Bully Me (Willow Heights Prep Academy: The Elite Book 1)

  Bully Me

  Willow Heights Preparatory Academy: The Elite

  Book One

  Selena

  Bully Me

  Copyright © 2020 Selena

  Unabridged First Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except in cases of a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, and events are entirely coincidental. Use of any copyrighted, trademarked, or brand names in this work of fiction does not imply endorsement of that brand.

  Published in the United States by Selena and Speak Now.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-945780-96-7

  Cover © Marisa Shor of Cover Me Darling

  Table of Contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  *

  one

  My name is Crystal Dolce, and I am anything but sweet. My last name might tell you otherwise, but anyone who knows me also knows the truth. The halls of my school know what I did, but they’re afraid to confront me. My parents know what I did, but they excuse it because, let’s face it, their reputation is hardly spotless. Around here, what I did is par for the course. Small potatoes.

  But not to me.

  Someone taps on my door, and I slam my laptop and grab my Gucci bag, ready for school. Royal sticks his head in. “Dad wants to talk to us,” he says, giving me a once-over and nodding his approval at my perfectly polished appearance.

  “Us?” I ask. “Now? About what?”

  My brother shrugs. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

  “We’ll be late.”

  “Dad probably doesn’t even remember that we’re in school,” Royal points out as we make our way down the hall of our swanky brownstone.

  “Probably,” I admit, a knot of unease settling in my belly as I enter the kitchen.

  “Where are the twins?” Daddy asks, looking up from his laptop.

  My oldest brother King is already at the table, a cup of coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other.

  “Coming,” Duke yells. He and Baron come thundering into the room, shoving to get through the door first.

  “Sit down,” Daddy says. “I have some news, and I might as well tell you when you’re all together.”

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask, as if she’s ever up this early. If her weekdays are anything like the weekends, Mom prefers to take her breakfast in bed just before noon, chasing it down with a few cocktails and the pills for all her supposed ills.

  “Your mother is sleeping,” Daddy says.

  “What is it, then?” King asks, getting up to drop a couple bagels into the toaster. “We’ve got to get to school.”

  Daddy lays his hands flat on the table and looks from one of us to the next before his announcement. “We’re moving.”

  The air seems to leave the room. For a minute, no one moves. Royal stands halfway in the refrigerator, reaching for the cream cheese. Baron’s mouth drops open. Duke just blinks. King turns from the counter to stare at our father. I just sit there, too stunned to speak. At last, the toast pops up, and we all jump.

  “What do you mean, moving?” King asks, tossing the bagels onto a plate. “Like, to the suburbs?”

  “We can’t leave the city,” Baron says matter-of-factly. “Manhattan is where everything happens.”

  That doesn’t even begin to cover it. Manhattan is our lives. And despite the shit that went down last spring, I never imagined leaving our school, let alone New York.

  “Not to the suburbs,” Daddy says. “To Arkansas.”

  “To what-the-what?” I ask.

  “Like, the state?” Duke asks.

  “No, dumbass, the country,” Baron says, grabbing the cream cheese and slathering a bagel half.

  “Arkansas,” King says flatly. His voice sounds about as excited as I feel. I can’t think of a place less New York than freaking Arkansas. I couldn’t find that state on a map if my life depended on it.

  “I lived there for a while when I was a kid,” Daddy says. “And now I have a business opportunity.”

  “What kind of business opportunity is in Arkansas?” King asks.

  “The kind that’s too good to pass up.”

  “Are you in trouble, Daddy?” I ask, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Do you owe money to… Y’know. The families?”

  “Don’t be dramatic, Crystal,” he says. “I think we could all benefit from the change.”

  People always whisper about the mafia, and I know my father’s name gets thrown in there, but that’s because he’s a successful, Italian-American businessman who started from nothing over in the Bronx. Not Arkansas. I’ve never heard of any childhood in the south. Dad has a Bronx accent, for god’s sake.

  “Where in Arkansas?” King asks. I can see the wheels already turning in his head as he weighs the possibilities, the pros and cons, and how he can make this move easier on all of us. All my brothers are protective, but he’s the heart of us.

  “Faulkner,” Daddy says. “It’s a small town. Think of it as… An opportunity.”

  “An opportunity to live in a shitty little town in the south?” Royal asks with a scowl.

  “An opportunity to be a big fish in a small pond.”

  “We’re already big fish,” Duke points out.

  “In a big pond,” Baron adds.

  “Daddy, why are you doing this to us?” I blurt out. “Is this because of what happened with me and Veronica?”

  Daddy’s jaw tightens, and he snaps his laptop closed. “Considering the trouble you’ve all gotten into lately, I’d think you’d be happy for a fresh start. Maybe you can think about what kind of start you want to make it.”

