Filthy Blood, Holy Water

I told Maria I loved her more than anything in this world.

It sounds crazy. I know it does. I am seventeen years old. I met her exactly nine hours ago. But the distance between us physically burns. I can’t stand it. It gnaws at my ribs.

My name is Will. I live in Atlanta. Buckhead, to be exact, behind iron gates that cost more than most people make in a lifetime. I am a college student. But I don’t study. I don't read the books. I don’t take the notes. I don't have to. I have everything I could ever wish for, handed to me on a silver platter before I even know I want it.

I’ve been everywhere. I’ve walked the streets of fourteen European countries. France. Italy. Monaco. Switzerland. Spain. Germany. The list goes on. I’ve stamped my passport in seventeen non-European countries, too. Japan. Brazil. The UAE. Singapore. Morocco.

You know what I learned from all those flights? We are a generation of ghosts.

I spent last summer in Prague, surrounded by European teenagers. Kids just like me. Trust funds. Designer jackets. But their eyes were completely dead. They were wandering through ancient cities, sitting in centuries-old plazas, completely devoid of an identity. Lost. Hollow. Chasing the next thrill because the inside of their heads was too quiet. I was exactly like them. An American kid infected with the same empty, lost identity. I had a black Amex card and absolutely no soul.

Until this morning.

My family has a sickness. We call it "ambition," but it’s a sickness. It’s an ancestral problem. My great-grandfather took land. My father took corporations. I take whatever catches my eye. We get what we want. Always. It’s in my blood. I don't know how to hear the word "no."

This morning was my first day at Saint Jude’s College. I was a transfer student. Again. Saint Jude’s is old, stone-faced, and unforgiving. The community here is deeply religious. They have rules. Rigid, heavy rules that you must abide by. Skirts below the knee. Collars buttoned. Silence in the halls. Prayers before lunch.

I arrived in elite protocol. A convoy. Two black SUVs pulled up to the front steps. My driver, Marcus, stepped out in his suit and opened my door. I stepped onto the pavement wearing a custom watch and a smirk. The students stopped. They stared. I was an alien invading their quiet, pious little world. I didn't care.

I walked into my first class. Ethics.

And then my world stopped spinning.

She was sitting in the third row near the window. Maria.

She wasn't rich. You could tell immediately. Her sweater was faded, the sleeves slightly frayed. Her shoes were scuffed. But her beauty? It was violent. It hit me so hard I forgot how to breathe. It wasn't just her face. It was the way she held herself. Quiet. Solid. Real.

I walked right past the empty front row. I went straight to her row and sat in the empty desk right next to her.

We didn’t speak. I didn't open a notebook. I didn't look at the professor. For an hour and fifteen minutes, I just stared at her. I watched the way her eyelashes fluttered. I watched the way she gripped her pen. She shifted in her seat. Her hands trembled slightly. She knew I was watching. She was afraid of me. She should be. I had already decided she was mine. I had fallen so badly, so deeply, that the floor felt like it was dropping out from under me.

When the final bell rang at the end of the day, I waited for her.

The hallway was packed with students in neat uniforms. I saw her walking toward the exit, clutching a worn-out Bible against her chest.

She had something I didn't. I had the entire material world. I had planes, cars, and penthouses. She had spiritual power. She had a light inside her that I wanted to consume. She wasn't interested in my watch. She wasn't interested in the SUVs waiting outside for me. She despised unmannerly things. She despised arrogance. She despised me.

I cut through the crowd and blocked her path.

"Maria," I said.

She stopped. She didn't look up at my eyes. She looked at my collar. "Excuse me. I need to get by."

Her voice was soft. It drove me crazy.

"I'm taking you out tonight," I told her. It wasn't a question. It was a command. The ancestral blood was boiling up. I wanted her. Therefore, I would have her. "I love you. I know it sounds insane, but I do. I love you more than anything in the world."

She finally looked up. Her eyes were wide, a mix of pure shock and disgust. "You don't even know me. You're sick."

"I'll pick you up at eight." I stepped closer. Too close. I invaded her space, bringing my face down to hers. "You can't say no."

She didn't back away. She didn't cry. The spiritual fire in her flared up.

She raised her hand.

Smack.

The sound echoed off the stone walls. My cheek burned.

The entire hallway went dead silent. Hundreds of religious, rule-abiding students stopped and gasped. The untouchable rich kid, the boy who arrived with a security detail, had just been slapped across the face by the poorest girl in the college.

I stood there, tasting a drop of blood on my lip. I smiled.

And right there, the greatest controversy in the history of Atlanta's most famous teenage college began.

(Part one ends here........to be continued)