I can still see her body crumpled on the ground beside me, her hair matted with blood and her face unrecognizable. It’s always too late to save her when I wake up, and the pain never goes away. I just want it to fucking go away.

  My pulse thrashes in my ears as I turn back to my father, and before I can stop myself, I knock him out of his chair with a solid punch to the jaw. He topples onto the floor, and I follow, each of us wrestling for dominance as we work out our anger the only way we know how.

  “Fuck you!” I scream at him. “Fuck you for what you did to her! You should be rotting in a prison cell.”

  “Goddammit, Sebastian.” He shoves me off and staggers to his feet, brushing away the blood on his lip. “Can’t you see that I already am? And so are you. We are both rotting in prisons of our own making. The day Katie died, I died too. If you don’t think for one second that I’m paying for my choices, I’m paying for them every time I look in the mirror. Just like you.”

  I rise to my feet and meet my father’s blank gaze. The man has never been philosophical. He has never apologized for anything that happened that night. I wouldn’t accept it if he did because he’s right. This is the prison I’ve made for myself. As long as I continue to wake up with a pulse, I will punish myself for her death.

  “It’s too late for me,” he says. “I’m dying, son. My body is riddled with cancer. At best, I have six months left, but realistically, I could go next week.”

  His impassioned declaration provokes my resentment. Of course, he’s fucking dying. He’s taking the easy way out while I’m left to carry on in the land of the living.

  “I didn’t come here to fight with you,” he utters. “But if you want to punch me, then do it. If you want to beat me bloody, or shatter my knee, or shoot me in the goddamned head if it will make you feel better, then do it. I just can’t sit by while you waste your life trying to prove a point to me. This isn’t what you were meant for.”

  “This is what Katie wanted.”

  “For herself,” he snarls. “Not for you. You aren’t a fucking teacher any more than I’m a saint. You hated this place when I sent you here. Why on earth you would come back makes no logical sense to me.”

  “Because I refuse to watch another parent shit all over their kid’s plans.”

  A dry laugh wheezes from his chest. “So, you’re going to single-handedly save them all, are you? You’re going to show them all that their parents are wrong, and they can do whatever they want, consequences be damned? Even if it means sacrificing your own life? Your own happiness?”

  “What happiness?” I retort. “What the fuck is happiness? I’ve never known it. Neither have you.”

  “That isn’t true.” His eyes soften a fraction. “I was happy once. When I had your mother, that was all I knew. When you and your sister were born, those were the greatest moments of my life. I may have been a lousy fucking father, but I was proud to be your dad. And you deserve to have those things too. You deserve better than what you’re settling for right now. Megan still loves you. You could have a real life with her. Your place is back in New York, at the company, with her by your side. Don’t waste your whole fucking life trying to prove a point to a dying man, Sebastian. That’s all I came to say. It’s probably the last chance I’ll get to say it.”

  He heads for the door and glances over his shoulder one last time. “It wasn’t your fault, son. It was never your fault.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  STELLA

  I ARRIVE at Mr. Carter’s office at exactly 7:28 AM. I’m already sweating bullets, trying to conjure up a viable excuse for why I only wrote half a page last night. He’s probably going to rip me a new one, and in my current emotional state, I’m probably going to cry.

  I already went to the office this morning and confirmed what my mother told me. There’s still twenty thousand dollars left on my tuition bill, and it needs to be paid in one week or else I’m out. All the scholarships have already been used up for the year by other students, and I’m on my own to figure it out. In a matter of a few hours, my life has been turned on its head, and suddenly, staying at Loyola Academy isn’t just a goal, it’s a necessity.

  While I laid in bed last night staring up at the ceiling, I considered all my options. I have an aunt in Florida on my dad’s side, but she hasn’t spoken to him since I was about two, and I don’t even know her, so it’s not as if I can ask her for help. Even if I could, from what my dad has told me, she already has three kids to support and very little money. So regardless, she’s out of the equation. In just a few days, I’ll be a legal adult and fully responsible for myself. I knew this day would come, but I stupid
ly thought I’d still have a soft place to land.

  I can’t believe my father would do this to me. My heart feels like it’s been smashed to bits with a wrecking ball. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to think. I didn’t even want to get out of bed this morning. I just keep wondering if he even thought twice before he left. Is he thinking about me at all? Does he even care?

  These are questions I don’t have the answers to right now. But what I do know is I don’t have the luxury of time to wallow in my circumstances. I have to keep going. I have to figure something out. Starting with Mr. Carter, who is now ten minutes late. What the hell?

  I peek inside his locked office. All the lights are off. There are no signs he’s been here this morning, and I know I couldn’t have missed him. But I’m going to miss my first class if I don’t get going soon. I can’t imagine him ever being late, and in the back of my mind, I wonder if he’s okay.

  I set my backpack on the floor and rip out a piece of pink paper from my notebook. My search for a pencil comes up empty, so I settle for my red lipstick instead. Scrawling a hasty note across the paper, I examine it to see if I should add any other explanation. But I think that says it all.

  * * *

  I WAS HERE. You weren’t.

  Stella

  * * *

  “THAT OUGHT TO DO IT,” I whisper to myself as I slide it under his door. At least now he won’t be able to complain about my half-assed essay. Unless he complains that I didn’t leave it behind, at which point I’ll have no defense.

  Glancing at his door one last time, I sling my backpack over my shoulder and head off for my first class. I have a busy day ahead of me and a lot of shit to figure out.

