The Pull of Destiny (5 page)

He didn’t
disappoint.

Luke pointed at
him, then at me. “You know each other?” he asked, while Wendy slung her arms
around both Ahmed and Luke’s shoulders, looking down her nose at me.

“Yeah,” Ahmed
nodded. “She’s- she’s my sister’s friend. We call her the pity friend coz the
only reason Shazia talks to her is because she feels sorry for her.” He sneered
at me. “Ain't that right, Celsi?”

I bit my lip,
trying not to meet anyone’s eyes. So much for Ahmed being nice. “No,” I
muttered, my voice coming out defiant. Shazia wasn’t my friend because she felt
sorry for me. She was my friend because we both loved reading the sappiest,
most cliché romance novels we could find and pretending to be the heroine.

“What are you
doing here, anyway? Bit far from the ghetto, ain’t it?” Ahmed continued, his
words landing hard against my ears.

“She bought me
my homework,” Luke said dismissively as I stared down at my shoes. Wendy
snorted.

“What a loser,”
she said derisively (apparently, it was Open Season on Celsi Sawyer day). “Why
do homework if you didn’t go to school today?”

Luke laughed,
the first time he’d laughed since I laid him out. “My point exactly,” he
agreed.

“Well, I guess
if you’re on Financial Aid, doing your homework is mandatory,” Ahmed said,
smirking down at me as he rubbed his hand over the designer stubble on his
chin. “I mean, she pretty much has to, or it’s back to public school.”

“Where she
belongs,” Wendy piped in.

Wendy and I
haven’t exactly seen eye to eye since I hit her on the ankle with my hockey
stick last year. Her ankle was sprained and she maintained that I had done it
on purpose. What she doesn’t know is that if I had done it on purpose, her
ankle wouldn’t have just been sprained. It would have been broken.

I looked up to
catch Luke staring incredulously at me. My stomach twisted nervously as beads
of sweat started to build up on my forehead despite the perfect temperature in
the room. He was gonna go off on me too, I could feel it.

“Financial
Aid?” he asked, looking at Ahmed, who nodded. “You mean our thirty six grand a
year is paying for
her
education?”

I had gone from
being Casey to being Celsi to being ‘her’.

Thank you,
Ahmed and Wendy.

“Yeah,” Wendy
nodded self-importantly. She rubbed herself against Luke. “And you know what
else? She’s taking up a spot that someone with money and class could be using.”
She sighed in disgust. “I wish they would stop trying to include poor people at
Dalton. Doesn’t elite stand for anything these days?”

I’d had enough.
What these people were saying was hurting my feelings so badly that I could
barely breathe. “I got into Dalton on my own merit,” I said breathlessly,
trying to keep the wobble out of my voice. “I’m smart and hardworking.”

As if that
would sway them.

Luke grinned,
sitting down in his recently vacated seat as I stood. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry
anymore. “Really?” he said, the same friendly grin on his face. “I heard that
the principal makes Financial Aid students perform certain-favors for him.” He
smirked at me. My heart thumped in my chest as my eyes filled with hot, angry
tears. I wanted to scream
. I want to cry.
“So since when is lying on
your back or getting on your knees hard work?”

So
that’s
the type of guy he was. Nice when he’s alone with you, a complete bastard as
soon as his friends show. I got it.

Breathing hard,
I picked up my book bag and Luke’s homework file. I threw the file into Luke’s
surprised face. Papers flew everywhere.

“Here’s your
homework,” I said in a trembling voice, trying not to show how upset I was and
failing miserably. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better leave.”

“Thank God.
You’re lowering the value of the penthouse,” Wendy said, her loud and piercing
voice cutting through me like a knife. What had I done to deserve this? What
was the stigma of Financial Aid?
It’s because you’re black and poor, Celsi. 
Wendy turned to Ahmed, who was swigging down vodka straight from the bottle
as he sat perched on an armrest. “How’d they let her in, with those cheap ass
boots?”

Ahmed
spluttered with laughter. “She probably gave Hans some action. She
is
from the barrio, after all. East Harlem.”

Luke chuckled
as I stumbled out of the room. “I heard girls from there will do anything,” he
said.

My eyes were
stinging with tears as I scuttled across the gallery towards the heavy exit
door. Why had I stayed so long? Why I had I even come? I was dumb. Did I
deserve that kind of treatment?
No one deserves that.
But the elite
Dalton students thought I did. Was that what everyone thought of me? Just some
poor girl from the barrio who was getting by using their tuition? A tear
squeezed out of my eye and I brushed it away, feeling chilled. All my happy
thoughts were gone. For a few minutes, I had thought I belonged, talking to an
Astor. But that same Astor had showed me that I would never belong. Even though
I was at the best private school in the city, I was still a poor outsider, a
minority in their exclusive school and they would never let me forget that. I
pushed open the heavy door, using all my strength.

 Hearing
running steps behind me, I walked faster. It was Luke.

“Celsi! Wait!”

He put a hand
on my shoulder to stop me. I spun around in the foyer, the elevator and my
escape route in sight. “Why? So you can insult me again? Coz if I want some
insulting, I’ll just go home.”

Crap. Why do
I keep saying things I should only think?

A puzzled look
flitted over Luke’s face. “What?” he asked.

Praying that I
wouldn’t cry, I looked up into his face, my eyes flickering over the freckles
on his nose, his thick, dark eyelashes and his soft looking lips. “Listen. I’m
poor, I wear hand me downs and I will never be as rich as you, but when it
comes to treating people with respect and dignity, I have you rich people
whipped.”

