“Does it matter?” I asked.
“Does life matter?” Arsène deadpanned. “Of course it matters. Vengeance keeps a person going. If there’s someone to blame, there’s payback.”
I thought about it.
“It was her fault, then.” I helped myself to a handful of popcorn. “The more I think about it, the more it feels like a setup. Her dad walked in a second after I put my lips on hers.”
“Definitely a setup.” Riggs nodded, chewing his chips loudly, cross-legged. “Was she at least hot?”
“Um.” I rubbed my chin, willing Arya to materialize in my imagination. I didn’t need more than to think her name before I had a clear vision of her. Her swamp eyes and full mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Your guess is not good enough. Show us,” Riggs demanded.
“How?”
“She must have social media.”
“Bet she does, but I don’t have a computer,” I said. It was half the truth. I did have a computer, but the ancient type. One that I could barely use Word on. Even that was because Andrew Dexter Academy demanded we have computers.
Arsène took out a brand-new laptop from his leather backpack and handed it to me. “Here. Use my MyFriends. Just type in her name.”
“You have a MyFriends?” I eyed him skeptically. All I knew about Arsène Corbin was that he was an evil genius who barely attended any classes and yet somehow ended up passing each year with honors. While Riggs spent his time trying to get himself killed by climbing trees, skipping between rooftops, and getting into brawls, Arsène was more the type to build DIY bombs and sell them online. Come to think about it, they were an odd pairing. They were probably so close only because they were forced together by loneliness.
“For research purposes.”
“You mean stalking.”
Arsène kicked my side with his socked foot. “I tolerated you better when you kept your mouth shut.”
I typed Arya’s name in the search bar, feeling my fingertips going clammy. I didn’t even know why. I had thought about Arya often—mainly bad things—but it wasn’t like I liked her anymore or anything.
Arya’s smiling face popped into the feed, and I clicked on it.
“I can’t believe her account is not private.” Arsène’s head almost knocked mine when he peeked into the screen. “Her parents must be dumb as bricks.”
“Her mom is kind of MIA. She’s always on some shopping trip. I think she hated Arya for not dying instead of her twin brother. And her dad is clueless about this shit.” I began to scroll through her pictures.
As suspected, Arya was having a ball while I was away. In the last couple of months alone, she’d posted pictures of herself attending the winter ball at her school, ice-skating in Rockefeller, having a girls’ night in with a friend called Jillian, and licking ice cream in the Bahamas. But the image my eyes kept getting stuck on was the last picture, posted only four hours ago. The location showed as Aspen, Colorado. Arya was standing on a mountain of snow, in full snowboarding gear, smiling to the camera, next to her father. The lava-hot anger that stirred in my stomach wasn’t from the sight of both these assholes having the time of their lives while I was stuck here in an asylum for troubled kids. I was used to getting screwed over by now. It was the person behind them who made my pulse skyrocket. The woman who stood behind them. She was holding their ski poles, looking like she was about to topple over, catering to their every need, as always.
Mom.
“Nicholai?” Riggs waved a hand in front of my face. “How’s that mental breakdown going?”
“It’s her.” I meant Mom, but they both blinked at the picture of Arya, their attention fully on the younger girl.
“No shit it’s her. We have eyes. She’s kind of hot, but not enough to get thrown into Andrew Dexter for.” Riggs scrubbed his stubble with the back of his hand.
“Hotter than Gracelynn,” Arsène spit out, like his stepsister was right here with us and could take offense. I got why he was mad. All these fuckers were off living their best lives, while the three of us were left behind, forgotten.
“No. I mean my mother. She went with the Roths on their Aspen vacation and didn’t even tell me she changed her plans. There she is.” I zoomed in on her.
It was a stupid thing to get mad about, everything considered, and still—what the fuck? Couldn’t she call? Text? Write another stupid letter? She was not stuck in the snow or in traffic or suffering from a horrible accident. She was right there, in the flesh, choosing these people over me, time and time again.