Vain

PROLOGUE

Vanity’s a debilitating affliction. You’re so absorbed in yourself it’s impossible to love anyone other than oneself, leaving you weak without realization of it. It’s quite sad. You’ve no idea what you’re missing either. You will never know real love and your life will pass you by.

But you will see.

One day you will blink and the haze will dissipate. You’ll discover that what once defined you has wilted into graying hair and wrinkled skin. Frantic, you’ll glance around yourself, in hopes of finding those you swore adored you, but all you will find is empty picture frames.

CHAPTER ONE

Six weeks after graduation and Jerrick had been dead for three of them. You’d have thought it would’ve been enough for us all to take a breather from our habits, but it wasn’t.

I bent to snort the line of coke in front of me.

“Brent looks very tempting tonight, doesn’t he?” I asked Savannah, or Sav as I called her for short, when I lifted my head and wiped my nose.

Savannah turned her glassy eyes away from her Special K laced O.J., her head wavering from side to side. “Yeah,” she lazily slurred out, “he looks hot tonight.” Her glazed eyes perked up a bit but barely. “Why?”

“I’m thinking about saying hello to him.” I smiled wickedly at my pseudo-best friend and she smiled deviously back.

“You’re such a bitch,” she teased, prodding my tanned leg with her perfectly manicured nail. “Ali will never forgive you for it.”

“Yes, she will,” I said, standing and smoothing out my pencil skirt.

I could’ve been considered a dichotomy of dressers. I never showed much in the way of skin because, well, my father would have killed me, but that didn’t stop me from choosing pieces that kept the boys’ tongues wagging. For instance, everything I owned was skin tight because I had the body for it, and because it always got me what I wanted. I loved the way the boys stared. I loved the way they wanted me. It felt powerful.

“How do you know?” Sav asked, her head heavily lolling back and forth on the back of the leather settee in her father’s office.

No one was allowed in that room, party or no, but we didn’t care. Sav’s parents went to Italy on a whim, leaving her house as the inevitable destination for that weekend’s “Hole,” as we called them. The Hole was code for wherever we decided to “hole up” for the weekend. My group of friends was, at the risk of sounding garish, wealthy. That’s an understatement. We were filthy, as we liked to tease one another, double meaning and all. Someone’s house was always open some random weekend because all our parents traveled frequently, mine especially. In fact, almost every other weekend, the party was at my home. This isn’t why I ruled the roost, so to speak. It wasn’t even because I was the wealthiest. My dad was only number four on that list. No, I ruled because I was the hottest.

You see, I’m one of the beautiful people. That truly sounds so odd to have to explain, but it’s the truth nonetheless. I’m beautiful, and it’s not because I have a healthy dose of self-esteem, though I have plenty of that. It’s obvious in the way I look in the mirror, yes, but even more obvious in the way everyone treats me. I rule this roost because I’m the most wanted by all the guys, and all the girls want to be my friend because of it.

“How do you know?” she asked again, agitated I hadn’t yet answered.

This made my blood boil. “Stuff it, Sav,” I ordered. She’d forgotten who I was and I needed to remind her.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, shrinking slightly into herself.

“I know because they always do. Besides, when I’m done with their boys, I give them back. They consider it their dues.”

“Trust me,” she said quietly toward the wall, “they do not consider it their dues.”

“Is this about Brock, Sav?” I huffed. “God, you are such a whiny brat. If he was willing to cheat on you so easily, he wasn’t worth it. Consider it a favor.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she conceded but didn’t sound truly convinced. “You saved me, Soph.”

“You’re welcome, Sav,” I replied sweetly and patted her head. “Now, I’m off to find Brent.”

I stood in front of the mirror above her dad’s desk and inspected myself.

Long, silky, straight brown hair down to my elbows. I had natural blonde highlights throughout its mass. I’d recently cut my bangs so that they fell straight across my forehead. I ruffled them so they lay softly over my brows. I studied them and felt my blood begin to boil. The majority of girls at Jerrick’s funeral suddenly had the same cut and it royally pissed me off. God! Get a clue, nimrods. You’ll never look like me! I puckered my lips and applied a little gloss over them. My lips were full and pink enough that I didn’t need much color. My skin was tanned from lying by the pool too much after graduation, and I’d made a mental note to keep myself indoors for a bit. Don’t need wrinkles, Soph. My light gold eyes were the color of amber and were perfect, but I noticed my lashes needed a touch more mascara. I did this only to darken them up a bit, not because they weren’t long enough. Like I said, I was practically flawless.

“He won’t know what hit him,” I told myself in the mirror. Sav mistook this for speaking to her and I rolled my eyes when she responded.

“You play a sick game, Sophie Price.”

“I know,” I admitted, turning her direction, a fiendish expression on my unblemished face.

