Series: All Saints High #1
Release Date: April 26, 2019
Buy the Book:
Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon CA Amazon AU Audiobook Paperback Add on Goodreads
Penn
They say revenge is a dish best served cold.
I’d had four years to stew on what Daria Followhill did to me, and now my heart was completely iced.
I took her first kiss.
She took the only thing I loved.
I was poor.
She was rich.
The good thing about circumstances? They can change. Fast.
Now, I’m her parents’ latest shiny project.
Her housemate. Her tormentor. The captain of the rival football team she hates so much.
Yeah, baby girl, say it—I’m your foster brother.
There’s a price to pay for ruining the only good thing in my life, and she’s about to shell out some serious tears.
Daria Followhill thinks she is THE queen. I’m about to prove to her that she’s nothing but a spoiled princess.
Daria
Everyone loves a good old unapologetic punk.
But being a bitch? Oh, you get slammed for every snarky comment, cynical eye roll, and foot you put in your adversaries’ way.
The thing about stiletto heels is that they make a hell of a dent when you walk all over the people who try to hurt you.
In Penn Scully’s case, I pierced his heart until he bled out, then left it in a trash can on a bright summer day.
Four years ago, he asked me to save all my firsts for him.
Now he lives across the hall, and I want nothing more than to be his last everything.
His parting words when he gave me his heart were that nothing in this world is free.
Now? Now he is making me pay.
Prologue
It started with a lemonade
And ended with my heart
This, my pretty reckless rival, is how our screwed-up story starts
Age Fourteen.
Daria
The tiles under my feet shake as a herd of ballerinas blaze past me, their feet pounding like artillery in the distance.
Brown hair. Black hair. Straight hair. Red hair. Curly hair. They blur into a rainbow of trims and scrunchies. My eyes are searching for the blonde head I’d like to bash against the well-worn floor.
Feel free to not be here today, Queen Bitch.
I stand frozen on the threshold of my mother’s ballet studio, my pale pink leotard sticking to my ribs. My white duffel bag dangles from my shoulder. My tight bun makes my scalp burn. Whenever I let my hair down, my golden locks fall off in chunks on the bathroom floor. I tell Mom it’s from messing with my hair too much. But that’s BS, and if she gave a damn—really gave one, not just pretended to—she’d know this, too.
I wiggle my banged-up toes in my pointe shoes, swallowing the ball of anxiety in my throat. Via isn’t here. Thank you, Marx.
Girls torpedo past me, bumping into my shoulders. I feel their giggles in my empty stomach. My duffel bag falls with a thud. My classmates are leaner, longer, and more flexible. Backs rod-straight like an exclamation mark. Me, I’m small and muscular. A question mark. Always unsure and on the verge of snapping. My face is not stoic and regal. It is traitorous and unpredictable. Some wear their hearts on their sleeves—I wear mine on my mouth. I smile with my teeth when I’m happy, and when my mom looks at me, I’m always happy.
“You should really take gymnastics or cheer, Lovebug. It suits you so much better than ballet.”
But Mom sometimes says things that dig at my self-esteem. There’s a rounded dent on its surface now, the shape of her words, and that’s where I keep my anger.
Melody Green-Followhill is a former ballerina. She broke her leg at eighteen, on her first week attending Juilliard. Ballet is what has been expected of me since the day I was born. And—just my luck—it’s also what I’m exceptionally bad at.
Enter Via Scully.
Also fourteen, Via is everything I strive to be. Taller, blonder, and skinnier. Worst of all, her natural talent makes my dancing look like an insult to leotards all over the world.
Three months ago, Via received a letter from the Royal Ballet Academy asking her to audition. Four weeks ago—she did. Her hotshot parents couldn’t get the time off work, so my mom jumped at the chance to fly her on a weeklong trip to London. Now the entire class is waiting to hear if Via is going to study at the Royal Ballet Academy. Word around the studio is she has it in the bag. Even the Ukrainian danseur Alexei Petrov—a sixteen-year-old prodigy who is like the Justin Bieber of ballet—posted an IG story with her after the audition.
Looking forward to creating magic together.
It wouldn’t surprise me to find out Via can do magic. She’s always been a witch.
“Lovebug, stop fretting by the door. You’re blocking everyone’s way,” my mother singsongs, her back to me. I can see her reflection through the floor-to-ceiling mirror. She’s frowning at the attendance sheet and glancing at the door, hoping to see Via.
Sorry, Mom. Just your spawn over here.
Via is always late, and my mother, who never tolerates tardiness, lets her get away with it.
I bend down to pick up my duffel bag and pad into the studio. A shiny barre frames the room, and there’s a floor-to-ceiling window from which downtown Todos Santos is splayed in all its photogenic, upper-crust glory. There are peach-colored benches gracing tree-lined streets and crystal blue towers that sparkle like the thin line where the ocean kisses the sky.
I hear the door squeaking open and squeeze my eyes shut.
Please don’t be here.
“Via! We’ve been waiting for you,” Mom’s chirp is like a BB gun shooting me in the back, and I tumble over my own feet from the shockwave. Snorts explode all over the room. I manage to grip the barre, pulling myself up a second before my knees hit the floor. Flushed, I grasp it in one hand and slide into a sloppy plié.
“Lovebug, be a darling and make Via some room,” Mom purrs.
Symbolically, Mother, I’d love for Via to make my ass some room, too.
Of course, her precious prodigy isn’t wearing her ballet gear today, even though she has Italian-imported leotards other girls can only dream of. Via clearly comes from money, because even rich people don’t like shelling out two hundred bucks for a basic leotard. Other than Mom, who probably figured I’ll never be a true ballerina, so the least she can do is dress me up like one.
Today, Via is wearing a cropped yellow Tweety Bird shirt and ripped leggings. Her eyes are red and her hair is a mess. Is she even trying to make an effort?
She throws me a patronizing smirk. “Lovebug.”
“Puppy,” I retort.
“Puppy?” She snorts.
“I’d call you a bitch, but let’s admit it, your bite doesn’t really have teeth.”
I readjust my shoes, pretending that I’m over her. I’m not over her. She monopolizes my mother’s time, and she’s been on my case way before I started talking back. Via attends another school, in San Diego. Says it’s because her parents think kids in Todos Santos are too sheltered and spoiled. Her parents want her to grow up with real people.
Know what else is fake? Pretending to be something you’re not. I’m a prissy princess. I own up to it. Sue me (Please do. I can afford really good legal defense).
“Meet me after class, Vi,” Mom quips, then turns around back to the stereo. Vi (Vi!) uses the opportunity to stretch her leg, stomping on my toes in the process.
“Oops. Looks like you’re not the only clumsy person around here, Daria.”
“I would tell you to drop dead, but I’m afraid my mom would force me to go to your funeral, and you legit aren’t worth the time.”
“I would tell you to kiss my ass, but your mom already does that. If she only liked you half as much as she likes me. It’s cool, though, ’least you have money for therapy. And a nose job.” She pats my back with a smirk, and I hate, hate, hate that she is prettier.
I can’t concentrate for the rest of the hour. I’m not stupid. I know my mother loves me more than she does Via. I also know that it’s because she’s genetically programmed to do so.
Centuries tick by before class is dismissed. All the girls sashay to the elevator in pairs.
“Daria darling, do me a favor and get us drinks from Starbucks. I’m going to the little girls’ room, then wrapping something up real quick with Vi.” Mom pats my shoulder, sauntering out of the studio, leaving a trail of her perfume like fairy dust. My mom is the kind of person who would donate all of her inner organs to save one of her students’ fingernails. She smothers her ballerinas with love, and me with jealousy.
