Red Glove Read Free

the road, but her eyes glitter with fury. “Because you’re still angry.”
    Lila. My best friend, who I thought I killed.
    “I’m not talking about her,” I snap. “Not with you.”
    I think about Lila’s wide, expressive mouth turning up at the corners. I think about her spread out on my bed, reaching for me.
    With one touch of her hand, Mom made Lila love me. And made sure I could never, ever have her.
    “Hit a nerve?” Mom says, gleefully cruel. “It’s amazing you actually thought you were good enough for Zacharov’s daughter.”
    “Shut up,” I say.
    “She was using you, you stupid little moron. When everything was said and done, she wouldn’t have given you the time of day, Cassel. You would have been a reminder of Barron and misery and nothing more.”
    “I don’t care,” I say. My hands are shaking. “It would still have been better than—” Better than having to avoid her until the curse fades. Better than the way she’ll look at me once it does.
    Lila’s desire for me is a perversion of love. A mockery.
    And I almost didn’t care, I wanted her so much.
    “I did you a favor,” my mother says. “You should be grateful. You should be thanking me. I got you Lila on a silver platter—something you could have never in your life had otherwise.”
    I laugh abruptly. “I should be thanking you? How about you hold your breath until I do?”
    “Don’t talk that way to me,” Mom roars, and slaps me, hard.
    Hard enough that my battered head hits the window. I see stars. Little explosions of light behind the dark glasses. Behind my eyelids.
    “Pull over,” I say. Nausea overwhelms me.
    “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice seesawing back to sweet. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay?”
    The world is starting to tilt. “You have to pull over.”
    “Maybe right now you’d rather walk than deal with me, but if you’re really hurt, then you better—”
    “Pull over!” I shout, and something about the urgency of my tone finally convinces her. She steers the car abruptly onto the shoulder of the road and brakes hard. I stumble out while we’re still moving.
    Just in time to heave my guts up in the grass.
    I really hope no one at Wallingford wants me to write an essay on how I spent my summer vacation.

CHAPTER TWO
     
    I PARK MY BENZ IN THE seniors’ lot, which is much closer to the dorms than where underclassmen are forced to leave their cars. I feel a little smug until I shut off the engine and it makes an odd metallic cough, like maybe it just gave up the ghost. I get out and kick the front tire halfheartedly. I had a plan to fix up the car, but with Mom home I never quite got around to it.
    Leaving my bags in the trunk, I walk across campus toward the Finke Academic Center.
    Over the doorway of the large brick building hangs a hand-lettered sign: WELCOME FRESHMEN. The trees rustle with a light wind, and I am overcome with a feeling of nostalgia for something I haven’t yet lost.
    At a table inside, Ms. Noyes is looking through a box of cards and giving out orientation packets. A few sophomores I don’t know too well are shrieking and hugging one another. When they see me, they quiet down and start whispering instead. I overhear “kill himself” and “in his underwear” and “cute.” I walk faster.
    At the desk a blotchy, trembling girl and her father are picking up dorm keys. She clings to his hand like she’d be lost without it. This is clearly the first time the girl has spent any time away from home. I feel sorry for her and envy her all at once.
    “Hey, Ms. Noyes,” I say when it’s my turn. “How’s it going?”
    She looks up and smiles. “Cassel Sharpe! I am so pleased you’ll be living on campus again.” She gets me my manila folder and room assignment. In addition to the exclusive parking lot and, bizarrely, a stretch of grass—no, really, it’s called “senior grass”—seniors also get the best dorm rooms. It looks like mine is on the ground