Page 45 of Fractured Loyalties
Tess squeezes my arm as Blair drifts away. “Well, that was not expected.”
“No kidding,” I say, letting out a heavy breath.
“Let’s get a drink,” Tess giggles, and then starts tugging me through the crowd. I have no idea where we’re going, but I have to admit that, as much as I hate it, Blair’s compliment felt…good.
Maybe I can forget that my stepbrother fucked me, and I liked it. Or that I’m starting tofeellike I need him. Inthatway.
But that feels like a stretch. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself.
When Tess and I get to the bar, she slips behind the counter and starts mixing drinks for us. I lean against it and, just as I do, someone bumps my arm.
I turn to see one of the guys I asked about Kade, the Monday after the party, the one with the dark hair and eyes.
“I guess you were right about Kade,” he says to me, narrowing his reddened eyes, clearly already drunk.
“Right about him in what way?” I start carefully, my heart already pumping at the reminder of Kade’s disappearance.
Tess catches the echo and jumps in. “So crazy, right, Jared? He just dropped off the planet. Katie says his parents are telling everyone he ran away, but like, who runs away from a mansion in the middle of nowhere? What would you even do that?”
“Maybe he hated his life,” Jared, a name to put to the face now, says, shrugging his shoulders. “I mean, just because you have a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re happy. I think we’re all fucking losers internally. And Kade was working for Robert Woods... Haven’t you heard the rumors?—”
“Wow,” Tess’s mouth drops, cutting him off. “I think you’ve drunk too much already.”
I stand there in silence, sipping the sweet drink I’ve been handed and not understanding anything he’s saying. I make a mental note not to finish it too soon. I don’t need a repeat of the last party.
Roman.My brain takes me right back to him, his name forever burned in a place I wish I could wash it clean. And the worst part is, my bodystillreacts with excitement.
Ugh.
“Are you okay?” Tess says, lowering her voice. “You look a little off since Jared mentioned Kade. I know he was like your first friend here, but you can’t let it get to you. Sketchy shit happens around here all the time. And whatever he had to say about your family…”
“I’m fine,” I force out the words, choosingnotto ask what kind of sketchy shit Tess is talking about.
“Let’s find somewhere less chaotic.” Tess grabs my wrist and pulls me through a throng of overdressed juniors and into a corridor lined with family photos, all perfect teeth and vacation tans. “You know, you can’t worry about what half the people here think.”
“I’m not worried about them.”
I’m worried about myself, about how my insides are flipping and twisting in a way that feels like… real feelings.
She leads me to a small sitting area. It’s less formal than the other part of the house, and full of upended shot glasses and crumpled cocktail napkins. Blair’s group of mean girls is sitting on some of the velvet couches and armchairs.
I don’t understand why we’re here with them.
“We saved you a spot,” Blair says, patting the seat next to her as she looks at me. I take a deep breath and take a seat on the edge of the couch, while Tess props herself on the coffee table right next to me.
“Mom is driving me insane,” says a girl named Katie, who I recognize as one of Blair’s minions. “She’s got me seeing this SAT tutor at like seven in the morning. I told her that if I don't get into Dartmouth on my own, I don’t want to go. Ugh.”
The other girls make the appropriate noises. One fake laughs. Another sips her drink with the slow, deliberate grace of a ballerina. Tess picks at her cuticle, her eyes drifting to the French doors as if she’s dying to escape. I know the feeling.
After a few rounds of mutual parental bashing, the conversation turns, with surgical precision, to me.
“So, Ivy,” says a girl whose name I think is Georgia, “what’s your situation? Is it weird, living with Roman and your mom and all?” The question is blunt, but her tone is curious, not mean.
I freeze for a beat, unsure how to answer. I could make something up—my mom’s a monster, my stepdad’s in a cult, something outrageous… but something inside me wants to see if these girls can handle the truth. Or maybe I’m just tired of lying.
“My dad died about a month or so ago,” I say, and the words fall out as if I’ve been holding them in my mouth for months. “I had to move in with them…”
The silence is immediate. The music in the other room gets louder by contrast, thumping through the walls like a distant heartbeat. I look at the faces around me.