I grab Mom’s bag and turn around before Via and I have a chance to exchange what Daddy calls ‘unpleasantries’.
“You should’ve seen her face when I auditioned.” Via stretches in front of the mirror behind me. She’s as agile as a contortionist. Sometimes I think she could wrap herself around my neck and choke me to death.
“We had a blast. She told me that by the looks of it, not only am I in, but I’m also going to be their star student. It felt kind of…” She snaps her fingers, looking for the word. I see her in the reflection of the mirror but don’t turn around. Tears are hanging on my lower lashes for their dear lives. “A redemption, or something. Like, you can’t be a ballerina because you’re so, you know, you. But then there is me. So at least she’ll get to see someone she loves make it.”
Daddy says there’s a green Hulk living inside of me, and that he gets bigger and bigger when I get jealous, and sometimes, the Hulk blasts through my skin and does things the Daria he knows and loves would never do. He says that jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius, and that I’m no mediocre girl.
Let’s just say I disagree.
I’ve always been popular, and I’ve always fought hard for a place in the food chain where I can enjoy the view. But I think I’m ordinary, and that Via is extraordinary. That she glows so bright, she burns everything in her vicinity. I’m the dust beneath her feet, and I’m crushed, and bitter, and Hulky.
Nobody wants to be a bad person. But some people—like me—just can’t help themselves. A tear rolls down my cheek, and I’m thankful we’re alone. I turn around to face her.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“What isn’t?” She sighs. “You are a spoiled princess, a shallow idiot, and a terrible dancer. How can someone so untalented be born to the Melody Green-Followhill?”
I don’t know! I want to scream. No one wants to be born to a genius. Marx, bless Sean Lennon for surviving his own existence.
I eye her pricey pointe shoes and arch a mocking eyebrow. “Don’t pretend like I’m the only princess here.”
“You’re an airhead, Daria.” She shakes her head.
“At least I’m not a spaz.” I pretend to be blasé, but my whole body is shaking.
“You can’t even get into a decent first position.” She throws her hands in the air. She isn’t wrong, and that enrages me.
“Again—why. Do. You. Care!” I roar.
“Because you’re a waste of fucking space, that’s why! You have a place in this class because your mother is the teacher, while I’m busting my ass.”
This is my chance to tell her the truth.
That I’m busting mine even harder, precisely because I wasn’t born a ballerina. Instead, my heart shatters like glass. I spin on my heel and dart down the fire escape, taking the stairs two at a time. I pour myself out into the blazing Californian heat, and any other girl would take a left and disappear inside Liberty Park, but I take a right, into Starbucks, because I can’t—won’t—disappoint my mom more than I already have. I look left and right to make sure the coast is clear, then release the sob that has weighed on my chest the past hour. I get into line, tugging open Mom’s purse from her bag as I wipe off my tears with my sleeve. Something falls to the floor. I pick it up.
It’s a crisp letter with my home address on it, but it’s the name that gives me pause.
Sylvia Scully.
Sniffing, I rip the letter open. I don’t stop to think that it isn’t mine to open. Via’s mere name above my address makes me want to scream until the walls in this place fall down. The first thing to register is the symbol at the top.
The Royal Ballet Academy.
My eyes are like a wonky mixed tape. They keep rewinding to the same words.
Acceptance Letter.
Acceptance Letter.
Acceptance Letter.
Via got accepted. I should be thrilled to have her out of my hair in a few months, but instead, the acidic taste of jealousy bursts inside my mouth.
She has everything.
The parents. The money. The fame. The talent. Most of all—my mother’s undivided attention.
She has everything, and I have nothing, and the Hulk inside me grows larger, his body so huge it presses against my diaphragm.
A whole new life in one envelope. Via’s life hanging by a paper. A paper that’s in my hand.
“Sweetie? Honey?” The barista snaps me out of my trance, with a tone that suggests that I’m not a sweetie nor a honey. “What would you like?”
For Via to die.
I place my order and shuffle to the corner of the room so I can read the letter for the thousandth time. As if the words will change by some miracle.
Five minutes later, I take both drinks and exit out onto the sidewalk. I dart to the nearest trash can to dispose of my iced tea lemonade so I can hold the letter without dampening it. Mom probably wanted to open it with Via, and I just took away their little moment.
Sorry to interrupt your bonding sesh.
“Put the drink down and nobody gets hurt,” a voice booms behind me, like liquid honey, as my hand hovers over the trash can. It’s male, but it’s young. I spin in place, not sure I heard him right. I can’t see his face clearly because he’s wearing a Raiders ball cap that’s been worn to death, his chin dipped low. He’s tall and scrawny. Almost scarily so. But he glides toward me like a Bengal tiger, like he’s found a way to walk on air and can’t be bothered with mundane things like muscle tone.
“Are we throwing this away?” He points at the lemonade.
‘We’? Bitch, at this point there’s not even a you to me.
I motion to him with the drink. He can have the stupid iced tea. Gosh. He is interrupting my meltdown for a lemonade.
“Nothing’s free in this world, Skull Eyes.”
I blink, willing him to evaporate from my vision. Did this jackass really just call me Skull Eyes? At least I don’t look like a skeleton. My mind is upstairs with Via. Why does Mom receive letters on her behalf? Why couldn’t they send it directly to Via’s house? Is Mom adopting her ass now?
I think about my sister, Bailey. She’s only nine, but is showing promising signs as a gifted dancer. Via moving to London might encourage Mom to put Bailey in the Royal Ballet Academy, too. Mom had talked about me applying there before it became clear that I could be a Panera bagel before I’d become a professional ballerina. I begin to glue the pieces of my screwed-up reality together.
What if I’d have to migrate to London to watch both girls making it big while I swam in my pool of mediocrity?
Bailey and Via would become BFFs.
I’d have to live somewhere rainy and gray.
We’d leave Vaughn and Knight and even Luna behind. All my childhood friends.
Via would officially take my place in Mom’s heart.
Hmm, no thanks.
Not today, Satan.
When I fail to answer, the boy takes a step toward me. I’m not scared, although…maybe I should be? He’s wearing dirty jeans—I’m talking mud and dust, not, like, purposely haphazard—and a worn blue shirt that looks two sizes too big with a hole the size of a small fist where his heart is. Someone wrote around it in a black Sharpie and girlie handwriting, is it a sign? – Adriana, xoxo and I want to know if Adriana is prettier than me.
“Why are you calling me Skull Eyes?” I clench the letter in my fist.
“Because.” He slopes his head so low all I can see is his lips, and they look petal-soft and pink. Feminine, almost. His voice is smooth to a point it hurts a little in my chest. I don’t know why. Guys my age revolt me. They smell like pizza that sat in the sun for days. “You have skulls in your eyes, Silly Billy. Know what you need?”
For Mom to stop telling me that I suck?
For Via to disappear?
Take your pick, dude.
I shove my free hand into my mom’s wallet, plucking out a ten-dollar bill. He looks like he could use a meal. I pray he’ll take it before Mom comes down and starts asking questions. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, much less strangers who look like they are dumpster diving for their next meal.
“Sea glass.” He thrusts his hand in my direction, ignoring the money and the drink.
“Like, the stuff you get on Etsy?” I huff.
Great. You’re a weirdo, too.
“Huh? Nah, that shit’s trash. Orange sea glass. The real stuff. Found it on the beach last week and Googled it. It’s the rarest thing in the world, you know?”
“Why would you give a total stranger something so precious?” I roll my eyes.
“Why not?”
“Um, hello, attention span much? Weren’t you the one who just said nothing in this world is free?”
“Who said it’s going to be for free? Did you get all your annual periods today at once or something?”
