Page 1 of Heartbreak Kings
Chapter 1
Sabine
A throngof irate college boys congregated outside the dormitory as Mom drove our battered truck past on the way to the parking lot. There were fewer of them than I had expected, maybe a dozen huffy, scowling faces, half a dozen signs, and a bunch of yelling. Mom’s eyes widened as she watched them.
“Wow, those boys are crazy! Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. You say the word, and I’ll bring you back home.” Her delicate features strained with worry as she watched some boys turn to glare at our car. One of them threw something that bounced off the truck bed—maybe a rock, maybe something else.
“Mama, I can’t. You know that.” There was too much riding on my coming to this place. Markinswell University, a not-quite Ivy League school on Long Island. I enrolled here with the only full-ride scholarship I had been offered. My only chance for college now that Dad died and Mom was struggling upstate. They included everything—books, housing, transportation allowance, even a small amount of discretionary funds. There was just one little catch…
“Those boys don’t want you here, Sabine. You’re the only woman on campus except for some staff. You know how boys are in groups. You’ll be the only girl.” I could hear the fear in her voice, and I knew where it came from.
“Mama, please. This isn’t Hell’s Kitchen or Port-au-Prince. There’s a lot more security—” I started, but she cut me off.
“It doesn’t have to be as bad as either to still be bad. Even with the security men and the cameras, young men are young men. They’re nice to look at, but they’re not nice.” She waved a hand dismissively as she rounded the corner toward the parking lot.
“I can handle myself,” I insisted gently, pleadingly, hiding my simmering annoyance that she thought I couldn’t.
She nodded slowly, frowning as she drove. “You’re a smart girl, Sabine, and tough, but there are so many of them. You know what men will do when they are angry, and there are a lot of them. You have seen.” Her voice trembled just a little with emotion.
I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. “Yeah, Mama. I know.” I did. Hell’s Kitchen, back when Dad was alive, when I was ten. Rioting in the streets after the Cartwright assassination. How Mom and Dad had piled furniture against the door and stuck me in the bathtub with a mattress on top of me. Hearing the gunshots, the glass breaking, the men outside screaming. Smelling the smoke.
Mama had a lot of reasons to fear a repeat performance. The Cartwright riots had been only one example of the things she had seen. Compared to what she’d been through, they sheltered me. But I was still determined to win here and prove to her I could fight if I had to.
Heck, I planned to do a lot more than win educationally in this place, if any of my fellow students turned out to be worth dating. With this welcome, they looked like a gang of internet trolls—not worth my time. But I couldn’t let a loud minority shape my view of the school too much.
We drove around the packed parking lot, searching for a space, while Mom perched at the wheel with her hands white-knuckled around it. “If you tell me you will be all right, I will try to trust you. But I do not trust the men who think they own every inch of this place. It was the school’s decision. The men should accept it, but they do not.”
“No, they don’t,” I sighed as we drove down the next aisle of cars. “Some of them are being big babies about it.”
Being the first female student on a traditionally all-male campus would not be easy. I was tough, but with all the anger online, the alums queuing up to talk about what a shame it was to let a woman into the university and treating me like a marauding invader, the hateful emails I had received, the dirt-digging journalists I had dealt with…none of it felt good.
No matter what the stupid boys crowding the front entrance thought, no matter what they accused, I wasn’t doing this to make some kind of feminist statement.
I wasn’t doing it for publicity, to carve out space for women, to spite men, or to violate a sexist tradition.
I was here because of the scholarship, the quality of the school, and what I wanted to do with my life.
This school’s journalism program was one of the best in the country, and the scholarship was the only way I could get into anything resembling its caliber. So, I had gone for it—and succeeded. Any other details or motivations took a distant second to that.
“Babies can’t hurt you.” Mom touched her earlobe unconsciously, toying with a small scar. “Unless they grab your earrings,” she teased, trying to break the tense mood. I rolled my eyes, and she smiled briefly.
With a tired wariness, I wondered whether the boys would remember there was a second entrance to the dorms and come running around bothering us while we were unpacking the car. I wouldn’t put it past them. After all those hysterical rants about how men were being “robbed” of their private spaces, there was very little they wouldn’t do.
But Mom was forgetting a few things—like my ability to defend myself, how hard it was to intimidate me after growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, and how little I cared about some spoiled boys’ assessment of me. I wasn’t here to rob them of anything. I had earned my place there with a full scholarship, outdoing every single male applicant with no extra help. If they really had wanted to keep me out, they should have studied harder. I was a little worried about the destructive tantrums of dyed-in-the-wool sexists and neurotic “activists” mobilizing in defense of male privilege, but not impressed by the guys involved to fear them long term.
For now, I wanted to get my crap upstairs and into my single dorm room, so Mom could drive away from this uncomfortable situation and I could get a damn nap. Driving from Hellbender, New York, down to the tip of Long Island had taken it out of me. I just hoped Mom could make her way back all right. At least it was still early.
I had two suitcases, one achingly heavy from my books, and an additional box full of groceries and drinks that Mom had pressed on me and refused to take back. She didn’t trust the cafeteria system, believing they served nothing but junk. Good thing I had sprung for a dorm fridge and that there was a kitchen on each floor.
“Don’t let those boys take your food either,” Mom warned me as she reached behind her seat and pulled out one of my suitcases. “I paid good money for it.”
“I won’t.” I was sure I could probably get a halfway decent meal at the cafeteria, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want other options. Hopefully, all these angry “advocates” wouldn’t throw a fit over my using the dorm kitchen. “Mama, are you going to be all right up on that mountain by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got the dogs, and Mrs. Avery and I will eat supper together.” She squinted slightly with affection. “Don’t you worry about me. You worry about yourself. Keep up your studies. Call me.” She finished unloading everything, and I grabbed the box and the other suitcase, turning to face the tall stucco building while she locked up.
They had set me up in a corner single suite on the fourth floor, with a private bathroom. It was a setup used for disabled kids who needed accessibility, but my special need was having a shower to myself. Mom had made sure, by raising hell about the administration wanting me to use communal bathrooms or showers, and she had threatened to leak their proposal to the press. I was glad she did. The last thing I needed was to deal with showering where some guy had left behind a hidden camera.
“I’m going to call regularly,” I promised gently as I shouldered the box and dragged the suitcase along. I took after Dad more, taller, athletic, less timid. I had taken over jar-opening and grocery-carrying duty since his death and now balanced the heavy box on my shoulder with practiced grace.
