In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead
Chapter 40
February, senior year
Mint
It was better now, with his split knuckles sending a constant thrum of pain through his right hand. With none of the brothers who’d been in the foyer able to look at him, all of them cowering in fear, taking the long route to the keg, sticking to the corners of the Phi Delt basement as everyone pregamed for Sweetheart. Much better with the way Courtney Kennedy was eyeing him, as if she’d like nothing better than to depose Jessica, take her place by his side.
What he’d done to Trevor proved Mint wasn’t a coward, wasn’t his father, as much as it choked him to even think of his father—his stupid childhood hero, now a broken shell in a hospital bed, too weak for the world. But Mint wasn’t weak. Mint was back on top, he was king, he was alpha.
No one had mentioned anything about his father or his family’s company all day, so either the Phi Delts didn’t read the news or his mother’s PR team was doing a good job of keeping the disaster out of the press. Of course, it was in everyone’s best interest that what his father had done—his mother’s voice drifted back, hard and cold, the coward’s way out—should never see the light of day. Mint himself vowed to never breathe a word of it.
Ever since he’d given it an outlet, the fire inside him was under control. No longer a raging storm but a simmer in the center of him, hungry and waiting, biding its time.
Sweetheart was going to be Mint’s crowning glory. Thanks to money his parents had thrown into the party fund—a check cashed before the market crashed, thank Christ—this year’s Sweetheart was bigger and better than ever. The best band booked, Party Pics ready to snap their pictures like a crowd of paparazzi, pledges dressed in humiliating cupid costumes, handles of whiskey for every couple. All of it evidence of Mint’s generosity, his power as Phi Delt president.
Even better: Jessica would be here soon, all dolled up. She’d be expecting romance—it was Valentine’s Day, after all. She’d be soft and pliant, and at the perfect moment, when they were in the very center of the crowd, he’d hit her with it: he knew. He’d make her beg to be taken back, make her cry in front of the whole party, and then he’d turn his back and tell her it was over, that she disgusted him. It would be the perfect drama, something to show everyone Mint was strong and unyielding, no chump. No, he was a prize lost at great cost. No one would be able to laugh at him again.
He tugged his pink bow tie, straightening the corners. He would do everything his father should have done, fix his mistakes. The fire inside him rose higher, crackling, eager for it.
Frankie bound down the stairs into the basement and beelined for him. “Hey, we need to talk.”
Mint handed a keg beer to Frankie, eyeing the pulled seams of his suit—the same he’d worn since freshman year. “Let me guess. You’re finally taking me up on the offer to see my tailor?”
Frankie waved a hand. “Do you see the younger guys giving you weird looks? Like they’re about to piss their pants?”
It was true. Where Mint and Frankie stood had become the nexus of the basement, the sun in the center of the party. Everyone orbited them, eyeing them with an assortment of expressions—fear, desire, calculation.
Mint shrugged, taking a sip of his own beer to hide his smile. “I might have asserted myself a little forcefully earlier today.”
Frankie’s brow furrowed. “A little forcefully? You broke Trevor’s cheekbone.”
“He was out of line.” Mint spoke like he couldn’t care less, was already over it. “You know how he gets. It was finally a bridge too far.”
Frankie shook his head. “Trevor’s a punk, everyone knows that. But what you did is illegal, Mint. Trevor could press charges.” He took a deep breath. “And Jack found out. He’s really upset. He’s going to call an officers’ meeting.”
Mint thought of his friend—the Phi Delt treasurer, a regular Leave-It-to-Beaver. Always on the brothers’ case about completing their philanthropy hours or recycling beer cans. “So what? I’ll talk to him.”
“You don’t get it. Jack doesn’t think it would be fair for you to get away with hurting Trevor like that. He says it sets a bad example for the guys, and the frat might be liable, and who’s going to pay Trevor’s medical bills, and—”
“Since when are you and Jack powwowing about me in secret? And since when is Jack the fucking morality police? I thought you guys were supposed to have my back.”