“Don’t talk about my period!”
“Fine. No period talk. But you need a real friend right now, and I’m officially applying for the position. I even dressed the part. Look.” He motions to his hobo clothes with an apologetic smile.
And just like that, heat pours into my chest like hot wax. Anger, I find, has the tendency to be crisp. I really want to throat punch him. He pities me? Pities. The guy with the hole in his shirt.
“You want to be my friend?” I bark out a laugh. “Pathetic much? Like, who even says that?”
“Me. I say that. And I never claimed not to be pathetic.” He tugs at his ripped shirt and raises his head slowly, unveiling more of his face. A nose my mom would call Roman and a jaw that’s too square for someone my age. He’s all sharp angles, and maybe one day he will be handsome, but right now he looks like an Anime cartoon character. Mighty Max.
“Look, do you want the lemonade and money or not? My mom should be here any minute.”
“And?”
“And she can’t see us together.”
“Because of how I look?”
Duh.
“No, because you’re a boy.” I don’t want to be mean to him, even though, usually, I am. Especially to boys. Especially to boys with beautiful faces and honey voices.
Boys can smell heartbreak from across a continent. Even at fourteen. Even in the middle of an innocent summer afternoon. We girls have an invisible string behind our belly button, and only certain guys can tug at it.
This boy…he will tear it if I let him.
“Take the sea glass. Owe me something.” He motions to me with an open palm. I stare at the ugly little rock. My fist clenches. The paper hisses.
The boy lifts his head completely and our eyes meet. He studies me with quiet interest, like I’m a painting, not a person. My heart is rioting all over. I have the dumbest thought cross my mind. Ever notice how the heart is literally caged by the ribs? That’s insane. Like our body knows that it is so easily broken, it needs to be protected. White dots fill my vision, and he’s swimming somewhere behind them, against the stream.
“What’s in the letter?” he asks.
“My worst nightmare.”
“Give it to me,” he orders. I do. I don’t know why. Most likely because I want to get rid of it. Because I want Via to hurt as much as I do. Because I want Mom to be upset. Marx, what’s wrong with me? I’m a horrible person.
His eyes are still hard on mine when he tears the letter to shreds and lets the pieces float like confetti into the trash can between us. His eyes are dark green and bottomless. A thickly fogged forest. I want to step inside and run until I’m in the depth of the woods. Something occurs to me just then.
“You’re not from here,” I say. He is too pure. Too good. Too real.
He shakes his head slowly. “Mississippi. Well, my dad’s family. Anyway. Owe me something,” he repeats, almost begging.
Why does he want me to owe him something?
So he could ask for something back.
I don’t relent, frozen to my spot. Instead, I hand him the lemonade. He takes it, closes the distance between us, pops the lid open, and pours the contents all over the ruined letter. His body is brushing against mine. We’re stomach to stomach. Legs to legs. Heart to heart.
“Close your eyes.”
His voice is gruff and thick and different. This time I surrender.
I know what’s about to happen, and I’m letting it happen anyway.
My first kiss.
I always thought it was going to happen with a football hero or a pop star or a European exchange student. Someone out of the small borders of my sheltered, Instagram-filtered world. Not a kid with a hole in his shirt. But I need this. Need to feel desired and pretty and wanted.
His lips flutter over mine, and it tickles, so I snort. I can feel his warm breath skating across my lips, his baseball cap grazing my forehead and the way his mouth slides against mine, lips locking with uncertainty. I forget to breathe for a second, my hands on his shoulders, and there’s something inside me that begs for me to dart my tongue and really taste him. We’re sucking air from each other’s mouths. We’re doing it all wrong. My lips open up for him. His open, too. My heart is pounding so loud I can feel the blood whooshing in my veins when he says, “Not yet. I’ll take that, too, but not yet.”
A groan escapes my lips.
“What would you have asked of me if I took the sea glass?”
“To save me all your firsts,” he whispers, somewhere between my ear and mouth, his body brushing away from mine.
I don’t want to open my eyes and let the moment end. But he is making the choice for both of us. The warmth of his body leaves mine as he takes a step back.
I still don’t have the guts to open my mouth and ask for his name.
Ten, fifteen, twenty seconds pass.
My eyelids flutter open on their own accord as my body begins to sway.
He’s gone.
Disoriented, I lean against the trash can, fiddling with the strap of my bag. Five seconds pass before Mom loops her arm in mine out of nowhere and leads me to the Range Rover. My legs fly across the pavement. My head twists back.
Blue shirt? Ball cap? Petal lips? Was I imagining the whole thing?
“There you are. Thanks for the coffee. What, no iced tea lemonade today?”
After I fail to answer, we climb into her vehicle and buckle up. Mom sifts through her Prada bag resting on the center console.
“Huh. I swear I took four letters from the mailbox today, not three.”
And that’s when it hits me—she doesn’t know. Via got in, and she has no idea the letter came today. Then this guy tore it apart because it upset me…
Kismet. Kiss-met. Fate.
Dad decided two years ago that he is tired of hearing all three girls in the household moaning “Oh, my God,” so now we have to replace the word God with the word Marx, after Karl Marx, a dude who was apparently into atheism or whatever. I feel like God, or Marx—someone—sent this boy to help me. If he were even real. Maybe I made him up in my head to come to terms with what I did.
I open a compact mirror and apply some lip gloss, my heart racing.
“You’re always distracted, Mom. If you dropped a letter, you’d have seen it.”
Mom pouts, then nods. In the minute it takes her to start the engine, I realize two things:
One—she was expecting this letter like her next breath.
Two—she is devastated.
“Before I forget, Lovebug, I bought you the diary you wanted.” Mom produces a leather, black-cased thick notebook from her Prada bag, handing it to me. I noticed it before, but I never assume things are for me anymore. She’s always distracted, buying Via all types of gifts.
As we ride in silence, I have an epiphany.
This is where I’ll write my sins.
This is where I’ll bury my tragedies.
I snap the mirror shut and tuck my hands into the pockets of my white hoodie, where I find something small and hard. I take it out and stare at it, amazed.
The orange sea glass.
He gave me the sea glass, even though I never accepted it.
Save me all your firsts.
I close my eyes and let a fat tear roll down my cheek.
He was real.
***
Penn
Question: Who gives their most precious belonging to a girl they don’t know?
Answer: This motherfucker right here. Print me an ‘I’m-with-stupid’ shirt with an arrow pointing straight to my dick.
Could’ve sold the damn thing and topped off Via’s cell phone credit. Now that ship’s sailed. I can spot it in the distance, sinking quickly.
The worst part is that I knew nothing would come out of it. At fourteen, I’ve only kissed two girls. They both had enormous tongues and too much saliva. This girl looked like her tongue would be small, so I couldn’t pass up trying.
But the minute my lips touched hers, I just couldn’t do it. She looked kind of manic. Sad. Clingy? I don’t fucking know. Maybe I just didn’t have the balls. Maybe watching her three times a week from afar paralyzed me.
Hey, how do you turn off your own mind? It needs to shut up. Now.
My friend Kannon passes me the joint on my front porch. That’s the one perk of having your mom live with her drug-dealing boyfriend. Free pot. And since food is scarce these days, I’ll take whatever is on the table.
A bunch of wannabe gangsters in red bandanas cross our side of the street with their pit bulls and a boom box playing angry Spanish rap. The dogs bark, yanking on their chains. Kannon barks right back at them. He’s so high his head might hit a fucking plane. I take a hit, handing Camilo the joint.
“I’ll land you fifty so you can make the call,” Camilo coughs. He is huge and tan and already has impressive facial hair. He looks like someone’s Mexican dad.
