Page 107 of Personal Foul

Nodding, she gestures at the hall. “Her room is the door on the right.”

I feel her eyes on me as I head to Charity’s door. With a glance back at Isabelle, I raise my hand and knock. Isabelle gives me a thumbs up and disappears back into the living room.

When the door opens, Charity lets out a squeak of surprise. “Dylan! What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.” She cranes her head to look down the hall, a scowl on her face. She’s probably pissed that Isabelle let me in. But why wouldn’t she? For all she knows, Charity and I are dating. We were dating. As far as I’m concerned, we still are. Or at least, I still want us to be. But unless she told Isabelle that we broke up, Isabelle has no reason not to let me in.

“Charity.” Her name is a breath. A whisper. A plea. “Please. We need to talk. Why won’t you respond to my texts?”

With a sound of frustration, she opens the door wide and jerks her head to show me inside. Glancing down the hall one last time, she closes the door softly. Keeping her back against the door, she turns to face me. “I really don’t see what else there is to say. Didn’t we say everything last night?”

I shake my head in a quick negative. “Maybe you said everything you had to say. But I didn’t.”

Another scoff, and she crosses her arms. “Okay, then. What is it that you would like to say?”

It takes me a second to put the words together in the face of her impassive facade. I rake my hand through my hair in frustration, tugging on the strands. “This is it? Really? Just like that, this is all over?”

She shrugs but doesn’t say anything.

Frustrated, I snort, crossing my arms and shrugging to mimic her posture. “You really can’t give me more than that? After all I’ve done for you?”

That brings her to life. Her eyes go wide, her mouth opening, and she pushes away from the door, stalking closer to me. “Everything you’ve done for me? Which part? Blackmailing me? Making me clean your apartment? Forcing me into a relationship with you? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“You mean, helping you? Keeping your secrets? Offering you a place to stay if you needed it? Taking care of you?”

She waves a hand dismissively. “If it’s my secrets you’re worried about, don’t. Tell whoever you like. Tell them whatever you like. Tell them all about me, the poor little rich girl who’s lost everything. More than once.”

I scoff. ”More than once? Look, I get that right now everything seems really shitty. But ending up at Skyline Academy is a chance that most kids in your position would kill for. Do you know how many scholarship students get turned down? Straight A students with glowing extracurriculars who just want the boost that Skyline would give them so they can get into an Ivy League school, and you turn up your nose at all of it, act like it’s the worst thing that could happen to you, and don’t even try for a better school than Marycliff.”

She rears back. “Like you’re any better. Why aren’t you at an Ivy?”

I shrug. “I don’t need the pedigree. I have a guaranteed job at my family’s law firm no matter what. Plus I’ll get into an Ivy for law school. But what about you? Those kinds of connections could’ve saved your bacon given what your family is going through now.”

Her eyes are little more than slits as she hisses, “You have no right to judge my life. You have no idea how miserable I was in high school. And yes, I have lost everything that matters to me more than once.”

Leaning closer, I hold up a finger. “The difference is, before you had no choice in the matter. Now you do. You don’t have to push everyone away. Hell, maybe you pushed everyone away back then too. You made no effort to make friends at Skyline. Are you sure you didn’t imagine your old friends viewing you differently? Maybe you’re the one who viewed them differently? Maybe you thought you were too good to be friends with them? Maybeyoudecided that they only wanted you for your family’s money? Maybeyou’rethe reason they stopped wanting to be your friend.”

Her face completely shuts down. No sign of emotion remains. Cold and implacable, she pulls her door open. “Get. Out.” When I don’t move, she adds, “Now.”

I take a step towards the door. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Charity. Once I leave, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

She glances meaningfully toward the door, but doesn’t say anything.

Knowing when I’m beaten, I leave.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Charity

I wait until I hear the front door open and close to shut my bedroom door. I don’t even move to my bed. I just collapse on my floor, letting the tears fall.

He’s right. I know he’s right. Not about everything. He doesn’t know what it was like for me at Skyline Academy.

But this? Yes. I’m the one driving everyone away. I’m the reason that I’m all alone now. Or I will be soon, because I have to tell Isabelle the truth as well.

She’ll probably hate me. And who can blame her? I’ve been lying to her for years.

I’ve driven Dylan away. I’m about to lose my best friend. And with her, our whole friend group. And I know it’s all my fault.

It all seemed so harmless in the beginning. To just agree with the girls laughing about the rich kid whose parents were trying to buy them friends. It gave us something to bond over. It was the whole reason our friendship began. They just didn’t know I was the object of their derision. That it was my parents trying to buy friends for me.

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