The look Frankie gave him was grave. “I do. That’s why I’m telling you. Look, I don’t want to ruin your night, but I honestly think Jack might report it to the cops. He’s really worked up.”
The fire inside Mint flashed white-hot. “Are you kidding?” Jack was supposed to be one of his best friends. And he was going to betray him? Rat him out to the police over Trevor? “Tell Jack he can suck my dick.”
Frankie choked, dropping his beer.
Mint blew out a breath, watching Frankie scramble, wiping the spilled beer. “Sorry, Frankie. Jack just doesn’t get it. Not like you do.” Frankie stood, tossing his Solo cup away, and Mint bumped his shoulder. “Sometimes you have to stop taking shit from people and lay down the law. Be a man about it. You know what I mean.”
Frankie nodded, but his eyes caught on something across the room. Mint followed his gaze and saw Heather stumbling down the staircase, her face tearstained. Instead of sympathy, the fire inside Mint roared with approval. That was exactly the face he wanted Jessica to wear when he ground her into the dirt in front of everyone.
He put a hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “Look, I’ll talk to Jack. Sort it out.”
“You promise? Because I really don’t want you two fighting. I hate it.”
Mint squeezed his shoulder. “I swear. I’ll make amends.” Fuck Jack, that goody-two-shoes wet blanket. “But first, we celebrate.” He gestured at the row of whiskey bottles. “It’s our last Sweetheart ever. You’re about to get drafted into the NFL, I’m going to law school”—Mint took a breath, letting the flicker of painful uncertainty pass, and pressed on—“and we only have one semester left to get crazy. It’s time to cement our legacy.”
Frankie’s eyes returned to Heather. She was in the corner, talking to Courtney, and it seemed to satisfy Frankie’s concern. He grinned at Mint. “You know I can’t say no to that.”
“And,” Mint added, drawing the baggie out of the inner pocket of his suit jacket, “I picked up a little something from Coop earlier. This’ll take us over the edge. Now that the season is over, and you don’t have to worry about drug tests, we can do anything.”
Frankie groaned. “I have been waiting four years for the damn season to be over. You have no idea.”
Mint nodded, running a hand through his hair. He was flying high now, his wingman by his side. “No more rules. Time to cut loose.”
Frankie handed him a shot glass, then knocked it with his own. “Here’s to Mint, in rare form. And to a wild fucking night.”
***
They’d taken round after round of shots, plus Coop’s pill, and Mint was just getting started. He was filled with a nervous energy, keeping one eye on the staircase, waiting for Jess to show, or even Jack, his hands twitching in anticipation.
“Hold up a second,” Frankie mumbled, dropping an empty Solo cup on the floor. “I need to talk to Courtney.”
Courtney?But Mint only shrugged. “Whatever. Just don’t leave me hanging too long.”
Frankie strode off and disappeared somewhere, neither Courtney nor Heather in sight. Great. Now he was standing here alone like a loser.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mint sensed movement. He turned to find Charles Smith circling him, walking back and forth in front of the keg. Charles: lacrosse douchebag and Trevor’s bulldog. Worst of all: his parents were friends of Mint’s, back in the city.
How much did Charles know?
The look in Charles’s eyes was clear. He was bruising for a fight, and he thought that would intimidate Mint. But Mint wasn’t weak. He was drunk, the concrete wobbling under his feet. But he wasn’t soft. He’d show Charles, just like he’d shown Trevor.
Mint cocked his chin and raised his voice. “You got a problem, Smith?”
Charles smiled. It was a look of satisfaction, like he’d been fishing, and Mint had taken the bait. “Actually, now that you mention it, yeah. You sent Trevor to the emergency room. He’s eating through a tube tonight. Feel like a big man?”
The people orbiting Mint paused, stopped their conversations, and leaned in instinctively.
“Trevor talked a lot of shit,” Mint spat. “So I did everyone a favor and shut him up.”
