Dirty Fraud Page 8

Dana must think I’m about to cry, because she starts doing that frenzied thing she does where she starts listing off all the things I can do to make it better. And in a way, it does make it better. There’s another test coming up in a few months. I’ll have another go at it. I just pray that Wills does well enough on today’s test that he isn’t there to distract me again.

  Seriously, I need blinders or something.

  Dana takes me for coffee and a walk through the grounds and gardens, and helps me to get my mind off of everything. I know that if Wills hadn’t been in the testing room it would have been much better. Everything would have been okay, and I would have finished the test and probably done well on it. I’m determined to take it again and make sure that nothing keeps me from doing my very best on it the next time around.

  Days pass, and my longing for the boys grows deeper. I swear it’s something about the changing of the leaves, or that crisp scent that comes with fall. Wills is still keeping a distance from me at the pool, Blair refuses to speak to me or look at me, and Astor is even colder than both of them. It breaks my heart and begins to consume my mind both in waking and in sleep, until I just can’t leave it be anymore.

  I can’t give up without at least getting the chance to talk to them, one on one. If I don’t get closure, I’m not really going to be able to move on.

  I can’t keep letting this distraction put the rest of my life in jeopardy.

  Getting them alone at school without Victoria hovering around is almost impossible, but the perfect solution presents itself to me when her annual Halloween party comes back around. It’s a big bash; the biggest party of the year. She has a cousin who lives close to the school, and every year she throws a rager there that is the social event of the fall.

  Last year it was the tipping point in my relationship with the boys. They had been teasing me and torturing me, hazing me and flirting with me, not really giving in to their attraction while simultaneously making my life incredibly difficult at school. All it took was me nearly dying of a drug overdose to bring us all together.

  I really hope it doesn’t have to come that far again.

  I’m not technically invited … but that isn’t going to stop me. I mean, it’s not like they can do anything else to me that they haven’t already done. Anything for a chance to try to get them alone for a few minutes just to talk, to clear the air between us and find some way to end this toxic, horrible thing between us all. I have to do something. I can’t just keep going on like this.

  Chapter 10

  This is where joining the drama club really starts to pay off.

  Halloween comes and I have a costume all picked out. I’m going to be in Venetian masquerade, complete with a beautiful gown and a painted mask to cover my face. I’ll look like I just dropped in straight from Carnevale in Venice, full wig and all. I’m looking forward to being a stranger, just for one night. No one other than the boys ever have to know I was there.

  I’ll make myself invisible, or at least unidentifiable, just long enough to get to the boys. Then I can leave and come back to the school, and it will all be over. One way or another, at least I’ll have gotten to say my peace.

  I’m not the only one laying low for Halloween this year, which makes it easy to slip out of the dorm room without technically having to lie to Dana about where I’m going. I even swim a few laps at the pool to ease my conscience, in case she asks me where I went.

  I’m not really one to put too much stock into how I look, but when I see the finished result in the drama room mirror after putting everything together, I have to admit, I look really, really good. The big gown looks amazing and the wig is perfect. I purposefully picked a mask that covers my entire face so no one will have the chance to figure out who I am until I want them to.

  I’m ready. I feel like I might throw up from nerves, but I’m ready. I leave the school and head to the enormous mansion where the party is being held. Practically the entire home is converted into a haunted house, and it is decked to the nines. There are people all over the place; spilling off the front porch, into the back yard, onto the street. It’s an even bigger party this year than it was last year, if that’s possible.

  I am careful to keep my mask up, and as I come to the house and go into it, people stop me left and right and tell me how incredible my costume is. Everyone is so happy and friendly, and it’s bittersweet. It’s nice to be accepted and appreciated, but on the other hand, if any one of them knew that it was me behind the mask, I know they wouldn’t be treating me the same. Instead, I’d be immediately thrown out. So I just smile and nod, and I don’t speak to anyone for fear of being found out.

  I make it through the living room and the library, and I take a peek into the kitchen. I’m starting to regret my choice of costume a little, since it makes maneuvering around discreetly basically impossible. I guess I’ll think of that the next time I need to sneak around a house party on Halloween.

  There are little mementos of last year’s party—only vaguely familiar thanks to the cocktail of drugs and alcohol that sent me to the hospital. I spot the beer pong table, the same bowl of spiked punch, even the same dark corner where Blair snuck me off to kiss me all on his own. None of it means anything if the boys aren’t a part of it, however, and I haven’t found them yet. Not that it’s easy. It’s hard to recognize anyone in the dim lighting and mass of costumed bodies.

  There’s a bar set up outside by the pool, and there are people crowded around it. I look there next, searching still for the boys, and smiling and nodding at anyone who tries to talk to me. They aren’t here, and I’m just walking back into the house past the door to the conservatory when all of a sudden, there he is.

  Astor.

  I nearly run into him. He’s coming out of that same conservatory with a bottle of champagne in his hand, and I’m so surprised that he’s alone. I would have thought that Victoria would be hanging on him like she always is. He seems to be constantly disinterested in her, but he doesn’t push her away either, which I guess is all the encouragement she needs.

  I’d call her desperate … but so am I.