“We don’t need to call anyone!” my twin sister yells from the grass next to us. She is lying facedown, sobbing into the yellow lawn. I think she is hoping the sun will burn her into the ground.
“Are y’all deaf or something?! I didn’t get in!”
“We’ll take the money.” I ignore her. We have to call the ballet place. Via can’t stay here. It ain’t safe.
“I love you, Penn, but you’re a pain in the ass.” She hiccups, plucking blades of grass and throwing them in our direction without lifting her head. She’ll thank me later. When she is famous and rich—do ballerinas get rich?—and I’m still sitting here with my dumb friends smoking pot and salivating over lemon-haired Todos Santos girls. Maybe I won’t have to stand on street corners and deal. I’m good at shit. Sports and fighting mainly. But Coach says I need to eat more protein for muscle and more carbs to get some basic body fat, but that’s not happening anytime soon, since most of my money is spent on buying Via’s bus tickets to her ballet classes.
“I thought you said your sister’s good? How come she didn’t get in?” Kannon yawns, moving his hand over his long dreads. The sides of his head are shaved, creating a black man-bun. I punch his arm so hard he collapses back on the rocking chair with a silent scream, clutching his bicep, still hardy-har-harring.
“I think a demonstration is in order. Chop-chop, Via. Show us your moves.” Cam puts “Milkshake” by Kelis on his phone, balling a gum wrapper in his hand and throwing it on the back of her head.
Her sobs stop, replaced with catatonic silence. I turn around, scrubbing my chin before twisting back to Camilo and swinging a fist at his jaw. I hear it unlock from its usual place and him humphing.
Via darts up from the grass, running into the house and slamming the door behind her. I’m not sure what business she has sitting in the living room when Rhett is home, yelling that he is tired and hungry. She will probably get into a screaming match with him and return to the porch with her tail between her legs. My mom is too high to interfere. When she does, she chooses her boyfriend’s side. Even when he uses Via’s leotards, which her teacher buys for her, to shine his shoes. He does that often, to get a rise out of her. On days she shows up to class in her torn leggings and hand-me-down shirts, she spends the bus ride sobbing. Those are usually the days when I rub his briefs on public toilet seats in Liberty Park.
It’s incredibly therapeutic.
“Hand me the fifty.” I open my palm and turn to Cam, who slaps the note into my hand obediently. I’m going to buy myself and Via burgers the size of my face, then top the credit on her phone so she can call Mrs. Followhill.
I charge down my street to In-N-Out, Camilo and Kannon trailing behind me like wind. Our street is cracked concrete and murals of dead teenagers wearing haloes. Our palm trees seem to hunch down from the burden of poverty, leaning over buildings that are short and yellow like bad teeth.
But twenty minutes later, the satisfaction of clutching a paper bag filled with burgers and fries, dripping oil, is overwhelming. Via’s gonna forget all about her meltdown when she sees it. I push the door to my house open and the first thing I see makes me drop the food to the floor.
My mother’s boyfriend is straddling my sister on the couch, his jiggling belly pouring out on her chest. He pummels her face, his sweaty, hairy chest glistening and his arm flexing every time he does. His ripped jeans are unbuttoned and his zipper is all the way down. She is wheezing and coughing, trying to breathe. Without thinking, I dash toward them and unplaster him from her. Her face is bloody, and she’s croaking out weak protests, telling him that he’s a cheap bastard, and he keeps yelling that she is a thieving whore. I grab Rhett by the collar of his shirt and pull him from her, and he swings with the momentum, falling on the floor. I punch him so hard in the face, the sound of his jaw cracking echoes around the room. His head hits the floor. I spin back to Via, and all I see is her back as she slips over her own blood, tripping to the door. I grab her wrist, but she wiggles it free. Something falls between us with a soft click. I pick it up, and it looks like a tooth. Jesus fucking Christ. He knocked her tooth out.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice muffled with blood. “I’m sorry. I can’t, Penn.”
“Via!” I cry out.
“Please,” she yells. “Let me go.”
I try to chase her, slipping on the trail of blood she leaves behind. My hands are covered with it now. I stand up and start for the still-open door. A hand snatches me back and throws me on the couch.
“Not so quick, little asshole. Now’s your turn.”
I close my eyes and let it happen, knowing why Via has to run.
Geography is destiny.
***
It’s been three days since Via ran away.
Two and a half since I’ve last managed to stomach anything without throwing it up (Pabst counts, right?).
With Rhett beating her up after finding out she stole his phone and tried to call London, I’m not surprised she ain’t back. I know better than to fuck with Rhett. Via is usually even more cautious with him, because she’s a girl. It was a moment of weakness on her behalf. One that cost her more than she was willing to pay.
On Friday afternoon, I find myself loitering outside of her ballet class, hoping she’ll appear. Maybe she’s crashing at her teacher’s house. They seem close, but it’s hard to tell since Via puts on a mask every time the bus we board slides into Todos Santos’ limits. The fact she hasn’t touched base yet makes me heave when I let myself think about it. I’m telling myself she has her reasons.
At six, pink-wearing girls start pouring out of the building. I dawdle by the shiny black Range Rover, hands in pockets, waiting for the teacher. She comes out last, waving and laughing with a bunch of students. There’s another girl beside her. The girl I kissed, to be exact. The girl I’ve been obsessing about for a year, to be super-exact. She is beautiful like the shit that’s hung up in museums. In a really sad, distant, look-but-don’t-touch way. I trek toward them and they meet me halfway. The girl’s eyes widen and she looks sideways to see if anyone else is here to witness us talking. She thinks I’m here for her.
“Hi.” She tucks hair behind her ears, her gaze traveling to Mrs. Followhill in a silent I-swear-I-don’t-know-this-guy plea.
“Hey.” I kill the butterflies in my stomach, because now’s not the place and definitely not the time, then turn to the teacher. “Ma’am, my sister, Via, is in your class. I haven’t seen her in three days.”
The teacher’s eyebrows pinch together like I just announced I’ll be taking a shit on the hood of her vehicle. She tells the blonde girl to wait inside the giant Range Rover, then tugs at my arm heading toward an alleyway. Sandwiched between two buildings, she sort of forces me to sit down on a tall step (dafuq?) and starts talking.
“I’ve been calling her five times a day and leaving messages,” she whispers hotly in my face. “I wanted to let her know that she’d been accepted to the Royal Academy. I had a funny feeling about the letter, so I checked. Everything is in motion now. As I said before, you needn’t worry about the tuition. I’ll be paying the fee.”
My nostrils flare. All this in her future, and she could be lying in a ditch right now. Goddamn Via. Goddamn all pretty, volatile, fourteen-year-old girls.
“Well, ma’am, thank you for the gift she’ll never be able to cash in on since we can’t find her,” I respectfully mock her. But we is just me. Mom is out of it—she never really bothered bouncing out of her first drug binge some years ago—and Rhett is probably happy he has one less mouth to feed. When the truancy officer called from school earlier, I told him Via went to my aunt’s, something my mother later confirmed when he showed up at our doorstep. Mom, wild-haired and sucking on a cigarette like it was an oxygen mask, never once asked if it was true. If I call the police, they’ll dump both our asses in foster care. Maybe together, but probably not. I can’t let that happen. I can’t not-be with Via.
Mrs. Followhill stares at me with a face like she just realized she caught a stomach bug. She is probably wondering how I dare speak to her like that. Usually, I’m a bit more user-friendly. Then again, usually, I don’t have to deal with a missing sister. I clean my mother’s puke from the walls and close the bathroom door on Rhett when he falls asleep on the toilet seat. I don’t look at grown-ups with the same air of reverence her daughter does.
