Wreck Me (Corrupt Legacy Series #2)

It resembles a ballroom with a buffet spread along the right wall. Tables with six seats line the room strategically so that each student can have a view of the garden from the impressive windows.

After ordering a smoothie, I sit at our table in the middle of the room. While sipping my mixed fruit and vegetable smoothie, my attention is drawn to Dane. Jessica is openly vying for his attention, draped all over him.

More students surround him. He’s a people magnet.

Dane doesn’t seem to mind the attention, chatting and smiling with ease, even though he has the audacity to look at me.

“He’s an attention whore who screams troublemaker. What was in the witch’s head?” And this coming from Blake says it all.

Good connections. That’s what he has to have.

“Exactly, and that’s the point. It’s not about him necessarily, but about the school’s reputation,” Bailey replies to Blake, dunking a fry in ketchup. “Proving how well this school can reform even the worst troublemakers.”

“He can’t be that bad. He’s just a cliche of a bad and lost teenage boy, wanting to compensate for lack of attention. Or a typical case of a rich and bored boy who did something bad and now is doing his penance.”

It’s as if he hears me. Dane never averts his gaze, holding me captive and intrigued.

I peel my eyes away from him, which is harder than I’d like.

There’s just something about him calling to me.

For a few precious moments, I forget about the world around me.

I lean my head against Kaden’s shoulder as he continues writing her a letter.

Celine, you’re one lucky girl. I miss her. I miss having all of my friends, us as a unit, even though I wonder how we can come back from this.

Even if my relationship with Kaden is fake, will she ever be okay with that? The thought alone opens the gates of despondency inside me.

“He’s really good,” Bailey says, watching something on her phone.

“What?” I must have zoned out again.

“Dane. He’s the youngest Formula One Champion. His father was a legend,” Blake says.

“He got suspended after participating in a street race on the night he won the championship,” Bailey replies.

Reckless and an adrenaline junkie. Whatever. He got the chance to do what I never could—live my dream—and he ruined it. It’s unfair, but again, when is life fair?

I need air.

As I stand up, four pairs of eyes fixate on my barely touched smoothie.

“Abi, eat,” Kaden says.

“I’m fine.”

“It gets worse when you’re nervous. Are you nervous?” Bailey says.

“No one is making me nervous.”

I grit my teeth while my friends stare at me pointedly. It’s a chore getting out of the cafeteria. I walk out, each step flowing with precision and elegance. I have to be the embodiment of grace. All my childhood, I spent hundreds of hours with a book on my head. All those tedious hours weren’t for nothing.

When I am outside, I take a sharp right and wander toward the rose garden behind the building. Benches line the right side of the cobblestone path.

I sit down, welcoming the privacy the big, old oak offers. The sun’s rays peek through its branches, and some birds chirp. It is silent and peaceful—everything my mind isn’t. Closing my eyes, I breathe in and out in a soothing rhythm.

When I inhale again, smoke catches in my lungs. My eyes fly open as a fit of coughing scrapes at my throat.