Luke bit his
lip, his hand slipping down till it rested on my lower arm, making my heart do
a back flip, even though I couldn’t even feel his hand through my thick jacket.
“Look, I just want to-,” he started softly.

Ahmed stuck his
head around the opened door, holding up a dollar. “Yo, Celsi, I got a dollar.
Will you strip for me?”

Luke turned his
head slightly. “Get inside, dude,” he said impatiently. Obediently, Ahmed
retreated and the door slammed shut. Luke turned back to me, an inscrutable
look in his dark green eyes. I blinked tears away. I didn’t want to cry in
front of him, but when people kept insinuating that I was a slut, just because
of my background and status in life- it hurt me so bad it was like a physical
pain. All I wanted to do was make it back home and break down. “Look Celsi-,”
he began.

I shook his
hand off. “Kindly let go of me. Your friends are waiting so that you can finish
your discussion about how slutty I am.”

And with that
parting shot, I almost ran to the elevator where the door man stood, his face
impassive as he pressed the buttons for me. I was glad, because if his face had
any expression I would have cried.

CHAPTER 3

Mr. guilty.

Luke’s
Point of View

I
didn’t know that guilt messed with your sleep, but after the restless night I
had, I was willing to bear witness on that. It was a fact. I’d write a thesis
on it if I had to. Subject- trying to sleep when your head was pounding so hard
it felt like a giant fist was squeezing your temples is a giant no-no. And even
though I knew that the headache had nothing to do with the Celsi situation, it
wasn’t helping.

I
dragged myself out of bed less than 30 minutes before school started and went
through my usual morning routine -shower, get dressed and stare in the mirror,
hoping that today would finally be the day that my hair would comb itself. It
wasn’t. But this morning, something was off. It wasn’t just the headache (I’d
been having these headaches on and off for a month now, so the pain was
something I was almost used to). It wasn’t even the fact that I was ready for
school exactly 5 minutes earlier than normal (even though it was something I
was sure I wouldn’t be repeating.)

Nope,
the ‘off thing’ was that no matter what I did, Celsi’s face swam in front of my
eyes, her voice ringing accusingly in my ears.

I
rubbed my tired eyes, yawning widely and secretly feeling like a tool. It was
guilt, pure and simple. The insomnia was just my own way of punishing myself
for the way I acted yesterday.

Why
hadn’t I stopped Ahmed and Wendy when it became obvious that they weren’t just fooling
around? Hell, why had I even joined in, insulting someone whose only crime was
bringing me my homework?

Because
you wanted to fit in
,
a small voice in the back of my head said snidely.

I
scowled at my reflection, gripping the rim of the sink so hard my knuckles
turned white.

“I
don’t need to fit in. I’m Luke Astor,” I said out loud, shaking my hair from my
eyes.

Precisely
, the small voice crowed
triumphantly.

I
knew exactly what my conscience was trying to tell me.

I’m
Lucas Patrick Astor the Third, the only son of multimillionaire Lucas George
Astor Senior, and British Baroness Vanessa Wright. Heir to a fortune so huge,
nobody even wants to mention the amount of money I’ll get when I turn 21, let
alone when my dad dies and leaves all his money to me and my half-sister. I’m a
student at one of the most elite schools in New York City and I have my own
private limo
and
driver.

I’ve
got unlimited credit, the pick of the hottest girls in the city and friends who
are always ready to party with me.

And
as that rich, supremely privileged person, I’m expected to act a certain way.
People take one look at me and expect me to be a snobby, spoilt brat, only
interested in spending his dad’s money. And so what do I do? Well, I prove them
right. I act like a snobby, spoilt brat, and I spend my dad’s money. And guess
what?

I
hate every second of it.

I
hate being rich. I hate living in this ridiculously expensive penthouse and
sleeping on 1200 thread count sheets. I hate being tagged the party boy and
acting like a jackass just to fit in with my friends. I hate not living up to
my father’s expectations.

And
most of all, I hate pretending to be someone I’m not. Like roasting a poor,
innocent girl in front of my friends, just because they think it’ll be fun and
because acting like a nasty, stuck up asshole is expected of someone as rich as
me.

‘But
when it comes to treating people with respect and dignity, I have you rich
people whipped.’

Those
words had been floating around my head since last night, intensifying my already
throbbing headache. They cut deep and they made me face the honest truth.

I
was a jerk. And that meant I had to apologize to Celsi, or I wouldn’t be
getting any sleep for a long time. But I wasn’t apologizing just for the sake
of my sleep; I was apologizing because of how hurt and tear-filled her eyes had
been as she had turned to leave in the foyer.

After
I made up my mind to say sorry, a weight felt like it was lifted from my
shoulders. I even started whistling as I grabbed two Tylenol and headed to the
kitchen, which was empty, to get a glass of juice.

My
cheerful mood went down the tubes as my dad strode into the kitchen, his cell
phone clamped to his ear and a scowl on his face. I ignored the scowl,
concentrating on making a sandwich. He was always angry about one thing or
another in the morning. Sometimes, his yelling on the phone was what woke me
up. My own personal (if erratic) alarm clock. But somehow, I knew that today’s
bad mood had something to do with me.

“Hey,
dad,” I said cheerfully, leaning against the kitchen island as my vision
suddenly doubled. Holy crap, what the hell was wrong with me? “Want a
sandwich?”