When second cousins, aunts, or uncles twice removed learn that I go to Edgewater, they think of Gothic castles and uniforms and libraries and tweed. They think nihilism and wealth and Greek and blood so blue, it must be so much more special than the red of normal people. They think of a place that builds a generation of leaders, who will leave the green pastures of Massachusetts for chrome towers. For most of my classmates, that is their future, so my family is right to think all those things. Just not about me.
Because I live here, outside the great iron gates in capital-S Suburbia. Suburbia is sticky lip gloss and the same silver-gray sedan at the end of every driveway. It’s Chuck Taylors and blurry-eyed girls who stand on the edge of the local public school’s football field in cheerleading uniforms. It’s being stared at when they see you break the cookie-cutter mold in a plaid kilt, climbing out of a BMW that is not yours, wearing a gifted pair of diamond earrings that you cannot afford, and holding a purse that you borrowed. It’s the way they see you in all these things that aren’t yours, and know that they aren’t yours, because they see that you’re born from the same cookie-cutter house as theirs.
They know you’re Of Suburbia.
Because Suburbia sticks to you, like the chemical sugar of Yankee Candles and Bath & Body Works, even though you left the store hours ago. For years I was able to disguise the scent under borrowed Dior perfume and by sticking close to the shadows of girls who winter in Aspen. But one slip and the smell surfaced.
Suburbia is forever.
But the Finish looms in my mind like the last life raft. I know if I don’t try—no, if I don’t demand otherwise—Suburbia will be my forever, roll credits.
When we pull into the parking lot at the edge of the forest next to Edgewater, we’re one of three cars, meaning only the wealthiest are present, the kids who live in mansions walking distance away or who can afford the Uber Lux fare. It means that I’ll be more outnumbered than I thought.
We begin the hike, Toni struggling in her heeled thigh-highs, but determinedly crunching over the path. I follow her shadow, eyes trained on her back.
When we pass through the hollow thicket of trees into the clearing, there’s a brief moment where no one recognizes us. I catch sight of a few underclassmen, rising juniors still unsure of their new power, precocious rising freshmen, eager for their first night as fresh meat. The bonfire rages large enough that the crackles of the flames equal the thunderous bass that comes from the lone car parked just a little way away.
That’s the last moment of anonymity that we get. Because the kids on the car—the coolest people at Edgewater—see us, and the mood shifts, the air threaded with a threat.
This is my last day at Edgewater.
I do not miss it. I don’t think I ever will. And in that moment, I know for sure that it—and its occupants—won’t miss me either.
There’s only one last thing I need from it and then… I’m gone.
CHAPTER 2
TONI PRETENDS THAT NO ONE’S watching us as she swans through the clearing, head held high. I follow her shadow, gaze piercing through each person who is watching us, refusing to let them humble me. They don’t matter anymore. Only one person’s opinion matters.
“Aye, Tones!” Charles shouts, waving his twin sister over.
He must already be drunk. He has to be if he’s calling Toni over. Toni and Charles prefer to act as if they don’t know each other, especially after what went down this past spring. It works best for them. Toni is prim and proper and theatrical, good at everything she does, but she doesn’t take well to being called an Oreo. To having her identity dismissed like Edgewater would prefer. Charles, on the other hand, is a future member of the North American Interfraternity Conference, to their parents’ very Divine Nine chagrin. He’ll never bark like a Que. It would be so disappointing if it wasn’t so right. Charles’s willingness to downplay certain parts of himself bought him social currency, as if the powers-that-be were thankful for his ability to “turn it off.”
“Charlie,” Toni drawls, pointedly. “Pass my friend a White Claw? None for me, I’m driving.”
Charles does as he’s commanded, tossing one to me. I crack it open and guzzle down half, ignoring the wary look he casts me. He’s not so brainwashed that he’d be hostile, but he’s definitely not willing to take the social bullet for me either. Not like Toni.
From the corner of my eye, I survey the area for a particular person until I find her.
Alpha Enemy Number One. Esme Alderidge.
She’s pretending that she hasn’t seen us, but I know she has. She’s surprised by my audacity—the fact that I’ve shown up—and so to keep control of the situation, she won’t give us her attention, not until she’s good and ready, and hopefully before that my mission will be complete and we’ll be long gone.
While she pretends to ignore us, Esme is regaling her circle with a tale about a house party that she threw when her parents were off in Dubai that some B-list New York influencer attended with her entourage. I was there for that one. Esme had been frantic in her en suite when they arrived, worried things didn’t look cool or elevated enough after she’d sent an overeager DM inviting them in the first place. She doesn’t tell it like that now. Now it’s a story about how excited the influencer was to meet her.
Esme’s easily the most overdressed of the group, her black hair slicked by an excess of gel so that it looks wet, the blunt edge of her bob severe at the nape of her neck. It just touches the diamond choker there that she once told me is worth fifty thousand.
She breaks it out for special occasions. But now every day is a special occasion, and only I know why. I know her secret. Her shame.
It’s shaped like my fingernails, scarred into the back of her neck, hidden under the clasp.
“You sure you don’t want anything harder?” Charles asks lazily, leaning back against the hood of the car.
“Ah, no—” I start, quickly tearing my gaze away from Esme and the sycophants formerly known as my friends, looking for my real target, but then I find myself looking through the windshield of the car, right into the backseat, at the glow of Penthesilea Bonavich. She has such perfect, clear skin and the perfect dusting of freckles across her perfect straight nose. The only thing wrong is her plump perfect mouth, downturned at the corners as she speaks softly to him.
Pierce Maxwell Remington IV.
Pierce Maxwell Remington IV has been my classmate for twelve years. He’s the second son of the latest generation of the Remington Family, who own the land that Edgewater sits on. His father went to Edgewater, and his father before him, and so on for two hundred years back. There were oil paintings depicting the great actions of our benefactors staring over us every day. But for me, those looming eyes were more personal. The Remington presence at Edgewater was what made my presence there possible too. The scholarship that afforded my education was named after and funded by Pierce’s great-great-aunt.
The Remingtons basically made me, at least I’m sure that’s how they see it. Now I need the Remingtons to extend another offer and remake me.
Right now though, his head is bent toward his girlfriend, face nearly pressed into the swanlike curve of her neck. I can just see a flash of his blue eyes as he whispers to her. Penthesilea shakes her head, and then she says something that passes through the open car windows, but I only get a few words: “…tradition, Pierce, but I’m right here and I want to go with you…”