Page 87 of Riot Rules
That’s one version of events, I suppose. Redacted. A little fudged, and that’s being generous. I don’t begrudge her the hyperbole and the embellishment. I fucked her over so hard that she deserves to make me sound like an absolute asshole. Iaman absolute asshole. Why is she downplaying the amount of time we spent together, though? She compressed the two months we spent together down into two days.
Sitting opposite Carina, Elodie makes a horrified sound. Carrie continues with her tale. She’s crying, which would have made my dick rock hard at one point. Not anymore. It feels like I’ve been shot in the chest. I wish I could take it all back. I wish I’d never listened to Alderman. The man made so much sense back at Cosgrove’s, but seeing Carrie cry, I’m beginning to think I was a fucking idiot for letting him get into my head.
“And you know the worst part?” Carrie wipes her eyes. “The worst part was that he didn’t even care. He wasn’t embarrassed. Didn’t scramble to push her off him, or pull his pants up, or come after me. He saw me, standing there in the doorway, saw the hurt and the pain in my eyes…and he fuckinglaughed. He said—” She clears her throat. Breathes. “He said, ‘Looks like I might have made a scheduling error. Can you come back in twenty minutes? I should be ready to go again by then.’”
“Wow. What an unbelievable prick.”
I nod, rubbing at my jaw. I couldn’t agree more. Elodie and Carina continue to talk, and I continue to eavesdrop. I hold my tongue until the new girl declares that I’ll probably be rendered infertile for my crimes. Then, it’s time to put an end to this.
“Jesus. I really hope not.”
The girls look up and see me; horror and embarrassment go to war on Carrie’s beautiful face. She must know that I heard that interesting little take on our love story. Is she expecting me to correct her in front of her new little friend now? How crushed would she be if I told Elodie that it was Carrie who pursued me? That she actually didn’t tell me she was a virgin before we fucked for the first time? Or that we fucked a thousand times after that, and we were perfectly happy together before I admittedly shattered her heart into pieces.
I pop a toothpick into my mouth, grinning at them.
The little blonde looks at me like a portal to hell just opened up right next to their table and I stepped right out of it. “Can you kindly fuck off?” She snaps. “This is a private conversation. You’re not welcome at this table.”
I can’t help but laugh. By God, she’s afeistything. Now I know why Wren’s so taken with her. “Sorry,mon amour.I’m over here at the counter, minding my business. What fault is it of mine if you’re talking loud enough to wake a dead man and give him a hard on? I heard something about Amalie Gibbons on her knees with someone’s dick in her mouth and I lost all sense of propriety. And then…” I feel sick to my stomach. I should keep my fucking mouth shut, but I can’t. It’s better if Carrie keeps on hating me. I keep staring at the wet pathways her tears have formed where they’re streaked down her cheeks, and I can’t take it. Better that she cries a little over me now, than so much more if her past catches up to her, though. Better if she really, truly despises me. “…And then, I remembered thatIhad Amalie Gibbons on her knees andmydick was in her mouth, and things just got really messy. Because that was a really fun time, girls. Areallyfun time. I am sad you don’t want to play with me anymore, though, Carrie. I guess I should have said I was sorry or something. Better late than never, right?”
The next few minutes are a blur. A waitress with a really bad attitude arrives and scolds the living shit out of me. I bite back, playing with her just to prove what a genuine prick I am, and all the while I’m staring at Carina. I’m remembering her at the observatory, lying on her back under a muddle of thick blankets, gazing up at the night sky with a sea of stars reflected in her eyes.
It’s around about now that I realize how little I care if I live or die.
The waitress chases me off, and I’m happy to go. The moment I step out into the biting cold, I suck in a series of ragged gulps of air, unable to catch my breath. Then, there’s Pax, standing in front of me, offering me a cigarette. He’s already got one, just lit by the looks of it. He pulls on it, squinting as he inhales.
I don’t normally smoke cigarettes. Sometimes, when I’m drinking, maybe, but never at nine-thirty in the morning after a fucking run. I feel like I just chugged a liter of acid, though. What the hell? I take one of the smokes and light it using the Zippo Pax supplies. The two of us stand in silence, leaning up against the brick wall, pulling on our smokes. Wren arrives shortly after, taking out his own pack of smokes. No one says anything.
We just stand there, the cold nipping our hands and the smoke burning our lungs.
38
DASH
Lovett Estates
Thu 8.31 PM
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: Dashiell Lovett
Dashiell,
The annual Lovett Foundation Fundraiser for Battered Women will be held at the Viceroy in Boston next Friday evening. Your presence is required. 7 pm sharp.
For God’s sake, WEAR A TUXEDO.
39
CARRIE
The week rushesby in a blur. Wednesday’s here before I know it, and things begin to feel normal again. Ish. Elle seems to be fitting in at Wolf Hall just fine. She makes friends easily. Unfortunately, therearesome assholes at the academy who, for reasons of their own, aren’t as welcoming as they should be.
Her room gets trashed. A lot of her stuff gets destroyed, and someone stabs her bed with a hunting knife, of all things; no one could ever say the students of Wolf Hall are without a penchant for drama. Damiana Lozano laughs when she hears me talking to Presley in the hall about the damage, and the odds of who committed the act of vandalism narrow significantly. Dami’s been chasing Wren—when does henothave someone chasing him, for fuck’s sake—and she doesn’t like that Wren’s more interested in the new girl. It makes sense that she’d act out, but the whole thing is more than a little pathetic.