I sauntered from the room. As I passed the throngs of people lined against the sides of the hall that lead from the foyer to the massive den, I received the customary catcalls and ignored them with all the flirtatious charm that was my forte. I was the queen of subtlety. I could play a boy like a concert violinist. I was a master of my craft.

“Can I get you boys anything?” I asked as I approached the elite group of hotties that included Ali’s Brent.

“I’m fine, baby,” Graham flirted, as if I’d ever give him the time of day.

“You look it,” I flirted back, just stifling the urge to roll my eyes.

“Since you’re offering so nicely, Soph,” Spencer said, “I believe we could all use a fresh round.”

“But of course,” I said, curtsying lightly and smiling seductively. I purposely turned to make my way toward the bar. I did this for two reasons. One, to make them all look at my ass. Two, to make them believe I’d only just thought of the next move on my playing board. I turned around quickly and caught them all staring, especially Brent. Bingo. “I’ll need some help carrying them all back,” I pouted.

“I’ll go!” They all shouted at once, clamoring in front of the other like cattle.

“How about I choose?” I said. I circled the herd, running my hand along their shoulders as I passed each one. Spencer visibly shivered. Point, Soph. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” I said, stopping at Brent. I followed the line of his throat and caught a glimpse of him swallowing, hard. “Would you help me, Brent?” I asked nicely without any flirting.

“Uh, sure,” he said, setting down his own glass.

I linked my arm through his as we walked to the bar. “So how are you and Ali doing?” I asked him.

He gazed at me, not hearing a word I’d said. “What?” he asked.

Exactly.

Three hours later and Brent was mine. We’d ended up sprawled out on the ancient Turkish rug in Sav’s parents’ bedroom, our tongues in each other’s throats. He threw me underneath him and hungrily kissed my neck but stopped suddenly.

“Sophie,” he breathed sexily in my ear.

“Yes, Brent?” I asked, ecstatic I’d gotten what I wanted.

He sat up and gazed down on me like he’d never really seen me before. I smiled lasciviously in return, tonguing my left eyetooth. “Jesus,” he said, a trembling hand combed through his hair, “I am such a fool.”

“What?” I asked, sitting up, stunned.

“I’ve made a horrible mistake,” he told me, still wedged between my legs. No need to tell you how badly that stung. “I’ve had too much to drink,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Sophie. You being the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever met’s clouded my judgment, badly. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

At that most fortunate of moments, we heard Ali calling out Brent’s name in the hall outside the door and he tensed, his eyes going wide. I could only inwardly smile at what was to come. Before he’d had a chance to react to her calling to him, she’d walked into the room.

“Brent?” she asked him. She saw our position and the recognition I’d seen in all the others before her was so obviously written all over Ali. She wasn’t going to fight it. “I’m sorry,” she said politely, like I wasn’t in a compromising position on the floor with her boyfriend. She’s so pathetic, I thought. She closed the door. We heard her pounding the floor to the stairs, running toward Sav no doubt. Sav would have to pretend she had no idea.

He threw himself to his feet, abandoning me haphazardly on the carpet and immediately began chasing her. Well, that’s a first, I thought to myself. Usually they went right back to business, but I suppose we hadn’t gotten far enough. Yeah, that’s why he left you lying here, half-undressed, chasing after his girlfriend, Soph.

I balked at my own idiocy and stood up.

I walked to Sav’s parents’ bathroom and leaned over her mother’s side of the double sinks. I fixed my bristled hair and ran my nail along the line of my bottom lip, fixing any gloss smudges. I tucked my formfitting black-and-white V-striped silk button-up back into my pencil skirt and stared at myself.

A single tear ran down my cheek and I grimaced. Not now, I thought. I was my own worst enemy. That was my secret weakness. Rejection. Rejection of any kind, in fact. I hated it more than anything.

“You’re too beautiful to be rejected,” I told the reflection in front of me, but the tears wouldn’t stop.

I ran the tap and splashed a little water on my face before removing the small bag of coke I’d hidden in my strapless. I fumbled with the little plastic envelope, spilling it onto the marble counter and cursed at the mess I’d made. I scrambled for something to line it with, finally stumbling upon her father’s medicine cabinet. I removed the blade from her father’s old-fashioned razor and made my lines. I remembered her mom kept small stacks of stationery paper in her desk in the bedroom and I went straight for that, rolling the paper into a small tube.

The tears wouldn’t stop and I knew I wouldn’t be able to snort with a snotty nose. I went to her parents’ toilet and tugged at a few squares of toilet paper, blew my nose, then flushed it down. I swiped at the tears on my cheeks and bent over my lines just about the time a policeman came rushing in, catching me right before the act for the second time that night.

“What are you doing? Put your hands on your head,” I heard a man’s deep voice say.