help @im-sorry-what-ii - Tumblr Blog

Jan 31

Lmfao 2 full years later, I have finally completed the second chapter of my ROTE Vampire/Werewolf High School AU!!!🐺🐺🐺 let's go to a PARTY!!

link to Chapter 1 here

Starling was instantly pissed when she swung open the door of my truck. "Why the hell did you pick him up first?" she demanded as Beloved scootched into the middle seat and made room for her to climb in. "Starling," he replied, picking at the peeling silver nail polish on his fingers and not looking up. "Always a pleasure."

"You're so fucking weird. He's so fucking weird," she announced as she slammed the door shut behind her huffily. She looked great, even in the low light of my truck cab. Her hair was enormous, and curly, and pulled back in a high ponytail. It was so tall it brushed the roof of the truck as she sat down with a thunk. She had this skimpy little tank top on, emerald green and satiny, like the pillowcases Patience made me sleep on at her house, and a way too big denim jacket over it, one that was giant in a cool way, not a sloppy one. And a miniskirt. Whenever we went out, Starling always wore a miniskirt. This one was black and fitted and looked amazing on her. Everything always did.

But it was her boots that really caught my attention. I even saw Beloved admiring them. "Nice shoes," he told her begrudgingly as she swung her feet up on my dash, exactly where his had been earlier that day. He looked aside, a weird expression on his face.

The boots were thigh-high and silver and glittery, way, way too much for a high school party, but that was just how Starling was. She was chewing gum, smacking her glossy lips as she did, twirling the curls of her high ponytail, and looking over Beloved's head like he didn't exist. "Hey," I said in reply, shifting gears and pulling back out onto the street.

"Hey? That's all you have to say for yourself? Hey? You could have at least texted me and told me you were retrieving your other half before you bothered to remember me," Starling snapped, swiping up on her phone and texting frantically, her obnoxiously high screen brightness illuminating the dark cab. "I didn't realize he had to ask your permission before he breathed around other people," Beloved retorted sweetly, in a voice that sounded nice but I happened to know from experience was anything but. "Can you guys just chill out?" I interjected nervously. "I hate it when you do this shit."

"Sorry, Fitz," Beloved said, sounding sincere, and patted my leg in apology. "God," Starling muttered, and Beloved swung his head around. "What, Starling?" he demanded, and to my surprise, she just rolled her eyes and went back to typing. "Don't act like you don't know," she hissed under her breath and then didn't talk again until Regal's mansion rolled into view.

It was impossible to miss because it sat on a rocky hill overlooking the rest of town. It was like even his house thought it was better than everyone else. It was huge and imposing and frankly, gave me the creeps, despite how many times I'd been there as a kid, running through the halls or sneaking around in the secret tunnels the servants used in the olden days.

It wasn't the building itself that I disliked. It was the way I felt when I was in it. Small, and stupid, and like I would never be good enough for the nice dining rooms and posh lounge areas. Like the people who lived there wanted to shove me into the kitchen with the staff and blissfully forget that I existed. Whatever. I liked the kitchen better than Grandpa Shrewd's stuffy office, anyway.

The winding road that led up the steep hill to the front gates was paved with cobbled-together black stones, shiny and smooth and veined with silver. It probably cost more than twenty orphanages. "Wealth in excess," Patience called it, usually in a disgusted tone as Lacey nodded along silently, the two of them clipping together activist zines at their cluttered kitchen table.

The gate itself was wrought iron and decorated with a huge buck, his head raised proudly and his antlers massive. That was the Farseer family crest, because their money was old enough to have a literal crest to go along with it. It was archaic. I hated it.

The buck was kinda cool, though.

I rolled down my hand crank window as we pulled up to the security checkpoint. There was no one inside. "Hello?" I called, sticking my head out and glancing around, vaguely annoyed. My grandpa paid these guys a literal small fortune. The least they could do was show up for their one and only actual job. It wasn't like anyone was storming the castle in this day and age, but still. It was the principle of the thing.

Because frankly, that's what "The Keep," as my grandfather dementedly referred to it, was. A modern castle. Not even that modern. It was like, mildly decrepit, maybe a hundred or so years old. But it sprawled out above us like it was ancient, a monument that had existed forever. "Hey!" I yelled into the dark, not bothering to hide how irritated I felt as I caught a whiff of shitty pot and heard the sound of a video playing on a phone. "It's Fitz Farseer. Is anyone gonna open this gate or do I have to come do it myself?"

There was the low scuffling sound and then a young guy with an absolutely terrible goatee and a slightly older woman with cropped hair came piling sheepishly out from the trees. "Fitz! Hey!" called the woman. She'd worked there for a couple of years. I didn't know her real name, but everyone called her Fox. The guy was new. I did know his name, I thought. It was weird. Made me think of a weapon. Blade, maybe?

