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EIGHT

I’m sitting at my desk with the lights off, trying to exorcise the merciless migraine I’ve had since this morning. I got very little sleep last night.

Nadia’s request kept bouncing around my head, refusing to let me rest. Her demand, rather.

She wasn’t just trying to pull me into her criminal enterprise, she was threatening me with my own past, daring to wreck the life I’ve worked so hard to obtain, a life built on secrets that only she knows about.

The people at Manning Academy don’t know how rough my upbringing was. No one does. Not even Connor. They’ve all been given the PC story, the part that sounds inspiring.

Broke girl from the wrong side of the tracks picks up a talent for basketball and it changes her life. It’s the reel you’d expect to see on SportsCenter, time and time again.

The truth of it is grittier than that, and Nadia knows it.

My earliest memory is being woken up in the middle of the night by a stranger, a Department of Children’s Services worker. She pulled me from my bed, hurrying me into the back seat of a police car, trying to shield me from the sight of my mother. She’d overdosed on the floor two days ago, and I’d been alone in the house all that time. I was three.

From that point on, I lived with my father. He was in his early twenties at the time and had no idea how he was supposed to go about raising the daughter he’d simply funded up until that point. But he tried. I’ll always give him that. After my mother’s death, Dad worked around the clock to support me, which meant he wasn’t always there to shield me from the realities of the world.

My neighborhood wasn’t like the pristine surroundings of Manning Academy, where everyone goes home to houses with manicured lawns and eats a warm meal. Most nights, I ate a canned dinner of spaghetti and meatballs alone while Dad worked the night shift. I got myself dressed in the morning, waited by the stop sign outside my house as early as five thirty for the city school bus to arrive.

That’s where I first met Nadia. We were in third grade. Some older boys on the bus were messing with her, making inappropriate jokes that we were both too young to understand, but I could tell she was uncomfortable. Against the rules, I stood while the bus was still moving, much to the irritation of the bus driver, and sat beside her. It caused a big enough stir that the boys left her alone, and Nadia and I sat together ever after.

We became inseparable outside of school, too. Turned out, she lived in government-funded housing a few blocks down with her mother and three older brothers, all of whom were too busy with their own lives to look after a young Nadia.

From third grade on, it was just the two of us.

My phone buzzes, Nadia’s name on the screen. This Friday?

I put the phone on my desk, refusing to reply.

I don’t want to be roped into one of Nadia’s schemes. It’s a life I left behind a long time ago, and I’d imagined she had, too. At least, I hoped she had.

Nadia popped into my mind over the years, but I never reached out, despite the easy accessibility of modern technology and social media. Part of me always feared her life would never improve, that she’d continue living in the same squalor I left her in when I moved away with a sports scholarship.

When I saw her that day in the liquor store, my body had filled with hope. She was beautiful and vibrant. I thought, like me, she’d found a way out. Little did I know, she’s still roped into the same mischief we made as teens; she just has a better way of hiding it. Her circumstances might have changed but her means of getting what she wants hasn’t. She’s still a cheat and a crook, and now she wants me to join her. Just like the old days.

“Cass? You in there?” Kelly stands in the doorway, poking her head in before flicking the switch on the wall.

The light that fills the room only makes my head ache harder, like there’s something pricking the back of my eyes. “Yeah, I’m here.”

Kyle walks in behind her, carrying a metal Thermos. My office is usually where we meet for lunch. “Aren’t you eating?”

“Not right now,” I say, wincing.

“Are you okay?” Kelly asks, sitting across from me.

“Migraine,” I say. “I’m trying to make it go away before my next class.”

“We can go to my room instead,” Kyle says to Kelly before looking back at me. “I hear the lock-in is on the books. Any parents offering to volunteer?”

“No, no parents,” I’m quick to say. “It will be more fun for the girls, and us, if they’re not involved.”

“What about school staff?” Kelly asks. “I’m happy to step in, if you need an extra set of hands.”

I pause before answering. Normally, I’d rejoice at the chance to have more buffers. Joanna and I are used to managing the girls for games and practices by ourselves, even for long bus rides. An overnight could use another chaperone for safe measure.

But then I remember Nadia’s request. She and her team—whoever they are—are planning to burglarize the school. The fewer adults onsite, the better.

“I think the two of us will be just fine,” I say.

Kyle flicks the lights back off before leaving. Kelly follows him, then stops. “Are you sure everything is okay? It seems like something is bothering you besides a headache.”

“Just that, I’m afraid.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you. Guess who I ran into at the mall last week?”

“Who?” I say, even though I’m entirely uninterested.

“Ms. Collins. Remember the old science teacher?”

“How could I forget.”

It was the scandal of last school year. Michelle Collins had been at Manning Academy for two years. She had an excellent rapport with the students, volunteered to help with Beta Club, was even nominated for teacher of the year. Her winning streak came to a screeching halt when some of the parents found compromising pictures of her online.

