Loner (Boys of Welles #1), page 1
LONER
The Boys of Welles Book 1
Ginger Scott
Copyright 2022
Ginger Scott, Little Miss Write, LLC
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Ginger Scott, Little Miss Write LLC
Contents
1. Lily Beachem
2. Theo Rothschild
3. Lily
4. Theo
5. Lily
6. Theo
7. Lily
8. Theo
9. Lily
10. Theo
11. Lily
12. Theo
13. Lily
14. Theo
15. Lily
16. Theo
17. Lily
18. Theo
19. Lily
20. Theo
21. Lily
22. Theo
23. Lily
24. Theo
25. Lily
26. Theo
27. Lily
28. Theo
Epilogue
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By Ginger Scott
For Ace.
You are stronger than you think.
Chapter 1
Lily Beachem
The only reason we’re friends at all is because I pulled them both out of the river.
The sun is at its peak, and the part within my hair burns, a permanent ultra-violet line slowly being tattooed onto my scalp. At least two more trips to my car to go before I’m done. I think I have too much stuff. My belongings are a mere fraction compared to my roommates, though. Morgan’s family came in two vehicles, one of them a truck—the fat kind with a king cab and doubled-up wheels in the back. Brooklyn has literal help, as in people who call her “Miss” and have uniforms on, hauling her things up the walkway and into our dorm room for our final year at Welles Academy.
Our worlds are miles apart, and it’s foolish to think we’ll be able to exist in this small room together for an entire year. My blankets and pillows are knotted up in a black trash bag. Their expensive bedding is new, the tags still dangling from the packaging. Their families are seeing them off, while mine doesn’t see the reasons why I’d want to come to a place like this. I don’t fit in here. I never have. Anika wanted us all to be together, but that was when there were four of us instead of three. She was the nucleus. She brought the harmony.
I miss Anika.
My doubts haven’t slowed since the three of us agreed to follow through with the original plan at the end of last school term. I got caught up in the moment, I guess. Moved by the instant bonding that comes with trauma and a promise to the only friend you’ve ever really had. A summer apart, though, made me realize the three of us were acting out of guilt more than anything. My small-town home in Ohio is a joke compared to their Boston penthouses and sprawling homes on the Cape. But being here in Ashwood, just outside of Boston, is better than being at home. A world built on guilt trumps one crawling with shame.
“Look, someone actually wrote Triple B on our white board,” Morgan says when we reach the landing just outside our door. She lifts the cloth tacked next to the board and erases it with a faint laugh at the memory. I force a tight-lipped smile on my face, one I imagine looks just like the fake smile Brooklyn is wearing, and then head into our room toward the small corner that is mine.
Our last names had always put us in groups together whenever we had to line up for ice breakers and social events, and that’s the only reason we knew each other at all before last semester.
Lily Beachem.
Morgan Bentley.
Brooklyn Bennett.
Triple B, as some of the first form boys called us during physical education our seventh-grade year. They were making commentary on our breast sizes more than our names, even though triple B is not a bra size, and if it were, none of us were hardly enough to fill an A cup. That was before the guys of McKinley Hall had even seen a set of boobs other than in the pages of the magazines some of the older boys snuck into the dorms after trips back home.
Those boys who teased us in their crackling voices while wearing baby-faced grins turned into men wearing suit jackets and ties over washboard abs and smelling of expensive booze they’d snuck in for underground parties. Triple B had disappeared by the time we reached fourth form, when students were no longer forced into proximity with one another based on things like alphabetical order. We chose our own friends. And until last year, I had one, barely. Angela Fischer and I were roommates and more academic arch-nemesis than we were friends. I suspect she liked living with me because she could keep tabs on my progress in all things academic—to make sure her papers and projects were always just a step above. She will, without doubt, be graduating top of our class, and there have been nights I thought she would hold a pillow over my face if it came down to me or her just to make sure she wore the gold honor cords at convocation.
I’ve never been able to figure out why she was so threatened by me. I don’t really care about being valedictorian, or even performing in the top percent of our class. That honor comes with duties like public speaking and mentoring younger students and serving as a prefect. I didn’t want to live with first and second forms when I was one, let alone now that I’m a sixth form. So, while Angela spent our time together worried about ways to defeat me, I put all my effort into doing just poorly enough on my studies to never edge her from the top.
Being above average is enough for me. It’s where I thrive, just off the page out of the spotlight. I don’t exactly fit the “Welles mold.” I don’t own a piece of Burberry or Chanel or Louis Vuitton, and I’m basically academically ambitionless. I’m on the swim team, and if I applied myself, I’d probably dominate. I’d rather just enjoy the silence that comes from the water, though. Don’t get me wrong—I am full of potential. I just don’t want to go to any of the destinations that potential leads to. It’s quite a thing to be so smart that one can outwit the system and fly perpetually under the radar.