  My heart begins to race, and I walk up to him. He gives me a curious look and a half smile that tells me he really has no idea who I am. That is, until I speak.

  “Can I talk with you for a minute please?” I ask, and he looks at me strangely. I know he recognizes my voice … but he isn’t able to place it until I lower my mask. When I do, the look in his eyes hardens as he realizes who I am.

  “Astor, please!” I beg, reaching my hand toward him before he can draw away.

  “What are you doing here? I know you weren’t invited.” His voice is cold and strained, and I feel almost as if my chance is slipping through my fingers, like sand falling fast in an hourglass.

  “I needed a chance to speak to you, and since you won’t do it at school … I came here.”

  He does start to draw away, but I follow him. “I just can’t do it anymore! I miss you, Astor … and I think you feel the same way. I thought maybe if you understood everything a little better, then you’d—”

  He’s stopped moving away. He’s staring at me, listening even maybe, when I hear a high-pitched shriek of rage at my side. Victoria has appeared over his shoulder, glaring furiously in my direction.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” she rages at me.

  I look from her to Astor, and then back to her again as my words get caught in my throat. “It’s private. It doesn’t concern you,” I tell her defensively.

  Victoria’s hand shoots out and closes hard around my arm. “Oh it sure as hell does concern me!” She almost growls at me. “You’re in my family’s house, uninvited, talking to my boyfriend behind my back. Every single one of those things makes this my concern. You’re coming with me.”

  Astor only watches as Victoria drags me down the hall and into the kitchen. She calls everyone around us to attention, just as Wills and Blair come into the room. Both of their jaws drop when they see me i
n Victoria’s clutches. Their eyes immediately shoot to Astor, but he just shakes his head and looks on.

  “We have a party crasher!” she yells, and the room erupts in uproar. They’re jeering and booing … and though I can see drunken mirth on their faces, there’s something sinister about it. They might think this is a joke … but I’ve seen how far Victoria can take her little ‘jokes’.

  Everyone is playing along, except them. Astor, Blair, and Wills all look on intently, but they’re silent. They’re all three staring hard at me, and I wonder if they are thinking of this same night last year, when Victoria nearly cost me my life by getting me drunk. I know I’m thinking of it.

  She holds my arm tightly in her hand still, even though I’ve tried to pull it away. I’d love to just punch her, but I know that would be the worst thing I could do here, surrounded by her friends in her family’s house.

  “You have to face a challenge, Teddy,” she sneers at me evilly. “Those are the rules.”

  I blink and look at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  She grins wickedly. “You and I are going to play beer pong, and whoever loses has to strip down naked and run a lap around the outside of the house.”

  I know she wouldn’t dare make this challenge if she didn’t believe she was going to win. She’s doing it to humiliate me, and I want to say no, but everyone at the party has crowded around us. There’s not really any way out through the human wall encircling us, so I don’t think I have the right to refuse.

  “Look, I only came here to talk with Astor, Wills, and Blair. I didn’t come to crash your party, and I’m not here to stay. As soon as I’ve said what I came here to say, I’ll leave,” I tell her, hoping that it will be enough to sway her from her insane game plan.

  It’s not.

  “I don’t care why you’re here. You showed up uninvited and unwelcomed, and you’re going to pay the price for it. There’s no getting out of it!” She flings her hate-filled words at me.

  Even a few party-goers standing by overhear her tone and exchange a look. It’s clear this sort of thing’s been done before … but all in good fun. I see another group of girls look my way, point, and whisper amongst themselves. I’ve been recognized. It doesn’t matter if this is supposed to be in good fun, I realize, if they all turn against me.

  I have no choice but to play along before that happens. I swallow hard. I’ve played a little before...but I was never any good. I can’t let Victoria see me quail under her bitter glare, so I lift my chin and try to keep my hands from shaking.

  “You’re on,” I tell her with false confidence. Unless I’m mistaken, and I must be, I think the three boys share a worried look.

  “You’re going to lose.” Victoria grins coldly, and we take our places at the table.

  The game begins, and the crowd around us grows so incredibly loud that I can barely hear myself think. I start off poorly, and I just go downhill from there. I make sure to drink only from an untampered beer bottle that never leaves my sight, but it’s still not long at all before I’m buzzed. I didn’t plan on getting drunk, but there’s no helping it if I can’t make a goddamned shot. I learned once already that being drunk around Victoria is the absolute last position that I need to put myself in.

  It’s really no contest. I didn’t even need to play to know I was going to lose.

  As soon as she sinks her last, flawless shot, Victoria crows her victory—as does the entire crowd around us. The boys all look livid and stony-faced, but they do nothing to stop her. I feel like the end of my life is staring me in the face again. The shallow sliver of hope that she might not actually make me do it is completely dashed when she points her finger at me and yells out above the entire party.

  “Go outside, strip down completely, and do a lap around the house!”

  Everything in me freezes. She means it. There’s no way out of it. The crowd around me starts pushing me toward the door and Victoria orders her two personal minions, Laura and Alisha, to strip me at the door.