  SOMEHOW, I manage to survive the day on autopilot, even successfully acing a pop quiz in my Computer Applications class. When I arrived at detention, I was disappointed to find that Mr. Carter wasn’t there either. In his place was Mrs. Chen from the science department. And surprisingly, I wasn’t the only student in detention today. There was another girl from Brentley Hall who got caught skipping class along with two boys who snuck into the science lab and blew shit up in the dryers, apparently. We made idle conversation while Mrs. Chen listened to a romance audiobook that was so loud, we could still hear it through the earbuds. The boys giggled every time they heard the word member, and Mrs. Chen was none the wiser.

  Cheer practice comes and goes with Sybil nagging at me about my focus while she plies me with gummy bears and energy drinks. By the time we finally finish, I’m dead tired, but I know the real work is just beginning. As we traipse back toward our dorms, Sybil nudges me with her elbow.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  I nod because I don’t want to allow the possibility that I’m not. Sybil will inevitably find out what happened, given that her father works with mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows by this weekend. But right now, the wound is too raw, and I can’t admit it.

  “I need your help brainstorming,” I say. “Do you have time?”

  “Always.” She smiles. “Let’s grab some froyo from the cafeteria and pop a squat in the grass.”

  I nod and follow her into the cafeteria. Even though I haven’t been hungry all day, I make myself a frozen yogurt and pile it with cookie dough before we leave to find a quiet place in the grass. Sybil makes a whole production of it, taking out her notebook and glitter pen while intermittently stuffing her face with yogurt.

  “So what are we brainstorming?” she asks.

  “It’s for a creative writing assignment,” I lie.

  “In Ms. Hargrave’s class?” She questions.

  Since we’re both seniors, we have the same teachers for almost everything, so there really isn’t a logical explanation for what I’m asking.

  “Extra credit,” I offer, feeling awful that I’m lying to her at all. “I asked for it. And now I have to write a short story, but I need to figure out how someone would make a lot of money fast. Like in a week fast.”

  Sybil accepts this answer and taps her pen against the paper as she considers my question. “Well, there’s always drugs.” She snickers. “That’s the obvious answer. Or robbing a bank.”

  “Yeah…” I shake my head. “Those won’t work. My character isn’t really the criminal type.”

  “Well, what is the money for?” she asks.

  “College,” I blurt before I can think of anything else.

  “Okay. So a young woman around college age.” She takes another bite of yogurt. “She could donate her eggs. I heard you can get like ten thousand dollars for that.”

  “Yeah, but probably not realistically in a week,” I snort.

  “Right.” She shrugs. “Hmm… what else? Do you think strippers make that much money in a week?”

  “Probably not.” I dip my spoon into the yogurt and swirl it around. “Unless it’s a really high-end club. And even then, she’d need to have the skills. Not likely to get those in a week.”

  “Ugh, this is hard,” Sybil whines.

  You have no idea.

  We eat the rest of our dessert in silence, and I feel like all hope is lost when Sybil blurts out another idea. “Oh my God, I know. Is she a virgin?”

  My stomach flips as I nod. “Yes. Why?”

  “There was an article in a magazine once about a girl who auctioned off her virginity to pay for college. I remember my mother reading it in dismay, but I thought it was actually kind of genius.”

  “Wow,” I murmur. “That is…”

  “Perfect!” She declares. “It’s fiction, right? And if it could happen in real life, it could totally happen in fiction. I think the whole sex thing is really overrated anyway. The first time sucks no matter who it’s with.”

  I nod, but I can’t seem to find the words I need to agree. Because the truth is, it’s a legitimate option, even if it sounds horrifyingly insane. The question is, how far am I willing to go to save myself? At this point, my options are either homelessness, or Loyola Academy. And if I want to stay at Loyola, it will take extreme measures. But would anyone even pay twenty thousand dollars for my virtue? It seems so archaic. There’s only one person I’d even deem worthy of giving it to. And I wonder what he would say if he knew I was considering this.

  “So you like it?” Sybil interrupts my thoughts. “I think we found ourselves a winner.”

  “Yep.” I force a smile. “It sounds like a winner.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  STELLA

  I SPEND the rest of the week alternating between panic and uncertainty. After googling resources available for homeless teens, I promptly threw up and decided I don’t want to go to a group home or a shelter. I’ve looked into every avenue, and the only thing that makes sense is staying here at Loyola. But in order to stay, I’ll have to do something insane and potentially dangerous.

  There is one solution that keeps circling around the drain of my mind, and his name is Sebastian Carter. My dark tormentor and secret savior. He’s proven that he wants me, but his sense has kept him from crossing that invisible line. The question is, would he cross it to save me? Even as I consider it, I don’t know how to feel about it. I hate that this is what it’s come down to, but I want to believe he will help me.

  The only problem is that he hasn’t been around for the past two days, and I don’t know why. The administration has told us nothing, and when someone in class asked if Mr. Carter was okay, the substitute simply nodded. I need to find a way to speak with him. But how can I if he isn’t showing up to class or detention?

  Luckily, by Friday, I’ve found a friend who actually can help me. His name is Patrick, and he’s the tech genius in my computer class who created the LA Underground app. When I introduced myself to him, he apologized for what happened on the app and told me to let him know if there was ever anything he could do to make up for it. I didn’t hesitate to take him up on that, and now here we are, on the verge of something completely crazy.