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Harleigh
“Hey, how do you feel?”Celeste slipped into my room the next morning and tiptoed over to the bed, climbing in beside me.
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
I’d slept like the dead, my head barely hitting the pillow before I crashed.
“No more mixing alcohol and pills for you.”
“It was two beers. I didn’t know…”
But I should have known. It was the first talk they gave you at Albany Hills—the dangers and side effects of mixing medication with alcohol and recreational drugs.
I’d just wanted to be normal though. For one night, I’d wanted to say screw it and be a regular teenage girl out having fun with her friends. And maybe, just maybe, part of me had wanted to say a giant fuck you to Zane Washington.
But I shoved those thoughts down. Right down beside the hazy memories I had of Nix finding me by that trailer, freaking out.
Ugh.
Darling Hill was a big enough town, big enough for the both of us. Especially with him being in The Row and me being stuck on this side of the reservoir now. But time and time again, like magnets unable to fight their natural attraction to one another, we found our way back together.
I guess we’d always been like that. Or I’d always gravitated to him. He was the flame and I was the moth who couldn’t stay away. No matter how much it burned.
And burn it had.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I stared at her blankly, and she added, “What happened with that asshole Zane and Nix, I mean?”
“No.” My bottom lip trembled. “But thank you.”
“I think we should lay low today. Hang out by the pool and soak up the last few days of the sunshine. Mrs. B said the weather is set to turn soon.”
“Actually, that sounds kind of perfect.”
This place might have felt like a prison, but the one good thing about the gated perimeter, it didn’t only keep me in, it kept unwanted visitors out.
Zane and Nix couldn’t reach me here, not that I ever imagined them wandering into Old Darling Hill territory.
At least of all for me.
Not after everything.
“What?” I whispered, noticing the distant look in Celeste’s eyes.
“Nothing.”
“Spit it out…”
Heat bled into her cheeks. “Do all guys like look that at Darling Hill High?”
“Like what?”
“Nix… and Zane.”
“Oh my God, Celeste. Whatever you’re thinking, unthink it, right now.”
“What? A girl can look.”
“Zane Washington isn’t someone you want to get tangled up with,” I said with warning.
