“And are you seeing anyone special?” One of the nosy blondes asks. I’ve been stuck seated next to her all through dinner, watching her push a single green bean around her plate.
“Not right now,” I force a polite smile.
“You know, my niece Kiki is starting at Harvard in the fall, I should give you her number, she’s just a doll!”
“Then keep her away from Hunter,” Jace interrupts, coming to my rescue with a teasing grin. “He’ll only break her heart.”
“Oh, you boys!” The woman laughs, but writes me out the number all the same. I crumple it into my pocket, not interested in Kiki, or Jennifer, or any of the other numbers my parents’ friends have pressed into my palm.
There’s only one girl I think about at night, restlessly turning in the cool night breeze. One girl who fills every thought, plagues me with fantasies I’ll never share.
One girl who’ll soon be out of reach forever.
Unless you do something about it...
I try to ignore the whisper, but then there’s a lull in conversation and Jace clears his throat. “Dinner was lovely, mom, but we better get going now.”
“You’re going out?” Mom blinks in confusion.
“Sure, just a little good-bye get-together,” he gives me a look, and I quickly rise to my feet. It’s the first I’ve heard about it, but any chance to escape this party is one I’m going to take.
“I don’t know...” My dad frowns, but Jace isn’t deterred.
“I’m sure you don’t want us kids hanging around while you go crazy,” he winks. “I know how rowdy your parties get.”
There’s another chorus of charmed laughter, and mom finally waves us away. “Alright then, but not too late. We’ve got an early start back tomorrow morning.”
Jace kisses her on the cheek. “We’ll be good, I promise.”
I follow him out, marveling for the hundredth time how he’s got our parents wrapped around his little finger. “How do you do it? If I asked, they would have shut me down in a heartbeat.”
“That’s ‘cause you didn’t spend the summer shaking hands with all Dad’s biggest clients.” Jace gives me a look as we head out through the kitchen. “When are you going to learn, it’s give and take? You’ve got to give some charm to take what you want.”
I shake my head. “Enough about our parents, where are we headed?”
“There’s a party on the beach, end of summer thing.” Jace replies.I stop. The party those guys invited Brit to; the one she said she’d drop by. “How did you hear about that?”
“I hear everything, little brother.” Jace laughs. “I already snagged some booze from the cabinet while we were packing up. We’re all set.”
I pause by the back door, feeling torn. I’ve kept my distance from Brit all summer. Just one more night, and I’ll be safe a hundred miles away from her chaos.
But do you really want to be?
I catch my breath, feeling the kick of anticipation in my veins. “Let’s go.”
3. Brit
“Hey sweetie, I guess you’re out, or busy, or... Well, it doesn’t matter. I was just checking in. Things are real good here, I’m going to meetings. Eight weeks sober now... I’ll be home soon, I promise. I miss you, baby.”
I listen to the voicemail message five times over, and then delete it before I can listen five hundred times more. There’s a pain in my chest so tight I feel like I might explode, a hot stab of anger and bitterness and desperate ache.
She does this. Every few months, like clockwork. Just when I’ve forced myself to forget, mom calls and leaves some bullshit message, and it all comes flooding back: that she just took off and left me alone here, with nobody but my brothers to watch out for me.
That everyone I love always leaves me in the end.
“I’m going to meetings again..”
I know too well not to get my hopes up, that her promise to be home soon is nothing but a temporary plan. Soon, too soon, she’ll slip, on pills or booze or worse, and then she’ll drop off the face of the earth for another few months, leaving me to lay awake in bed at night, wondering if she’s even alive anymore.
You can’t do this again.
I bite down against the swell of tears rising, but I refuse to cry for her—not when I’ve wasted so many tears already. Instead, I grab my purse and take one last look in the mirror.
This dress is dangerous, even for me: a flimsy red scrappy thing that dances around my bare thighs. I run my fingers through my choppy dark hair, and smudge a line of black liner around my eyes. The desperate ache in my chest is building, and I need to go find some way to block it out. Lose myself for an hour, a night, just get the hell out of my own skin for a while and quiet the dark thoughts whirling in my mind, and the emptiness crying out in my soul.
I clatter down the hall and find my big brother, Emerson, just coming in from working at the bar. He takes one look at me and shakes his head.
“No way in hell are you going out looking like that,” he vows, glaring in determination.
I push past him. “You don’t get to tell me what to wear.”
“Jesus, Brit, you look like... like...?” Emerson struggles.
“What?” I shoot back. “A slut? A whore? It’s what they’re saying anyway,” I shrug, even though it stings coming from him. “Why should I care what anyone thinks?”