THE GIRL HE DROWNED FOR

The boy who wouldn't stop coming after me back then lost his memory. Vaughn Ravenel sat out a year, then applied again and got into my school. When I found out, I started shaking.

I went straight over to file a transfer application. Then, outside the office, I heard that familiar voice, asking by name to be moved into my department.

The department chair sounded uncomfortable. Vaughn didn't care. "Everyone says I went into the ocean for her.

That's how I ended up with the memory problem." "So I'd like to see what she's worth. Worth dying for." Chapter 1 One door between us, and I went rigid.

All the blood in my body rushed to my head. My advisor was still trying to talk me out of it. "Tessa, you're top three in the college.

Transferring would be such a waste." I bit my lip. My fingertips dug into my palm. A waste?

Next to being in that person's sights again, transferring was nothing. "Will you think about it a little longer? If something's wrong, you can—" She stopped midsentence.

The door had just been pushed open. The department chair came in first and stepped aside. Then he walked in. White shirt, black slacks. Tall. Cold eyes. I was standing by the desk.

Our eyes met. My breath almost stopped. His look was calm. It rested on my face for a second and moved on.

He turned to the department chair. "How long until the paperwork's done?" It was like a hand closed hard around my heart and squeezed until it ached. He hadn't recognized me.

Of course. He'd gone into the ocean and hit his head. He woke up remembering nothing. He'd had to learn who he was all over again. Why would he remember me.

He kept pressing, and the department chair was already wiping his forehead. "Let me run it by the dean first—" He cut him off, flat. "Uncle Russ already said yes.

How long do you need? Is three days enough?" The department chair sighed, then answered through his teeth, "Fine. Fine, fine.

I'll get it done as fast as I can." I stood where I was and went cold all over. He donated a building just to move into my department. Just to see what made me worth dying for.

It struck me as ridiculous. And sad. "Professor, I'm not transferring." I said it quietly. My advisor didn't get the chance to look pleased.

She just watched me run out of the office. I didn't stop until the firstfloor lobby, one hand on the wall, breathing hard. I dug through my tote bag for a tissue to wipe my face.

My phone wasn't in my pocket. I must have left it on my advisor's desk. If I went up now, Vaughn would still be in there. I stood in the middle of the stairwell, stuck.

In the end I made myself turn around and go back. I stopped at the thirdfloor landing. He was standing at the railing. Looking down at me. Like a hunter who had spotted his prey.

A shiver went through me, and I took a step back before I could think.

Chapter 2 He came down to me slowly and held out my phone in its kitten case. "Yours." His voice was cool and empty. I looked down and reached for it.

My fingertips brushed his palm. Cold, just for a second. I snatched my hand back. My voice came out dry. "Ththanks." He didn't say anything else.

He turned and went down the stairs. It was almost dark by the time I got back to the dorm. My roommates were gathered together with a deck of cards.

They were one short for spades and asked if I wanted in. I said no. I didn't study either. I climbed into bed and wrapped myself in the blanket.

Every time I closed my eyes I saw the way he'd looked at me. Strange, cold, not a ripple in it. Like we'd never met. I rolled over and stared at the ceiling.

This was better, really. He didn't remember me. I didn't have to hide anymore. The next morning, English class. I picked the corner of the back row on purpose.

Head down, flipping through my notebook. The room was loud. Everyone was talking under their breath. "Hey, did you hear?

Vaughn Ravenel transferred into our department!" "Wait, wasn't he at Marchmont, in finance? What's he doing in the English department at a school like ours?" "Who knows.

I heard the department chair set it up himself.

He's one of those oldmoney princes from Beacon Hill—they go wherever they want." "Shh, keep it down, he's coming in." Vaughn came in dressed all in black, wearing a baseball cap.

His footsteps passed me and stopped at an empty seat in the front row. Yesterday the department chair had said rules were rules and three days was the fastest it could go.

It had come through in less than one. That kind of reach made my skin crawl. It took me back three years. After my father died, my mother married a man with money behind him.

I transferred into an elite private school in the city. The students there all came from money or from powerful families. Then it was my turn to read out loud.

I was nervous, and my thick country accent came right out. The whole class laughed. "Oh my God, what backwater did she crawl out of?" "So hick.

She'd be better off just not talking." I kept my head down and walked to my seat, my face burning. Then a lazy voice came from the back row. "Her grammar was fine.

It's your ears that need fixing." The room went quiet. I turned around. A boy was leaning back in his chair. One long leg stretched out into the aisle.

His blazer hung open over a white Tshirt. He wasn't even looking at me. He was looking out the window. Like he'd said something that didn't matter.

It landed somewhere deep in me anyway. After that day, nobody dared laugh at my accent to my face. After that day, I knew his name. Vaughn Ravenel.

Everyone said he was a prince, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In Boston, the only people who counted as princes came out of Beacon Hill.

