Page 52 of Privilege
Jamie looks like she’s been hit in the face with a basketball. Evelyn might commit murder. Rich, by the looks of things, might drop to his knees right here and propose.
Cara walks away like this conversation means less to her than a pleasantry with the valet host, and pride surges in my veins. She doesn’t belong here, but she certainlycouldif shewanted to. Damn.
She drifts over to the bar where she orders a dirty martini, plucks the toothpick with the olive from the rim, and sucks it from the stick. Then, like a total fucking boss, she raises the glass to Jamie and Evelyn in a toast, before she downs the entire thing.
If Rich doesn’t fucking propose, I will.
Ten Months Ago
Rich
The ocean is particularlyviolent today.
My bags are packed and Arnold is on standby with the car, ready to take me to the airport. Mother is still giving me the silent treatment, and has sweet-talked someone in admissions at Harvard into holding my spot. She’s refusing to pay my SoCal tuition, but it doesn’t matter; they offered me a full ride for Lacrosse, which she didn’t even know I’d been approached about. All she ever cared about was water polo.For the Harvard team.
She’d never withhold anything else, like a place to live—God forbid a van der Beer live on-campus.And with Christian and Lyle headed west, I’m feeling pretty good.
Liar.
I thought he’d come. I have no idea why, and feel like I’m reenacting my own stupid version of Sleepless in Seattle, but I’ve sat on the beach propped up against the rotting posts of the shack beneath the boardwalk since dawn.
We haven’t spoken since Lyle’s. He didn’t show up to my graduation, which I don’t even remember because I spent most of it drunk.
That night on the deck, when he told me that he’d hooked up with Jamie, I didn’t give a fuck that she had cheated on me. That was arelief, and gave me the excuse I needed to go to school in California. No, I didn’t care that she’d cheated—I cared that Dane would rather be with someone he hated than be with me.
One after another, the waves crash down on the sand, pummel it over and over in a rage.
I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I need to stop pretending Dane was ever anything more than the unreliable, unpredictable black sheep everyone has always said he is. I need to get over the ideathat he cares about me as anything more than the step-brother he co-habitated with for years.
It’s been made pretty clear that he’s been biding his time, waiting to bust free from us the second he had the chance. And it’s time for me to stop feeling bad about it, and start getting angry.
My legs tingle when I stand, blood flow stilted from being seated all day waiting for someone who doesn’t give a fuck about me.
“ARGH!” I yell, as loud as I fucking can, and slam my fist into the post.
When I get home, Arnold purses his lip at my bloodied knuckles. He doesn’t say anything, rustles up some peroxide and an ice pack for me instead, but I know he’s watching me in the rearview mirror the whole drive to the airport.
“I’m proud of you,” Arnold says, his eyes a little misty, as some first-class airport staff load my luggage onto a trolley for priority baggage check. “This is a good plan, Mr. van der Beer.”
I pull Arnold in for a hug and hold on long enough that someone waiting for a spot honks. We separate and clear our throats, and then Arnold is scurrying around the car and driving away from the curb and I’m being escorted to the VIP lounge.
My only plans for this year are to forget. I need to forgeteverything.
Chapter Thirty
Rich
My mother is talkingbut I don’t hear the words. I don’t care. Whatever they are, whatever she’s going to say, none of it matters to me.
“Enough, mother.”
I try to step around her but she blocks me, angry tears in the corners of her eyes threatening to spill over and ruin her makeup. She opens her mouth to speak, to blather more crap that means nothing. Anything that came out of her mouth after ‘whore’ is irrelevant, to me.
“Goodbye, Evelyn,” I say politely.
She starts to splutter but I drape my arm across Dane’s shoulders and steer us towards Cara. “I need to be inside of her right fucking now,” I mutter to Dane.
He grunts in approval and I can’t help myself—I glance down at his crotch to find his dick tenting the front of his pants, same as mine. He grins at me, unashamed, and we speed up, descending on Cara like wolves.
