I’m blown away by her humility and self-awareness. I’d always figured if the Elites had any understanding of the damage they caused to others, they must get off on it. I thought they were so entitled that they relished in other people’s suffering. But now Vivian claims it was all just a farce, which matches what Emmett always claimed to be true.
“Want one?” Vivian asks, pulling a pack of cigarettes out from her bag.
I shake my head. “No, emphysema and lung cancer are kind of a runner’s worst enemy,” I joke dryly.
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes as she lights up.
“Won’t you get in trouble?” I ask as she barely cracks the window to catch the wafting smoke. “We’re not exactly in hiding back here. The teachers will smell it.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Her eyes spark at me. “We can do whatever we want, Ophelia. Even with everything that’s happening to my parents, I’m still one of the Elites. Whatever that means now. The teachers aren’t going to say a fucking word to me.”
I purse my lips, not wanting to question her. I’m sure she knows better than I do.
“You could take advantage of some of that, too, you know,” she adds. “Now that you have Emmett.”
“I don’t have Emmett,” I remind her. “That fucking picture. You know it was fake, right?”
She studies me intently. I realize she didn’t know it was fake. Her insistence with Emmett the night it went out was genuine. She truly was just looking out for him, convinced that I had cheated on him.
“I didn’t know.” She flicks her ashes onto the ground. “But it doesn’t surprise me.”
“What do you think will happen with Malcolm?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she blows out a long stream of smoke. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I offer finally.
“There’s nothing someone like you could do,” she scoffs. “You can never really understand all of this. What it’s like to grow up here, the way we have.”
“I might understand more than you think,” I insist. “I’ve caught myself saying and doing all sorts of things over the past couple of weeks that I never would have thought I was capable of.”
As Vivian swings her bag over her shoulder, the sleeve of her sweater slips, revealing a number of nasty, bright red, stinging cuts up and down her arm. I try to look away, but by the time my eyes move upwards, she is staring straight at me. She knows I saw them. We’re frozen like that for a moment, our eyes locked together. Not only is Vivian not heartless, she’s wounded. This really has done a number on her, maybe even more so than me.
“Do you need to talk someone?” I offer lightly, not knowing what else to say. “Someone other than me, I mean.”
“Just another side effect of Jameson,” she says casually, her eyes dark and haunted. Her tone turns to a warning. “Get out of this place if you can, Ophelia. Even if you think you’re on top of everything, it can all change in a heartbeat. And it will eat you alive. Just look at Lily.”
“Vivian, I have to ask.” I stop her, knowing it’s probably pointless, but I can’t stop myself. “Are you sure you don’t know anything about Bernadette? I know Emmett said he talked to you about it…but…I’m desperate. I have to hear you say it myself.”
“I promise you Bernadette can take care of herself,” she says confidently. “Wherever she is. Emmett shouldn’t worry about her. She wouldn’t worry about him if it was the other way around.”
I know she’s probably right, but it doesn’t make it any less brutal. And worse, it makes it sound like all of this is for nothing. Like Emmett should have just accepted that she was gone and not even bothered looking for her. None of this had to happen. Vivian obviously knows something, enough to not be scared for Bernadette, but I realize I’ve gotten all I’m going to get out of her.
I think back to when Vivian had me cornered in the classroom and I first realized their vendetta against me was all about unsettled business between my dad and their parents. She was desperately trying to go along with what she was ordered to do, believing that I really was the scum of the earth for threatening the position of her family. All of the Elites’ families. On top of that, Emmett was dying to have me, right in front of her. And I played on our attraction to drive her mad. She deserved it for the way she was acting, but I can see now she was really no different from Emmett.
“Emmett really does love you,” she says after a long silence passes between us. “Nothing happened between us, you know. The moment you came here, he started slipping away from me, and once he got you…he didn’t want anything to do with me.”
I can tell that Vivian is telling me the truth. It comes with an odd feeling of being told something I already knew. I knew all along Emmett didn’t want Vivian in the way he wanted me. But I had to keep convincing myself that there was still something between them—telling myself that kept me from falling too far. It kept me from feeling too safe with Emmett. It protected me from opening myself up to being hurt by him again. I needed my jealousy as an excuse to stay guarded. It was my safety net. But now it falls away before acceptance.
“Thank you for telling me that,” I answer, believing every word she says. She has no reason to lie anymore. This is her accepting defeat.
“I better go,” she says, peeling herself from the wall. But then she turns sharply with her old, familiar glaring stare. “You tell anyone you saw me like this, and I’ll kill you. If I have to leave WJ Prep, I’m at least going to do it with what’s left of my reputation intact.”
I smirk. “This all stays between us, I promise.”
I let go of any corny thoughts about how if only Vivian had showed me this side sooner, maybe we could have been friends. She’s only doing this now because she has nothing left. She’s completely broken and knows she has to get the hell out of Jameson. That’s the only reason she can show her true self to me now.
22
Chapter Twenty-Two
After school, I know I have to see Emmett. Now that I know exactly where Vivian stands, I have to try one last time. I drive to the motel, but his car is gone. The front desk says he’s checked out. So, I try driving past the manor and am relieved to see his car parked outside.
“Mrs. Lopez,” the butler beams as he answers the door. “Is Mr. Jameson expecting you?”
“Nope!” I reply boldly as I push past him and race up the stairs. I’m not going to risk him asking Emmett if he wants to see me and getting turned away. He continues to call up after me, but I know if I can just get to Emmett, he’ll back off and let him decide. It won’t be as easy for Emmett to turn me away once I am standing face to face with him.
I knock on his bedroom door, and he looks annoyed when he peeks out from behind it. But thankfully, he throws his head back in exasperation and leaves it open for me anyway. I rush in, not knowing if I should jump straight into defending myself again. I decide to stay focused on my other concerns for him instead.
“Have you heard from your mom?” I ask, helping myself to a seat on his bed.
“I don’t want to see you,” he replies weakly. “I told you, I can’t even look at you after what you did.”
“Then why did you come to Malcolm’s yesterday?” I raise my eyebrows at him.
“I was coming to beat his ass for putting his hands on you,” he booms in his deep voice.
“Emmett, nothing happened between Malcolm and me,” I say again. “I promise. I could never do that to you.”
He groans. “I saw the photo, Ophelia.”
“You know what Malcolm and Lily did,” I shoot back. “That should be enough to prove to you that Malcolm is a terrible person and a liar. He made sure that photo got sent to you and everyone.”
“But there was something for a photo to be taken of…” he insists.
“No!” I cut him off, flying into a pace around the room. “I was hanging out with Malcolm, yes. And I realize now that I shouldn’t have been. But I was so convinced Vivian was luring you back in and I was upset. He offered to keep me company, and then he made a pass at me. I fought him off and came here to tell you everything. But by the time I got here, that photo had already been sent. Someone doctored it!”
“How am I supposed to believe you?” he persists in an aching tone, as if he’s asking himself just as much as me.
“Because I would never do anything to hurt you, Emmett!” I cry earnestly. “You have to know that! I love you! I never even got to tell you about him trying to get me to fool around with him because Vivian was here! I didn’t even have a chance to explain.”
“You swear it was faked?” he asks. “Nothing happened?”
“I kicked him in the balls to get him off of me,” I explain. “I didn’t even want to be around him in the first place. I only ever wanted to be with you…but every time Vivian tried to come between us, he was always there waiting. I should have known he was up to something, that he was no good!”