“There isn’t a theme.”
“Sure there is.” I stepped closer. “Rich kids pretending to be dangerous.”
A few people laughed.
Not at me.
Brielle’s eyes sharpened.
Good.
Her gaze dragged over me, meaner now. “Borrowed the jacket from your mother’s closet?”
The fire cracked behind me.
Something in my chest cracked with it.
Tris moved, but Jake caught her wrist.
I kept smiling.
“No,” I said. “Mandy’s dead, remember? You printed enough photos. I figured you’d know that part.”
The laughter died fast.
Brielle’s cheeks flushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar.”
Her boyfriend stepped forward. Carter something. Rich, tan, boring. He had been one of the boys by the fountain with his phone out.
“Maybe calm down,” he said.
I looked at him. “Maybe choke.”
A chorus of oooohs rolled through the crowd because apparently even private school seniors became middle-schoolers when drama got good.
Carter’s jaw tightened. “You always this trashy, or is it just tonight?”
There it was.
The word.
The one they all wanted.
Trash.
Biker trash. Club trash. Mandy trash. Rourke trash.
It should’ve hurt.
Instead, it rang somewhere inside me like a starting bell.
I laughed.
“Only for special occasions.”
Then I walked past him, straight to the cooler, and grabbed a bottle of tequila so expensive I didn’t recognize the label. Someone protested. I ignored them, twisted the cap, and drank.
