Bombshell (The Rivals Book 3) Read online

  For starters, no moving back to New York. No trying to figure out how to scrape together enough money for community college. No service or fast food jobs. They’re a treadmill, not a road to where I want to go.

  It hits me. There’s one place I can go. One place that won’t mind someone who likes to solve problems with brute force. One place that will pay for college. Assuming I live through it.

  I hear Cyrus’s keys jangling outside the door, and when he comes in, he takes a look at the empty bottles strewn around the room, my three-day stubble, and gives a disgusted sigh.

  Am I really that repulsive?

  “Sterling, I know things are shit right now, but would it kill you to spend five minutes every day cleaning up after yourself?”

  “It’s nice to see you, too.”

  It’s not really his fault, but Cyrus is now my most frequent reminder of worthless, moneyed Valmont. And the one thing that made it important for us to get along—sharing a living arrangement—is going away. Not that Cyrus knows it yet.

  “Fine. How are you? You look like shit.”

  “Not great. Did you hear anything from Poppy?” I can practically feel my interest in talking to Adair burn away. I can’t imagine trying to carry out a long-distance relationship with a girl whose family represents the ongoing destruction of my life.

  “Not what you want to hear, man. Adair isn’t interested in meeting. Sorry.”

  That’s one sign that’s clear as day. Adair and I are over. Cy and Poppy keep saying to give it time, but what’s going to change between now and whenever Adair decides she’s up for seeing me? How long am I supposed to wait? Still, it will make half of my new rule that much easier. If Adair decided her life would be better with her family calling the shots, it’ll make it that much sweeter when she sees how wrong she is someday.

  “I do have stuff for you, though,” Cyrus continues. He tosses a stack of envelopes, probably from our mail cubby in the dorm office, onto my desk.

  Second from the top is a notice from the Valmont registrar’s office, its cellophane window cutout displaying a garish pink packet of paper inside. I rip open the top of the envelope, getting a paper cut for my trouble. It reads:

  Pursuant to the administrative action rescinding your scholarship for violations of Valmont University’s Code of Student Conduct, your account balance is now ($29,872). If the balance is not paid in full within one week of the date indicated on this notice, your student status will be put on probation pending payment.. This change in status may endanger your housing and educational privileges…

  I don’t bother reading the rest. I check the date at the top of the letter, realizing it was marked two days ago. So I have 5 days before they kick me out of school. Less time than I thought.

  “Nothing printed on that color of paper is good news. You ok?” Cyrus looks nervous, which just pisses me off more. I don’t want his pity or sympathy. Even his nice gestures—letting Francie and I have the suite for Thanksgiving—ended up being shitty for me. I already feel lighter, just from unloading the burden of having to play at being friends.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” I say, picking up the nearly empty bottles of whiskey and vodka scattered around my bed. I won’t be needing them anymore.

  “Whatever. Have a nice day.” He’s done with me, too. Cyrus turns to go, his eyes landing on the stack of mail on my desk. For a moment I’m sure he’s going to say something stupid like: It’s not very much money for me. Let me give you $30k so my third Valmont residence is less depressing for me. But he gives up trying, probably because, thick as he is, he knows I don’t want to hear it.

  I pull a couple of legal pads out of my desk and toss them in my bag. I need to head to the library to do research. The U.S. has 4 major armed forces, and I need to figure out which one offers the best terms for tuition payment, and which will give me the chance to gain the kind of skills that will be useful later. I ignore the tiny voice warning me this will break Francie’s heart. I refuse to acknowledge the smug satisfaction this will give Angus MacLaine. But when I imagine Adair, sitting alone, full of regret, wondering how she got stuck here, I almost smile.

  9

  Adair

  I get ready for class three days in a row.