My mother took me walking through there once. Old brick, gas lamps, everything from another century. From the street, the houses in those narrow lanes looked shabby.

But inside they were another world, and the curbs were lined with expensive cars. So I knew he and I weren't from the same world. No. Not just him. Me and everyone there.

I never talked about him with the other girls. I didn't want his number and I didn't save pictures of him. All I wanted was to get into a good college and leave.

That day, the bell rang. I was packing up when I found a blue bracelet in my pencil case. I froze and stared at it for a long time.

At lunch I'd caught pieces of what the girls at the next table were saying. Chapter 3 "I heard Vaughn went to an auction over the weekend and bought a sapphire bracelet.

Over eight hundred grand." "They say it's for a girl. You don't think it's for that girl every guy on campus wants, do you?" "No way.

She's been after him for three years and he still hasn't made it official." I put the bracelet in my pocket, careful with it.

After school I went to the gaming lounge he always went to. When I pushed open the door of the private room, he had headphones on and was in the middle of a match.

The light off the screen cut hard lines across his face. The boy next to him heard the door and turned around. "Tessa?" Vaughn pulled off the headphones and looked over.

He saw what was in my hand, and his brow tightened, so slightly I almost missed it.

I held the bracelet out to him. "I'm giving this back." He looked at me sideways, eyes narrowed. "It's for you." I shook my head. "I don't need it." His face went dark all at once.

His Boston accent pushed through the anger. "You take it when I tell you to take it. Why are we still talking?" "I—" I still wasn't getting the message.

He threw the headphones down. "Don't make me say it a third time." It startled me. I shrank back. I bit my lip, set the bracelet on the table, and turned to go.

Behind me the other boy said, sounding amazed, "Holy shit, she actually had the nerve to turn you down?" Vaughn didn't answer. But I could feel his eyes nailed to my back.

After that day, Vaughn started giving me things. Food, clothes, anything. Things I'd seen and things I'd never seen, handed to me like favors from on high.

Before long, people at school started talking. "Did Tessa actually land Vaughn? He gives her presents every single day! Must be nice." "I heard her mom married up for money.

Guess she's going for the same thing." "God, no shame. Has she looked in a mirror?" I was cut out of everything. The girls stopped talking to me.

Nobody sat next to me in the dining hall, nobody picked me for group projects. Even walking to the bathroom, I had whispering behind me.

Worse, Vaughn started driving me home whether I wanted it or not. Every day after school his black Maybach was parked at the gate.

He'd be leaning against the door with a cigarette, and through the smoke he'd lift his chin at me. "Be good.

Come here." I would go over, obedient, and he'd smooth a hand over my hair.

Then grin. "I'm taking you to dinner." He was gentle enough about it that for a while I believed he was gentle. He wasn't. His moods turned without warning.

If he saw me talking to a boy, he'd go dark and demand to know what we were to each other.

When I wouldn't say, he'd have the boy beaten up, and then make him disappear from the school. I wasn't a pushover either.

In front of everyone, I took the flowers he'd had flown in and dumped them in a trash can. "Vaughn Ravenel, I'm not your toy. If you've got it in you, kill me." He didn't hit me.

He didn't come after me either. He changed targets. He went after my stepfather's company. The suppliers all cut them off at once. Thirty million dollars in orders, gone.

My stepfather broke out in cold sores and took it out on everyone.

That day he called me into his study, his face gray. "Tessa, what exactly is going on between you and Vaughn Ravenel?

His family is coming after me!" I had a fair idea it was Vaughn's doing.

But I wasn't going to admit anything about him in front of my stepfather. "I don't know." My stepfather gave a cold laugh. "You don't know?" "He's circling you at school every day.

You think I don't hear about it?" Chapter 4 "Tessa, you listen to me. Your mother married into this house. We feed you, we put clothes on your back.

You're going to go make things right with Vaughn!" "I can't do that." It was the first time I pushed back, and it brought out the ugliness in him. "Fine.

Then you can watch your mother go under with me. Nobody's walking away from this." That night he and my mother fought. She cried until morning. Something broke loose in me.

I ran out of the house and went to Vaughn's. I dragged him out to the rocks north of the city and told him we were going to die together.

It was the first time I ever saw him afraid. "Tessa, I was wrong. Come back here.

Come on." I stood out on the rocks with the water breaking against the stone under my feet. "Vaughn, I hate you.

I hate that you walked into my world!" "Why can't you leave me alone? I'm an ordinary person. I just want an ordinary life.

I'm not a toy for people like you—" He watched me, and his eyes were red. "I like you. I really do like you." He climbed up to pull me back. A wave came in.

It took us both into the water. I couldn't swim. He got his arms around me and swam up. But the swells were too big. They came like they wanted to tear us apart. He shoved me.

