He salutes me with his glass.
“Sounds like you’re just foisting blame off on someone else,” I say. I look down at him and tilt my head. “You think you’re so different from them? Why? Because you’re ‘self-aware’？ I can promise you… you’re not.”
Graham laughs. “I’m not?”
“No,” I say shortly. “I think you’re kinda worse. Pretending that you’re not morally bankrupt when you’re sitting here in a custom suit drinking top-shelf liquor.”
“Damn. Harsh,” Graham drawls. “Maybe you’re right. But so am I. You’ll never be one of us. And you shouldn’t want to be.”
I squint at him. “I don’t.”
He thinks he has me all figured out. They all think that. They don’t. They don’t know anything about what it’s like in Suburbia, where nothing moves and all the houses look the same. They can’t comprehend that I don’t want what they have either. That I want to make something that’s mine, that has my reflection.
“Then why are you here?” Graham asks.
The words stick to my tongue. For some reason, this feels like a moment that matters. “To get back what I earned and all the potential that came with it,” I say finally.
To even the playing field.
Graham frowns at me and, quiet and hushed like a confession, he says, “I would give every single cent of it away, the Remington money, if it were mine. All of it.”
I stare at him, my observation from earlier confirmed, and can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of my chest. He stares at me confused and he is so innocent, in a way. He thinks he’s the main character. People like him always think they’re the main character, because life tells them they are. They don’t need a playlist to convince themselves.
“Graham Remington, without your money, you wouldn’t last a day. You don’t have what it takes.”
Graham looks up at me and his eyes glint in the moonlight, but before he can answer, a scream shatters my triumph. I twist away from Graham as yet another flash of not-right hits me, swelteringly uncomfortable. What could cause a scream like that in a place as perfect as this? Graham stands sharply, that smug expression sliding off his face. I stalk past him, rushing through the double doors off the balcony, moving toward the commotion.
Margaret from Rye Country Day—on the debate team, nationally ranked—is at the center of a small crowd in the ballroom. Her face is shiny and dark purple, like an overly ripe eggplant, with bloodshot eyes bulging from it cartoonishly. She lets out a horrible sound, like air leaking out of a balloon, and she claws at her arms, at her wrists, at her own neck. My stomach turns when I notice the harsh rashes along her forearms, now irritated red by the vicious tearing at her skin, blood welling there in lines.
I’m grabbing her by the hands before I even realize that I’ve crossed the room. As soon as I touch her, she collapses, and I drop with her.
“Are you okay? Margaret!” I shout. Sprawled across my lap, she convulses, her neck swelling up now. I look up, wild eyed and breathing fast. “Please! Somebody help her! I think she’s dying. She’s dying!”
And… no one moves.
“Oh, God,” one girl—the beachy girl, the one who looks like a model—squeaks. There’s the sour smell of urine somewhere underneath the tangy sweet scent of perfume and champagne, like someone’s just pissed their fear away.
And yet they all just stare, different degrees of horror twisting their expressions. Hawthorne never blinks, even as her eyes grow shiny with tears. Esme is stone faced, like any expression at all is a weakness.
“HELP HER!” I shriek, my voice tangling in my throat, and then I look down at her.
Margaret doesn’t struggle anymore. She just looks frightened. Her trembling swollen hand lifts to my face. I grab it and hold it tight, pressing it against my cheek, feeling how hot she is. I can smell the blood now, like old pennies, and Dior perfume.
“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” I whisper to her, even though I can taste my own lie. Because in one clear, chilling moment, I realize… no one is coming to help. “I know… it’s okay. Just… just rest, all right? You can stop.”
Almost like I gave her permission, Margaret’s eyes roll into the back of her head, and then she’s still.
CHAPTER 8
MARGARET’S DEAD BODY IS WARM in my lap and I can’t breathe.
No one in the ballroom is breathing. The phonograph plays until it ends in a record scratch.
My giggle is inappropriate, one that burbles up from my chest and strangles in my throat. I might be able to pass it off as a sob, except another follows, unbidden. I clap my hand over my mouth at the absurdity of it all, and then suddenly, I don’t feel like laughing anymore.
I feel like screaming.
And then I am. Screaming, that is.
A hand clamps around my shoulder, hauling me up. Saint tugs me out from underneath the body, and Margaret’s head thumps against the cold marble floor. I expect it to crack like an eggshell, for her to cry out like Humpty Dumpty.
But Margaret doesn’t make a sound.
Another strong hand wraps around my wrists. Mousy, blond, quiet Hawthorne, who doesn’t look mousy or quiet right now.
Pierce is the first Remington to move.
“Adina, are you all right?” he demands, even though underneath his gleaming tan, I can see a sheen of green. He watches me because he doesn’t want to see her—Margaret.
I want to say he’s asking the wrong person, but I still haven’t stopped screaming.
“Not now, Pierce,” Hawthorne says sharply, and I can just hear her over my own panicked yelps. “Come on, Adina. Come on, let’s go, let’s go.”
And then Third looks at his sister-in-law and drawls, bored, “Clean up, won’t you?”
Leighton spins into action. “Move her,” she snaps at the servers, pointing at Margaret like she’s trash, and then I’m being hauled from the ballroom, down the hallway, and up the stairs.
“She’s dead. That girl’s fucking dead. What the actual fuck?” I try to wheeze, but my harsh breaths slur my words and my vision starts to spot.
Is this a panic attack? It feels like a panic attack.
“Yes. She’s dead,” Hawthorne says. She looks over my head at Saint. “Your room or mine?”
“Definitely mine,” Saint says, accusatory and snappish, like this is Hawthorne’s fault. Like it could be someone’s fault.
I blink and we’re on the stairs. Another blink and we’re in my room. With the door shut, I finally feel my knees give out, and I land halfway on the bench at the foot of my bed with a deafening thud.
“What the hell was that?” I demand breathlessly. “Margaret is dead, and nobody did anything! Nobody even moved! What kind of messed-up shit is that?”
I can imagine how I look, coming apart at the seams, but Hawthorne hums sympathetically, her arm coming around my shoulders. I sag into her willowy frame, recognizing it. I once craved this comfort, after the falling-out with Esme, but Hawthorne chose a side and it wasn’t mine.
I don’t realize that I’m shaking until Saint grabs my wrists and steadies my trembling hands.