Page 23 of Only If You're Lucky
“I can’t believe they’re letting you stay in that house after everything that’s happened,” she mutters, and my eyes click open again, relieved at the shift in topic.
“Actually, they’re not,” I say at last, leaning against my bedframe. “They’re giving us a week to move out.”
“That’s good,” she says, her tone softening. “I never liked the idea of you living there, anyway. All those boys just next door.”
“It’s not as bad as it seems.”
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“The college found us an apartment a few blocks away,” I say, glancing around my room, trying not to think about the fact that I still need to pack. I’ve known this was coming for a while, but still, I’ve been avoiding it. We all have.
“What are they going to do with the house?” she asks, and I pinch the bridge of my nose, bottling a scream.
“I think it’ll just be vacant for a while,” I say. “Kappa Nu’s suspended until the investigation wraps, and they own it, so we can’t just live here without landlords.”
“Maybe now is the time to reassess Rutledge,” my mom says, a noticeable pep in her voice like the thought just occurred to her, even though I know she’s been thinking it since the day we put down the deposit. “Distance yourself from all this nonsense. Plenty of students transfer after a year or two, and you do still have the grades for Duke, don’t you?”
“I’m not transferring,” I interrupt. “And I have to go, Mom. I’m really busy right now. Midterms start in two weeks.”
“I don’t know how they expect you to get through exams in the midst of all of this,” she says, sighing. “It’s not right. One student missing and another one dead.”
“Yeah,” I say, chewing over that second sentence:One student missing and another one dead. “Guess they just want to keep us feeling normal.”
“Well, there is nothing normal about this,” she says, her voice dipped into a whisper, muttering to herself like she forgot I’m even here. “Nothing normal at all.”
CHAPTER 20
BEFORE
The room is silent except for the electric piano drifting around us, the floor tilting and spinning like a merry-go-round. It almost feels like we’re swept up in it, unable to escape, moving around and around with the music as it mounts louder in our ears.
I think I might be sick.
“Well?” Lucy asks, and I feel myself blink. I look over at Levi, at his stunned expression, then back at Lucy. Her eyes haven’t left his for even a second.
“Fuck,” Lucas mutters. “Way to kill the buzz, Luce.”
“I’m being serious,” she says, leaning back, the tension in the room lifting slightly like that simple shift in posture somehow altered the very air. I look around and notice how everyone else seems to mimic what she does exactly: the placement of her hands, the tip of her head, all of us subconsciously miming her movements. “If you could kill someone and know for a fact you wouldn’t get caught, would you do it?”
Levi lifts his hand to the back of his neck, massaging it gently.His cheeks are flushed and he won’t look at me, he can’t look at me, because he knows what I’m thinking. What we’re both thinking.
“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
And there’s that word again—love—or at least a derivative of it. I don’t know if Levi actually loved Eliza, and to be honest, I don’t care. I loved her, too, but that didn’t stop me from hurting her; from making her feel guilty about the things she wanted. The life she craved. In fact, I think I hurt herbecauseI loved her—that’s what people do, after all. Destroy the very thing they desire the most.
“Bullshit,” Lucy spits. “That’s bullshit.”
“Would you?” Levi shoots back, suddenly angry, and I can’t help but flinch at his abrupt change in tone, the way Lucy so easily burrowed beneath his skin.
“Of course I would,” she says, satisfied with his reaction. “We all would.”
We turn to look at her, tired eyes trying to focus, and I wait for her to smile, let out a laugh. Instead, she simply crosses her legs before picking up the pin and twisting it in her hands.
“The only thing that makes bad things bad are the consequences, right? Think about it. The fact that we’re all here right now means we’re all a little morally loose.”
She grins as she says it and everyone is quiet, looking around, suddenly feeling so exposed. I can’t help but flush as I take in the empty bottles we pulled from the bar; the liquor we drank that isn’t ours. The way we’re all sitting here in this place we don’t belong, acting like we do. She’s right, I realize. If there’s one thing Lucy’s taught me since the moment we met, it’s that once you bend one rule without consequence, it feels a lot easier to break the others.
“If we could indulge in life’s dirty deeds without the repercussions, we’d be animals,” she continues. “We are animals. All of us.”