“Whoa,” is all Mrs. Followhill says.
“Thanks for the insight. Have a nice life.” I stand up and swagger toward the street. She catches my arm and yanks me back. I twist around to face her.
“My daughter…” She licks her lips, looks down, looks guilty. The girl is leaning against the Rover, staring at us, chewing on her thumbnail. “My daughter and Via haven’t been getting along. I tried to encourage them to communicate, but the more I pushed them together, the more they seemed to dislike one another. I think I had a letter go missing last week. A letter that could have been…important.”
The flashback crashes into my memory.
The paper that hissed in her little fist.
Me taking it from her.
Tearing it apart.
Throwing it into the trash can, watching her face blossom into bliss.
Pouring the lemonade on the remains for good measure when her blue eyes twinkled the request.
Setting my sister’s dreams on fire.
Kicking this entire nightmare into motion.
My jaw flexes, and I take a step back. I throw one last glance at the chick, filing her into memory.
Archive under: Shit List.
Revisit document: When I’m in a position to ruin her.
“So Via’s not with you?” My voice hardens around the words. Like tin. I’m desperate. I have no lead. I want to rip the world apart to find her, but the world is not mine to rip. The world just continues turning at the same pace, because kids like Via and me, we disappear all the time and no one notices.
Mrs. Followhill shakes her head. She hesitates, touching my arm. “Hey, why don’t you come with me? I’ll drop Daria off at home and we can look for her.”
Daria.
I turn around and stalk toward the bus station, feeling stupid and hateful and alive. More alive than I’ve ever felt. Because I want to kill Daria. Daria, who made everything fade into the background the first time I saw her, and while I was busy admiring, everything around us burned.
You look like you could use a friend, I told her. Stupid, boyish faith. I mentally throw it onto the ground and stomp on it on my way to the bus sliding to the curb.
Daria was right. I was pathetic. Stupid. Blinded by her hair and lips and sweet melancholy.
I make a beeline to the bus station, Mrs. Followhill yelling my name behind me in the distance. She knows my name. She knows me. Us. I don’t know why it disturbs me. I don’t know why I still give a fuck that this girl knows I’m poor.
I hop into the first available bus, not sure where it will take me.
As far away from the girl, but not far enough from myself.
The burn in my chest intensifies, and I feel the hole around my heart growing bigger, and my grandmother whispering in the back of my head.
Skull Eyes.
Chapter One
The night before senior year
I spotted you on those bleachers
You looked adorable
Your heart cracking for a guy
Who would love to smash a foot in it and crush it into pieces
Daria
Almost Eighteen.
The snake pit is crowded tonight.
It always is when Vaughn fights, and Vaughn always fights. He’s good at breaking noses almost as much as he’s good at breaking hearts. Breaking hearts, in case you’re wondering, is his second-favorite art. Six girls have moved to different private schools just to run away from the misery of seeing him gliding through the hallways since he got into All Saints High. He has three more years here, and parents across town are locking their daughters up and shaking with fear.
Fighting at the snake pit is a rite of passage for every popular guy in All Saints High and our rival school, Las Juntas, which is in San Diego. This is not my usual scene, but Blythe, Alisha, and Esme dragged me here the night before school starts. They’re avid Vaughn observers. The jerk spent summer vacation in a studio in Italy sculpting and arrived back two days ago, so now they need their fix of his beautiful, lifeless face.
Truth is, Vaughn is too cruel to fall in love, in lust, or even in like. This, however, is a lesson they’ll learn the hard way. I’ll have plenty of fun watching, even though I’ll do the whole Omg-sweetie-he-is-so-not-worth-it.
Side note? He totally is.
“How can someone so violent create such delicate art? He is fuckable to a fault.” Blythe munches on her mermaid-red hair, staring down at Vaughn, who is pacing back and forth on the field, his tattered black clothes clinging to his lean muscles.
The snake pit is a deserted football field on the outskirts of San Diego. Legend says it’s called that because it was abandoned as a result of a snake pandemic. There are faded, chipped blue bleachers on which the guys are slumped, drinking beer. We, the girls, are seated, crossed legs, sipping expensive wine from the bottle and vaping. On the bleachers opposite to us are the Las Juntas crowd. They don’t wear Swiss brands and drive German cars. They pass half-empty bottles of tequila and rolled-up cigarettes.
“Gross, Blythe, he’s a sophomore.” Alisha, part African American, part Dutch, all gorgeous, makes gagging noises beside me.
“Shut up, you would take a full-time job as his reusable condom if he’d have you. You didn’t come here to watch sweaty nobodies getting whipped.”
“Who is he fighting, anyway?” I pop my fruity bubblegum, rearranging my dark green velvet mini dress on my thighs. My ten shades of shiny blonde hair is half-tied into a silky black bow and I look Pinterest-ready. My tip-winged eyeliner is on point and my pout is red and matte, creating the perfect film noir effect.
I’m Daria Followhill.
Cheer captain.
Rich Bitch.
Little Miss Popular.
See something you like? Too bad. I don’t do boys. Men, on the other hand…
“No idea, but I don’t envy him. The fights today were brutal so far, and Vaughn is the best fighter in the pit so they usually save him for last.” Alisha examines her manicured fingernails.
“Here comes the meat,” someone hollers three rows down, and we all stand up and crane our necks to check the unfortunate soul who is going against the Vaughn Spencer. I rise on my tiptoes as the crowd on both sides erupts in barks, pumping their fists. The scent of dry blood from previous fights, sweat, and alcohol lingers in the air like a cloud. The twang of human desperation hits my tongue.
I see a tall, well-built figure zigzagging toward Vaughn on the dead field. He is clutching a bottle of what looks like something alcoholic, his dark blond hair—or is it light brown? —falls across his forehead, ear-length. I can’t see his face, but I don’t need to. There’s a hole in his red shirt, right where his heart is, and my hand goes straight to the small piece of sea glass hanging at my throat.
Don’t faint, bitch. You’re wearing a super short dress.
I’ve become a pro at avoiding Penn Scully for the past four years. A miracle, considering the fact he is a star football player and I am a cheer captain at schools of the same size and in the same county. So far, we’ve played together twice each year. Our teams always make the playoffs, with All Saints always on the losing end.
I couldn’t face him after everything blew up with Via. Every time we had a game against Las Juntas, I either faked period cramps or slipped into my car before the game was over.
“Someone pinch me.” Blythe claps her hands excitedly. She is wearing a nude-colored cropped shirt to match her pointy nude-pink nails. “Penn Scully, Las Juntas’ wide receiver, is the hottest thing in SoCal. I’ve been wanting to sit on his face for a while now, too. Tonight’s my lucky night.”
“From what I’m hearing, you’re in the business of parking your ass on anything it could fit on. Just a heads-up, Vaughn doesn’t like his food fast.” Knight chuckles behind me. I twist my head to face him, arching a brow. I’m just trying to pretend seeing Penn doesn’t make my heart twist in my chest, unchaining itself from its arteries.
A chick I don’t know is sitting in Knight’s lap, trying to hoover his ear into her mouth, her arms flung over his broad shoulders. His legs are spread lazily, and he is wearing a vintage Gucci jacket and white Air Jordans. His jeans are literally tailor-made for him, and his haircut costs more than my upmarket tote bag.
Knight is gorgeous, and he not only knows it, but would advertise it on billboards if it were possible. Hooded green eyes, dimples as deep as his Casanova gaze, pouty red lips and a jaw you could cut cheese with. His chestnut brown hair is softer than medieval-themed porn, and everything about him screams hedonism.
