I want to cry, I’m so happy. This is all I want. Everything I want. I don’t want to ever do anything else.

Cheering fills my ears, she rolls on top of me, and I don’t see anything but her.

I only feel her.

• • •

The cut at the corner of my mouth stings. I tongue it, slouching in the wooden chair as I gaze past Father McNealty’s empty seat in his office.

God, it’s better than a drug. The feeling swirling in my gut and my heart pounding like I’m dangling a hundred feet in the air, only holding on by a single hand.

She’s better than a drug. I always knew she had it in her.

“If you ever come near me again,” Olivia grits through her teeth in the chair next to mine. “I will cut you.”

I look over at her. The orange juice she threw at me stains her white Polo, too.

But I almost smile, seeing the tear in her sleeve. I fought back, didn’t I?

“Cut me?” I taunt, watching her as she watches me graze my hand up the inside of my thigh, dragging up my school skirt. “Where?”

I pretend to rub myself, moaning.

Her mouth twists into a snarl. “Cunt.”

I turn away, smiling to myself. Dyke.

Sitting up straight, I hold up my nails, inspecting the damage. It took three teachers to pull us off each other. My only regret is that she didn’t start this shit after school when we wouldn’t have been interrupted. I’m in every bit as good of shape as she is. This could’ve gone on for hours.

The second bell rings, and now we’re officially late for fifth period. Where the hell is he?

“They’re going to research it, you know?” Liv says, and I can see her looking at me out of the corner of my eye. “Find out where that video came from, and when I take this online with my receipts, the entire fucking world will be calling for your head. Especially since I’m only seventeen.”

Fuck. I forgot about that. She’s a minor.

I pick at the chipped red nail polish, ignoring the skip in my heartbeat. “And who will believe you?” I turn my head, meeting her dark eyes under her long, black lashes. “I’m Clay Collins.”

Blonde and just like a bomb. Everything the administration loves to parade around in their recruitment brochures.

Her eyes narrow.

I look her up and down. “And you’re a dumpster rat probably looking forward to a long and illustrious career turning tricks on the dirty floor of her shitty house.”

Olivia launches out and grabs me by the back of my neck. I gasp.

I clutch the arms of the chair for support as she pulls us face to face, and I harden my jaw, looking into her eyes. The dark brown lights up with flecks of gold as she glares at me, and I can smell the peaches in her long black hair.

My heart pounds so hard. Yes.

Like a fucking drug.

She stares at me with fury, and I brace myself for impact when I know I should pull away.

But I don’t want her to let me go. It took so long to get us here.

I hate Olivia Jaeger. I fucking hate her, and I’d happily never love anything if I could hate her my whole life. My eyes pool with tears, and I don’t know why.

But I don’t blink.

Come on. My chin trembles. Come on. I want this.

The juice she threw at me still drips from my skirt, and I close my eyes at the burn in my scalp where her fingers are curled into my hair under my ponytail. Come on. I open my mouth, feeling her everywhere. Almost tasting it.

Bitter but beautiful, like Valium on my tongue. That’s what she’s like.

I open my eyes, a tear spilling over, and I see her watching me, a mixture of anger and wariness in her eyes. Like she’s unsure about something.

A voice carries in from the office, and Liv pushes me away, releasing me as the door to the headmaster’s office opens.

I shake my head as I sit back in my chair. Wimp.

“Father McNealty is held up with the mayor,” Mrs. Garrison tells us, remaining in the doorway. “He will speak to both of you in the morning, so don’t think you’re off the hook. Go to the locker room, change—”

I rise before she’s finished, grab my cell phone off his desk, and walk past the old bag.

“And get directly to class,” she yells after us as Liv and I walk through the office toward the door. “If I get another whiff of one more fight between you two, I’m calling your parents to pick you up!”

But we’re already in the hallway, the door swinging closed behind us. I don’t turn around, and I don’t slow down, charging down the empty hallway as teachers drone on in their classrooms, and I descend the stairs, finding my way to the locker room.

Jaeger’s on my tail the entire time, though, and I feel her eyes on my back. I hope she jumps me again.

I hope she does.

I push through the door, the offices and locker room empty as everyone is already outside. I stop at my locker and dial in the combination, throwing it open.

“Just had to be orange juice, didn’t it?” I gripe, pulling my Polo off over my head. “Everything is sticky.”

It’s down in my goddamn socks. These saddle shoes are vintage. If she fucked them up, I’ll make sure not even her lowlife brothers can protect her.

She digs in her locker—which is unfortunately in the same row, because Coach keeps lacrosse together—and I stalk over to the cabinet, pulling out a spare Polo.

“You know,” I tell her, fumbling with a clean shirt, “if you didn’t want everyone to see, then maybe you shouldn’t have been practically fucking her in public.”

“We weren’t fucking,” she growls, glaring at me. “As you, and everyone else clearly saw. I guess if I didn’t want people filming, I shouldn’t have expected as much as some simple manners from a stupid, useless cow.”

I slip my arms into the shirt. Stupid, useless…

But I pull it back off and throw it at her. “This should fit your fat tits. Take it.”

She catches it, and I yank another shirt out of the cabinet, making sure it’s a small.

She sets the shirt in her locker, checking her face in the mirror that hangs on the inside of the door. A trickle of dried blood coats the ridge of her ear, and I try not to look at her as she wipes it clean.

A tiny pang of guilt hits me, but I push it away. She made me bleed too, didn’t she? It’s not my fault she has to line metal up her ear with all her dumb piercings. She came at me first.

I lick the cut at the corner of my mouth again, glancing over and watching her throw the bloody wipe on the ground, her lips twisted in anger.

But the fury is in her eyes too, and I know she’s still upset.

I pause, confusion seeping through. I know I deserved her anger. I’d have been furious, too. And I honestly wasn’t going to post the video. That wasn’t my plan originally, but…

I grind my teeth together and close my eyes, blinking long and hard. Olivia kissed that girl everywhere. Everywhere.

I stare off into my locker, the bra like sandpaper on my skin. I peel it off, dropping it to the floor.

I mean, if I did that with my boyfriend in a public place, I’d be a slut, right? I might even get into trouble, because sluts don’t represent Marymount at lacrosse games.

Marymount girls are good girls. We’re discreet.