"Sorry to keep you waiting, man," he told me apologetically, shutting off his phone. "You need to pay better attention," I warned them both, frowning. "I could have been anybody." "I know. Sorry about that, kiddo," said Fox. "We were just blowing off a little steam. Look, please don't tell your grandpa. I won't let it happen again."

I glanced back toward my friends. Starling had her head in her hands, clearly humiliated. Beloved had a funny little smile playing on the corners of his lips, which he'd done up in some kind of lipstick or gloss or something. They weren't usually that pink or that shiny. I realized that I was staring at them bewilderedly and blinked. "Yeah. No. I won't say anything, Fox. Just don't do it again. He pays you to be security, not to get high. You can do that on your off time."

"You got it, boss. Thanks, Fitz," she said, saluting me mockingly. Then she added, "Hey, you haven't been up for family dinners in a while. I hope everything is ok." "Just been busy. Senior year and all," I told her, as she pressed a button and the gate swung open. "God, already? You're getting so old. I remember when you were barely up to my armpits." She snorted, shaking her head. "You might have a future as an army sergeant, kid. Go have fun."

"Thanks," I called and pulled forward. "You're such a fucking spaz, Fitz," Starling snapped at me as I did. She was really pissed about the ride thing, I guess. "That's not actually a cool thing to call someone," Beloved piped up, still examining his silver nails. "It's really ableist and shitty." "You're really ableist and shitty," Starling said, tossing her hair. "No, if I were ablest and shitty, I'd be calling people slurs instead of saying what I really mean," Beloved replied evenly. He was clearly pissed, too. I had to get out of the truck, suddenly. The tension in here was way too high.

"Ok! Here!" I announced, frantically throwing the truck in park next to a cluster of badly parked cars and unbuckling in the same motion. "Damn, Fitz, where's the fire? Excited for your little family reunion after all?" Starling challenged, reaching for the passenger door so slowly that even I could tell she was trying to get a rise out of Beloved. He scowled and slid out on my side instead, hopping out and landing on his toes. "You decorated them," I said, pointing down at his new shoes. They had a few doodles on the sides of them, now. A black and white diamond sort of shape mostly, it looked like.

"What? Oh, yeah. A little bit," he said, adjusting the shirt he was wearing under his sweater from Lacey. It was a crop top, I realized for the first time. A black one, super obvious against his white... well, everything. It was tight, too. And short. Really short. Most of his pale midriff was showing. He'd changed into some baggy jeans to match it, ones embroidered all over with big seeing eyes and bright, colorful butterflies. I wondered if he or his sisters had done that. It definitely seemed homemade. The jeans looked enormous on him, and he'd secured them around his rail-thin waist with a thick studded belt. It drew a ton of attention to his-

"Your belly button is pierced?" I asked, staring down at the little charm hanging from his navel in surprise. "What? That? Oh, yeah, I got it done this summer on vacation," he said, glancing down. The charm was wooden, but looked almost silver, in the shape of a little sun and moon with a face. I'd seen other decorations in his house with that same symbol on it. Come to think of it, his mom maybe even wore a necklace like that. One of his sisters had earrings like it, too. I wondered if it was his family crest.

"Could you two lovebirds hurry the fuck up? It's cold. Let's hustle," Starling demanded. "I wanna get drunk." "It looks nice," I told Beloved, ignoring how snarky she sounded. "All of it. It's pretty cool." He smiled at me, his braces gleaming, and tucked his long white hair back behind both ears. "Thanks. You don't look so bad yourself. You even wore the jeans that fit," he replied, then winked and turned toward the house, spinning on his toes like a ballerina. Well, a ballerina in tennis shoes. Only he could pull a stunt like that off gracefully. He could probably pull anything off if he wanted to.

Suddenly feeling unbearably hot all over, I peeled off my sweater and left it in the bed of my truck. I was already starting to sweat through my t-shirt. Better not to let it get my sweater too. Wool was a bitch to wash without shrinking, and god knew Burrich wouldn't pay attention to the handwash cycle, no matter how many times I'd ask him to. I guess I couldn't be too mad about that. I hadn't even known it was a thing either until Patience told me so. Plus, I'd already ruined two other sweaters from Lacey that way. Better not press my luck with a third. She was starting to get sick of knitting the same pattern for me all the time. She kept threatening to make the next one frilly.

The three of us followed the wide, over-the-top path all the way to the main entrance of The Keep. The front doors were oversized and arched, sorta like a drawbridge might be, except they just swung open with regular doorknobs. A little tacky, but kinda funny too. Grandpa Shrewd really did like pretending to be royalty.

That's what they'd called my dad, too, back before he died. The Prince of Farseer Financials. He was famous for his fair and equitable business dealings. His whole brand had been built on the back of his honesty and integrity, so when news came out that he had a secret kid from a one-night stand, a kid he'd tried repeatedly to convince my mom to abort, the media went absolutely nuts. His rivals had a hay day with him, and so did just about every celebrity gossip column under the sun. I'd googled some stuff about it once, when I was like, thirteen, and then never looked any of it up again. Just the first page of results made me feel too sick.

