Someone To Love. Melissa de La Cruz

thirty-three

       thirty-four

       thirty-five

       thirty-six

       part three

       thirty-seven

       thirty-eight

       thirty-nine

       forty

       forty-one

       forty-two

       forty-three

       forty-four

       forty-five

       forty-six

       author’s Note

       acknowledgments

       Extract

       p a r t o n e

      I never paint dreams or nightmares.

      I paint my own reality.

      —Frida Kahlo

       o n e

      “It’s not that I’m rebelling. It’s that I’m just

      trying to find another way.”

      —Edie Sedgwick

      The stall door won’t shut all the way.

      What the hell kind of bathroom doors does our school have?

      The kind with crooked doors that don’t always latch. The kind you don’t want to get caught in. Not with your head above the toilet. Not when you’re kneeling on the floor, puking your guts out. Not with a fifth of vodka—which I desperately need right now.

      Shouldn’t the stalls all lock?

      Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m done.

      I wipe my mouth and take a stick of gum from my purse and unwrap the shiny paper. It makes me think of Andy Warhol’s famous art factory, all wrapped in silvery aluminum foil and pulsing with artists and conversation. I can see Edie Sedgwick’s haunting face. Her platinum pixie. Smoky circles around her eyes. Dangling earrings. That megawatt smile. She may have been one of Andy Warhol’s superstars—those grimy, glamorous muses—but Edie was his angel too. An angel wearing a leotard and fur coat, hiding in the backs of limousines and dingy clubs. Skinny as hell.

      I’d rather be in New York. Studying art. Living in my own art factory. Get out of this sunshiny, swimming pool state. I crumple the paper into a ball, toss it into the wastebasket near the door and head for the sinks. I turn on the faucet. Pump soap onto my hands. Scrub. Scrub. Stare at the water slipping down the drain. Don’t look up.

      I hate mirrors. Glass is dangerous. Water is dangerous. Windows are dangerous. Anything that reflects myself back at me is a threat. A punishment.

      Welcome to my Monday morning. It’s Eastlake Prep’s yearbook photo day. Yeah. That Eastlake Prep—the one with the five-figure tuition and super-fancy alumni. Famous people have gone here, and famous people send their kids here.

      It’s the end of September—we’re already a month into school—but I can’t seem to get into the swing of school. And I also can’t show up at photo day with frizzy hair and a pimple on my chin. As much as I hate taking them, I know the power of a class photo. Thirty years from now, when everyone has moved away and no one is following each other on social media anymore, people are going to pull out their yearbook and look at you. That’s what you’ll be to them forever.

      Do you want to be the girl with the greasy forehead? Or the bad bangs?

      No. I didn’t think so.

      The spotless surface reflects my double. I smooth my hands over my long dirty-blond hair and examine my skin, slightly jaundiced under the bathroom’s unflattering fluorescent light. The problem with mirrors is that they show me only what’s already there. It’s I who has to see the potential, who has to see how much more there is to lose. How much smaller I can be. How much closer to perfection.

      Speaking of perfection: Zach Park.

      He’s gorgeous. Thick dark hair tousled like he’s been lounging on the beach all day. Wide green eyes with teardrop curves that seriously make me want to stop everything and get lost in them for an eternity. I’ve had a low-key crush on him since the end of freshman year when he transferred here from a Korean private school.

      I had only one class with him—the last semester of first-year English—but I doubt he remembers me. I mostly drew pictures of other people in the class on my notes to avoid looking at him too much, even though I was always listening to him. He was so well-spoken and mature. So different from the other teenage boys who seemed to be interested only in playing video games or whatever party they were planning for the weekend.

      Zach actually liked talking about ideas. Whenever the teacher called on him, he would say something insightful that I’d never thought about before, and I loved when he volunteered to act out scenes from the books the class was discussing, because Zach would bring them to life. It was like whatever character he was playing had stepped off the page into the classroom and was standing in front of you.

      Not that I ever really talked to him.

      Today’s the day. Maybe.

      I just have to pull it together for the camera, in front of all the other junior and senior girls with their immaculate hair and carefully coordinated outfits, in front of Zach and his perfect jawline and forearms. Even thinking about all of them staring at me, wondering who the loser is who wandered into their perfect midst, is enough to make me want to skip school and never come back.

      I screwed things up enough my freshman year. I was dating this guy—Ollie Barrios—who was a really popular junior basketball player. I’d just lost a lot of weight and he was my first boyfriend. It felt amazing to be noticed. To be wanted—no, desired—by someone. I should have seen the red flags though. Ollie was always telling me what I should wear or who should be my friends. He’d even choose my food at restaurants.

      I ended up gaining some of the weight back during the first few months of school, and Ollie dumped me. We were leaving from my house to go to the homecoming dance. Ollie stopped me before I could get in the car. “We’re not going,” he said.

      “What do you mean?” I asked, thinking maybe Ollie made other plans.

      “That