Charles smirked. “Oh, Mark Minter, what a hero. Big man on campus. You know no one actually likes you, right? They kiss your ass because you’re rich and you pay for things.” His smile stretched wider. “I wonder what would happen if you suddenly lost all your money.”
Charles knew. Mint’s heart hammered.
Charles reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Will you look at this? My dad emailed me earlier. I guess he’s a Minter Group stock owner—a pretty pissed stock owner. He says your company’s in the trash and your family is dead broke. How many friends do you think you’ll have left when everyone finds out?”
The people gathered around them started whispering. No—this couldn’t be happening, not again.
Charles sensed blood in the water. He moved in, teeth bared. “Rumor is, your dad went AWOL. Let me guess: he ran off to the Caymans with all the money. Taking the coward’s way out, eh, Mint?”
It was like pulling a trigger. Mint shot forward, not caring who was watching or what it would mean, knowing only that he needed to smash Charles Smith’s face into the floor until it was a pulpy mess, until it could no longer utter a word about his dad.
But a small, dark-haired girl appeared out of nowhere, throwing herself in his path, hands braced. “Whoa, Mint! Charles! Stop. What are you doing?”
Caro. Dressed in white, with angels’ wings and a quiver of arrows over her shoulder. Yet another cupid in the night’s menagerie. The whole of them flashed through Mint’s mind: the lineup of pledges in their embarrassing cloth diapers; the paper cutout of the old, gray cupid, the one who’d sparked Charles’s joke; and now Caro herself, small and beautiful. So many angels.
He gripped his head, trying to clear the thoughts, to see through the red fog that told him, You are being destroyed; hurt someone else to make it stop.
Caro took one look at him and spun on Charles. “Chuck, what the hell? He’s my friend.”
The look Charles gave Caro was confusing to Mint. It was defiant, but also ashamed. Like he was actually worried what Caro thought of him.
“Your friend is an asshole,” Charles said bitterly. “Like I’ve told you a million times.”
“Get out of here.” Caro made a shooing gesture.
Charles recoiled like she’d slapped him. “You’re choosing him? But you’re my—”
Caro stopped him with a level look. “Walk it off, Chuck.”
Charles leaned in. “Fine. Get a girl to save you. Sounds about right.”
Mint lunged, but Caro’s arms, surprisingly strong, held him back. Charles escaped, swaggering to the back of the room, where a group of guys from the foyer—Trevor’s guys—gathered, shooting Mint icy looks.
Charles’s words haunted him. Taking the coward’s way out, eh, Mint? His dad was lying broken in the hospital, and all anyone could say about him was that he’d failed. His dad, who was supposed to be a giant of a man but didn’t have the backbone to stand up to his mother. He’d made the wrong investments, all the wrong choices. And then he’d chosen to end his life—to abandon Mint—rather than deal with the mess he’d made. If Mint didn’t rage, he was going to break. If he didn’t hurt someone, he was going to hurt worse than he ever had, and he didn’t know if he’d survive.
He spun from Caro. It was so claustrophobic in this basement. The walls were contracting, then retreating, like he was stuck inside a beating heart. He grabbed the whiskey bottle, upended it into his shot glass, took the shot, then again. He needed to feed the fire. The fire wasn’t weak.
“Mint, talk to me.” Caro rested a tentative hand on his arm, peering around his side to look at his face. “You’re scaring me.”
“Where’s Jessica?” he managed.
Caro frowned, casting an eye around the room. “I don’t know where anyone is. No one told me their plans, as usual. I invited Jess to get ready at the Kappa house, but she said she had something to do. I figured I’d find her here. But it’s almost time for the party to start. I don’t see her. Or Frankie, or Jack. Or Heather, for that matter. Where is everyone?”
“Fucking cowards,” Mint slurred. “Can’t stand by my side when I need them most.”
“Okay.” Caro pushed him upright against the wall. “Enough cryptic mumbling. What the hell is happening?”