"Spotless Chiv Falls From Grace!" one of the headlines had read. "Prince of Wall Street's Reigning Family Dethroned!" said another. One I saw called my dad a "Common Cheater in a Faithful Husband's Tailored Three Piece Suit." That had pissed Burrich off like nothing else when I mentioned it. "Don't you ever say that about your father again," he'd thundered. "And don't go reading that trash about him, either. I taught you better. Chivalry was nothing like that. He met Patience after you were born, and he didn't even know your mother was pregnant to begin with. He tried to buy her a morning-after pill as a courtesy, you know. Three times. She's the one who kept refusing to take it."

"I know," I'd said, staring at the wall. I did. I didn't really remember Mom all that well, because I was only 6 when she gave up her rights to me, but I did remember an old man with a voice that scared me shouting at someone about how it was all their fault that there was never enough money for food anymore. "You had to go getting pregnant with a kid we both know you're not responsible enough to support! You and your hippy holistic bullshit. Well, the dad's rich, ain't he? Why don't you quit asking me for money and make him shell out for child support? Tell him if he doesn't you'll tell his wife about the fucking kid. And if you don't, maybe I will."

In the end, I don't really know why she gave me up. Just that she did. A part of me sometimes wondered if she ever regretted it, but honestly, I mostly just tried not to think about her at all. I know she cried when she did it, but people cry for all sorts of reasons. Beloved cried over a picture of a baby doll once. I cried the last time I read a sad book and every single time a dog died in a movie. Starling had sobbed hysterically when one of the strings of her favorite harp snapped right before a big concert at the end of junior year. Molly cried just looking at old letters from her mom.

Hell, Burrich even got misty-eyed sometimes when he talked to me about my dad or his old horse, Neko. Crying didn't really mean anything. Anyone could do that. Abandoning your kid on some stranger's doorstep in the middle of the winter? Well. That was another matter entirely. I hadn't even had a coat on, and my shoes hadn't fit my feet. At least, that's the story Burrich and Uncle Verity always told me. And my speech was all stunted. It took me almost 4 years to talk normally, and even then, I didn't speak a lot to people who weren't Burrich, Molly, or Beloved until high school.

Anyway. I usually preferred going in and out the doors by the staff kitchen, because of course Grandpa Shrewd had a private chef, a really, really good one. My stomach rumbled. I wondered if Sarah was working tonight. Maybe I could sneak away later and find out. She usually made me something extra good as a treat because I would sit and keep her company while she cooked it.

"Earth to Fitz? Hey! Spacecase? A little help here?" Starling said, annoyed, snapping her fingers under my nose and then gesturing to the heavy door. "These weigh a ton and the scarecrow over here doesn't look like he can lift much more than I can." Her nails were painted too, and almost as long as mine were, I noticed as Beloved made a rude gesture in response, and Starling, in turn, dispassionately gave him the finger.

What the hell was happening? I stared down at my hand, too confused by my nails to even attempt to break up Beloved and Starling's catfight. I swore I'd clipped them before I snuck out, but they were, once again, so long that I worried I might cut myself on them. "Sorry," I muttered, shaking my head hard, and pulled open the heavy wooden door, gesturing to her and Beloved to go inside ahead of me.

"Thanks," Starling said, flouncing inside. "Thanks, Fitzy," Beloved echoed, then set his chilly hand on top of mine and tapped my nails. "Might wanna clip those," he added with a raised eyebrow. "They're looking a little beastly. Worse than you in yellow, even." "I did clip them," I replied helplessly, and he gave me an odd look. "Maybe do it some more," he suggested, and then grabbed the front of my tee shirt and yanked me inside after him. I laughed in surprise. I couldn't help it. He was always doing the strangest shit. In response, he winked at me again, and ahead of us, I heard Starling groan dramatically in irritation.

The party was already in full swing, music blasting so deafeningly that it instantly made my head throb. The lights were low, and colorful, and constantly shifting erratically like someone was doing something to make them that way. Disco ball, maybe? Strobe light? Personalize smart house app? Who the fuck knew. Whatever was the flashiest and most expensive, that was for certain. My cousin Regal was many things, but cheap was not among them. Speaking of the devil, I spotted his glossy head of curls from across the room and inwardly cringed. Probably outwardly, too.

"Are you gonna go say hi?" Starling yelled at me over the thumping bass, which was currently hitting decibels that made my eardrums feel like they were going to split. It was awful. "I'd really rather not," I said, and as if he could sense my presence, Regal's head snapped up from what he'd been doing, which was making out with one of the three to five people he was stringing along on any given day. His eyes settled on me resentfully and his lips curled into a sneer of disgust. The guy he'd been feeling up - Will, I was pretty sure his name was - looked mildly in my direction and observed me in a creepily calm sort of way that made my skin crawl.

