by Piper Lennox
It’s what drew me back to her, and her apartment where Ramen every night and public transport were badges of honor: she was Poor, but Making It. And if I just listened to her, I could Make It too.
What I didn’t know was that Eden didn’t even listen to herself. For all her talk, she veered off-course long before I moved in. The second Gage Rinker entered her life.
And it wasn’t just off-course. Eden ran completely off the road.
Nine
Two Years Earlier
Colby
“That really what you’re wearing?”
Eden pursed her lips into the vanity mirror. Her sugar skull tattoo pinched into itself when she turned. I still remember the colors, more than anything else about the design: strawberry pink and an electric blue like curaçao, like broken glow necklaces splashed onto the skin.
While she reapplied her gloss, I looked down at myself. “You said casual.”
“I said casual dressy. Honestly, Col—jeans and a band shirt? Do you even want a boyfriend?”
My mouth clamped shut.
“I’m just saying,” she went on, puffing a cloud of perfume around her head like a spray-on halo, “you’ve got curves. Show them off, already.”
“This party’s going to be nothing but Gage’s gross-ass friends,” I argued, if only to hide my shame. She knew damn good and well I wanted a boyfriend. It was a new development, something I’d never cared about having...until Eden had one, herself.
Not that I wanted Gage, or anyone remotely like him, for that matter. On the surface, he was your quintessential bad boy. Underneath that, he was just plain bad.
And for weeks now, ever since I drunkenly admitted to her how finding a guy had become my new and secret obsession for reasons beyond my comprehension, she’d been throwing it in my face. Sly, petty jabs, just like this, disguised as looking out for me. Being a good big cousin.
“It’s not just Gage’s friends. I’ve got my friends from work coming, too.”
Great. Gage’s gross friends and Eden’s gross coworkers. What a lineup.
“Come here. You need eyeliner.”
I sighed but obliged. My annoyance dissolved with the coolness of her hand resting on my cheekbone, face perfectly still as she concentrated on the drag and swoop of the eyeliner pen.
“Okay, the other eye...and done. Look, see? See how much better that is?”
In the mirror, with Eden beside me in her perfumed aura, the glint of her dimple piercings like a wink, I shrugged. It did look better, but it wasn’t like I’d never worn eyeliner before. I just didn’t see the point in dolling up for a crowd of suspected drug addicts and known assholes.
In the reflection, I caught a mark on Eden’s skin. A deep grayish impression, like a thumbprint, that seemed etched into her flesh as permanently as the sugar skull.
“Hey, E, what’s this?” No sooner had I taken her arm and lifted it to the light than she tore it away.
“Bumped into a prep table at work. Now move, you’re in my light. I’ve got to redo this wing.”
I slid away effortlessly. If Gage hit her, she’d never admit it. Not that I didn’t believe it one-hundred percent, anyway.
“You guys got pretty loud, last night,” I muttered. When the eyeliner froze mid-wing on her eyelid, and her stare pierced mine in the reflection, I knew the ice here was thin.
Eden snapped her eyes back to her makeup and finished the wing. “Yep. Jealous?” She capped the liner and fished her setting spray from a drawer. “Little miss virgin?”
“I’m not—” Don’t fall for this. I was about to remind her I wasn’t a virgin, even if prom night with Victor Lee or the bonfire with Jake Singh were less than spectacular sexual encounters I’d have preferred to erase from history. But I realized I didn’t need to remind her: she knew. She just wanted to irritate me, deflect. That was Eden’s greatest talent.
“I’m just saying, to me...it sounded like fighting. And I only brought it up because I’m worried. If...if he ever did anything to you, I’d want you to feel like you could tell me.”
Eden rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Another perfume cloud chased me back to the doorway, where I belonged.
She couldn’t deflect this time, though. Eden was changing. The walking definition of charisma I’d grown up with faded more and more the longer we lived out here. The longer she was with Gage. Now all I could see was this shell, a girl who played all her old roles, but only remembered the gist. Even in Eden’s costume, this girl was too thin, too jittery. She could fool our parents and the rest of Kona from afar—but she couldn’t fool me. I was right here.