I came up. He didn't. They pulled him out later. He was unconscious for three days. When he woke up, he'd forgotten me. The bell rang.

My roommate Nadine tapped me. "Tessa, dinner!" I looked up and made some sound back. I put my bag on and walked out.

Passing the front of the room, I shifted to the side without thinking. He went by right then. His arm brushed my shoulder. Barely anything. I locked up and my feet stopped.

He didn't seem to notice. He walked straight out. Nadine and I took the treelined path by the field on the way to the dining hall. Vaughn was standing under a maple.

There was a girl with him. She was wearing a Chanel suit, her makeup perfect. She had her arm through his, close. He frowned a little and pulled his arm free. "Go back.

Don't make trouble here." She pushed her lip out and said something I couldn't hear. Her hand didn't dare go back on him.

While we ate, Nadine brought him up out of nowhere. "Tess, do you know why he transferred into our department?" I knew who she meant instantly.

I kept my head down and didn't answer. Nadine blinked at me like she had a secret. "People are saying he came for a girl in our department.

Guess who?" I opened my mouth, and she cut me off, laughing. "Well, it's not me and it's not you." When she'd finished laughing, my phone buzzed.

A text from my advisor. [Tessa, come by my office after you eat.] [There's a new transfer student moving into your room.

Would you take her over for housing checkin?] I cleared my tray fast and went. When I opened the door, the girl who'd been standing with Vaughn was sitting there.

She got right up when she saw me. And put out her hand. "Hi, I'm Vaughn's girlfriend. Bettina Sutherland." Her voice was sweet enough to make your teeth ache.

I looked at the hand for two seconds. Then I took it. "Hi. I'm Tessa Marsh." Her smile got sweeter. "We're roommates now.

I hope you'll look out for me." I nodded and left it at that. I walked her back to the dorm. She talked the whole way. Chapter 5 "Tessa, I hear you get really good grades.

Can I come to you when I'm stuck?" "Where do you buy your clothes? The cuts are so plain—but they suit you, actually." "Do you not wear makeup? You look a little washed out.

A girl should know how to put herself together if she wants guys to notice her." I answered each one, not warm, not cold. Back in the room, Bettina started unpacking.

Designer bags, designer clothes, piled across half the bed. The others came over to look. She was generous. She had a little gift for every one of them. Every one but me.

I sat down in the desk chair and opened a book. One page in, my phone started buzzing. A message request had popped up. The account name: Vaughn Ravenel.

I hesitated a few seconds, then accepted. His reply came almost the second I did. [My girlfriend has a temper.

Cut her some slack in that room.] Before I could answer, the front desk downstairs called and told me to come sign for something. An envelope.

Inside was a check for ninety thousand dollars. I looked at the number and my mouth pulled sideways. Three years of tuition and living expenses.

He'd written it out without a second thought and flung it at me. [If she has a hard time in there, I'm coming after you.] I never deposited it. I never answered.

I turned my phone off and went back to my book. Being Vaughn's girlfriend made Bettina the center of that room. The other three roommates turned into her entourage fast.

They ate together, went to class together, shopped together. Bettina had no richgirl airs at all. With them she was warm. With me she was cool. Always that polite distance.

Once I was in the library bathroom. The stall door was shut, and I heard her voice outside. "Tessa? Oh, I've met her. She's not really what you all said. She's very dull.

Very boring." "Her underwear is so dated. Our housekeeper wouldn't wear it. Looks like the kind that's three for ten dollars." "Her body's not bad, though. Small waist, long legs.

Maybe she's had work done. How else would a poor girl end up looking like that?" I waited until she was gone before I came out. It made me a little angry. It didn't really touch me.

I only went back to the room to sleep. Most of my time I spent in the library. Or volunteering at the animal shelter off campus. Feeding the cats and dogs, cleaning cages.

My days were simple and quiet. Until that one.

Nadine, the one roommate I was on halfway decent terms with, texted me. [Tess, it's Bettina's birthday and the whole room's going out for karaoke.] [Don't say no, okay?

Everyone's going. Don't let it get any worse than it already is.] I stared at the screen a long time. In the end I sent back one word. [Okay.] Eight that night, the karaoke room.

They were already singing. The lights were low enough that I couldn't see much. I found a corner seat and drank a few mouthfuls of my drink.

My stomach turned over fast, and I got up for the bathroom. Coming back, I heard Bettina's voice around the corner. I hadn't meant to listen.

But the voice that answered her stopped me where I was. "I saw the photos you took." It was Vaughn. Bettina huffed. "So what do you think of Tessa?

Is she your type?" "Honestly, I don't get it. Some hick like that, and you go to all this trouble digging into her!" Vaughn was quiet for a long moment.

Then a short laugh through his teeth. "Dull and tacky. I don't know what I ever saw in her." Chapter