Wilde and Wicked

Chapter One

I’ve always known I would die young.

All the things I’ve given up, avoided, and otherwise missed out on in my seventeen years of life—­horror movies, playing sports, falling in love, basically anything that might get my heart rate up too high—­and it turns out I’m going to meet my end by attending my very first party. RIP, Nova Hazelwood. Killed by fun.

Except this party isn’t fun. My underdeveloped heart spasms as I try not to panic. There are too many people here. I’d feel better if I could get my head above the crowd of bodies, but it’s all a sea of shoulders and chests pressing in. My vision fills with expensive jewelry and name-­brand tees that cost more than everything I’m wearing put together. At least during class our mandatory uniforms level the playing field a little. I hate rich people. Which is almost everyone, comparatively, since I decided to uproot my entire life and move across the country to attend an elite boarding school.

I also hate tall people. Which is also almost everyone, comparatively. I slide through gaps in the press, trying not to get beer sloshed on me as I flee the main room. I thought I might find somewhere to chill, but all the leather furniture, each piece so masculine and refined I might need a country-­club membership just to sit on it, has been shoved against the walls to make room for dancing. Or writhing. Gyrating. All those things most teens can do without worrying their hearts will stop.

At last I make it to the kitchen. I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with seething envy. The stupid boys who live in this house have a fully functioning kitchen. Like the rest of the residence hall, it exudes a heavy, opulent smugness. The dorms I live in have cinder block walls, repulsive linoleum floors peeling up at all the corners, and biohazard carpeting in a color that defies nature. Our “kitchen” is a shared microwave crusted with generations of instant-­macaroni-­and-­cheese sludge. If this house is an elite country club, the scholarship dorm is a condemned hospital.

This is my first visit to one of the legacy residence houses. They’re technically on campus, but a couple of miles across the river, isolated and nestled in the forested areas. I’d heard rumors about these houses, of course. Each hall shared by members of the same extended families. Everyone in the dorms talks about them like oases in a desert. I thought they were exaggerating, because until tonight I never had an invitation to visit.

Technically, I still don’t have an invitation. Only a few scholarship dorm residents got them. They were like golden tickets; the squeals echoed down the hallways as texts were received, and jealous but supportive friends helped with party primping. We arrived in mid-­2000s Mazdas and Fords, parking next to cars that cost more than the down payment on a house.

It’s easy to pick us out inside, too. All the dormies, trying too hard, laughing too loud. Wide-­eyed and eager, gaping like we can’t believe how lucky we are to have landed here.

That’s the real story of Mather Academy. Those born into wealth and privilege, and those allowed to sample the elite private academy life for four years of high school.

Since I set foot on campus, I’ve known I don’t belong. I wish I hadn’t come to this party. Not because it makes me feel even worse but because no matter how beautiful it is, this building is way too full. It’s a total fire hazard.

My brain won’t give up its favorite pastime whenever I’m in a crowded space: evaluating my survival chances in the event of a blaze. I can’t tell which door leading from the kitchen is a potential exit, and I always want to know the exits.

A momentary space between students opens, and my salvation is revealed. My roommate, Winnabelle, leans against the creamy marble island, cup in hand, her face right next to a guy’s ear. Her long brown hair trails down onto his arm, curling around it. His hair is dark, cut so neatly it looks like he visited a barber twenty minutes ago, and his clothes fit like they were made for him. Which, if he lives in this swanky residence hall, they probably were. He looks a little old for a high school student. But I feel like everyone here is more mature than I am. More experienced. Sexier, too.

And they’re all strangers. Besides the handful of dormies I recognize from stressed-­out hellos in the hallways, I’ve only seen two people I vaguely know from classes. But that’s to be expected. Everyone else started at Mather as freshmen. Winn and I started a month ago. We’re two years behind on making friends and fitting in. She’s doing a better job than I am, though. As she regularly reminds me.

I’m so desperate to keep my head above water with the workload that I’ve barely talked to anyone. I knew it was going to be hard, leaving everything behind and jumping into private school. I just had no idea how lonely it would be.

“Winnabelle!” I shout over the pounding music, to no avail. I weave my way next to her and tug on her shoulder. “Winn!”

“What?” she asks, her smile sloppy.

“When do you think we’ll head back? It’s getting late.”

Who throws a party on Sunday night anyway? I asked that exact question while Winn forced me to get ready. I didn’t really want to come, but Winn has dictated everything between us since day one. Which side of the room I got (the one beneath the drafty window). How much closet space we each got (a 75-­25 split in her favor, no negotiating). Whether we would decorate our room with the twinkle lights my sister gave me as a going-­away present (absolutely not).