We all live in the same cul-de-sac, of the same neighborhood, children to the same group of best friends. Knight and Vaughn are the closest to each other, practically brothers. Which is weird, because they are also like fire and ice. Vaughn is a crazy artist with psychotic tendencies, and Knight is the definition of a popular jock.
One is Edward Scissorhands, the other Zac Effron’s prettier long-lost brother.
“Is your girlfriend going to get pissy when she realizes you came back home with crabs? They make pretty useless pets.” I bat my eyelashes sweetly at him. Luna is not his girlfriend, although he would die trying. That’s why I never really liked Luna Rexroth. She is the original Via. The girl who created the Hulk inside of me. The girl who Vaughn always smiled at, who Knight followed blindly. Daddy once laughed that Luna is like a Sicilian nun. Once a year, the nuns appear behind lifted curtains so their families can see and adore them because they miss them so.
“That’s Luna. When she appears, everything stops.”
Yup. And I cease to exist.
“Suck a saggy cock, Dar.” He clamps his joint between his teeth, cupping his hand over it to light it up, then blows a chain of gray smoke straight into my face.
“Is that an invitation? Because there’s a pill for your Q-tip of a dick.” I jerk my chin up.
“Baby, my cock is too hard for you to take. The only pill you’ll be needing are three Advils to handle the aftermath of having me inside you.”
“Inside me? In your dreams, Knight Cole.”
“Hard no. In my dreams, I have Luna’s legs wrapped around my waist, and the rest is NC-17. No offense, Tiffanie.” He pats the girl’s ass with the hand that’s holding his Zippo.
“Stephanie.”
“Don’t make it awkward, babe. I forgot you were in my lap until Elsa here pointed it out.” Knight motions to me and laughs.
“Too bad you’re a sophomore and Luna is a junior. She’ll never date you.” I’m just egging him on. I mean, Luna probably wouldn’t date him, but not because of his age. She’s trapped in her own little universe. She is the sun, and he is Earth. Always circling around her, getting an inch closer every lifetime, even though the burn could ruin him.
He cocks his head to the side, his smile so wolfish, his teeth look pointier than usual.
“Oh, brother, if you knew how many of your senior friends gave my cock mouth-to-mouth when they were juniors, you’d have a heart attack.”
Our banter is interrupted by a loud, shrieking “Whoa!”
The crowd winces in unison, and we all snap our heads back to the field, watching Penn fall to the ground on his way to the center of the pit. My Marx. They haven’t even fought and he’s already knocked down on his ass. He looks super drunk. Vaughn is going to kill him before he realizes where he is.
I turn my attention back to Knight.
“You need to tell Vaughn the fight is off.”
“Look who’s got her thongs in a twist. Why? You placed a bet with Gus tonight?” Knight is rubbing the girl’s ass, but he is not into it. He never is. I go crimson, my head so hot it might explode. My hands ball into fists beside my body. I don’t want Penn to end up in a hospital tonight, even though he hates me and probably wouldn’t want my concern. Guilt swirls in my stomach as the memory of him tearing up his sister’s acceptance letter floods into my memory.
“Whatever, like I’d ever talk to Gus voluntarily. But this loser is obviously drunk. Vaughn’s going to slaughter him.”
“He is a huge-ass football player on a team that consists of straight up gangsters. He can hold his own,” Knight shoots back darkly.
Knight is the starting quarterback of All Saints High, so he’s had the dubious pleasure of playing against Scully. Rumor has it, Penn is the best in the county. Maybe even the state. Principal Prichard has tried to offer him a scholarship several times so he could join our team. Lucky for me, Penn is the loyal type.
“Knight,” my voice breaks, falling off the cliff of indifference. I’m begging. The girl in his lap shoots me a gaze filled with poison. “Vaughn could get into real shit if this goes south.”
His face morphs from bored to annoyed. He pushes the girl off his lap and hands her the remainder of his joint.
“I’m not going to break it apart because you’re being a vagina, but I am going downstairs to make sure these two dicks are keeping it clean.” He swipes his tongue against his lips and his tongue ring pokes out.
I look back to the field, and both guys have taken off their shirts. Knight is right. Penn is a far cry from the emaciated boy who gave me the most precious thing in the world four years ago. He is muscled, sinewy and imperial, with zero percent body fat and bulging arms. A prominent V points down to his holy grail, and by the way my fellow cheerleaders sigh beside me, they notice it, too. Vaughn is skinnier in comparison. Not that it matters. He’s got feline patience you cannot help but admire, and I’ve seen him in his element taking down guys triple his size without breaking a sweat.
They circle each other, quiet and deadly and serious. Vaughn is expressionless, as per usual. Stoic, calm. Penn is looking out of focus, a loony smile on his lips. The glass bottle slips from between his fingers and rolls on the ground, and people burst with laughter that echoes in my heart.
“Does he fight here often?” I ask no one in particular.
“Nope.” Gus, our football captain who sits two rows down, takes a pull of his beer. His friends beside him are passing some kind of a clipboard with names written on it between them. They’ve been placing bets on the fights all night, and this one takes the cake. Gus snatches the clipboard and pushes it into his duffel bag, balling his varsity jacket and stuffing it on top to conceal the clipboard. Guess he still thinks it’s a secret that he’s running a betting ring. Rumor has it, he makes a small fortune running these bets, and Vaughn—the guy who hates money and everything it represents—gets a cut. Everyone knows what he does with it. Saving so he can open his own studio without touching a dime of his parents’ wealth.
“Penn’s not the get-drunk-and-fight type of dude, and I’ve partied with his school plenty. Something’s up.” He finishes up his bottle and rubs his hands together.
Something’s up.
I need to stop this guilt-fest. I’m not responsible for his problems. A different girl—a brave girl—would have faced him by now. Not me. He knows what we did that day. How it led to his sister’s disappearance. I never asked for his forgiveness because—let’s be real—I don’t deserve it.
My breath is tucked deep inside my throat as the two measure each other on the dead field, their body language a perfect mirror. Vaughn is the first to throw a punch in Penn’s face. It’s a heavy blow, and Penn’s nose bursts with blood. People shriek and suck in a collective breath. Penn stumbles backward, laughing and shaking his head, as if he dodged the hit. He licks the blood on the corner of his upper lip, then pounces on Vaughn in a way I’ve never seen before.
Bengal tiger.
I almost forgot how quick and graceful he was. Is. Just like his sister.
Penn jams Vaughn to the ground, locking his knees on either side of Vaughn’s torso, raining sloppy fists down his face. Some hit. Some miss. I want to throw up. The crowd is screaming. This hasn’t happened before. Vaughn has taken some serious beatings over the last couple years, but was never thrown to the ground. Vaughn knows better than to squirm and waste his energy. He learned jiu-jitsu before he got kicked out of three different classes for being disobedient.
“Spencer! Spencer! Spencer! Spencer!” All Saints High’s students chant from our side of the bleachers, throwing empty cans of beer to the sidelines. Students from Las Juntas, the other school, remain silent, but no less intimidating. They are less prone to public gestures, but I know better than to think they’re less loyal to their football star.
Vaughn has a busted lip and a black eye before he manages to roll on top of Penn and mount him, kneeing his ribs. Penn pushes Vaughn clumsily, and before I know it, they’re stumbling back up again. Vaughn is toying with an obviously plastered Penn, his fists precise and accurate. I see Knight striding along the sidelines of the football field, running his fingers through his hair, exhaling sharply.
“Let’s wrap it up, V. Asshole’s more sauced than a cliché abusive dad in a teen film and you’re bleeding like a chick on her period.”
“Which is why I’m not going to kill him, just teach him a valuable lesson. He’ll thank me.” Vaughn winks, spitting a lump of blood and circling Penn again. He’s in a mood when he fights.