  On the first, I never make it out the front door of Windfall. On the second, I drive all the way to campus and circle the building for ten minutes straight, trying to see if Sterling is waiting for me to show up. But I get cold feet and go home where I find a small, wrapped package wedged between the seats of the car. Opening it, I discover a small clover charm. It takes me a moment to process how it got there. Sterling’s birthday present, forgotten in the drama of that night. It’s just been sitting there, waiting for me to find it. A ticking bomb. I cry for three hours straight. I consider throwing it away, but shove it in a drawer instead. For some reason, finding it makes me more determined to take back my life.

  So finally, on the third day, I make myself park and go to class.

  Branford Hall is four stories of red brick, tucked between a few massive oak trees and a small, one-way street that gets choked with students whenever classes let out. It takes me a few minutes to find a parking spot, and by the time I step through the doors of the building a cold lump has settled in my throat. People glance at me as I pass by, and I can’t help wondering, each time, if it’s a normal look—or if they know. The door to psychology is already closed, meaning class has started.

  I have to fight the urge to turn around and run home. How can I survive every set of eyes in that room turning to look at me? How many times will I have to tell myself I’m okay?

  I may not have been physically present in class for two weeks, but I had emailed my professor and kept up with the work. Which is probably why, when Professor Jones sees me sneak in, she smiles and hardly slows down her introduction to today’s lecture.

  Probably.

  But what if she’s trying to put me at ease? Does she somehow know?

  The rational part of my brain is completely certain she doesn’t. But the part of me that was afraid of what might come out of the crack in my closet door at night—gone since I was ten years old—is screaming with alarm.

  It takes me a second to fight back my panic and focus on the lecture.

  “Though Milgram’s methods are still controversial today,” Professor Jones says, her perfectly coiffed blonde bob acting like a frame for her sharp, aquiline features, “his work on obedience is nonetheless seminal.”

  A guy a few seats down shifts in his seat, and I flinch.

  “Milgram believed there was a fundamental shift in social psychology starting at the industrial revolution and culminating in the twentieth century. He said, ‘Often, it’s not so much the kind of person a man is, as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.’”

  A wave of nausea rolls over me, and I do my best to keep hold of breakfast. One thing I’m learning about psych: it’s hard not to apply every lesson to what’s going on in your life. They actually warn you about it the first day of class. But what if your life reads like situations in a therapy manual?

  Have I been stupid? Am I being unfair? If Sterling tried to blackmail my father, isn’t he just trying to protect himself? Isn’t that what humans do? Isn’t that what he probably tried to come tell me?

  I force myself to pay attention to the lecture, but every time I do, the first sentence seems relevant to my current situation. I try telling myself it won’t always be this way, that eventually things will get back to normal—that what I need is time. But the minute hand of the watch on the wall keeps moving slower and slower, and I’m almost hyperventilating by the time there are five minutes left in class.

  What if Sterling’s been going to my classes and waiting until I show up? It sounds like something he would do. I need to leave. I shove my notebook and pens in my bag, and slide out the door, closing my eyes in a sort of prayer that when I open them, he won’t be there.

&nb
sp; He isn’t.

  I actually get the chromed handle of the Jag in my hand before my escape is ruined.

  “Adair, where are you going?”

  Ava is making a beeline for me, waving furiously as she dashes from Branford’s main entrance. I see her other hand furiously texting on her phone as she makes her way to me, and for a second I wonder if Sterling has paid her to tell him where I am.

  Which is just stupid, because Sterling has no money and Ava does nothing for free.

  “Adair, I didn’t know you were back in class. Are you alright?” She shoots me a furtive glance, but I’m not sure if that means something is up, or if Ava is just being Ava.

  “It’s the first time I’ve gone in awhile.” I admit.

  “I just texted Poppy,” she says, turning to look back in the direction of Branford. “She’s coming.”

  That’s all it was. Why am I so paranoid?

  “Were you two waiting for me?”

  “What?” Ava looks indignant. “Full of yourself much? No. I was with Poppy literally 60 seconds ago. We were saying we should take you to lunch. And then I saw you. Don’t be so paranoid.”

  “Sorry, it’s been a bad couple weeks.” The beauty of Ava—if there is one—is that you don’t have to worry about her feelings. She has none. It’s all surface, all the time. The ugliness is that she won’t consider yours, at all. It’s a trade-off.