“Is Jessica different to you?” Mint locked onto Caro’s face. “Is she a different person than she used to be? Does she still—” His voice cracked, and he hated himself for it, but he pushed forward. “Does she still want to date me?”
Caro would know. Caro was her best friend.
She looked hesitant. “I tried to talk about this earlier. Now’s probably not the best time.”
“Tell me,” he gritted out.
Caro sighed. “Fine. I thought it was ever since Christmas—” She shot him a look, waiting for some reaction, but when Mint didn’t deliver, she swallowed and pressed on. “But now that I think about it, it may have been going on longer. Jess is so distant. She sneaks around where I can’t… I mean, she’s really good at disappearing all the time, and then she acts like nothing’s wrong. She won’t tell me anything. I’m worried about her.” She looked off in the distance. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be friends anymore.”
Jessica had been sneaking around, even longer than since Christmas. Caro, the idiot, had all the clues in front of her and couldn’t piece them together.
“How long?” he asked, raw as an open wound. “How long has she been like that?”
“It’s got to be…I don’t know, a year at least.” Caro squeezed his arm. “I knew you’d want to help.”
His girlfriend had been cheating on him with a professor for an entire year. An entire year of humiliating him. The fire inside him surged.
“Yo, Prez.” Harris, the Phi Delt vice president, popped up between him and Caro, eyeing Mint cautiously. He must have heard about Trevor. “It’s time to crown the Sweetheart and kick off the party. Crowd’s insane upstairs. Probably our biggest year ever.”
“You’ll help, right, Mint?” Caro looked at him with pleading eyes. “She’ll listen to you. The seven of us have to stick together.”
Thatwas a cruel joke. “Where would Jessica be, if you had to guess?”
“No idea. Maybe she never left her room? She’s been sleeping a lot since her dad…since Christmas.”
Harris tugged Mint forward. “Come on, you have to kick off the show. We couldn’t find our Sweetheart anywhere, so we’re going with the runner-up. It’s either that, or no Sweetheart, and I think the crowd would riot. You’re crowning Courtney Kennedy, by the way.”
Mint let Harris pull him through the crowd and up the stairs, far away from hopeful Caro. He felt the eyes on him, the whispers. But all he could think about was Jessica, what she’d done, this person he’d trusted, this girl who should have been grateful he’d chosen her. Harris led him to the room with the dance floor, where they’d set up a stage for the band. Peeking from behind the stage, Mint could see a mass of people waiting on the other side. Courtney and some other Chi O seniors stood in the middle of the crowd, Courtney’s smile wide, her eyes shining bright. The room hummed with anticipation. Did they all know? Not just that his family was ruined, but that Jessica had cheated? In an instant, all the faces in the crowd seemed to flip, and everywhere, they were jeering, pointing, laughing.
No.He shoved his hands over his eyes. Where was Jessica? She was supposed to be here so he could teach her a lesson, punish her and redeem himself. But she was denying him the chance, taking away his control, his only opportunity to be the humiliator, not the humiliated. He couldn’t walk out on that stage until he’d done it.
He needed to find her. Mint dropped his hands from his face and squared his shoulders, feeling the blaze of fury fall into a sense of order, purpose.
From the crowd, a camera flashed as someone took his picture.
“All right, time to shine,” Harris said, nudging him. “I’ll announce you as you walk up.”
“No, actually—” Mint forced himself to grin. “Why don’t you do the honors?”
Harris blinked. “Why?”
“Well, you know what happened earlier with Trevor. I might not be everyone’s favorite person right now.”
Harris nodded immediately, as if it was obvious. Mint hated him for it, but he sealed the deal, put the cherry on top.
“Besides, you’ve earned it. It’ll probably be you up there as president next year. Might as well get some practice.”
Harris smiled. “Thanks, man.”
“I’m just going to run to the bathroom—too much beer. But then I’ll be back to watch. Break a leg.”
Mint slapped Harris’s shoulder, then turned and sprinted away from the stage. But instead of keeping left for the bathroom, he kept going, out the side door, into the night.