"Get out," Regal mouthed at me vehemently, his shiny ringlets flying as he gestured obviously at the door. I stubbornly shook my head, already wishing I'd never come. He rolled his dark eyes, said something in Will's ear, and then gave Will's shoulder a shove, a pretty hard one, and Will unpeeled himself from Regal's chest and slithered into the crowd, disappearing. A second later, he popped up right behind my shoulder instead, and I jumped about a fucking mile when he hissed, "You. Bastard. Regal wants a word. Promptly."

"What is this, the fucking mafia?" I replied incredulously, but Will was already gone like a shadow in the night. He freaked me out. There was something so off about him. I guess there'd have to be, if he wanted Regal's tongue down his throat that bad. "What was that all about?" Beloved asked, chewing the bottom of his pink lip. He was gonna get lipstick all over his teeth. "Who the fuck knows. It's Regal, so whatever he wants, it's probably pretty stupid. Just hang tight. I'll be right back."

"What should I do while you're gone?" Beloved asked, glancing around the party for familiar faces. He looked nervous. "I dunno. Maybe grab something to drink so you'll relax," I said. "Grab me a soda or something too. I don't care what. Surprise me. Just no alcohol. Burrich would skin me alive if I ever drove that truck drunk."

"What? Only he's allowed to do that?" Starling interjected, then, to my immense relief, grabbed Beloved's arm and dragged him off with her. "Here, freak. Quit standing around like a little lost puppy. It's pathetic. I promise you'll live if Fitz walks across the room. Come on. Help me find the booze. Do you smoke?"

I didn't hear Beloved's reply, but was almost certain Starling had only asked to see if she could bum whatever he had off him. She wasn't exactly known for buying her own weed. "Why bother?" she always said when I pointed out that she could. She had a job, after all. "If you're hot enough, people will just do it for you."

She and Regal had that mindset in common, I thought with annoyance as I walked across the room with my shoulders squared, trying to mentally brace myself for whatever inane spew of total idiocy was about to come out of his mouth tonight. He was always the worst when there was no one else around to stand up for me, and honestly, even when they were, he was still pretty bad too.

But I wasn't a little kid anymore. In fact, as of this summer, I was almost four inches taller than him. More ripped, too. I'd spend the summer axe throwing and rowing my kayak on the lake and doing hard labor with my stepdad. Regal had spent his high in the air conditioning, racking up credit card debt and fucking whoever or whatever was closest, probably. I'd been hearing rumors he was even into opium now. I could believe it. He did all kinds of weird, excessive stuff like that. If it was hedonistic and way over the top, Regal had probably dabbled in it.

I paused about six feet away from my worst uncle and folded my arms across my chest, feeling a trickle of sweat drip slowly down my neck. "Regal," I said, just loud enough to be heard over the music, trying not to sound like I felt anything at all. "Hi." "What the fuck are you doing in my house, Bastard?" Regal replied, narrowing his eyes and taking a long drag from his vape pen. It smelled vile.

"Cotton candy?" I asked, wrinkling my nose. I'd always taken him for more of a mint guy, myself. The smoke he blew back in my face was sickly sweet and cloying, and I coughed it away violently. There was something WAY stronger than weed in that fucking pen. Whatever. Not my circus, and certainly not my monkeys. "I asked you a question. Why. The fuck. Are you. In my house?" Regal repeated in the same lazy, infuriating voice as before. "There was a party. My friends wanted to come to it. They needed a driver, so here I am," I replied, trying not to take the bait.

"Your friends? All two of them?" Regal drawled, sucking in another cotton candy flavored lungful of cancer. Whatever shit his juice was laced with was strong as hell. It made me want to plug my nose. I was starting to feel woozy on top of grossly overheated. Then he squinted. "Where'd you get an earring that nice?" he asked, as if he expected me to tell him I'd shoplifted it. "From my dad," I replied, and Regal looked so affronted that I'd dared to call his older brother my father that a part of me suddenly wanted to deck him.

"Oh. I remember it now. It looked better on him," Regal said spitefully, then sniffed hard and wiped his nose on his sleeve. I wondered what he'd snorted already tonight to get it running like that. "Yeah. Right," I muttered, my headache like a stabbing knife between my eyes. I realized, belatedly, that there was no way Grandpa Shrewd could be sleeping through all this hideous ruckus. He must have been gone on a business trip.

I wondered if Regal's mom was with him, or just gone on another long visit home. Her family lived abroad and sometimes it seemed like she spent more time there with them than home with her own husband and kid. I supposed if my son was anything like Regal, I'd flee the country at any given opportunity, too.

"Where’s your dad?” I yelled over the absolutely atrocious dubstep he had blaring. Was he using Grandpa Shrewd’s surround sound system right now? Of course he was. Who the fuck did that for dubstep? My headache intensified, and I fought the urge to rub my temples. It would have been pretty much pointless, considering the level of noise surrounding me. I felt another trickle of sweat drip down my neck and wiped it off with the collar of my shirt, annoyed.