Vaughn sends a roundhouse kick to Penn’s chin. Blood sprays across the dirt, shooting from his mouth like a rainbow. He falls down, a beaten and bloody mess. He is not moving.
One second.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
Get up. Get up. Get up.
A scream erupts from my mouth before I can swallow it down. It rings in my ears. Blythe, Alisha, and Esme tug me down the bleachers. Knight enters my peripheral, his arms wrap around me quickly.
Knight is hurling people left and right with his shoulders, as kids pour out to the field in what looks like a massive fight between the two schools. Knight ushers me to the parking lot and shoves me into his powder blue Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. There’s not much space in his back seat, and I’m forced to sit straight and slap a hand over my mouth so I don’t puke. He twists a bottle of water open and hands it to me. I take it, but my hands shake too hard for me to take a sip without spilling it all over.
“Puke in my back seat, and it’s game over for you, Followhill.”
He circles the convertible, then hops into the driver’s seat with the door still closed. Like a summoned demon, Vaughn appears from the chain-linked entrance of the field, wiping his face with the hem of his black shirt. His jeans are torn and his makeshift belt consists of his army boots’ laces. Knight throws a finger in Vaughn’s direction as his engine roars to life.
“You’re high if you think you’re getting into my car looking like Carrie, post bucket scene.”
Vaughn fires a paper-dry look.
“Calm your tits, Cole. I’m bumming a ride with the Las Juntas crowd.”
Knight’s eyebrows jump to his hairline, and his eyes enlarge in disbelief. “You are fucking high. Get in the car, moron.”
“They jumped us on the field,” Vaughn clips, as if it’s a good explanation to his decision. The scent of weed and blood makes my head dizzy.
“And they’ll hand you your asses without the football team fighting on your side. Don’t do shit before I come back. I just need to cart Princess Vagina back to her castle.”
Vaughn raises his leg and readjusts a piece of masking tape he plastered against the bottom of his army boot that is completely torn.
“The fight tonight shouldn’t have happened.” He spits a lump of blood onto the concrete road.
“Please tell me Scully didn’t break anything other than Daria’s black heart. She looks like she caught some feelings.”
I punch Knight’s leather seat from behind. I still can’t breathe, but I’m grasping at every piece of information about Penn hungrily.
“His mom died this morning.”
There’s a beat of silence, in which I scream so loud in my head, my ears ring. I look over to Knight, a guy who sees this scenario as something very real, and I’m not surprised to watch him freeze on the spot.
“That’s why they started the brawl,” Vaughn exhales. “When Daria was busy having a nuclear meltdown—great form, by the way”—Vaughn pins me with a look— “some guy ran onto the field and scrubbed Scully out of the dirt, screaming she overdosed this morning. Consequently, on his eighteenth birthday.”
“Get the fuck out.” Knight’s jaw goes slack, and he punches the steering wheel so hard, the piercing shriek of the horn lingers in the sky for a few seconds.
Vaughn dips his head.
“His second birthday present was his stepdad kicking him out of the house. Las Juntas’ players aren’t gonna touch me. I’m just gonna stitch him up. Make sure he’s okay.”
“I’ll tag along,” Knight says, even though he knows it’s totally dangerous. His first football game is in one week, and it’s against the Las Juntas Bulldogs. They’ll break his legs without even thinking about it twice. Of course, I can’t tell him this.
Last year, the outgoing seniors of All Saints showed up at Las Juntas High School in the middle of the night, took down their flag, replaced it with a pirate’s flag, and smeared the pole with Vaseline for an end-of-school prank. Going there without his crew, even with Vaughn, is not asking for trouble, it’s begging for it. But that’s the thing about Knight. Taking risks is a hobby of his.
“Just dropping Dar at home.”
“Fine, whatever, I’ll come with you guys,” I huff. I know I can’t face Penn, especially considering the circumstances. I’m probably the last person he wants to see. I will only remind him of his previous loss. And if my snotty friends hear I hung out with the Las Juntas crowd after spontaneously screaming like the world was ending tonight, they would have a field day.
Still, I want to see that he is all right. Personally, I guess.
“Shut up,” both Vaughn and Knight say in unison.
Vaughn takes a step forward, appearing under the streetlamp. It illuminates the damage Penn has left on his face in a tawny light. Both his eyes are black, his lip and eyebrow are cut, and there’s swelling on his forehead that will only grow bigger tomorrow morning. He’s never been beaten up so badly before.
“Don’t bother, Mother Teresa. Dudebro’s not gonna hang out for long,” Vaughn says.
“Yeah?” Knight asks.
“Blythe Ortiz just coaxed him to go home with her afterwards. Not sure how he can fuck in his state, but I guess that’s for them to discover tonight.”
Both guys chuckle darkly. Blythe. Why am I not surprised? She is so boy crazy. Girl, Interrupted. By dick. It doesn’t usually faze me that Blythe is boy crazy. It actually makes me look better in comparison. But her touching Penn is just gross on so many levels. A) He is clearly badly injured, and B) He was my first kiss, which in my weird mind means that no one from All Saints can touch him now. “He’s eighteen. He can fuck in any state—all fifty, even when he is physically in a coma,” Knight deadpans. There’s silence for a beat, and then he adds, “Gus is probably losing his shit. He put a lot of money on this fight and technically, there’s no winner.” Knight strokes his chin.
“Gus needs a life and a neck. Not in that order. Guy’s a douche, and I’ve met socks more sophisticated than his ass,” Vaughn replies dryly. “He’ll survive.”
“You get in bed with him business-wise.”
“I get in bed with anyone I can fuck over and have my way with business-wise,” Vaughn says calmly.
I look down at my hands in my lap. Why do I feel so guilty? Vaughn bends over and pats my back like a big brother, even though he is two years younger than me.
“Don’t sulk. Scully is a tough motherfucker.”
They don’t know.
Not about Via, and not about Penn.
Not about my sea glass necklace, and not about the green Hulk that’s living inside of me.
I flip my hair and smile, but I’m not there. Not really. Even when Knight drives me home with the sunroof open, under the beautiful blanket of the starless sky, the color of the night so pure my eyes sting. The moon looks as lonely and seductive as ever, and Penn is somewhere underneath it, digesting his new reality.
Knight kills the engine and nods his chin to the entrance of my house. It’s a Tuscan-style mansion with eight bedrooms, two-story foyer, a wine cellar, ballet studio, and a pool that looks like it bleeds into the cliff of the mountain on which we live, in a gated community called El Dorado. My dad is in investments, and my mom…well, she invested in bagging the right man, I guess.
Her former high school student. But that’s a story for later.
Knight helps me to my door. He shoves his hand into my crocheted purse and fishes out my keys, kicks the door open, and punches in our security code.
“You look wasted and I look inherently guilty. Please snap out of your bullshit meltdown before we hit the second floor,” he drones, throwing my arm over his shoulder and dragging me up the stairs of the darkened foyer. There’s a huge picture of my mother arabesque-ing in ballerina attire in black and white, staring ahead, her elegance casting a regal vibe on the entire house.
It’s not that late and chances are, my parents are still awake. If not, Melody will wake up when the clock hits midnight. She always sets her alarm to midnight to make sure I don’t break curfew.
I don’t remember Knight tucking me in bed, but he does. I’m still wearing my dress and makeup. Time doesn’t move. It just stands still in the room like heavy furniture.
Penn Scully is in trouble.
Big trouble. He just lost his mom and is about to be homeless. Just a few miles away, I’m tucked in my imported queen-sized bed with designer Egyptian sheets wrapped around me, with an entire aquarium wall filled with pink champagne staring back at me.