  “Poppy said something about trouble with Sterling,” Ava says, already distracted by a couple of hot guys she noticed checking her out, “but she wouldn’t spill the tea.”

  “You have no idea,” I say. There’s no way I’m telling her about the video. I’ve known her a long time, but sometimes I wonder if there’s something broken in her. I can almost imagine her liking the idea of having a sex tape. And I can definitely imagine her gossiping about mine.

  “Hey you two!” Poppy calls, driving by slowly but waving frantically. “Get in.”

  Ava hooks my elbow and starts dragging me towards Poppy’s Audi. “Coming!”

  A couple of the cars behind Poppy honk when she stops in the middle of the road so Ava and I can get in, and at that moment students begin pouring out of Branford, trapping all the cars like flies in amber.

  “Noodles?” Poppy asks, flashing me a smile in the rearview mirror. It doesn’t quite match the maternal concern in her eyes.

  “Ugh. Carbs,” Ava says reflexively.

  “Works for me,” I say. Carbs and I are old friends.

  “Don’t worry, Ava, I’m sure they have diet soda and salad,” Poppy says like this is a viable meal option.

  It takes another couple of minutes for us to break free of the campus bottlenecks, and Poppy finds the posh shopping center she’s looking for not long after. I can’t help noticing how many nervous looks she shoots me in the rearview mirror, though. There’s something on Poppy’s mind. She hands her keys to a valet, and we settle into sidewalk seating in front of the restaurant. A waiter comes over and asks for drink orders, and Ava disappears to use the restroom.

  “Why am I here?” I ask Poppy, placing my hand on her menu and gently forcing her to lower it.

  “What do you mean?” Poppy tries to sound casual, but it’s too high pitched and she’s lousy at hiding how she feels—at least from me.

  “I know when I’m being kidnapped. You didn’t tell Ava—”

  “No! Adair, I would not tell Ava without clearing it with you. I just said I wanted us to go to lunch. That’s all.” She returns her attention to the menu with the focus of a doctor about to perform brain surgery.

  I’m no longer hungry, no longer craving the sweet comfort of carbohydrates. If this isn’t about the sex tape, it’s about something else. “Tell me.”

  “What? There’s—”

  “You can’t even look me in the eye, Poppy,” I cut her off. “What are you not telling me?”

  She finally drops her menu, and it’s written all across her face. It’s the same expression she wore at my mother’s funeral: a sort of grim determination combined with nauseating anxiety.

  “It’s Sterling,” she says. Her mouth starts to form five different words, none of which are actually said. Eventually, Poppy settles on the rip-off-the-bandage approach. “He’s gone.”

  Gone.

  The word echoes inside me, lodging in the center of my chest, and splintering through me. I crack open, and he spills out. Suddenly, I’m not at a cafe with my best friend, I’m in a hospital waiting room, waiting to hear about my mother but staring at Sterling’s perfect, infuriating face. He’s there holding out a bag with clown-size flip-flops I still have tucked in my closet. Then we’re on a picnic blanket together. Then his hands are on me. Then he’s sharing his secrets with me, telling me how he’s too broken to ever be fixed. All of it re-lived in one second. And the last, worst moment is one I can only imagine: he hears me in the shower, calls in to me about clothes. His hands fiddle with his cell phone, setting it on the built-in shelf in his dorm room, with its angle perfectly aimed at the bed. He presses record, places a stack of books behind the phone screen, obscuring the light it emits so I won’t notice he’s recording us.

  And when I come out? There’s no love left in his eyes. I didn’t see it then. But I see it now.

  Tears roll down my cheeks, but they’re not connected to how I feel, they’re just some weird reflex. How can I cry when I’m already empty?

  Poppy reaches into her purse and pulls out my copy of Persuasion along with The Sun Also Rises, the one I bought him for Christmas at The Strand along with the note I sent with her to give him, still unopened. “Cyrus came back to the dorm yesterday, and this is all that was left.”