“Singapore,” Regal replied disinterestedly. “Why, are you looking for a handout from him or something? Business not booming over on that sad little horsie farm your daddy’s ex refuses to give up on?” I scowled. Burrich’s stables were among the most popular in the tri-state area, and Regal knew that, because he boarded his own horse there. God. I couldn’t stand being in the same room as him. Usually, I’d walk away before picking a fight with him, mostly because it was pointless, but I guess he’d caught me on a bad day because I felt my temper flare and I opened my mouth before I really even knew what I was doing.

“Why the fuck do you hate me so much?” I demanded, glaring daggers at him as he examined his manicured nails, entirely unbothered. “I don’t hate you, you little freak," he informed me, glancing at me as if I were a bug under his shoe. “I don’t care enough about you to hate you. I hate that outfit you’re wearing. I hate that you’re in my house, killing the vibe with your weirdo depressive energy. I am entirely neutral about you as a person. I mostly just wish you didn’t exist.”

"Ok. Well. Thanks for calling me over to tell me that," I said flatly. "If that's all, I'm gonna go." "Fine. Go. Have fun. But watch your back," Regal replied, and now he sounded downright sinister. "And watch your friends, too. It would be a shame if something were to happen to any of them."

I stared down at him, speechless. I could not believe his gall. "You better leave my fucking friends alone," I warned him, "Or I'll punch your little minion into next month." "What, Will? Go ahead. Doesn't matter to me. Just leave his body alone. You can do whatever you want to his face, though. Just be aware that I probably did it all first. He'd good with his mouth, even if he isn't much to look at. Come to think of it, some scars would probably be an improvement." He smiled like a predator, and I suddenly found myself feeling sorry for Will, not angry at him. "That's really fucking mean, Regal," I bit out, turning to go. "You should be nicer to the people you're fucking."

"Should I? And how'd that work out for you?" he replied, sucking down his vape like it was water, then coughing unpleasantly as he exhaled. I spun around, and before I knew what I was doing, I had a whole fistful of his shirt in my hand, and his feet were hardly touching the ground. He had to balance on his tiptoes to stay upright. Regal looked scared absolutely shitless. Good. He should be, for a change.

"Careful," he drawled, his voice coming out with way more squeak than I was sure he'd meant it to. "There are cameras everywhere. Dad tolerates you now, but show those true halfbreed colors of yours, and you can kiss your college tuition goodbye forever. He'd disown you if you ever laid a finger on me."

He wasn't bluffing, and we both knew it. Regal was Grandpa Shrewd's favorite kid and always had been. He was the only son Shrewd had with the trophy wife he'd replaced my Grandma Constance with. I'd never gotten to meet her, but I'd heard enough stories from Verity and Patience to suspect that even if Desire was technically the hotter of the two, she was also a significant downgrade in quality, personality-wise. She also had major addiction issues and a raging case of paranoia that I was beginning to suspect was genetic, but that was beside the point.

I slowly let Regal's shirt go one finger at a time, and then gave him the same sort of rough shove he'd given Will earlier. Let the bully have a taste of his own medicine. If Grandpa or Uncle Verity asked about it, I'd just make something up. "Stay out of my face," I snarled, and Regal smiled horribly. "Stay in your lane, or your face will be the least of your concerns," he responded coolly. "You may go now."

I was a heartbeat away from well and truly punching his lights out when Will of all people materialized between us. "Your friends are looking for you in the kitchen," he murmured, and I felt a prickle of ice snake up my sweaty back. "I brought this for you," he added, offering Regal a glass goblet filled with something clear that smelled like paint varnish. "On the rocks, just how you like it. Don't bother with the Bastard anymore, Gorgeous. He's beneath you. Let me take you back to your room for a while, instead."

"Don't tell me what to do," Regal snapped, but he also accepted the goblet haughtily. As he did, Will shot me a strange, piercing look. "Go," he mouthed, and then slid a hand across Regal's shirtfront, smoothing it out. "I wouldn't dream of it," he said to Regal and then kissed his throat suggestively. "I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you."

I didn't bother hanging around to hear what gross response Regal would dream up to that invitation. Instead, I beelined for the kitchen, trying to ignore everyone who whispered as I hurried past. Mine and Regal's almost-altercation hadn't exactly been a subtle one.

The kitchen staff must have gone home for the night because all I could see were half-drunk teenagers littering the room. After some scanning, I finally located Beloved and Starling posted up in a far corner. It seemed like they'd already found the drinks, because each of them held a full solo cup, and Beloved had a can of blackberry ginger ale in his other hand. He held it out to me when he noticed me coming, his face going from guarded to grinning in an instant. "Fitz!" he called, waving me over. "Here. I got you this. Your favorite. It was the last one in the fridge. Hopefully Regal doesn't disembowel me for taking it."

