“Mrs. Followhill, have your children ever gone missing at the mall or in a park?” I call her Mrs. Followhill because if I inherited one thing from my runaway crazy-ass grandma, it’s good manners.

“Of course.”

“How long did it take you to find them?”

She pauses before she answers because she knows where this is going. I lift a questioning eyebrow.

“Twenty-five minutes,” she admits. “The worst half hour of my life.”

“Then it suffices to say you didn’t love my sister like she was your own. She’s been missing for nearly four years now, and your ass showed up only two minutes ago, making grand announcements like a presidential candidate.”

“Four years.” She looks around her, drinking in the torn chain-link fences, cracked concrete, and boarded windows. “You still don’t know where she is?”

After the truancy officer poked Mom, Rhett finally came up with a story about Via moving in with my dad. It’s an interesting angle, considering no one knows where he is, least of all Via. Rhett went as far as faking a shit-ton of paperwork. Then he proceeded to beat my semi-unconscious mother for recklessly giving birth to kids she had no intention of raising. “As motherly as a stray cat,” he spat in her face while tromping his way out the door. The fact was, Via disappeared with zero repercussions from the system, thanks to Mrs. Followhill’s daughter. And me.

“Take a wild guess.” I flash her a sardonic smile.

She squares her shoulders, narrowing her eyes at me. “All right. Get up, Penn.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“You’re anything but.” She shoves her outreached hand in my face. “Stand up.”

I laugh at that because I can. Because I’m eighteen years old and no one but a complete stranger wants to claim my ass. Because my mother died yesterday of an overdose (I’ll give her one thing—perfect timing), yet I feel absolutely nothing. She hasn’t been present in my life for as long as I can remember. Over the past two years, we’ve barely exchanged six sentences in total. Rhett didn’t shed a tear. Just told me to pack my two and a half belongings and leave, adding that he hadn’t screwed her in a year, and I should be grateful he let me stay beyond her expiration date.

“Penn, you need to come with me.” Melody is snapping her fingers in my face now. I blanked. Guess that happens when you don’t sleep for two nights straight.

“I do, huh?” I don’t know why I’m smiling. I’m in so much shit even her manicured hand can’t pull me out of it. “Remind me why?”

“The alternative is couch-surfing and slipping at school. By the way, today is the first day of class. If everything were fine, you’d be there. And you’re officially not the state’s problem. Even if you do find temporary places to stay, you’ll move around constantly, which will make it difficult to practice or even get a job. You will have no funds to sustain your football career—that is, if you move somewhere where they have a football team, and if they’ll even let you try out for a position. Not to mention, according to your file, you’re the team captain. Why lose your position? You’re going to get drafted to a D1 college if you keep it up. Complete your senior year while staying with us, and we’ll go our separate ways if that’s what you want. But at least give yourself the chance to succeed. Don’t turn this opportunity down because of your pride.”

She knows a lot about my life, but it doesn’t surprise me. Being a kid from around here, your file gets tossed around like beer pong.

“You and your sister both have more athletic talent in your pinkies than I’ve ever seen,” she adds.

“So, what, I’m going to live at your place, and we’re going to play fucking house for a year?” I crack my knuckles.

“We’re not going to play anything. We are a family. And you are welcome into it.”

“Put a lid on it, ma’am. You sound like a This Is Us episode.”

I should stop. That much I know. I’m throwing away a golden opportunity. My stupid ego will make sure I end up without a scholarship and a roof, but I’m not ready to cave in yet. I have nothing against Melody Followhill. Her daughter, on the other hand, is a different story.

“We’ll make it work.” She offers me her hand again. I don’t take it. Again.

She nudges her hand an inch closer to my face.

“Whatever your reservations are, we can work them out. I’d like to help you find your sister.”

My sister is dead, I’m tempted to say, but hell if I need another dose of pity. It’s only an assumption but an educated one. No way Via is alive and hasn’t sent me a letter, or a text, or picked up the goddamn phone in four years.

“Good luck with that.”

“I don’t need luck. I have money.”

I inspect her to see if she is for real. She doesn’t make any apologies for being rich. I see where her daughter got the superiority complex. It stinks on Mrs. Followhill, but it positively reeks on her baby girl.

“Get your duffel bag,” she commands.

When I stay put, she grabs it herself and heads to her Rover. After tossing it in her back seat, she throws the passenger door open.

“Fine. Stay here. You’re not getting your things back. You officially own nothing.”

I finally get up and get in, not looking back at Rhett’s house. My hand hovers over the leather seats, not touching.

Fuck.

“You’ll kick me out in an hour,” I comment dryly.

“Try me, Scully.”

I dig my fingernails into the leather seats, fascinated with how beautiful the imperfect indents of my nails look on them. When she starts the engine, I light a cigarette and roll the window down.

One last chance to change your mind, lady.

“Those cigarettes are going to kill you.” She pushes her sunglasses up her nose and raises her chin. She’s bold, this one.

“Good. The fuck are they waiting for?”

I don’t know what I’m expecting. A lecture, a scowl. A punishment? Maybe some yelling. It’s been a while since I’ve been parented.

But what I see in my periphery amuses me. A smile tugs at her lips.

“You have sass. You and my daughter, Daria, will get along just fine.”

She has no idea how wrong she is, but she sure is about to find out.

 

 

You poured misery into me

Let it simmer for a while

And now it is time for you to taste

What you’ve created

 

 

I slide my journal on the edge of Principal Prichard’s desk and step back. He doesn’t raise his head from the documents he is reading, a frown stamped on his face. I rub my sweaty palms along my skirt. He licks his forefinger and flips a page in the brochure he’s reading. It’s a grown-up quirk that reminds me he is twenty years my senior.

That what we’re doing is wrong.

I wrote my first ever entry in my little black book the day we did what we did to Via. The day I realized I wasn’t just a mischievous kid, I was a mean girl. Since then, the notebook has become jammed-packed with entries.

I take it with me everywhere like a dark cloud over my sunshine hair, and at night, I sleep with it under my pillow. It harbors my not-so-Instagram-worthy moments. Things only Principal Prichard and I know. How I cut Esme’s Disney princess hair in her sleep when we were fifteen at a sleepover. How I had my mom adopt the stray cat Luna wanted just to make her jealous.