***
He needed and he wanted to hurt her. It consumed him, became an ache deep in his bones. He would take everything that was burning inside him and unleash it on her, put the pain where it belonged.
He strode with purpose across the Bishop Hall lobby—a ghost town on Saturday night—and punched the elevator button. Everything went slightly blurry then, like it was someone else in the driver’s seat, and he was just watching what happened.
Up, up, up.He was going to climb the walls of the elevator if it went any slower; he was going to claw his skin off. The ding of arrival, the doors sliding open, and then he was moving, finally gliding down the hallway. Everything grew a little hazier, the walls closing in. He couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or the drugs or the idea of confronting her that was making him slightly delirious.
Punching the code to her suite, twisting open the door. All the lights were off. But even in the dark, he could see the living room was a mess, dark objects laying like booby traps on the floor, the couch cushions ripped up and left sideways. The aftermath of two people struggling, or roughhousing, or—the thought scoured him—having sex.
So it was true. He could see it with his own eyes, the traces of where they’d been. It was the final straw that unleashed in Mint something other, something animal.
He shoved open the door to her room, panting. So dark inside, the only moonlight coming from a tiny sliver of window uncovered by curtain. He stared at her bed, where he’d spent countless nights by her side before he’d known.
There she was: a dark figure, lying stretched out under the blankets. Asleep, as if she hadn’t promised to meet him at the Sweetheart Ball and then stood him up, as if she enjoyed embarrassing him, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Rage took over, propelling him forward, and then his hands were on her, gripping her by the shoulder and the waist, shaking her.
“Wake up, Jessica. Wake the fuck up and face me.”
She barely stirred, just made a low groaning noise in her throat.
“I’m not kidding.” He rocked her harder. “I know what you did. Wake up!”
Her groan grew louder, and she tried, feebly, to shake off his hand. “Go away,” she mumbled, her voice barely audible, half-asleep.
“You think you can dismiss me?” His hands were shaking. Even though it was from anger, the sight shamed him, so he shoved Jessica hard, forcing her to roll on her stomach like a naughty child, the better to be spanked. In the movement, her head smacked the headboard. She cried out, her voice catching in her throat.
The sound of her pain sent a tremor of satisfaction, of rightness, through him.
“Leave me alone,” she garbled into the pillow, the words almost incoherent. She’d clearly been drinking. Her voice was strange and rough. “I told you… I’m done with you. I hate you.”
After everything she’d done, she hated him.
Mint’s vision turned red. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently, hearing the sound of her head hitting the headboard, again and again, sharp little thwacks. “Say you’re sorry.”
She was making some sort of noise, but it wasn’t language. It wasn’t an apology. She must think he wasn’t someone who counted, someone to be afraid of. Wasn’t a man.
Impotence filled him, and the fire exploded.
Mint stumbled back from the bed, hitting the desk, and then he saw them. Massive, sharp-pointed scissors, the blades like knives. And what to do seized him, the rightness of it hitting him as swift as a lightning strike. He swept the scissors off the desk, gripped the handles so hard his fingers hurt, and drove them down like a pike into her back.
She screamed into her pillow, arms flailing. It was like opening a dam, all the rage and pain flowing out of Mint and into her. He wrenched the scissors out and stabbed her again, feeling the solidness of her flesh resist, then accept, the blades. This girl who’d humiliated him, who was trying to ruin him—now he was hurting her, making her weak, making her flop like a fish out of water. The tables had turned.
He punished her again and again, taking the apology from her body since she wouldn’t give it to him in words. It felt so good that the feeling frenzied him, making his heart smash against his rib cage. He twisted her onto her back, pushing the scissors into her stomach—the power of it—and he knew with every fiber of his being that he wasn’t his father, that he had a backbone, that no one could laugh at him. She kicked wildly, foot catching the curtains, wrenching them open, and moonlight flooded the room. He looked at her with a thrill of anticipation, wanting to soak in the pain on her face, the horror and regret.
Blond hair, not brown.