I took the can from him and cracked it open. "Thanks. He won't. He hates this stuff. This is from Grandpa's stash. Only him and I like it." "Him and me," Beloved replied with a smirk, and I stifled a groan of annoyance. "Well, in that case, I hope your Grandpa doesn't disembowel me," Beloved corrected himself as I rolled my eyes at his grammar policing.

"Are you kidding?" I took a swig of soda, relieved to be drinking something cold. It felt like I was standing in a swamp. "If he heard you took the last one, he'd probably buy you a lifetime supply of this stuff. You know how much he likes you." "He's a sweetheart," Beloved agreed sincerely. "If you say so," I muttered. Grandpa Shrewd had never been particularly sweet to me. I was too much of a family liability, I guess.

"Everything ok with Regal?" Beloved asked casually after a minute, fiddling with his cup to try and seem less interested than he obviously was with whatever drama had gone down between us. "When has anything ever been ok with Regal?" I sighed. "He's really bad tonight. Stay away from him. I don't know what he's on right now and I'm worried he'll try something fucked up to mess with me. Honestly, I think we should probably get out of here sooner rather than later."

"Fucked up in what way?" Beloved asked, his gaze darting behind my shoulder to the doorway as if he was trying to spot Regal behind me. "Don't bother. He's off somewhere fucking Will's brains out right now. Hopefully that chills him out a little. But in case it doesn't, just promise to keep an eye out for him. It doesn't really matter though. I'll try to stay close. I won't let him bother you."

"My hero," Beloved said, deadpan, and took a drink out of his cup, the first one I'd seen him have all night. "You poured it yourself?" I quizzed him, suddenly worried. "Starling did. She made herself the same thing. It's nothing bad. Just rum and coke. Well. A little coke." He wrinkled his nose. "She likes hers a lot stronger than I like mine."

"Yeah, that sounds like her." Starling had a tolerance even Burrich would envy. I'd watched her drink guys twice her size under the table, and then get up and sing karaoke perfectly, and wake up without a hangover the next morning. And speaking of hangovers...

"Hey, could we maybe go somewhere darker?" I asked. "These overhead lights are gonna give me a full-blown migraine if I'm not careful." "Are you honest to God complaining about the lights again? You have got to get your vision checked, Fitz. They're literally just normal kitchen lights," Starling interrupted, abruptly turning her back on the guy who'd been chatting her up from across the counter.

He looked disappointed. He also looked like he was at minimum twenty-five. Fucking hell. I couldn't turn my back on anyone for longer than a minute. I frowned at the would-be creep darkly until he got the hint and wandered off. "They seem brighter than that. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Come on," I said more firmly once he was gone. "I wanna go sit down."

We ended up in the living room, on the one corner of my Grandpa's massive sectional that hadn't been claimed by girls on their phones or couples kissing. I tried not to pay any attention to them. It only reminded me how painfully single I was at the moment, and it was hard enough dealing with that in the privacy of my own mind. Visual reminders made it feel downright fucking miserable.

I glanced down at the carpet as a pair to our left who I knew from a few shared classes cuddled up close, giggling together. The girl, Serena, I think her name was, sat perched on her boyfriend Justin's lap, her arms wrapped around his neck adoringly while he whispered in her ear. I could hardly stand it. When I looked up again, I noticed Beloved had turned away from them, too, struck deep by secondhand embarrassment, no doubt. He always got uncomfortable around too much PDA. He used to go basically nonverbal whenever Molly and I kissed in front of him.

“Don’t look now, but someone’s got their eye on you,” Starling trilled, and I swung my head over my shoulder, searching the strobe-lit living room. “Really? Who?” I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. Maybe Molly had gotten an invite from Regal. He’d hit her up a few times while we were together, for the sole purpose of pissing me off, so I knew he had her number. “I said don’t look, dumbass. Oh my god, Fitz, you have no chill whatsoever,” Starling hissed despairingly.

“Ok, but like, who was it, though?” I insisted, scanning the room for Molly’s signature head of curls and her bright red lipstick. It was her thing. She always said she wore it to bring out the auburn highlights in her hair. It was really, really sexy. The first time we'd made out, she’d left lipstick marks all up and down my neck. I bit my lip, my stomach flipping weirdly at the memory. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Starling taunted, without looking up from her phone.

“Actually, I would, which you know, because I’ve asked you about it twice now,” I replied, a little testily. I hated it when she got like this. Liquor always made her petty. Well. More petty. “It’s Celerity, Fitz,” Beloved said quietly, casting an undeniably nasty look towards Starling. I guess the drinks hadn’t chilled either one of them out like I'd hoped. “To your left,” Beloved muttered as I searched the crowd, trying not to let my disappointment show on my face.

