Ugh.I never liked Heath, and don’t want see to see his bare butt. But why are they doing this? What did Grant do to them?
I sense somebody stopping next to me. Without looking away from the streaking duo, I say, “What’s that about?”
A loud snort. “You don’t know?”
Sigh.Just my luck it’s Sadie who’s standing next to me. “Never mind,” I say, and start to move away.
“Don’t you want to know what’s going on?” she demands snidely.
I turn enough to face her, but my feet keep moving. “Look, if I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have asked.”
“But I don’t mind telling you. Because that”—she points at the duo streaking past the library now—“is aboutyou.”
“Um, I’m pretty sure it’s about Grant.”
She smirks. “Yeah, but you’re the whore who spread her legs for him.”
Feeling like I just got punched in the belly, I suck in air. Since Grant and I have been spending a lot of time together, maybe some people guessed we’re sleeping together. But…
I shake my head. I shouldn’t let what Sadie’s saying get to me. It’s just her being a bitch. “First of all, I’m not a whore. And yes, Grant and I are together. So what?”
Sadie laughs. “Oh my God. You don’t know anything, do you?” She looks around, like she can’t believe it, then turns back to me. “Grant, Heath and Will made a bet—to see which one of them would get to sleep with you first. The losers had to streak the campus with their bodies painted. Why do you think it says,Grant Lasker is the bigger man?”
I stare at her. A swift denial surges, ready to roll of my tongue, but the memory of Grant’s weird behavior at the airport when we returned from Malibu kills it.
“Did you really think he’d bother with you otherwise?” Sadie continues. “Treating you to a trip and some nice things? He does that forallthe girls he sleeps with. They don’t mean anything.”
Ugly tremors start in my heart, then spread until my fingertips and toes seem to shake as well. My brain can’t seem to process what she’s saying. Everything that happened between me and Grant…it can’t be fake. The sweetness, the consideration—
“Are youcrying?” Sadie laughs.
I realize my cheeks are wet, and I wipe them impatiently. I’m not crying in front of her.
“Aww. Don’t be so sad.” Her gaze drops to the purse I’m carrying. “You got a seventy-thousand-dollar bag out of it.”
“What?” The whisper’s barely audible.Seventy thousand dollars. I let that number sink into my shock-numbed brain. He gave me something that expensive so he could win a stupid bet? It doesn’t make sense, but then I realize I’m thinking like a poor girl. He spent lavishly during our time in Malibu. The private jet, the Mercedes, the yacht, the clothes, glitzy restaurants… Seventy grand is pocket change to him.
“Not bad for a whore,” Sadie adds.
“Shut up.” To my humiliation and horror, my voice is shaking. More tears fall.
“I know you thought you were special, but you aren’t. If you were, he wouldn’t be applying to transfer to Harvard next year.”
He’s transferring to Harvard?
Whatever she’s seeing on my face is making her lips twist smugly. “Oh my God, he didn’t tell you?” She laughs. “This is hilarious.”
She’s lying!She has to be. There’s no way that everything Grant did was fake. Besides, he promised we’d be in the Investment Society together next year. He wouldn’t have done that if he was transferring.
But would Sadie lie about something that could be cleared up with a simple conversation? She’s mean, but she’s not stupid.
Several people around me laugh. Heart in my throat, I look around. Some of them point and whisper. Oh my God. Is everyone laughing at me? They all know? And nobody thought to tell me?
I spot Clara in the crowd. She and I trade class notes. She couldn’t bother either…?
The sound of my breathing grows deafening in my ears. My chest tightens. And the purse I’m carrying feels like a snake looped around my forearm.
I need to get out of here.