  He gets up, sweeps his laptop off the table, and strides out of the room, leaving us standing there with uneaten bagels, looking at anything but each other. I wonder if a little thrill of possibility is running through my brothers, too.

  two

  A new start. How many people dream of it, and how few get it. A chance to start over, to leave your past behind. But also… Your present. This morning my father informed me we’re leaving the only home I’ve ever known. My school. My friends. My life.

  My mistakes.

  Everything, gone.

  For the rest of the day, I walk around in a daze.

  At noon, I ditch and go home, crawling into bed to write a blog post before Mom’s up to ask questions. Not that she’ll notice if I’m home. It’s only a month into sophomore year, and I’ve already skipped too many days. So far, my parents haven’t said anything, though. I’m pretty sure my brothers are intercepting the mail, and my parents aren’t really interested in my academics. But Mom will be pissed if I make her look bad, if it looks like she doesn’t know what her daughter’s up to. The other moms might talk about her behind her back, an
d we can’t have that. We’re Dolces, after all.

  I hear my brothers get home, but when Royal sticks his head in my room, I pretend to be sleeping. I can’t deal with one more thing just now. Daddy’s words ring in my head, circling back on themselves, repeating over and over.

  A new start.

  We can choose who we want to be. What kind of people would we be in a small town in the south? Is this punishment? Or penance? Can I pay for my sins somewhere far from the scene of the crime?

  I hear Dad get home, and I know when he tells Mom because her blood-curdling scream echoes through the brownstone. Mom is New York. Without Tiffany’s, Barney’s, and Bloomingdale’s; without her Manhattan Moms clubs, galas, and cocktails on yachts with backstabbing socialites, Mom wouldn’t know what to do with herself.

  I cram my earbuds in and sink down in my bed, pulling my laptop into my lap and diving down the rabbit hole of online shoe shopping. The crash of a plate hitting the wall downstairs startles me out of my gluttony, and I yank out an earbud. Mom’s shriek of rage pierces my eardrums through the floor.

  I could’ve escaped the house before the battle started like my brothers. They offered to let me go with them, but partying with my brothers is the very opposite of fun. They hover over me at parties, watching my drinks and intimidating any guy who talks to me. And it’s not like I can sneak out to a party without them. Someone will call them the second I show up. They rule our school, and that means no one wants to piss them off by helping me do something they don’t think befits a Dolce daughter.

  The only reason my brothers offered is because they think if they take me out, I can forget what’s happening to our family. The problem is, they won’t let me do any of the things they do to forget. I don’t get to drink or hook up or start fights. I’m a Dolce girl. I have to behave.

  “I’m tired of being your mafia wife,” Mom shrieks downstairs. I cram my earbuds back in and hit the volume button until Sia is all I hear. At last, the house goes quiet, and I drag myself out of bed and sink into a hot bath. I can’t stop thinking about the silence in the house, and how pretty soon my parents will be making a different kind of noise. Gross as it is, my parents are probably about to fuck. After they blow up at each other, they usually make up in as spectacular a fashion as they fight. Probably how they ended up with five kids. Tonight, though, the brownstone remains eerily silent.

  Everything is changing.

  “Crystal, sweetheart. Are you in here?” Mom trills from my room, sounding so bright and chipper I know she must have taken some extra happy pills with her evening cocktails.

  “In the bath,” I call.

  And because my family doesn’t know about a little thing called boundaries, Mom comes waltzing into my ensuite bathroom.

  “There you are,” she says. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” She sinks onto my makeup stool, adjusting her flowing red dress with her free hand while holding her martini aloft with the other.

  “I’ve been in my room the whole time,” I point out, rearranging a pile of bubbles since Mom has been known to critique my body without invitation. She doesn’t seem to realize that movie star elegance doesn’t necessarily pass down through the genes. I’m lucky I got enough of her beauty—her thick, chestnut waves and ink-dark eyes—to be admitted to the popular circle at school. I always see my beauty as somehow superficial, though, as if it can be stolen at any moment. I try too hard, care too much. Mom carries hers inside her. It’s effortless. She is Old Hollywood Glamour. I am… Not.

  “Your father tells me he’s already given you the news,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say, pushing myself up against the end of the deep, clawfoot tub. “We’re moving.”

  “Yes,” she says, looking thoughtful as she sips her martini. “I suppose you are.”

  My heart does a funny little skipping, twisting thing inside me. “You’re not going.”

  “Don’t look so shocked, dear,” she says. “You know I can’t simply pick up my life and move it to Alabama. I’m a Manhattan girl.”

  “Arkansas.”

  She waves a dismissive hand. “Wherever.”

  “So… What? You and Daddy are getting a divorce?”

  “We didn’t get to that,” she says. “I had to get ready to go out. There’s a fundraiser at the MET tonight.”

