When I get back home, everyone is gone. The living room is a mess. I feel lonelier than ever.
I walk over to my bed, bury my face in the pillow, and cry.
I cry until I fall asleep.
I cry until my hatred toward myself, and Pierce, and even Dad and Ryan turns into numbness.
I cry until there are no more tears left in me.
I arrive at work in a particularly sour mood the next morning.
The fact that I’m sporting a shiner and a cut lip doesn’t help matters either. I look like I’ve been in a dogfight. I feel like it, too. The way I left things with Ryan was bad—but getting back home and seeing my bed naked of her and my office desk naked of the evidence I gathered against him for months upon months is nothing short of tragic. My whole existence, everything I have and want and is worth living for, is suddenly out of reach, and I’m contemplating doing things I shouldn’t even be thinking about.
To Ryan Anderson, mostly. But to the rest of this fucked-up place, too.
Because I won’t delude myself. Remington Stringer was a troubled girl before she got here…but she is lost and gone now because of us, too.
The first class is a blur. I don’t even bother to pretend like I care. I look ridiculous with my white dress shirt and slim black tie and those preppy blue dress pants that are supposed to make you look sophisticated. I’m anything but right now.
“What happened to your face, Mr. James?”
“I fell.”
“It’s on your arms, too.”
“Fine, I got into a fistfight with a junkie.”
“Ha-ha. Come on, what happened?”
Well, can’t say I didn’t tell the truth. First period passes, and then the second one is Remi’s. She’s not here, and I?
??m not surprised, but her empty chair is taunting me. I can’t wait for the hours, minutes, seconds to pass so I can rush over to her house and smooth things over. Only I’m not sure I still can.
At lunch, Headmaster Charles catches me in the hallway. I’m breezing through students—through life—about to make an exit out the door and get myself some cigarettes and a Coke. I almost forgot about my vices. For a minute there, I stopped smoking. But then she left and I drowned right back into despair.
“Mr. James, a word?”
“Perhaps even a few, if that’s what it takes to put your point across.” I smile easily to him, clasping my leather courier bag under my arm. The headmaster falls into step with me, and we both stare ahead.
“Miss Stephens’ parents called me this morning.”
It takes me a second to remember because my mind is elsewhere. Mikaela Stephens. The girl who bullies Remi. I nod, wondering where this is heading.
“Her parents found text messages about a fight that supposedly happened in your class with another student. Remington Stringer?”
No point in denying.
“Yes?”
“Were they disciplined?” I can hear the worry in his voice. The dread.
I stop by the door leading to the stairway to the street.
“They were both let off with a warning.”
“Whose decision was this? The student board?” Headmaster Charles strokes his chin in my periphery. Oh, yes. That’s the part where I should mention that in this fancy little school, people get judged by the student board. They’re like the judge, jury, and executioner around here.
“I never brought it up to the student body,” I say curtly.