Rolling my eyes, I take another puff. Then another.
This is dumb.
I head to Emily’s bathroom, stamp the cigarette out in her pristine porcelain sink, and wash out the ash before flushing the stupid thing down the toilet.
I don’t apologize.
Pulling the remaining pack from my back pocket, I go to toss them in her trash, but she grabs them from my hands.
“Are you insane?!” Her brown eyes are round, shaking. “What if my parents find these?”
Exhaling, I bite my lip. She’s right. Her parents are dying for an excuse to dissolve our friendship. I see it in their eyes; in their forced smiles and terse body language every time I’m around. But Emily is quiet, nerdy. She doesn’t make friends easily, and she mostly keeps to herself. Doug and Mary Miller were thrilled when we started hanging out—at first.
But that’s how it always goes.
If you place Emily and me side-by-side, it doesn’t even look like we belong on the same planet. She’s a mouse; timid, quiet, with brown hair and small eyes. I’m a lion; crazy blonde mane, opinionated, and fearless.
“Shit, what time is it?” I ask, checking my watch. “I gotta go. Aunt Tabitha’s going to be pissed if I’m late for dinner again.”
It’s weird actually having to live by someone else’s rules.
Emily sniffs her shirt not once, but twice.
“You’re fine,” I say. “If you’re that worried, put something else on.”
Amateur.
Emily walks me to the door, and I catch her peeking out the window to see if either of her parents’ cars are in the driveway yet. Maybe smoking in her room was risky. I’d hate for them to ground her. I was planning on a summer of corruption and debauchery, all of which would be in her own best interest.
She goes to college in a year. I’d fail her as a friend if I sent her into the real world as is.
Skipping down the front steps of the Millers’ grandiose brick colonial and petting the stone lions as I pass them, I head down the block to my aunt and uncle’s house—my permanent residence until I graduate high school.
I should’ve finished this year, but when you have parents making meth in your basement and they forget to send you to school for a few critical years, you get a little behind. And when your uncle is the superintendent of Lennox Community School District, you get to take an aptitude test and skip some grades—but unfortunately passing twelfth grade and fast forwarding to a high school diploma wasn’t an option. I might turn nineteen this fall, but at least I’ll have a piece of paper that says I attended the ritziest high school in America—the only one, that I know of, with a full-service Starbucks in the commons.
When I reach Uncle Vic and Aunt Tabitha’s Tudor-style abode, I’m distracted by the slow beeping of a yellow moving van backing into the driveway next door. There’s a man standing on the front steps in low slung sweats and a t-shirt that shows off his tanned, toned biceps. A White Sox ball cap casts a shadow over his face.
I can’t even see if he’s hot.
He waves at the driver to keep backing in, and then he heads to the end of the driveway toward Melissa Gunderman, who’s run-walking in his direction with a pan of what appears to be some type of baked good.
She didn’t waste any time. Paint’s not even dry with this one.
I’m sure she’s inviting him to her church singles’ meeting, every Thursday at seven o’clock, and I’m sure she’s giving him her normal spiel. She’s divorced. Has one child, Rachel, who’s eight, about to go into second grade, and extremely smart for her age. She loves to cook and bake, but more than that she loves Jesus and coffee—in that order.
Insert flirtatious laugh and hair twirling.
She’s wearing yoga pants and a gray t-shirt that says, “Mommin’ Aint Easy,” and her hair is piled in a perfectly messy topknot she probably copied off her teenage babysitter.
I’ve never seen such a hypocrite in all my life. In the last six months since I’ve lived here, I’ve witnessed a whole bevy of men coming in and out of her house at all hours of the night.
The men come …
And then they go.
Growing bored with the Melissa spectacle, I head inside, where the scent of my aunt’s pot roast mingles with chilled AC air. From the foyer, I can see into the dining room, where my cousin Bree has her nose buried in a textbook and her pen pressed against a notepad.
Studying away some of the best years of her life, that one.
Sometimes I wonder which of us has it worse … the one with the parents who care too much or the one with the parents who didn’t care at all?
“Halston, is that you?” My aunt calls.
“Nope. It’s the Culligan Man,” I call back, kicking off my dirty white Chucks. She doesn’t respond, but that’s probably because the Stepford Robot manufacturer forgot to install her sense of humor chip when they delivered her to Uncle Vic.
“Dinner’s almost ready.” Her voice trails from the kitchen.
“Be there in a sec.”
I trample up the grand staircase toward the guestroom, which I guess is my room even though I’ve been told “not to put any holes in the wall or rearrange any furniture.” The room looks like a Pottery Barn catalog threw up in it and then hung my clothes in the closet. Needless to say, it doesn’t feel like it’s mine, but the bed is soft and it sure as hell beats switching foster homes every three months. Or sleeping in a cardboard box, which was my only option once I aged out of the system last year.
I peel out of my clothes and stuff them in a hamper before changing into something that smells more like Tide detergent than strawberries and herbs, and then I dock my phone on the charger. Uncle Vic has a strict “no electronics at the dinner table” policy, and while I normally have no qualms about challenging authority, I don’t dare challenge Victor Abbott.
For starters, he doesn’t mess around. He means what he says. He’s alpha as shit, smart as fuck, and rules his home—and the dozens of schools in his district—with an iron fist.
Secondly, he took me in when he didn’t have to.
He’s my mom’s brother. The only good apple in a family of ones that are rotten to the core. He didn’t have to take me in, put a roof over my head, and enroll me in one of the best high schools in the area, but he did…
Much to Bree and Tab’s dismay.
I’m a blemish to their country club lifestyle with my bold lipstick, short shorts, and wild green eyes. I’m the reason they lock their jewelry in safes—despite the fact that I have never and will never steal. I’m the jarring piano note ruining their beautiful symphony.
They’re counting down the days until I leave for college, I’m sure of it. And Vic, bless his heart, has offered to put me through four years at a local state university about three hours from here.
I arrive at the dining room table and take my place across from Bree. We were born a month and a year apart, she and I, but we have nothing in common. She’s flat-chested, thin-lipped, and a spoiled only child who’s never known what it feels like to go to bed with an empty stomach or to have to scrape mold off bread or pour expired milk onto stale cereal.
“How was your afternoon, girls?” Aunt Tab directs her question to both of us, but her attention is focused on her daughter. She places a tureen of brown gravy between us then moves to the china cabinet to grab place settings.
Every dinner is a production.
I’ve lived here six months now and I’ve yet to see them order pizza.
“I’m almost done studying for English comp,” Bree says, her gaze flicking to me like I should feel like a failure for not taking college prep courses in the summer. Forgive me for not being an overachiever. “First test is tonight.”
“I have no doubt you’ll pass with flying colors.” Tabitha smiles, placing her hand on her daughter’s shoulder as she passes and heads toward the kitchen. She returns with the roast, placing it between us before taking a seat and checking her watch. “Hopefully Vic’s on his way. It’s not like him to be late.”
That’s my aunt. Always worrying over nothing because she literally has nothing better to do. I’ve realized that rich people like to manufacture problems, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why. They have all this good shit going for them, but they’re not happy unless they’re miserable.