  “You’re just leaving Daddy in the middle of a fight to go hang out with some people you barely know and don’t even like?”

  Typical Mom, but still.

  “Don’t make it sound so dramatic,” she says. “It’s really not. It’s simple. He’s moving across the country. I’m not.”

  “So it is divorce.”

  “As you can see, I’m not the bad guy here, Crystal. I’m just going on with my life as I have. He’s the one making changes, making big demands.”

  That’s what was on my mind all day. If I could stay, somehow, would I? Or is Daddy right? Maybe a chance to start over isn’t the worst thing in the world.

  Maybe going on with our lives as we have is.

  “Do we have to choose?” I ask. “You or Daddy?”

  Mom sighs dramatically and sets down her empty glass on my makeup counter. “Your father and I have been fighting for years. It was only a matter of time. I never thought we’d still be together when you children started high school, let alone when you were nearly ready for college.”

  “I thought that’s just how you were,” I say. “How you liked it.”

  Now that I said it out loud, it sounds all kinds of fucked up. Just because all I’ve ever known is their fighting and making up, that doesn’t mean love is supposed to be that way.

  “I think I’d just like some time alone,” Mom says, standing with a grace she somehow maintains even after countless martinis. “I don’t even know who I am without all of you. What do I want? Without your father, without you kids to think about, what would I do with myself? Who am I?”

  “Is this really the best moment for your latest existential crisis?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “How many times have you gone out for ice cream this month?” Mom asks, eyeing the ample swell of my breasts.

  “Mom!”

  “To have such perky ones again,” she says with another sigh. “Oh, well. I’d better get going, or I’ll be late to dinner.”

  When she leaves, I slide down under the bubbles and lay on the bottom of the tub, holding my breath and staring up through the water.

  I heard drowning doesn’t hurt, I said to Veronica as we floated on top of the pool this summer. Do you think it’s true?

  “Why do you think about that stuff?” she snapped. “That’s so morbid, Crystal. You really need to stop.”

  And I wanted to remind her of the time I’d told her we needed to stop, and she hadn’t listened. But I didn’t say anything because I thought, what if I wasn’t her best friend? I know how quickly fortunes turn.

  I hear my phone chime outside the bathtub, but I lie there longer, seeing how long I can hold my breath. I wonder how fast it would be. Could I open my mouth and take one big gulp, and that would be the end? I imagine water rushing into my lungs, filling them like water balloons.

  I sit up straight, sucking in a giant gulp of air. My lungs are burning. It doesn’t seem possible that drowning can be painless if even imagining it hurts. I grab a towel and jump out of the tub as if the water might pull me under, suck me down the drain.

  My phone screen flashes a new text from King asking if everything is okay here. He might be out partying, but his mind is here with me as I watch our family implode. Of course it is. Our family means more to him than anyone, even our parents.

  I slump onto my stool and think of what to say. Something that will let them know Mom’s decision but reassure them that I’m fine with it. Something that doesn’t sound like I’m whining about being rejected by my mommy. After all, she rejected them, too. My heart squeezes for them. I know how much they love the city. I might want a chance to start over, but they
have no reason to. They didn’t fuck up their lives.

  At least we’ll all be together. That’s a consolation. They’ll be right by my side, conquering the halls of our new school the same way they did our old one.

  And me?

  Maybe I don’t want that anymore. I did all that, and look where it got me. I’m exhausted, used up, broken. It took too much effort to claw my way to the top and stay there. Once I got there, it hardly seemed worth it. There’s only one way to go when you get to the top.

  This time, I get to choose. I don’t have to do it all again. No one in Arkansas will know who I am. I can be anyone. I could even choose to be no one at all. I’ve done the whole Queen B thing, the Dolce Princess thing. Maybe, like Daddy said, it’s time for a change.

  three

  Running away from our problems is a favorite family tradition, but this is the first time we’ve done it literally. Usually we float away on a numb cloud of bliss, watching a tequila sunrise after a night of valium oblivion. We fly around the world chasing the next opportunity, so we don’t have to look at the ones we’ve missed while standing in our own living room. But today, we ran.

  I didn’t look back.

  “Oh my god, what is this? I thought summer was over,” I moan as sweat breaks out on my face the instant we step off Daddy’s plane.

  He spreads his arms wide and grins, his mirrored sunglasses reflecting back my own miserable image. “Welcome to September in the South,” he says. “We call this Indian summer.”

  “First off, I’m pretty sure that’s an offensive term,” I say. “Secondly, what’s with all this ‘we’ talk. You’re from the Bronx, Daddy.”

  “We make strong associations with the place we spend our formative years,” Royal murmurs behind me. “Dad’s obviously got some attachment to this place.”

  I don’t see much to attach oneself to. The town is flat as a freaking pancake and so hot it makes me feel like an ant under some psycho god’s microscope.