That’s what led me to Anika Rothschild, the girls of Hayden Hall, and the night that would change my course forever.
Anika was everything I idolized. She was bold and maybe a little pushy, but in a way that people responded to. We were all fighting for our places in this maze built of limestone, tradition, and rules; meanwhile, Anika acted as if there weren’t any walls around her at all. Her hair was a different color, cut and style every few weeks. Platinum rings pierced her ears in seven different places, and she had a septum ring in her nose that she merely pushed out of sight while in class whenever one of our instructors made mention of her dress code infractions.
If I had the tiniest bit of Anika in my bloodstream, maybe I wouldn’t have run to this place—and away from my problems at home—to begin with. But I wasn’t Anika. I was Lily. Quiet, shy, reserved, timid, awkward Lily with curves and breasts she was desperate to hide under school uniforms and thick tights, and headbands meant for little girls.
It was Anika who brought us all together. We all admired her for our own reasons. And I spent my entire summer wondering what would have happened if our bond was allowed to grow naturally, free of the brute force thrust upon us the night we all got in that car and crashed into the Solemn River. Trauma has a way of forging connections that go against the grain. I am nothing like Morgan, and she is nothing like Brooklyn, who is nothing like either of us. We are three opposites on the friendship color wheel, yet here we are, entering our sixth and final form at Welles Academy, moving our things into the big corner room to live together.
As friends. Just like Anika wanted.
“My brother can help carry the rest of your things from the car.” Morgan spins and falls back on her bed, her gorgeous auburn hair splaying out and her Welles skirt flaring above her knee-high socks. I would give anything to look like that—not her body or hair or skin, just the way she’s always put together. I’m in constant shambles. Even now, my uniform skirt is too big for my waist, leaving it to sag on my hips, which means I must wear a blouse one size too big to make sure it stays tucked in.
“Thanks, but I’ll get it. I think I’m going to visit the pool for a little while. I’ll grab the rest of my things on my way back up.” I flatten my hand on the slick fabric of my suit, scratching my fingertips along it but opting to push it deeper in the drawer. I’m not ready to put it on and get in the water. Not yet.
“Do you want us to come?” Brooklyn’s words are uncertain, matched by the flashing glance Morgan shoots her as she lifts on her elbows. They don’t want to do this with me, which is fine because I don’t want them there.
I smile.
“I’m okay. Thanks, though.”
I wait for Morgan to fall back against her bed and for Brooklyn to return her attention to setting up her desk, arranging the tiny, framed photos of shared moments between her, Morgan, and Anika together. I’m not in a single shot. I wasn’t part of them
Pausing just outside the door, I draw in a deep breath to fill my lungs. They haven’t felt full in months, not since that night. The room remains quiet behind me, and I get some satisfaction from the fact Morgan and Brooklyn can’t easily talk without me.
I opt for the stairs, knowing the elevators are going to be packed with parents and fourth and fifth forms moving in. Minus a few slamming doors to the floors below and the occasional rush of footsteps ducking into the stairwell to avoid the crowds like I am, I’m alone. Off the grid, in a space on the fringe—exactly how I like it.
Maybe I’m not ready to visit the pool. Coach doesn’t expect me on a timeline. Everyone’s giving me grace. They get it.
My feet drag down the steps and my palm slides along the wooden rail, feeling the knicks and grooves from years of wear. My vision hazes and I mentally go back to the river, to the screams and the crunch of metal, the moaning echo of the sedan losing the battle against the water rushing in, taking the car under. The waking nightmare is jarred to an end with the slam of a door below, and I scramble to my feet and check to make sure my eyes aren’t watering.
My palm leaves my face and my eyes open in time to meet his eyes staring up at me from the bottom of the steps. The familiar vision stabs at my chest. Theo Rothschild’s eyes look just like his twin sister’s did, a steely gray-blue that could mirror the sky or water, only the joy I always found in hers is replaced with resentment and pain.
“Change your mind and decide to transfer out?” Theo drops his hands in the pockets of his dress pants and leans against the wall of the stairwell, which suddenly feels smaller.
I match his stare and ignore the thunder in my chest threatening to knock me off my feet.
“No.”
I try to hold my mouth in the same straight line his is showing. Theo Rothschild hates me. Yet I have been in love with him since I arrived at Welles five years ago. We rarely spoke to one another before that night, our worlds two entirely different realms. Anika was the bridge. It’s not why I became her friend, but he would never believe that. And now she’s gone. Because I couldn’t save her.