After criticizing my lipstick choice, Winnabelle gleefully explained that the Sunday-­night slot is part of the prestige of legacy house parties. Missing class or being hungover on Monday is a badge of pride signaling to everyone that you got an invite.

It seems unnecessarily inconvenient to me. They could have the party on Friday or Saturday and pass out stickers that say “I went to a Mather Academy house party and all I got was partial hearing loss and a mysterious stain on my shirt that is hopefully someone’s beer and not something much worse.”

It’s a lot to fit on a sticker, but they have enough money. I think they could do it.

Winnabelle giggles in response to my question. Not the sound I was hoping to hear right now. “They took all the keys when we walked in.”

“Who took them?”

She waves me off. “Dunno. Chill. Have fun. We deserve this.”

Maybe Winn does. She enrolled as a transfer, same as me, but she’s already the smartest kid at the academy, taking college-­level math courses with a small group. She’s the type of naturally brilliant that can’t be learned.

I thought I was smart before I came here. Studying was about the only thing boring enough to be a viable hobby with my heart condition. Now I’m constantly terrified my grades will slip and I’ll lose my scholarship. Public school smart is a world away from private school smart. I’m not competing just against remarkable brains like Winnabelle’s but also against kids who have had a lifetime of tutors and other legs up.

That’s another reason I haven’t been social. The scholarship kids don’t have time to enjoy being here. We’re all too busy trying to stay here.

Winn turns back to the guy. He’s aggressively handsome, like a cologne commercial. And much like actual cologne, there’s something about him that prickles against the back of my throat, irritating me. He slips his fingers into the belt loops of Winn’s jeans to pull her closer.

Feeling pathetic, I look away. Rather than a keg like peasants would have, there’s a communal punch bowl on the island counter. The bowl is cut crystal, catching the light in rainbow streaks. Maybe I can steal it on my way out. I’m plotting how to wear it like a hat when a girl whose soft curves appealingly contradict the angular lines of her face unscrews a flask and pours it into the pink punch.

From this vantage point, what she dumps in looks like molten silver. She meets my gaze and winks one smoky eye, then puts a finger to her lips.

“Winnabelle!” I immediately narc. “Someone put something in the punch!”

Winn rolls her eyes at me over her new friend’s shoulder. “That’s the whole point. Drink some. Trust me. This stuff is magic.” The guy she’s with laughs way harder than the comment calls for.

Noting my lost look, Winnabelle at last disentangles herself. She puts an arm around my shoulders and leans close. Her drunk voice disappears and is replaced by the one I’m used to: her “time to lecture idiot Nova who doesn’t understand anything” voice. Winn is smart. She’s also a know-­it-­all.

“The dormies who aren’t here would kill to be, and the dormies who are here know how lucky they are. It usually takes forever to get an invite, and I scored one my first month.” She nods toward some students who are laughing a little too loud. “You know the full-­tuition dorms?”

They’re the nicer dorms on campus. Closer to class, only three stories tall, red brick and ivy. And the kids who live there don’t get dismissive nicknames like “dormies.”

Winn raises an eyebrow. “Fully half those students are at Mather for the express purpose of attending these parties and trying to marry into one of the legacy families.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s a whole thing. If not marry into, at least make connections. Their families consider the outrageous tuition an investment in the future. There’s more money than the GDP of most small countries behind the scenes here.”

“Are you trying to nab a legacy fiancé?” I ask.

“God, no. Old money comes with too many skeletons in the closet. I’m going to make my fortune the old-­fashioned way.”

“Bootlegging during Prohibition?” I suggest.

“Inventing an addictive app that harvests personal information I can sell to the highest bidders.” There’s no hint she’s joking. She continues, “This party is a break from real life. I deserve this. And I don’t know anyone else whose roommate was nice enough to include them in an invite that was for one.” She gives me a meaningful look. Winn is many things. Nice is rarely one of them. “So, stop being paranoid. You’re acting like a cliché again.”

I scowl. “I am not.”

“You will be if you go back to our room. Relax. Flirt. Have a drink.”

“But I—­”

Her tone gets sharp. “I’m sick of never having our room to myself. I brought you with me so you can meet people. I know it’s hard for you to maintain your scholarship or whatever, but I need you to get a life. For both our sakes.”

A couple of times over the past month I’ve walked in to find Winn in various stages of undress with a guy. Which wouldn’t happen if she’d given me a heads-­up. I really don’t think the solution to our issues is me learning to party more. It’s her learning to schedule her make-­out sessions ahead of time like a responsible person.

Winnabelle shoos me away, then returns to the guy’s waiting arms. She’s wrong about one thing, though. She assumes I’m here on an academic scholarship.