Sure enough, there she was, exactly where Beloved had said she’d be, watching me like a hawk. She was camped out in the corner because she was possibly the only person at school who hated parties more than I did. I wondered if her sister Faith had dragged her along. Faith was a bit more of a party girl, and she and Celerity were basically attached at the hip. I’d known them for years, because their dad was friends with my grandpa, and on top of that, they also worked together.

When we were kids, they’d used to love joking that Celerity and I would get married someday, which had always weirded me out. My grandpa had seemed a little too into the whole thing, and as we got older, Celerity clearly started to feel like it wouldn't be such a bad idea. By the time we were juniors, she had a full-blown crush, and everyone at school knew it. But I didn’t really feel that way about her. She was a sweet girl, but not my type at all. Too… I don’t know…

“God, she’s so boring,” Starling said, way too loudly, finally looking up from her screen. “She’s like if whole wheat bread was a person.” “I guess we can’t all be as interesting as you are, Starling,” Beloved replied sweetly, his tone dripping with acid. He was in a mood tonight. At this point Celerity had to know we were all looking at her, so I raised my hand and waved at her unwillingly. She’d take it as a sign that I’d had a change of heart, no doubt, and try to glom on to me all night, but I really didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She was a nice person, and she’d always been pretty cool to me. There was nothing wrong with her, she just... wasn’t for me. Not as more than friends, anyway.

She returned my wave shyly, tucking her pin-straight hair back behind her ear. It was dark and cut just below her chin in a way Starling called "boring" and Beloved called "chic." It didn’t really matter to me. I just didn’t want her to corner me and make the most painfully awkward small talk imaginable. We had absolutely nothing in common except that the adults in our life knew each other. I don’t think I could tell you three things about her besides her name, her sister's name, and what her dad did for work.

Seeing her made me miss Molly even more. She was as exciting as Celerity was boring. She was so passionate, and she didn’t come from money like Celerity did. She earned her own way. That’s what she was doing now, taking classes at the community college one town over, studying for her business degree. She worked nights for a cleaning company and during the day she attended college and ran her own Etsy shop, a really popular one. She made homeopathic artisan candles, and they sold like crazy. They always smelled super good.

I still had a few in my room that she’d give me before we broke up. I couldn’t bring myself to burn them, so I kept them in a box under my bed. Beloved had found them there once when he was sleeping over and I guess it must have seemed truly pathetic because he hadn’t even made any jokes about it, just sat down on the bed next to me and given me a hug.

“I’m sorry, Fitz,” he’d said. “I know you really liked her.” “I think I loved her,” I’d told him, and then I’d cried, and he’d just patted my back and acted like it wasn’t a weird thing to have happen at a sleepover at all. He’d never brought it up again afterwards either, because he was a good friend like that. I looked over at him now, wondering how he was doing.

Not great, apparently. He was holding his solo cup as if it had personally offended him. “Do you not like that?” I asked, gesturing to it. It was still mostly full. "Did you want to go get something else? A seltzer or beer or something?" “It’s fine,” he said, waving a dismissive hand at me. “I just don’t want to drink it too fast. Just in case.” “I’m DDing,” I reminded him. “And I've got my eye out. It's really ok. Go ahead, have a good time.” He gave me an empty sort of smile, one he got sometimes when he was in one of his "low moods." "Ok, Fitz. Thanks," he said, really quietly, and took a little drink.

"God, you two have the worst vibes tonight," Starling complained, rolling her eyes, and Beloved tightened his hand around the cup and took a much bigger gulp. I stepped in between them before he could say something truly heinous. "Hey, I'm kinda warm," I said, and it wasn't a lie. "Wanna go outside for a minute? Cool off?" I added meaningfully, and Beloved gave me a deeply unimpressed look. "I'll go out if that's what you want," he agreed. "Jesus Christ," Starling snapped as he rose from where he'd been lounging on the huge sectional and tucked a flyaway strand of white hair back behind his ear. "Just get a fucking room already, why don't you?"

This time it didn't matter if I was standing in between them. Beloved leaped at his opportunity like a rattlesnake I'd once seen in the reptile room at the zoo, rearing back and readying to strike at the glass that had separated me from his fangs. "Listen, Starling," he replied, sounding scarily calm, too calm, "I get it. You can pull off almost anything because you're hot, and you're talented, and you're louder than everyone else in the room, all the time. But jealousy is a bad look on anyone, even you. It doesn't match the boots. He asked me to take a walk, not suck him off. Take it down a notch."

"Bet you'd be happy to do either," she spat back. "Bet he's still more likely to ask for it from me than from you," Beloved retorted snidely, his silver braces gleaming, "And we both know it'll be a cold day in hell when that happens, so what does that tell you about your odds?"