Theo’s mouth ticks up on one side and his eyes blink slowly as he looks down to his palm, pulling a small tin of mints from his pocket. He stands up straight, leaving the wall’s support, and pulls a mint out and places it in his mouth. He begins to flip the lid closed with his thumb but pauses with a grin. He holds the mint between his teeth and for some reason, it looks threatening. He lets the small metal lid fall open again and holds the tin out toward me, glancing up with one arched brow.
My eyes move to the offering then back up to his waiting expression. This feels like a test.
“No, thank you,” I say, just wanting to move past him and out the door so I can drown my pain without his observation and opinion. He doesn’t move immediately, instead holding the tin out for a few long seconds as his teeth crunch down on the mint in his mouth and his stare holds me captive.
“My apologies. Didn’t mean to interrupt . . . whatever it is you do here.” He flips the tin closed and drops it in his pocket along with his hand. His head tilted to one side, gravity pulls his hair across his forehead, ghosting his eyes. Hostility radiates from him despite the cool demeanor he is working so hard to perfect.
I’m sorry! She was my favorite person. I wanted to be just like her. Please forgive me. Talk to me! We could help each other. I hurt, just like you hurt. Please!
I can no longer take the heat of his presence, and rather than answer, or worse, cry, I dash past him and push out the main door to head out onto the lawn and toward the aquatic center, where I plan on hiding out in the dark locker room until I’m forced to get back to this life.
Chapter 2
Theo Rothschild
By the time I push open the stairwell door, all I can see of Lily is her long brown hair swaying against her back and the flash of white from her knee-high socks.
I never noticed her before Anika introduced us. Maybe we’ve had a class together but I’m not sure. It was probably my fault—my lack of awareness, as Anika used to say—that Lily and I never spoke before the party down at the abandoned barn. My sister had to drag her to it. And even then, it took Lily two hours to finally come sit out by the bonfire with me.
She was shy. I’m . . . definitely not. A few beers in, I figured I’d do my sister a favor and talk to the girl for a while. If getting to know me was that big of a deal to her, I didn’t want to let her down and make her think I was a total dick.
Then the strangest thing happened. Once we started talking, we couldn’t stop. I sobered up during the time because I had no interest in leaving our conversation to get more to drink. Lily didn’t drink at all. I probably would have made fun of that if my sister hadn’t warned me to be gentle and openminded. Actually, polite was the word she used. Because of Anika, I had one of the best nights of my life. Lily and I talked music, college, travel dreams, childhood memories—at least the good ones. There were things she was guarded about, that I could sense were off the table, which I understood. I’ve got shit of my own. But the more hours that ticked by, the more I relaxed and let my mind embrace the idea that maybe, someday—someday soon—I’d share some of that baggage with Lily in hopes she would share hers back.
She had light brown eyes that played tricks on me all night, teasing me with the bits of green and gold. Her hair was pulled into ponytails on either side of her head, and the strands that didn’t fit constantly tickled her face. Her mouth was wide, and when she smiled it lit her up with this unmistakable energy. I liked the way she kept pulling her sweatshirt sleeves down over her hands to keep them warm, and the way her ankles showed under her rolled-up jeans and sockless shoes. She was everything my sister talked her up to be. She was also so much more.
Then they got in that fucking car.
Lily was supposed to be my sister’s friend. Instead, she was one more person who let Anika down. I let her down, too, but not that I didn’t try. Anika never wanted to talk to me the way I wished she would have. Maybe I should have pushed harder. Maybe then I wouldn’t wonder if it was really an accident when she veered off that bridge last spring or if she drove through the barricades on purpose. She shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. That’s one detail I know for sure. Everyone fucking knows thanks to a very public medical history report and the damn gossipy local press. The story was so salacious, Boston picked it up. Scandals like underage drinking at boarding school parties go viral. Add in a stolen car hijacked by a seventeen-year-old girl with a serious seizure disorder and you have the perfect formula for one of those four-part miniseries.
I wonder if Lily ever thought about not coming back. I guess it’s easier to show up at a place that thinks you’re a hero. She probably doesn’t get the same empty glares I get, the frozen O-shaped mouths that don’t know what to say to console me. I’ve been here for less than twenty-four hours and already the murmurs have picked up steam.
His sister just died. How can he come back to this place?
I heard they have a terrible home life. I wonder if they really got along or if it was just pretend?
Why didn’t he save her? Where was he when she got in that car? I didn’t know she was so sick! He never should have left her alone.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut as I back into the stairwell and let the door slam closed, the echo of the metal falling into place loud enough to shake the voices from my head. If I’m going to survive this place—this year—it must be business as usual.
