I nod, but I’m not sure I believe him. Maybe he’s hung up on her still. Maybe he’s thinking about what happened between us and wishing it had happened with her. Maybe he’s comparing us.

I have to get a grip. Why would I be jealous of her? She hurt him.

Me? I’d never do anything like that. I care too much about him to ever hurt him.

Even if that means keeping him from ever finding out the truth.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

We stay after school to work on props again, and we actually start getting some things done. We’ve gathered a huge amount of white Christmas lights, so all we have to do is hang them the night of the dance. Mr. Harkins took our theme and ran with it, buying little fold-up cardboard Eiffel Towers for the tables in the lunchroom and the punch table, and even some of those fake candles to put all over the place.

All that’s left now are the two big signs. One that just says Welcome to the City of Light, which Jen and Alex are working on together, and one huge picture of the Eiffel Tower, which Jackson and I are doing together.

He got the theater director to let him use one of those huge plywood pieces they use for sets. It’s already been used, but we’re going to do the tower on the other side. It’ll be like fifteen feet high and hopefully look amazing! Jackson found a cool picture for us to copy, and we’ll use a projector to flash the picture full-size onto the mural board for us to copy. It’s still kind of hard, but not as much as I would have thought.

Alex and Jen head home early, leaving Jackson and me alone to work on our masterpiece. We get the outline of the tower completely sketched before we call it a night.

We’ve been here so long that now the school is completely empty, which should put me at ease, but something doesn’t feel right. Our shoes squeak on the tiles and echo off the walls.

“This is cool, isn’t it?” Jackson says.

“What? The creepy empty school that can only be out of a horror movie?”

“You’re scared? I didn’t think you were scared of anything.”

I smile. “Oh, I’m scared of plenty.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“What about you? What are you scared of?”

He blinks, more serious than I expected. “You.”

“Me?” I whisper.

He nods. “Stupid, right? You terrify me because…I like you. A lot. It’s the first time I’ve felt like this since Liz.”

My lips twitch, but I don’t smile, because there’s too much bitter in this sweet. I look to the ground. He has more reason to fear me than he realizes. Maybe I’m better off leaving Jackson alone. The closer we get, the more I’m going to hurt him, eventually.

When I don’t say anything else, Jackson picks up his phone and calls his dad for a ride, and we wait in silence.

The sun is already starting to set, we stayed here so long. Thinking back, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

It’s so quiet in the school. So quiet I feel like Jackson can hear my heart beating.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I say. Not because it’s true, but because I need a moment alone to pull myself together.

The hallway is, of course, empty as I walk down it. Except this silence feels thick. I find myself checking around every corner. I won’t actually go to the bathroom. Just a few seconds out here will help.

Then a sound down the hall catches my attention, and I slowly turn to see a figure watching me. A broad-shouldered silhouette, just standing there.

My blood runs cold.

It’s probably just a teacher, right? No reason to freak out.

So why is my heart pounding like it’s ready to explode?

Instincts. Never ignore your instincts. My heart pounds faster, louder. My head buzzing.

The man steps forward, and the second I recognize him, I freeze.

Not him.

It can’t be.

I saw him here once before. I convinced myself he was just the janitor. But now I see the truth. I should have known I was right all along.

His eyes are bloodshot, just the way I remember. Does his breath smell the same? A mix of something rotting and cigarettes? I want to throw up. But most of all, I want to—have to—run.

“Hey there, Exquisite.” He slurs my name the same way I remember.

This cannot be happening. Not now. Not like this, not with Jackson so close by.

How the hell did he find me?

But then I see his janitor’s uniform, and all of the pieces fall together. The notes. How whoever left them knew my name. And how he can be here.

He didn’t find me. He works here. Maybe always worked here.

Westchester isn’t that far from New York. Does he still go there on the weekends?

He always had a bizarre obsession with me and how young I looked. So of course he works in a high school, where he can get an eyeful before he goes to New York to take care of business without getting caught.

After he got rough with me, Luis said he was blacklisted from ever being with me again. So what if he paid for three sessions up front?

I thought that was the end of it.

My mind flashes back to when I passed out in the hallway and thought how much the janitor reminded me of this man.

I thought I was just being paranoid.

But he’s here. In the high school.

I’m shaking now. I have to get rid of him, and fast. If Jackson comes out here and sees him…

“Hi, John,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t sound as shaky as it feels.

“I always knew I’d see you again, Exquisite.”

“That’s not my name and you know it,” I say, but this just makes me feel more like my old self. The old Anna—no, Exquisite—who would crawl into a car with this man. Who hated herself for every second she spent there.

He grins. “That’ll always be your name. I know it. You know it.”

Holy shit does this guy churn my stomach, and the sad thing is that he’s exactly as I remember him. How in the hell did I get into a car with him…let alone what came after?

“Whatever,” I say. “Leave me alone or I’ll tell everyone about you.”

He chuckles, like he sees right through my bluff. “How are you going to do that without telling everyone about yourself?”

“They already know.”

“Not everyone.” He points to the room I came from. The room where Jackson’s waiting for me.

“How do you know?”

“Let me spell it out for you,” he says. “You think he’d spend a second around you if he knew the truth? If he knew the things you’ve done?” He shakes his head. “I’m the only one who knows who you really are. I’m the only one who sees what you’re like inside.” He takes a step forward and raises his hands to embrace me, like I’m some old girlfriend he’s happy to see, but I step back and cross my arms. He frowns. “I’m the only one who loves you for the truth.”

“Don’t touch me,” I spit.

“Now, now, my Exquisite. You don’t need that boy,” he says. “You’re better off without him. He can’t love you for what you are.”

“That just means he’s too good for me,” I whisper.

The john stands and places his hands behind him, like he’s my principal ready to hand down some punishment. “Think what you want to think. Now, you and I have something to discuss.”

I’ve dealt with guys like this for years. So I stop. I take in deep breaths until I’m calm enough to channel the old me. The hardened me. The me who was strong enough to deal with assholes like this.

I back away from him. “No, we don’t.”

“You and me have a debt to settle,” the janitor says.

Of course we do. I’m just merchandise, and he prepaid.

But nothing in the world could make me crawl into a car with him again. He will get nothing from me.

I came home willing to pretend to be someone I’m not. But now I don’t want to pretend. I want to be that new person. I want to leave dirty, tarnished Anna back in New York. And now he wants to turn me back into her.