  I take the book and letter and turn them over in my hands, feeling something shift. It’s subtle at first, like the feeling you get when you misplace your keys—but I can feel it spreading like cracks in glass, breaking me without changing my shape.

  “He did it,” I admit. “There’s no point fighting it any more.”

  I’m still the same person I was five minutes ago. Anyone passing by would say as much. But I can feel myself become different. Sadder. More jaded. Trapped all over again. And angry. God, am I angry. I could destroy whole worlds with it. I never let myself feel angry before. Confused? Sure. Upset? Of course. But angry? I couldn’t. That could only exist in a world where Sterling used me like a dirty rag.

  I never wanted to live in that world. But I have been living in it for weeks, pretending I was safe. Now I’m in some new afterlife. In just this one shopping area I see three places Sterling and I went together, like tombstones for graves I never want to visit:

  Here lies Sterling and Adair. And here. And there.

  Will campus be like that? Will Windfall?

  “He’s a total knob head. I’m so sorry, Adair.” Poppy places her hand on my arm tenderly, like she’s afraid I’ll flinch. She knows me well.

  I wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes, glad I didn’t bother to put on makeup today. “I’m tired of seeing him everywhere I look.”

  “Seeing who everywhere you look?” Ava says, plopping into the seat next to me before figuring out the answer to her own question. “Oh. Right.”

  She glares at me like I’ve betrayed her. First, carbs, and now, feelings. How dare I?

  “Sterling left Valmont,” Poppy announces, probably trying to save me from having to talk about it.

  “Without saying goodbye.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to add this detail, but it feels pertinent.

  “Seriously?” Ava says, and the corners of her eyes pinch with righteous fury. It’s almost sweet. For her. “What a pig.”

  “We should go away somewhere. Spring Break’s coming up.” Poppy starts brainstorming possible getaways, joined eagerly by Ava.

  I realize both of them are staring at me, waiting for my input. What were they saying? Something about Miami? “Getting away sounds nice.”

  It does, I think. I don’t really know.

  I’ve changed a lo
t in the past seven months. Sterling breathed life into me. But I wonder now if I just needed someone to fill the gaping hole left by my mom’s death. I wanted Sterling to be everything I needed. But now I see that I was lying to myself almost as much as he was lying to me. Not that it excuses what he did. Nothing could. But it still shouldn’t have ended like this. I’d give anything to make Sterling look me in the eye and tell me why he did it. Why did it take him leaving for me to realize what I really needed?

  “No, Ava. You’re not listening,” Poppy says with a parent’s long sigh. “I don’t want to be the youngest person for five miles in every direction.”

  “Palm Beach is nice. Have you ever been there?” Ava pouts. “And there is always a man ready to buy drinks for you.”

  “Just because you’re comfortable dating retired men doesn’t mean Adair and I have to watch. Back me up,” Poppy says, looking at me.

  I don’t want anyone to look at me at the moment. I’m not exactly up for getting drunk at a beach while every man who comes by hits on one of us. It doesn’t matter if it’s in South Beach and the man is 25 or Palm Beach and he’s 60. “What about the Keys?”

  Ava snorts. “The Jimmy Buffett crowd? For fuck’s sake!”

  Poppy’s nose crinkles and I can tell that she doesn’t like my Keys idea, but it doesn’t stop her from saying, “Adair should get to choose.”

  “Fine,” Ava relents.

  I want to get as far as possible, and I don’t want a bunch of drunk college kids puking on my shoes. If I am going with two friends, there’s a good chance my dad will agree to anything I suggest. I dare myself to think big, and as soon as I do the answer is there.

  “I want to go to London.”

  Poppy squeals with glee. “It’s perfect. The best shopping in the world. I mean, Paris and Milan are good, too, but—”

  “Ugh, I hate jet lag,” Ava says, but a smile has already crept onto the corners of her mouth. “I’ve never shagged a Brit, though. And it’s on my list.”