“To stifle your screams,” he whispers, and then his right hand dives down and under my skirt, teasing me and making me moan. The pencil really does help when I clench my teeth around it. “You’re too smart for your own good. It drives me nuts.”

I spit the pencil out, and it bounces across the soapstone counters, bumping up against a silver propane faucet.

“Clearly, it does more than just that,” I manage to whisper as Tristan exhales against my ear, rubbing against me. He’s so close to breaking, so damn close. I want him inside of me so badly. I hate that he’s been with other girls and not me. I hate that he’s been with Lizzie. The thought makes me sick. “You like it when I’m a smart-ass.”

“You’re so infuriating,” he whispers, nuzzling against me. “I don’t understand you and your mentality at all. You don’t like money, and you don’t care about status. You memorize ridiculous formulas, and you defend monsters like Harper du Pont. Who are you, and where did you come from?”

“Marnye Elizabeth Reed, from the wrong side of the tracks,” I say, and Tristan yanks me even harder against him. He’s going to be difficult to handle, I imagine. He might be dark in the bedroom. I don’t care. I seriously don’t care. “At your service.”

“Huh, right,” Tristan scoffs, pushing away from me just before the door opens and one of the chemistry teachers walks in—I can’t remember her name, but she waves and smiles at me anyway. Clearly, she can’t see how worked-up I am right now, how hard my nipples are under my black button-up, how wet my panties are. Thank God that lady boners are invisible, right? “At my service. You only heel to one leash, Marnye, and that’s your own. Get the fuck out of here, and let me finish my work.”

Tristan reaches around me to snatch the pencil, spins it around and carefully erases the erroneous four on his paper. I smirk as I straighten my skirt out, turning around and walking backwards for a moment, like a total badass.

“Have fun writing up that physics report with a massive boner,” I say, and then I slam right into the chemistry teacher—that’s right, her name is Miss Terrenova—making her grunt.

“Massive boner?” she asks, and my face flames with heat. “Miss Reed, is that really appropriate conversation to be having in a place of learning?”

“Actually Miss Terrenova, I feel uncomfortable with her in here, like she’s trying to fuck me with her eyes.”

“Mr. Vanderbilt,” Miss Terrenova scolds, but she shoos me out the door anyway, my face flaming. Lizzie’s still there, waiting to escort me back to my room, but she looks confused, like she expected one thing to happen between me and Tristan … and got another.

“Let’s go,” I choke out, before I embarrass myself any further.

I can only take so much humiliation for one day.

Somehow, I figured when I turned eighteen, I’d magically become an adult and seem cool somehow.

Far from it: I feel more awkward than I ever have in my life, like a queen with a plastic crown.

Now, if someone would just reach out and help me fix it …

When Dad shows up for Parents’ Week, I excuse myself to the bathroom and hyperventilate.

He looks so bad … like, really, really bad.

“He’s going to die,” I whisper when Zack comes in and curves his arms around me, holding me from behind in the ladies’ restroom while fat tears drip down my face, and my body shakes with a sudden rush of adrenaline. Find a cure, save him, it screams, but how can I? What can I do? “Zack, he’s going to die.”

“Nothing is for certain, Marnye,” he tells me, his strong voice pulling me back from the edge just enough that I manage to turn around in his arms. He’s got his jersey on again, and I’m back in my uniform for one of the most important games of the year.

Tonight, there are going to be scouts in the audience.

And one of them’s from Bornstead.

So far as I know, it’s possible each one of these five assholes is considering going to the same college as me. Somehow, that makes things even harder. If they all applied to my school, and I don’t pick them … is that a betrayal somehow?

I swipe my arm across my face, but I feel tired. Sort of like Windsor looks nowadays. I’m still worried about him.

“You saw him Zack, you know him.” He narrows his eyes and tightens that full, lush mouth of his into a thin line. Even his sporty grapefruit smell can’t rouse me from the dark depths I’m swimming in. “He looks like a skeleton. He shouldn’t even be here, he should be resting, he—”

“He wants to see his daughter perform, Marnye,” Zack says, lifting my chin up and looking into my eyes. “Your dad is here, regardless of his health, because you are the most important thing in his life.”

“Zack, he’s—”

“Marnye.” His voice is hard, firm. He forces my panic into retreat, and for the first time in nearly a half an hour, I’m able to get control of myself. “Your dad is here to see you dance, not cry.” Zack smiles to soften his words and then cups the side of my face in a huge palm. He’s got those black lines on his cheeks that football players always smudge on, and I smile. I’d be checking him out if I weren’t still stopping myself from crying. “Let’s go out there together, and put on brave faces, okay?”

“Thank you,” I tell him, and I mean it. He sees my vulnerability, and it doesn’t scare him away. We take hands and head into the hall, meeting Charlie at the row of cars outside.

Surprisingly enough, Isabella is standing there with Jennifer and the baby.

“We waited for you,” Jenn says, smiling, and I can’t decide if she’s full of shit or if she just feels sorry for me because Charlie is clearly dying. She left me with just one parent, and he became my whole world, my whole heart … and he’s not going to be around as long as I need him to be.

I won’t lie to you: it takes effort for me to sit there in that car with her.

“I can’t wait to see you dance tonight,” Dad tells me, smiling, the skin on his face crinkling in unfamiliar ways. It’s like he has too much; he just looks gaunt. I should drop out of school and take care of him. The thing is, I know Windsor isn’t skimping on his care. He recently sent me a bunch of profiles for home health aides, so I could pick one to send home to help Charlie with everyday chores.

But … time spent at home with him would be worth more than time at school, right? In the grand scheme of life, quality time with loved ones far supersedes academic endeavors.

“You know I’ve always been clumsy as hell,” I say, forcing a grin as Zack squeezes my hand. “It took me a lot to get to this point. Just don’t make fun of me when I’m the worst one on the team.” Charlie laughs and pulls me close, smiling at me … and then letting his eyes linger on Jennifer and the baby in her arms, on Isabella …

“I bet you’re the best dancer, Marnye. You’ve always been good at everything you do.”

The limo rumbles down the hill, but Isabella never looks at me. Jennifer makes small talk, but only Zack returns her constant chatter.

It’s a huge relief when we get to the field and climb out, separating to head to our various activities: Charlie, Jennifer, the baby—whose name is actually Marley, too much like a mixture of mine and Charlie’s for comfort—and Isabella head into the bleachers to watch while Zack trots onto the field, and I join the cheerleading squad.

The scouts aren’t hard to spot in the audience. By the time half-time rolls around, I know exactly which ones they are. They rarely smile, but they get excited when Zack does something just right. Jalen, too, for that matter which sucks. Jalen doesn’t deserve to be quarterback, doesn’t deserve to be scouted. I learned from Miranda during one of our slumber party chats that he used to lie to Ebony and tell her he was wearing a condom when he wasn’t.

That’s sexual assault, in my book.

Now I don’t feel nearly as bad for revealing that she was planning on cheating on him.

Just before our half-time show starts, I notice Zack slipping money into a player’s hand from the other team. It’s such a weird thing to notice, this subtle clasping of palms. But I don’t miss the wad of green that passes between him and Corb Lambert, the star player for Grenadine Heights.

Huh.

Is Zack paying him to throw the game or something? He wouldn’t though. I mean, I don’t think Zack would do that and I don’t believe that Corb would risk his chance of getting scouted for some chump change.