My actions are what got him into trouble.
If it weren’t for me, he’d still have his sister around. Maybe his mom wouldn’t have gotten addicted to crack, or whatever. I squeeze my eyes shut and resist the urge to cry. He gave me the rarest thing in the world, and I gave him heartache. His mom died on his birthday. There’s some relief in this pain I’m feeling. It reminds me that despite my bitchy ways, I’m still capable of hurting for someone else.
The sound of bare feet padding across the hallway attacks my ears. I recognize Mel’s walk. Her quiet pace and graceful movements. My door creaks open and she tiptoes her way in. Normally, I pretend to be asleep to avoid conversation. I stopped calling her Mom and started calling her Mel shortly after Via disappeared, but I don’t even remember why. We’ve been growing apart since, and talking to each other, one-on-one, is kind of torture. But right now, I don’t know if I can pretend to be asleep.
Melody leans over and presses a kiss to my forehead, a gesture she has repeated every single night since the day I was born. Lately, she’s been hovering over my face an extra second to smell my breath for alcohol. I’m sober tonight, though I wish I wasn’t.
“Good night, Lovebug. Did you have a good time at the movies?”
I momentarily forget the lie I told her before I left the house tonight.
I clear my throat, meaning to say yes. But the truth claws out like a scream.
“I saw Penn Scully.”
Her body stiffens, like stone, then sinks down to sit on the edge of my bed. She is trying to school her expression, but her lower lip is quivering, even in the dark.
“How…how is he?”
“His mom died today.”
I’m shocked at my own words. I haven’t spoken about him…ever. No one knows what happened with Via and him. I never came clean. When Melody pressed me about it, I fiercely denied. And I guess, in a sense, I convinced myself that it didn’t really happen. Until tonight.
She cups her mouth, looks down, and her shoulders begin to shudder. I scoot to a sitting position, pressing my back against my white, satin upholstered headboard.
“It’s his birthday,” she says.
But of course she remembers Via’s birthday.
“He fought tonight.”
She looks up at me. There’s so much agony in those pupils.
“At Peet’s?”
“The snake pit.” I roll my eyes. “Yeah.”
“Is he okay?” She doesn’t even scold me for going there.
“I don’t know. He’s not exactly my crowd,” I quip. I trust Vaughn to not walk away from Penn unless he is sure that he is okay. Physically okay. Vaughn doesn’t do feelings. And Blythe? Even if he’d shown signs of wanting to talk about it, he’ll never make it. She’ll sit on his face before Scully can tell her how he feels.
“What happened to his mom?” Mel asks.
“They said overdose.” I fling my hair to one shoulder and start braiding it.
Her nostrils flare, but her mouth barely moves as she speaks. “That’s horrible.”
Isn’t Scully supposed to be loaded? Rich people usually don’t die from drugs. They go hug trees in fancy rehab centers in Palm Springs and come back thirty-pounds heavier and thirty-K less rich. Via was supposed to be swimming in it. I always thought Penn wore shitty clothes in the same way Vaughn does. To show the world he doesn’t give a crap about money.
“Anyway, I just thought you should know, since you were so close to Via.”
Even after all these years, it still feels like death to say her name.
Melody stands up and looks around my room, wanting to find something specific. Maybe she is looking for Penn. Picking up strays is not my forte. Luna, my neighbor, is the one who usually saves the injured birds, frogs, cats, stray dogs, and there was even a deer once. If someone were willing to smuggle Penn through a bedroom window, it’d be her. And, knowing my luck, he’d end up falling in love with her, too.
“Are you, like, going to talk to him or whatever?” I ask. My heart is beating super fast in my chest. Penn knows what I did. He could tell her. She would hate me. She might never admit it, but she would. Hell, maybe she already does. When was the last time we talked? Really talked, like this?
Mom halts at my threshold, clutching the doorframe, her head bowed down. “I’ll do what I should have done when Via was around.”
***
I wake up late the next morning with the feeling of an impending calamity scratching at my skin with its pointy claws. I jump out of bed and race downstairs to get a glass of water. I take it upstairs, pass my parents’ bedroom door, and hear them whisper-shouting.
My parents are insanely in love, sometimes to a gross point. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having your folks hit second base on the bleachers while they cheer you on during a prep rally. More so when your father used to be a student at All Saints High, and your mom used to teach him English lit senior year.
I know whatever they’re talking about is serious, and, of course, press my ear to their door without even considering giving them their privacy, because—hello, I’m me.
“Just tell me why?” Mel growls.
“Because I was a teenage boy once, so I know firsthand how much I don’t want one under my goddamn roof, especially with two teenage girls around.”
“He’ll behave.”
“Like the way he behaved last night, busting Vaughn’s face at the snake pit? Nah, I think I’m good. Vic gave me the rundown.”
Vicious is Vaughn’s dad and the deadliest mofo in the neighborhood. I crushed on him when I was five. Baron ‘Vicious’ Spencer is still a hottie, so #SorryNotSorry.
I have no idea what they’re talking about. Penn? Living here? Why?
“Jackie Chan, Jr. was hardly the victim here. Besides, you fought at his age, too,” Mom points out.
“Exactly, Mel. I wouldn’t want teenage me anywhere near my daughters. Not in the same house, and frankly, not even on the same continent. This kid ought to have a family somewhere. Where’s his sister? We’ll buy him a plane ticket. Business class. I’ll throw in a private school tuition if you just get that idea out of your pretty head.”
“We’ve been anonymously covering his football costs for years, Jaime. I’ve even gone as far as talking to his stepdad once and trying to form a channel of communication. He doesn’t need money. He needs love and people who care about him. If such people existed, he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. I got off the phone with his stepdad a few minutes ago.”
“Christ,” Daddy mumbles.
“Guess what? The man is not even coherent and Penn’s things are already packed.”
What in the name of the Holy Spirit and Kylie Jenner’s Botox fairy is happening? I thought Penn was rich? Why would he need my parents to pay for his football gear? And why does it sound like Melody wants him to move in with us? I clutch my glass of water harder.
“If he touches Daria…” He doesn’t need to complete the sentence. There’s a baseball bat in the basement that he named The Kissing Boot. He said he’d use it to kick the asses of guys who tried to kiss Bailey and me.
“There’s too much at stake. Besides, just because they’re the same age doesn’t mean they are going to sleep with each other. I’ve never met two people more different.”
Silence. I know Mel won, but I’m not sure what it means. I think I just got myself into deep shit without even realizing what I was doing. Penn Scully can’t move here, because we’ll kill each other before he walks through the door.
Who am I kidding? He’ll be the one doing the killing.
“Nothing will happen,” Mel repeats. “But we need to get in contact with a family lawyer first thing tomorrow morning. I just got his file from Jim Levin, his counselor. He’s no longer a minor, but there’s still paperwork.”
Bitch is not wasting any time pulling strings and making things happen. I bet she bought us all matching Christmas sweaters and is already planning to take the annual photo with her adopted hot child hugging his new sisters and a Labrador puppy on the family couch.
“I’ll text Vic right now. Fucker probably has half a dozen on a retainer with the amount of enemies he made in his extended family alone.” Daddy sighs.
The glass slips from my hand, almost in slow motion, and I watch it crash right atop of my foot. I fight the scream wrestling out of my mouth as it crushes my bones, my foot softening the loud thud, and watch the water splash onto the carpet and the glass rolling off my toes.
I bite my lip so hard, the metallic taste of blood fills every corner of my mouth. Tears block my vision, and they help with keeping the scream at bay.
“Did you hear something?” Dad asks behind their door.
“It’s probably nothing,” Mel retorts.
Yup, I think. That would be me.
Also in this series: