Miami is so searing hot that when the private touches down, the asphalt of the plane runway is soft, soft enough to write your names in it. The streets are practically frying as my python pumps step onto it and the sun blinds me even though my eyes are hiding behind a pair of neon-green tiny round sunglasses from Poppy Lissiman.

I'm glad I got myself spray-tanned because as the Rolls Royce we ordered to take us to the hotel pulls up to the private airport's runway, I catch my reflection staring back at me on the car's tinted windows and admire how my newly-bronze skin is looking against the skinny white Seven shorts and the matching cropped Moschino vest. Luciana notices me looking at myself on the car doors and snorts quietly to herself beside me. I send her a bitchy look and kiss Orson on the cheek. The smug look wipes off her face.

"Spring Break and Ultra, here we go!" Hanif screams, popping a cork of champagne. To really set the mood, Hanif looks even more ready to party in a neon Off-white distressed t-shirt and denim biker shorts.

Luciana squeals, her screams piercing my ears; she looks beyond excited. "Give me that!" She grabs the massive bottle of Dom and begins to pour the foamy liquid down her throat.

The bottle is passed around the group as we all pile into the fleet of Rolls Royces parked outside of the private airport. An attendant takes my two LV duffle bags and dumps them into the boot.

"Babe," Orson smirks at me, grabbing me by the buttcheek.

"Stop!"

He's still smirking as he shoves the bottle in my hand. "Do yourself a favor and help yourself."

I roll my eyes but I gladly take it from him. I gulp it down in two big swallows, the foam spilling from my lips. Orson bends down, his tall frame meeting my much smaller one to lick the white liquid off my lips. I do not miss the burning jealousy in Luciana's eyes when her gaze skims Orson kissing my soft lips and I am sure to deepen the kiss with Orson until she looks away, sick with disgust and want.

Luciana looks disgruntled and yet shocked at this development with Orson and I, my burgeoning popularity, and my position welcomed in this hierarchy. She still remembers me as the mysterious Californian new girl, a nobody in society's pages, the underdog, like a little non-threatening puppy running around the jungle with the lions- throw some kibble at it, watch it dance on its little leash, oh quite cute, it definitely won't kill me in the night.

And when she was shipped off to Connecticut, I took the six months of her absence to dethrone Carmen, ensnare Orson and deepen Parker's loyalty to me. Think about it: You were top shit of the private school rings; you were little Miss Princess Trust Fund, doing your best Diana act and adopting the new girl, only for New Girl to usurp everything in your downfall.

It must not feel good.

With Spring Break and Ultra descending upon Miami, the streets we drive past are full of college students flocking to the beach in bikinis and board shorts, showing tanned, toned bodies running to the golden coast and blue horizon. The funniest thing about Miami, I observe from the cooling atmosphere of the Rolls Royce, is that the guys all wear slider sandals with black or white socks on the beach even though it's so hot out. Though, no matter the hottest college girls, no one can compare to the way the Elite do Miami.

We booked out the Versace Mansion for our party- all ten lavish suites for eight of us to party in, with whomever we see fit to join us from the week-long festivities of Spring Break and the festival. I gasp the minute my heels click upon the Greco-Roman mosaic tiles, absorbing the opulent, Mediterranean revivalist architecture against the loud furniture- sleek black couches with white trimmings and cheetah and zebra printed pillows. The white Grecian statues in every column and the white balconies overlooking the most gorgeous pool I've ever laid my eyes on (as it is famously known to be inlaid with thousands of 24-karat gold tiles all imported from Italy) made me feel like I'm no longer in Miami, except that I'm transported through time to another era, where I'm some Roman noblewoman traipsing through the luxurious halls of her Roman Villa.

After Orson puts his handy American Express black card on the tab, we are promptly booked in. Orson takes my hand as he guides me to the suite he booked for the two of us- the Venus Suite. The suite has the same campy extravagance as the rest of the hotel and there's a little bit of musty-antique smell in the sitting room but as soon as open up the elegant gold doors, the Miami beach air freshens everything up.

Aside from white brocade sofas, every single object in the cavernous suite appears to be made of gold. The ceiling features a gorgeous floral mural of Italian grapevines, lined in gold. The baroque console tables are gilt gold. The Venetian mirrors and candelabra lining the walls are gold. The elaborate tassels on the gold damask curtains are yet a deeper shade of gold. Massive gold Roman-style vases even hold a bouquet of sunflowers, their petals more of a yellowish golden hue.

To make matters even more surreal, the middle of the room is dominated by this giant king-size bed with a gold-gilded brown velvet headboard and an Italian renaissance baroque-inspired blanket in brown and gold.

"Holy shit," I gape at everything around me as the hotel attendant behind me delivers my two Louis Vuitton duffle bags to the suite's sitting room. On one of the beautiful white coffee tables, an Anna Vasily cream glass ice bucket with a hand-polished brass pedestal demands attention as it holds two bottles of Ace of Spades champagne with two Tiffany flute glasses.

Orson is quick to disregard all the beauty in the room and grabs the champagne with a quick grin. "Are you ready for Spring Break?"

To be honest no. I've seen some pretty intense levels of hardcore partying from the Elite; the nightly rages, the drink-binging, the drugs. Coke to the private schoolers of New York is as widely accepted as Apple Pay at this point. But this is Spring Break, where the levels of debauchery would be elevated to Adephagian proportions, as Spring Break is the holiday where all hell breaks loose.

I grab the flute and toast him with a glint in my eye. "Hope to see you on the flip side, Calloway."

-

The party-hungry crowd of bored, chaos-craving teenagers rain hell upon the streets of Miami in a sun-scathed bacchanalia, rowdy and raging in every bar and club. The boys are all frat-guys galore, wearing their privilege, the kind of boys you might lap-shimmy, beer-breathed at parties, mighty letter jacket kings. The girls are suburban queens of mean, spray-tanned cheerleading bitches with glittery bronzer and teeny-tiny bikinis. They're demigods and small-town starlets of their commonplace high school world, consisting of a gum-stuck, locker-slamming, shoe-skidding tedium that they think so highly of.

No matter who they are, no matter what Homecoming crown you wear, no matter what title you wear in your lame, nobody-town high school, you cannot hold a candle when it comes to the Elite Kings and Queens. We own New York- and therefore the world.

When they see us Elite, flaunting our designer suits down the street, arriving in our sports cars and gleaming Rolls, they know immediately from the toned-leg sporting Jimmy Choos, we are the privileged trust-fund babies they envy. They know we dominate the society pages of the New Yorker, The Cut, Vanity Fair; we're the socialites that command culture, that influence minds.

We don't follow trends, we are the trends.

There are two kinds of rich people in the world. There are people with money, and then there are people with wealth. People with wealth are true-blue old money, the equivalent of modern-day royalty. Just the last name alone- Calloway- is enough to invoke such respect.

So Thursday night, the night before Ultra, just as the limo is supposed to arrive to escort Orson, me, and the rest of our group to a South Beach rooftop club party, I stand in the mirror of our suite's bedroom twirling around in the outfit I've picked out for the night.

"That looks great on you," a voice calls out from behind me, "But the white one looks better."

I whirl around. Even in the warm weather, Orson is wearing a navy J. Press button-down shirt tucked into long trousers. While his friends have opted for more casual options in Off-White t-shirts and Yeezys sweats, Orson is a blue-blooded Manhattan boy who lives and dies in his tailored suits- even during something as quotidian and juvenile as Spring Break.

"The white bustier is lingerie," I tell him with an arched eyebrow.

"So?"

"I can't wear that out."

"I just don't think the dress is very Spring-Break Miami," Orson says, his hand skimming over the silk material of my dress. I turn to face the long gilded mirror again to admire the vintage Chloe dress I've put on- it's long, brown, and sleek, with tiny pearlescent beads sewn diagonally across the bodice, and two delicate beaded strands, like necklaces, to hold it up.

"Good for dinner with the family maybe but come on, this is Spring Break. Tomorrow, we'll be rolling off our faces at Ultra, raving butt-naked."

I roll my eyes, "Fine, I'll take it off."

He sits down on the bed with a self-satisfied smirk I want to slap off. "That's what I wanted in the first place."

"Lame," I murmur as I slide down my dress. I'm not wearing underwear underneath, no bra; just pure velvety tan skin, and his mouth goes O at the exposure.

He starts kissing my neck and his hand is roaming through my body, "Do you think we have time to squeeze a quick one in?" I whisper.

"Hmm, just a quick one?"

"I don't want the others to wait," I giggle as his hand finds its way to my throat and he's massaging the skin underneath and he kisses the collarbone.

I see the cheekiness burning in his eyes as he releases my throat and shoves me down on the bed. "They'll wait," he says with such nonchalance as he dives into me.

The more I have sex with Orson, the more I start to understand his obsession with it. Why he's such a player, why he has it so many times- and why sex is really the only thing he likes to enjoy, amongst other sins. I think it has to do with control.

Orson has an overbearing father who criticizes and hates everything he does. Orson is reckless and impulsive; he seems like a guy who doesn't care at all, wearing indifference and apathy like a crown but in actual fact, he's so driven by emotions that he acts out. He acts out bad, so bad, and he can't control it.

The sex is rough. Rougher than it is before. It starts off sweet and gentle with a lot of kissing and touching but before I know it, he has two hands on my throat. Orson has choked me plenty of times with some light force but as his fingers dug harder into the nape of my neck, I'm struggling to get air in. I slap his hand lightly, to gesture to him to lighten his grip. But he doesn't.

Instead, he digs his fingers harder.

I'm panicking now, my little body flailing under his grip as I sit on top of him. It isn't until I use my elbow and hit him in the face, that he lets go.

I push him off and gasps as I roll off his body and glare at him. "What the fuck, Orson?"

My scream sounds far away in my ear. Orson's eyes seep with the realization that he nearly performed some kind of erotic asphyxiation. Is this what Orson's dad meant about getting me killed?

My heart is pounding with a sudden sharp pang of fear as Orson scrambles with a reply: "I'm sorry- I just- I don't know what got into me," he stammers. "Are you okay?"

I take a look in the mirror. There are nail marks on my neck and some deep, dark bruising in the form of handprints. What the fuck. I try to play it off cool while simultaneously digesting that Orson might've just tried to kill me.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

The strangest thing, though, isn't the fact that Orson almost strangled me. It's that it doesn't look like him when he did it- the expression on his face when his hands are digging into my throat seems to be replaced by a blank, slate look. It's like Orson was out of his body when he did and only came back into his mortal shell when I screamed at him.

Orson touches my arm and I flinch. "Are you sure?"

A horn honks outside. "Guys, the limo is here!" Parker says outside the door of our suite. I pull back the heavy brocade curtains and see the limo waiting outside the hotel, the driver patiently standing by the car door ready to take us to the club.

"I'm great," I say to Orson, plastering on a coy smile. "Just got a little crazy in bed, no big."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, just go join the others. I gotta get dressed and you know, fix this mess," I point to the bruises on my neck.

Orson nods as if to say sure whatever you want. I head into the bathroom and as soon as I hear the door click shut, signaling he's gone, I grab my phone and promptly take photos of the bruising. Could be blackmail, could be evidence, could be leveraged. Nonetheless, it's important and I can use it.

Then as I smear Tarte's concealer onto my neck and buff it out with a beauty blender, my phone rings. It's from Hadley, my cousin. I pick it up.

"Hey, how's Spring Break?" Hadley asks, her breathing heavy against the phone line.

"Not bad, still alive. What's with the call?'

"I'm just calling to tell you to watch out. That girl, Luciana, remember her?"

I heave a breath. I remember our little fight in the bathroom; I know my words and my condescending smirks thrown in her directions have set her off. And now with Hadley's call, she played right into my hands.

"Yeah, she's an Elite. She's on Spring Break with me. Why?"

"Well, she just- out of nowhere- DM me on Instagram," Hadley announces, her tone grave, "Asking me about you, who your parents are. I didn't even think she knew I existed. She's digging around for information about you."

Yes, you guess that right. Did I purposely make Luciana angry so she'll go digging for my past?

Why, yes, yes I did. Why you might ask?

Well, if I tell you now, it'll ruin the surprise- and honestly, what's the fun in that?

But Hadley doesn't know this so I twist my voice to sound concerned and worried about my cover being blown.

"What did you tell her?"

"Just the story we came up with, blah blah blah. But she keeps pressing on for the names of your parents. You need to sniff her out before she gets suspicious."

"God," I pretend to groan. "Okay, I'll figure something out. Thanks, Hadley, for letting me know."

Honestly, evidence of Luciana's sloppiness and lack of proper calculation can be seen in how she tried to get dirt on me. DMing my cousin for information? At least try to be subtle, like Georgina. How she ever got so far as an Elite baffles me. Nonetheless, Luciana proves she's throwing out the cards I dealt her- much to her own behest.

The minute Hadley hangs up, I text a number I haven't texted in so long. He'll be surprised I even check in but I know he'll do anything I ask at the drop of a hat.

It's time for an old friend to resurface. 

-

<3 luv y'all! stay safe