I didn’t know for sure, of course, but “embezzlement” was a multimillion-dollar kind of word and one that terrified all the Edgewater kids, and none more than Esme Alderidge.
Mistake three: I miscalculated. Only three people had the potential to have heard Esme’s joke. One was Esme, the other she was sleeping with, and the third—Toni.
So Esme set her sights on a new target to torment. First, it started with jokes. About Toni’s hair, about her makeup, about her face, about her interests. She hadn’t wanted to go to an Ivy. Toni’d always wanted to go to Tisch. She knew who she was, but Esme knew how to weaponize someone’s joy against them with expertise. Suddenly, she had everyone buzzing that Toni only wanted Tisch because she hadn’t been able to get into an Ivy.
Then the girls—Hawthorne, who was always at her right hand, and the rest—wouldn’t talk to her. They even started inviting me to the table again, but Toni had made my days more than bearable when I’d been suffering Esme’s ire, and I knew I owed her. Plus, I was the reason this was happening to her. So we stuck together.
Being ignored together for a few more months would be fine. It could have been fine.
But it escalated again. Direct this time. Food staining our book bags. Shitty photos paired with shitty captions making fun of us, “leaked” from finstas. Enough so that no one would talk about Esme anymore. It partially worked; at first all anyone talked about were the jokes. All Esme would say was, “It’s a joke. Toni’s an actress, she likes jokes, doesn’t she?” But “embezzlement” was too big a word to drown out with jokes.
So it wasn’t a joke, being cornered in that bathroom, Esme’s voice running ragged as she screamed, “How dare you? What the fuck is wrong with you, spreading lies like that?” at Toni, even after Toni locked herself in the stall, sobbing, begging her, saying that it wasn’t her.
“Are you so bored with your little virginal life that you have to listen to my personal business with your brother?” Esme growled. “Are you that needy and nosy that you have to use my name to get anyone’s attention? That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Attention.”
Toni’s sobs echoed, and each hitch of breath felt like a punch in the chest, until I had to say something.
“Esme, that’s enough,” I warned, trying to cut the head off the beast, but three always rise from the Hydra’s neck. Mistake number four: Esme never liked being told there was a line she couldn’t cross.
She pressed herself up against the creamy stall door and slammed her fist into it with a snarl. “It was none of your business, Toni, and now the whole school is talking about it.”
“I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them it was a joke. That I was lying—”
It wasn’t Toni. It had never been Toni. And Toni knew. Of course Toni knew it was me, and still she didn’t say a word. She proved to be a far better friend to me than I was to her as I stood there frozen.
“You were just waiting to tear me down, waiting for your opportunity, you uppity, social-climbing cunt.”
I’m still not sure what was enough. The use of the word “uppity” and all its implications or calling her a cunt.
But it was enough.
“Maybe you’re angry because it’s not a lie,” I said, and then Esme froze, like she couldn’t believe what I’d just said. She looked back at Hawthorne, who stood by the door, ever her silent sentry. And I continued. “Maybe you’re angry because it’s the truth and now everyone’s going to know it. That you’re not this spoiled rich girl anymore. Maybe you’re just a spoiled regular girl now, pretending.”
“You can shut the fuck up, Adina,” said Esme savagely. I so rarely gave her a reason to say those words to me, but when I did, usually I’d shut up.
Not this time.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
“No, you’re being cruel. You’re taking out your anger at Toni because it’s true. You really are broke, aren’t you? When I told everyone, I wasn’t sure, but I’m glad for the confirmation,” I said, and then I laughed, almost in disbelief.
Esme had never taken kindly to being laughed at.
I watched her face drain of color. And then that pallid expression twisted into a mask of wrath and she lunged.
Like a bomb, the escalation happened in seconds and the fallout was massive. Because even if she didn’t have all her money anymore, Esme still had her power. Everyone listened to her, and just like that my acceptance to Yale and every other backup school was up in smoke, and my attendance at Edgewater hanging on by the thread of my parents’ employment there.
There would be no history degree. No Manuscript Society. No law school. No internship on the Hill or at the NAACP. No way up and out.
Not unless I succeed tonight.
* * *
Shaking off the memories in Esme’s glare, I slip into the trees, just far enough to be hidden in the shadows. I pretend to look at my phone, but I’m really surveying the party, looking for where Pierce went while I was distracted by self-pity.
“Hey.”
“Fuck. Shit. Motherfuck—” I blurt out, jumping and spinning around all at once.
“You have a mouth.”
“Yeah, I do, use it to talk and stuff too,” I say sharply, breathing through the sudden adrenaline rush. I right myself, ready to confront whatever asshole junior is hiding here, but then I see—
The man of the hour.
Pierce smiles his million-dollar smile, his canine tooth flickering white in the moonlight. One part of his lip lifts higher than the other. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“You didn’t scare me. I was just… surprised,” I correct. A lengthy pause fills the silence, long enough for it to get awkward. “The alcohol is in the trunk.”
“I know. It’s my car,” Pierce laughs.
“Oh. Right. Yeah. The Tesla.” Shit, it’s probably weird that I know he owns a Tesla. “You’re the only one at Edgewater who owns a Tesla. That’s how I know. That it’s yours.”
Pierce nods like I’m not being a weirdo.
It’s fine, right? The Remingtons are weirdos. No. Rich people aren’t weirdos. They’re eccentric.
He’s not popular in the same way that Esme is. He’s so popular that he only has two friends and no one thinks it’s odd. Sure, the wealthiest of the bunch were probably his playmates when he was a child, but now he’d only claim two of them—Penthesilea and Charles.
“I’ve seen you around before,” Pierce declares, surprising me again.
“I’m Adina Walker. Professor Walker’s daughter. Maybe you saw my picture on her desk?” I suggest.
Pierce hums doubtfully. “I’ve never been to Professor Walker’s office hours.”
I sigh internally, but I can’t let it show. “We’ve been in the same grade since we were six.”
Pierce hums again. “No… that’s not what I’m thinking of.” Christ.
And then he snaps his fingers in recognition. “Oh, right, you’re on the school website, on the Diversity page.”
Motherfucker.
He says it like it’s just a light observation, like he doesn’t hear himself, but it’s so ridiculous, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I swallow it back. Greater goals, and all that. Time to pivot.