It wasn’t anything pornographic. She’d worked as a cocktail waitress in college at a place known for making their employees wear skimpy uniforms. After the students found the pictures online, their parents lodged several complaints with the school board and administration. Lynette Nichols, Beatrice’s mom, led the charge to get her fired.

Of course, they didn’t give her that reason. They simply said they didn’t want to hire back one of the most exceptional teachers at the school because she hadn’t yet earned tenure. If it weren’t for those photos, it never would have happened.

“Did you talk to her?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “She was working behind the counter at that discount shoe place. I felt so sorry for her. Can you even imagine?”

Kelly takes off down the hallway, leaving me to ponder my own criminal history with a shudder. If the parents at Manning Academy got wind of how bad my behavior once was, I could lose everything. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed.

I won’t secure tenure until the end of next year. I believe Mr. Lake is forgiving enough to understand my circumstances, but the parents, with their pristine lives, would not, and they’d cause enough fuss to make sure I lost my job.

This team and these girls are my whole world. Without them, I have nothing.

What about Connor? a voice inside reminds me.

He only knows bits and pieces about my past. His upbringing was far different from mine. He’s Manning Academy, born and bred. I know he’s in love with the person I am now, not the person I once was. Would knowing the full extent of my past change the way he looks at me?

I need your cooperation on this, Cass.

It’s another text from Nadia. She keeps pushing. Maybe it’s not as serious as I’m making it out to be. Like she said, all I’m doing is opening a door. That doesn’t really make me involved, does it? There aren’t any cameras fixed on that hallway; no one would ever have to know what I did.

I can still remember the first thing I ever stole. A lipstick from a department store. It was right around the time girls my age started getting into makeup. Beauty vlogs were all the rage, and I can remember watching them with a deep intensity, trying to learn all their secrets. Even now, I’m lousy with makeup, but back then, it seemed like a life skill I needed, like I’d be a failure without it.

Problem was, I didn’t have any of the expensive products or tools. Dad and I never had extra cash for that sort of thing, and the cheap drugstore makeup I owned couldn’t compare; it would fade away within hours, it seemed, especially after running laps in practice.

Nadia and I used to go to the mall to kill time, walking up and down, window shopping in all the stores. Occasionally, we’d go inside and peruse the aisles, all the merchandize we’d never be able to afford.

Just for fun, I’d tried a shade from one of the tester tubes. It was a deep brown color, the texture completely luxurious, and it complemented me perfectly. Even the packaging was brilliant. A shimmery gold cylinder that reflected my own face when I looked at it. And it was over thirty dollars. Even if I’d had the cash, I kept thinking about all the other, more important things I could buy with that amount of money.

“I wish I could get this,” I said under my breath. I never meant for Nadia to hear.

“Just take it,” she said.

“What?”

Those fox-like eyes scanned our surroundings. There wasn’t a person in sight.

“Slip it into the sleeve of your jacket,” she said. “No one will even notice.”

“Nadia, I can’t steal. That isn’t fair to?—”

“Since when have our lives been fair?”

Her words pierced right through me, stunning me into silence. Nadia and I didn’t like to talk about how hard our lives were. It was a shared truth we chose to ignore whenever we were together. The more I thought about her question, the more I realized she was right. Neither of us ever asked for the lives we’d been dealt. Nadia’s deadbeat dad. My dead mom.

A gaggle of giggles rang out from a group of girls shopping a few aisles over. We’d seen them earlier. They didn’t go to our school, but they were around our age, decked out in name-brand clothing, likely swiping their parents’ cards to buy whatever they desired.

Without saying another word, I slipped the tube of lipstick into my jacket sleeve and walked out of the store. Nadia followed. We didn’t speak another word until we’d left the mall. I leaned over, hands on my knees, swallowing gulps of humid air in the parking lot.

“I can’t believe I did that!” I exclaimed, staring down at the lipstick in my hand. A thrilling rush came over me, what I imagined it was like to be sucked under by a wave in the ocean, although I couldn’t be sure, because I’d never been.

“See?” Nadia said. “Nothing even happened.”

That was our first dash and go. The first time Nadia and I decided to take our fates into our own hands. Many reckless decisions followed that night, some now happy memories, some purely dangerous. And here we are, fifteen years later, Nadia trying to pressure me into stealing once again.

The phone on the desk buzzes again. Another message.

You owe me.

My blood runs cold. I’ve been waiting for her to say something like this. Nadia could easily tell the parents about my string of juvenile arrests, but that’s not the real threat. I’ve done something much worse in my life, and Nadia’s the only person who knows about it. The one person who helped me hide it.

She’s right. I do owe her. More than that, I owe it to myself to keep this life I fought so hard to get. I won’t let anyone, especially Nadia, take it away from me.

All I have to do is open a door.

I lean over, my head in my hands, trying to decide what to do.