His grip loosened on the scissors. They clattered to the floor.
It wasn’t Jessica’s face that stared back at him, eyes wide in terror, mouth open, fighting for a slow, gurgling breath.
It was Heather.
“Oh god,” Mint said. The room spun, fire draining out of him, and he went dizzy, nearly dropped to his knees next to the scissors. What was Heather doing in Jessica’s bed? And why hadn’t she spoken clearly, said something to identify herself?
What had he done?
Heather’s eyes tracked him as he took a step back, and suddenly Mint saw the scene for what it was, in all its terrible truth. He saw the blood everywhere, across the bed and climbing the walls and marring the skin of his hands, the white of his dress shirt under his black suit jacket. He saw the girl who had been his friend, shuddering with pain. He saw Heather, not Jessica. Heather, rasping and blinking, Heather, who he’d stabbed.
He was going to burn for this. He was going to be sent to prison. Everything—whatever was left of his family’s fortune, his spot at Columbia Law, his friends, his family, his future. This time there was no question he would lose it all. His mother would know what he’d done. His father, if he ever woke up. Everyone in the world.
His life was over.
No.Defiance cut through the panic. He’d made a mistake, that’s all. He didn’t deserve to have his life ruined because of one mistake, provoked by Jessica anyway, and by Trevor Daly, and Charles Smith, and Jack, and his father. It was their fault, not his. But he would fix it. He would save himself.
Mint scrambled to his feet and dashed to the bathroom. Now that the frenzied feeling had worn off, he was viscerally aware of the slickness of his hands, the heavy, coppery smell that clung to him. He scrubbed his hands furiously at the bathroom sink, digging under his nails. Then he saw his face and cursed. Peeling off his clothes, he showered, scrubbing hard, then put the dark suit back on. It was even starting to dry.
Looking one last time in the mirror, he caught it—there, on his neck. A bright-red mark, prelude to a bruise, peaked out from his collar. Heather must have hit him at some point. He pulled his bow-tie higher, hiding it, then closed his jacket over the white shirt so no one could see the blood splatters. He was fine now, covered.
He rushed back to the bedroom. There was no telling how long he had. He grabbed a T-shirt someone had left slung over the door and used it to wipe the handles of the scissors. Then he placed them securely inside his jacket.
A plan was taking shape, guided by survivor’s instincts. He wasn’t going down for this; there was no way. It came down to a simple choice: him, or someone else. And he knew who he’d choose every time. He just had to be smart.
Mint gave Heather one last glance. And stopped. He couldn’t see her chest moving.
She’d died.
While he was in the bathroom scrubbing off her blood, Heather had died alone.
Tears flooded Mint’s eyes; he felt like his chest was going to cleave in half. His knees wobbled.
No.No weakness. If he didn’t leave now, he’d be as good as dead, too.
He shoved himself out the door and wiped the handle, then strode across the living room, opened the front door with the T-shirt, closed it behind him, wiped again, handle and PIN pad, then stuffed the T-shirt into his suit jacket, buttoned it to the top one final time. He’d burn these clothes as soon as he could, everything he was wearing, and no one would notice because he had a closetful of the same suits, dark and well cut and expensive.
He’d shower, put on another black suit, slip back into the party, act like nothing happened. Complain about drinking too much, having to throw up, if anyone even bothered to ask. Everyone would remember him there, as much as they could remember anything through the black tunnel of whiskey, a bottle for every couple.
From now on, he’d do whatever it took: feign tears and shock. Be a doting boyfriend to Jessica so no one would ever suspect. Fall in line behind his mother and the man she’d cheated with. He’d smooth everything over, wear the veneer of perfection until it was true, until the mask melted and fused to his face. This would be the ultimate proof he wasn’t his father. He wouldn’t give up his life for a single mistake.
He had just one stop to make, one smoking gun to plant. It was poetic, really. One betrayal in exchange for another. Jack Carroll thought he could send Mint to the cops, and now Mint would send the cops to him.