“Whit. So happy you could make it,” Figueroa says dryly.
Girls giggle. Whit scowls.
“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all. His voice is deeper compared to the last time I heard him speak. “Something came up.”
He doesn’t even look at me and I sit there, folding into myself so my shoulders are hunched, and I drop my head. I don’t want him to see me. Recognize me.
That would be a disaster. He hates me.
With everything he’s got.
Why did I think he was a year ahead of me in school? How could I screw that up so badly? I don’t know how I came to that conclusion, but once the idea formed in my mind, it stuck.
My mistake—a big one, too.
After our encounter that night, when I asked my mother who the man was and she told me his name, I Googled him. One of the top images that appeared was of the Lancasters, all five of them. The father, tall, proud and handsome. The mother, thin, arrogant and cold. The two beautiful girls, with matching smiles, stood in the front wearing matching dresses. Whittaker Augustus Lancaster stood next to his father, taller than him. His expression one of barely contained anger, so strong I could practically feel it. The more I studied the photo, the more curious I became.
What kind of family were they? They look picture perfect, but I know now pictures lie. At fourteen, I didn’t believe Whit when he told me my mother was having an affair with his father. I couldn’t even wrap my head around the idea. I loved my stepdad as if he were my own father, and I believed my mother felt the same way.
I found out later that I was wrong.
The scandal was revealed quickly. Midway through my sophomore year in high school, the Lancaster divorce was announced to the world, thanks to a scandalous photo of Augustus Lancaster in a compromising situation.
With my mother.
My elegant, never ruffled, always put together mother. Caught exiting a seedy hotel downtown with giant sunglasses covering her beautiful face, wearing only a loosely belted Celine trench coat and hand in hand with Augustus, the wind catching the coat’s hem just so and revealing her long, bare legs.
All the way up to her hip bone. No panties in sight.
The press went wild. She was naked under that coat, they implied, and I assumed they were correct.
So did everyone else.
Nothing else was going on in the world at the time, so it turned into a national scandal. One the Lancaster family never fully recovered from. Our family didn’t necessarily recover from it either.
As the oldest of three and the only boy, Whit is heir to the family fortune. Well, one of the heirs of the many Lancaster families’ fortune. But his father is the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son…
It goes on and on for generations. They are old money—as old as it can get in this country. Lancaster Prep has been here for over one hundred and twenty years, and every single Lancaster has attended this school before they went on to college and bigger, greater things.
My mother’s affair with Augustus changed their lives forever. Whit’s mother, Sylvia, of the Rhode Island Whittakers—another very wealthy family, though not as established as the Lancasters—received a healthy sum in the divorce settlement. Neither of the Lancasters are allowed to discuss the terms of their divorce, or why exactly they divorced in the first place. There’s a gag order in place. But everyone knows why their marriage ended.
Because of my mother.
While we have money, we’re considered downright poor compared to the Lancasters, and money makes a person, or family, untouchable in certain circles. Meaning my mother was left for the wolves—the paparazzi, the society pages—and they tore her apart. Her carcass was ripped to shreds, scattered all over New York City. People whispered. Celebrity rags and blogs screamed her name in glee, running that photo of her exposed hip bone again and again and again. 20/20 on ABC ran a two-hour special on the affair and the devastating aftermath of it all once the fire happened.
I always tend to push the fire out of my mind. Our family scandal ended in tragedy, while the Lancasters were left relatively unscathed. Money protects you. Insulates you. Those who win in the game of life, always win when they have the most money.
Unfair, but whoever said life was fair? I’ve also learned that the hard way.
Look at the Lancasters. Despite the affair and the scandal it brought with it, they emerged as golden as ever. Photos of the entire family together still pop up occasionally. The ever-modern family who can still get along while divorced. They do it for the kids, all the articles have said.
While Mother and I are left tarnished and scarred. Broken and barred from the society that used to accept us—specifically her and Jonas—with open arms.
A thought suddenly hits me: are the Lancaster sisters here as well?
They’d have to be.
Sylvie and Carolina are gorgeous. One of them is a dancer, I can’t remember which one. But carrying on the Lancaster name rests squarely on Whit’s shoulders.
My head still ducked, I watch as Whit walks in front of the rows of desks, settling into one in a row the farthest from mine, on the other side of the room. His expression is like stone, his lips formed into what looks like a pout as he glares at the teacher standing before us.
I swore Whit was older than me. At the time during our first and only encounter, he most definitely acted like he was older. He was so jaded, as if he’d seen and done everything already, and he wasn’t impressed.
He’s wearing that same look now. He hasn’t changed much in three years. He seems completely bored with life.
I’m just grateful he didn’t notice me.
I stay frozen in my chair as Figueroa continues his lecture, droning on about the relationship of two lovesick teenagers who sacrifice everything—including their lives—for what they believe is love.
“Was it love, though?” Figueroa asks at one point. “They’re younger than you all are now. Historians figure Juliet was barely fourteen. We can assume Romeo was older, so sixteen, seventeen at most. By eighteen, he should’ve been married and even a father.”
“Fuck that,” one of the boys mutters, making everyone laugh.
“Indeed,” Figueroa says, scowling at the boy, who only smiles at him in return. “But that’s how it was then. How it’s been for hundreds of years. Only during recent modern times have we as a society accepted that people get married for the first time at an older age. More and more people are becoming parents at a later age as well. You should thank your parents for that.”
“I’m not thanking my parents for shit.”
This is from Whit.
“Mr. Lancaster, I always appreciate your colorful commentary throughout my lectures. Witty and entertaining, as usual.” The snideness in Mr. Figueroa’s tone is telling. Someone doesn’t appreciate the namesake in his classroom.
But I suppose there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.
There’s more talk of Romeo and Juliet, and I take copious notes, keeping my gaze on my notebook for pretty much the entirety of class. I don’t want to draw anyone’s attention. Not the teacher’s—who resents me for being pushed upon him when he has no clue what I’m like or how my grades are—or the students, who’ve worked hard and earned their spot while I just walked into this class like it’s mine to take.