Kathryn:
The social order at our little boarding school has experienced its second major upheaval in one year with the arrival of another new student. He is handsome. He is intelligent and well-read but doesn't shove it in everyone's faces the way Marcel does. He is charming, seductive, and utterly bound to the girl who until recently was considered the perfect little darling angel of the school.
They know that we're lovers.
They know that we're step-siblings.
They know that we're unapologetic players with some pretty vicious deeds in our past, and that we still regularly partake at the type of after-hours parties where drugs and alcohol flow in abundance.
Many of my friends here are shocked, shocked. I now have zero chance of becoming head of the student governance council. But the artsy crowd, Thea Drakis's clique, is behind us. The cynical, theatrically pretentious Greek shipping heiress and her cohort of artistic and misfit friends lionize us. They think our relationship is perverted and romantic at the same time. I was the one who made sure we would have this safe harbor—Sebastian never thought of it. In this way I protect him. He, in turn, has promised me that I will never again have to face my mother alone.
I believe him, because he's kept his first promise.