Page 50 of Wicked Little Darling

He had been so crushinglymean.

I was used to people making fun of me or avoiding me or looking down their noses at me. I was used to the mean words and the mean looks and being treated like I really was walking around with some contagious disease.

I was used to being ignored or belittled or excluded.

But what I wasn’t used to was someone treating me with warmth, calling my birthmark pretty, and acting like they wanted to be around me—and then telling me to fuck off with their next breath.

I didn’t know how to handle that.

I wasn’t sure I was handling any of it right, but I honestly didn’t know what to do with all the hurt. Wasn’t sure just whythose words had plunged so deep, growing sharper the lower they sank.

I also couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to what happened.

I had never, ever seen Dakota look so uncomfortable. So stiff and guarded.

His brother…Everett. It was clear Dakota didn’t like him. Even I could understand that kind of body language. But what I didn’t understand was why he’d had to speak to me so harshly when he never had before.

Ugh, I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

I shoved Dakota from my mind and tried to muster up some excitement for my very first studio lesson.Thiswas why I was here. Music.

I wanted to love it again, but my passion for it had snapped in two under the weight of all that disillusionment after the accident.

I’d take the illusion of something over the reality of it any day. Living in a lie was so much easier than drowning in the truth.

My teacher was a Russian-American woman named Mrs. Ivanova who appeared to be in her sixties with kind eyes, a kind smile, and a kind voice.

The warmth she exuded was a nice change of pace.

She had me play something for her so she could get a feel for my level, so I chose a Chopin piece that was originally meant for piano but had been adapted for the violin. It was one of my dad’s favorites, and it never failed to stir up a deep sadness every time I played it. But it was bittersweet, because it also made me feel closer to him—or closer to a time when he was still here. When everyone was still here.

Mrs. Ivanova praised me and started me on a Beethoven sonata to work on over the course of the semester, and by the time our lesson was over, I was feeling lighter than I had in days.

I had another music class in the afternoon, so I kept my violin with me when I went to the library to study for a bit.

My pulse quickened when my phone vibrated, and I gritted my teeth.

Don’t look. Don’t you dare touch that phone, Reese. Ignore it.

I was able to ignore it for all of five seconds before I unlocked my phone and read the message.

Asshole:

Your shirt’s on backwards

I looked down, then pulled the collar of my shirt open. Sure enough, the tag was in the front.

How the hell did he know?

I quickly looked around me, but there was nobody here. Unless Dakota was spying on me through the books on the shelf, he’d just seen me at some point today and decided that now would be a good time to get a rise out of me.

I didn’t respond, put my phone on silent, and shoved it in my bag.

I refused to let him elicit any kind of reaction. I didn’t know what game he was playing, why he was being so nice one minute, mean the next, and nice again. It was dizzying.

I glanced around to make sure no one else was here, then yanked my shirt off and put it back on the right way.

I triedto drop this class, but unfortunately—very, very unfortunately—I needed the credit and it was a requirement for my major. I’d gone to see my advisor earlier today to try and get into a different class, but she’d very kindly yet firmly told me that wouldn’t be possible—and not just because the semester was already well underway.