  I don’t want to give them the pleasure, but this costume doesn’t come off easy. I tell them to be careful, that it belongs to the drama department, but they aren’t listening, and they don’t care. They are only about me having to be humiliated in front of everyone.

  It wouldn’t be the first time. The boys tried to do something similar to me last year in the mineral baths, but at least I had a towel then. This time, I have nothing. Eventually I’m left, standing naked without even the wig to help hide my shame, on the front porch. Victoria and the others all crowd around the door, watching as I look back at them and raise an eyebrow.

  “I hope you like what you’re seeing,” I say, my false confidence the only thing hiding the part of me that’s dying right now.

  Victoria makes a little twirling motion with her fingers.

  “You know the drill. Get to it.”

  There’s no getting out of it. I thought the nakedness was bad enough, but there’s something about running around the house that takes it to a whole new level of humiliation.

  I do the lap as far from the house and as close to all the bushes and trees that I can, but I can see faces pressed to the glass, looking on. I’m so focused on getting this whole thing over with that I don’t think it’s odd that I don’t run into anyone outside until it’s too late.

  When I get back to the front door, I discover that it’s locked. Everyone else is inside, looking out, laughing at me. I’m very buzzed, freezing cold, and close to sobbing. I pound on the door, the windows, the back porch … but no one will let me in.

  I know that I’ve been had. There’s no way they’re going to open the door for me, and the longer that I stay outside and beg and cry, the longer they’re going to laugh at me and force me to remain in this horrible, nightmarish situation.

  The only thing I can do to save myself is to run away from the house. I take off with tears streaming down my face and the harsh earth grinding into my feet. I go as fast as I can, staying as hidden as possible, grateful for the woods between the mansion and the school. It’s both a blessing and a curse that it’s dark outside. I feel more hidden, but I can barely see where I’m running, and I know I’m getting scraped up as I go.

  I somehow make it back to the school even though I am basically blinded by tears the whole way. As soon as I turn into the grounds, I can see the corner dorm room I share with Dana. The light is on, which means she’s still up.

  She probably hasn’t even started to worry about me, and somehow, that makes it worse. I might not have outright lied to her about where I was going, but it feels like I did. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do this again, but here I am.

  I can’t go back. Not like … this.

  I’m trying to make up my bleary, drunk mind about where to go when I spot two security officers walking not far off, doing their rounds. Rather than get caught streaking, I duck into the closest building.

  I close the door behind me, grateful that it’s nearly dark in here. I’ve found myself back exactly where I am supposed to be, if I’d told Dana the truth. The only lights here are the ones shifting color beneath the surface of the water.

  I drop to my knees beside the still water, and sob, feeling as if the entire world has crashed in around me. All I wanted to do was talk to the boys. My boys. My friends. I didn’t mean to get in Victoria’s way, and yet she is so cruel and cold-hearted that she could try to ruin me and hurt me this badly.

  My intoxicated mind just keeps turning over and over. I know I’m never going to get over this. I don’t know how I am ever going to face anyone again.

  As the tears keep rolling out of my eyes, all I can see is the tranquil, pristine blue of the water in the pool, glowing and inviting. I don’t remember making the conscious decision to get in, but then suddenly, I am.

  I’m clinging to the edge of the deep end, staring downward through the glossy barrier between me and the sweet, sweet silence down below. And then, just like that, I’m under too.
The water presses against the hot skin of my face, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off me.

  It’s so quiet. There isn’t any sound, only the rush of blood in my ears. No more laughing, no more Victoria screaming, not even the sound of my own wracked tears. Just … silence. Once frightening, now inviting.

  I’ve heard of SCUBA divers experiencing something called rapture of the deep, where they become so entranced by the beauty beneath the surface of the water that they forget to leave. I think I understand that now.

  As I look at the darker depths of the water beneath me, I feel that nothing has ever been so inviting to me in my life, and I let go of the edge of the pool. All I want is to drift to the bottom in this beautiful blue world, where I am the only one who exists, and where there is no pain and torture, no loneliness, no sorrow.

  Only peace and beauty … only me … only for a little while longer.

  I sink slowly, letting the silver bubbles slip from my mouth and rise above me as I go down, down, down … until my feet touch the bottom, and there I close my eyes and wait serenely for the end to come.

  The end of what, I’m not sure.

  But something, something has to end.

  Chapter 11

  All the world is soft and blue.

  My mind goes back over the torturous days and nights I’ve had at school, the days and months and years that I suffered through one foster home after another, over and over again with no base, no home, no real family, no one who cared for me. This has been all of my life, from the very beginning.

  If I haven’t found a place in this world by now, I don’t think that I ever will.

  There’s a small part of me that knows I’m not in my right mind. But it’s a small part. Too small.

  I don’t know the exact moment I inhale water. I just know that I feel a terrible, sharp pain inside me and a sudden awareness overtakes me.

  I’m drowning. Really drowning.

  This isn’t like before, on the boat. I was just afraid I might drown then. Now, I really am. My body thrashes and my eyesight blackens at the corners, but when I close them, I see a confusing display of disjointed colors. That yawning, stabbing, terrible pain squeezes at my insides just as something strong and firm wraps around my waist.