"Fuck you," Starling replied flatly. "Everyone acts like you're so fucking funny and harmless, but you can be a real freak when you want to be. And you know what else? You're desperate, too. It's pouring off of you. I can see why everyone calls you a fool." "Takes one to know one," Beloved replied just as flatly and took another deep drink out of his solo cup. It was caving in on the sides from how tightly he was squeezing his hand around it. "But just for the record, I never said I was anything but."

Speechless and more than a little embarrassed by them both, I grabbed Beloved's bony shoulder hard and dragged him away, Starling staring after us both accusingly as I retreated, twirling her ponytail around her finger in agitation. "I can walk just fine," Beloved told me shortly, jerking sharply out of my grip. "I'm not drunk." "You could have fooled me," I retorted hotly, feeling my annoyance rise.

"What the hell was that?" I demanded, crowding him out onto the huge balcony my dickwad of an uncle casually referred to as his "second deck." It was mostly deserted, save for a girl puking over the side of one railing and a couple smoking together in the shadows by the wall.

"She wasn't going to leave me alone if I didn't stand up for myself," he explained patiently, in the overly reasonable way that I'd heard his mom speak sometimes when mediating an argument between his sisters. "And telling her she'd never suck my dick did that how?" I hissed, humiliated. "Christ, Beloved."

"Well, will she?" he asked, sipping from his now mostly empty cup and raising an eyebrow over the rim. I could feel my face blazing, even in the chilly night air. I was unpleasantly hot all over. "It's not like she'll ever want to now, thanks to you," I replied, annoyed, and he snorted humorlessly into his cup. "Oh, I doubt that very strongly."

"What do you mean by that?" I demanded. He looked at me for a long moment, his pale face eery in the moonlight, white as a corpse. "Do you really want to know?" he asked softly, and I threw up my hands in frustration.

"Why the fuck would I ask the question if I didn't want to know? God! I don't want to do this tonight, Beloved! You always do this! Can you not give me a straight answer for once in your fucking life?" I raged, and immediately knew it had been the wrong thing to say to him. His face went blank, like it only did when someone had hurt his feelings terribly and he was determined not to show it. Kind of crazy, considering how vicious he'd been being to Starling all night long.

"What's going on with everyone?" I continued, ignoring how hurt he looked, even though it made me feel like a terrible, awful person who didn't deserve to call him my friend at all. Then I got angry all over again for how guilty he was making me feel. "No one can make you feel anything," I could practically hear Lacey telling me. "We're all responsible for our own emotions, Fitz."

"Fuck!" I snapped, suddenly mad at her, too, even though she wasn't even there to begin with. "God! Fuck! Just- Stay out here and don't start any more shit with Starling," I said severely, then headed toward the huge flight of steps that led down the second-floor balcony and into the sprawling botanical hedge garden below. Because of course my insane grandfather had a fucking hedge maze, rich evil villain style. It matched the rest of his youngest kid's aesthetic, I guess.

"Where are you going?" Beloved called after me without inflection and then glanced up at the sky meaningfully. God. Not this full moon bullshit again. "On a walk. Alone. No company or blowjobs required," I said angrily, and he winced as if I'd slapped him. "Fitz," he said, a terrible look overtaking his face as color rose on his pale cheeks, "I-"

"Save it. I'm really not in the mood right now," I snapped, and turned my back on him, storming down the stairs. I waited for a minute once I reached the bottom, half-expecting him to trail after me apologetically, but he must have been as angry as I was because he never came. Whatever. It wasn't like I'd actually wanted him to, anyway. I'd just sort of expected that he would. It had kind of seemed like a thing he'd do, I reasoned, wandering into the hedge maze heatedly. That was all. That was all.

I was feeling worse and worse by the minute, and walking wasn't helping. My anger overheated me, which made me sweaty, which grossed me out and made me angrier than before. I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe my slick face, running into a rosebush in the process and getting a nasty set of scratches for my trouble. I kicked at the offending bush hard, pissed beyond belief. "Stupid fuck!" I bellowed at it, fully aware that I was probably the stupider one for yelling at a plant.

All at once, my vision went blurry and the world tilted frighteningly to one side. I stuck my hands out in front of me, expecting to stumble into something, but it was as though I was frozen in place, tilting sideways and burning up. The dim ringing in my ears that had been bothering me all day went suddenly shrill, and despite the shadowy garden I was in, the moon seemed to illuminate my surroundings like a floodlight. My heart picked up speed like I was about to have a panic attack, and all my bones started to hurt at the same time, aching like the worst growing pains I ever could have imagined.

Something was wrong with me. Really, really wrong. Not like, pop a few advil and lay in the dark wrong. Like I needed to go to a hospital right the fuck now wrong. I stood there frozen, unable to do anything, panting like Nighteyes after too many laps around Blue Lake, feeling more and more afraid by the second. I started trembling all over involuntarily the longer I stood, and the weirdest sense of dread I'd ever experienced filled up my chest like a suffocating balloon. "Help," I whispered, to no one in particular, and then I blacked out in my grandfather's stupid hedge maze.

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