“Eden.” I waited until she looked at me, ignoring the wilting sigh that came with it. “Seriously: are you okay? With Gage? Work? You just seem...different.”
“Oh, God. How much did my mom pay you to perform this little interview?”
“This has nothing to do with your mom. I’m asking because I’m worried. You’ve got bruises, you’re losing weight—”
“Once again: jealous much?”
“—and I heard you tell Gage your credit cards are maxed out.” My voice dipped on this last detail; I knew, out of everything else, it would hurt her pride the most. Fierce, smart, independent: these were my cousin’s Holy Trinity.
Her eyes flashed. “Worry about you, Colby.” She stood so quickly, the stool in front of her mirror spun. Out in the living room, I heard Gage’s usual playlist of trap music and hip-hop resamplings begin. “And if you want any chance of landing a guy tonight, I’d watch that mouth. No offense, but you can be a huge bitch without meaning to.”
Her barb came in a sweet, just-trying-to-help tone, the box so much kinder than the contents. Like vodka in a water bottle: designed to deceive.
“Fine. Sorry for caring. Shit.”
In my bedroom, as I changed into a black dress I wasn’t sure was mine or hers, I looked at my reflection again. Without Eden to frame me, I saw a clearer picture: the angles of my jaw, softer than hers; cheeks far less sunken; the scar in my lip, nearly invisible, from the time she pulled me out of the koa tree.
A blank neck, uninteresting. But a blank arm, bruise-free.
No matter how many features I had over her, though, it didn’t seem like enough.
She was right. I was jealous. Not because she had Gage, but because she had anyone. Not for her friends, shitty replicas of D-list celebrities who had about as much loyalty as houseflies. And definitely not for her job or whatever she did to piss money away.
I was jealous of Eden because I always had been. Childhood, teens, now: I’d probably never stop wishing, in some form, that I was more like her. Living life like it was just a breeze to ride, bending the universe around my little finger on one hand, while pointedly flipping it off with the other.
“Col,” she called, just before the music grew deafening. “Party’s starting, get out here!”
My jeans and T-shirt felt like somebody else’s as I threw them into the laundry basket. I faced my mirror again and tugged down the hem of my dress, then adjusted my breasts, and sucked in my stomach until that plane between my ribs and hips flattened.
I caught my own stare. The eyeliner, angled and winged by Eden’s hand, looked better to me now, fiercer. With the heady pulse of the music surging from floorboards to feet, treble vibrating my spine, and the hum of strangers’ voices filtering through the air vent over my head, I felt as different as I suddenly looked.
“Worry about you.”
Fine.
From then on, I would.
Ten
Orion
“You kissed her?”
I shush Walt, who’s grinning like I handed him a million-dollar lotto ticket, and shut London’s bedroom door the rest of the way. When she conned him out of having to take a nap, the meltdown reached catastrophic proportions when I got home, complete with knocking over her milk and nearly choking on the one bite of chicken I’d convinced her to take. Now, not surprisingly, she’s out cold at eight on the dot.
>
“Yeah. But don’t get excited, it was just, like...a second.”
“Okay, tell me everything. I want to pinpoint exactly where you fucked things up, like you always do.”
I wait until we’re in the light of the living room to glare at him, so he gets the full effect. “I didn’t fuck it up. The Hurley twins got home. But you know what, I’m glad they did.”
“You’re glad? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m completely serious.” I sink into the couch and tip my head back, touching the wall. The water spot on the ceiling stares back. “Colby isn’t right for me, man.”
“Sure. She’s only cute as hell, funny—”
“I told you, ‘right for me’ isn’t referring to what I want. It’s about what London needs. I’m not looking for a girlfriend. I’m looking for London’s next mom.”
Walt’s quiet. I know a bomb is coming.
“Maybe,” he says, and I shut my eyes, like that can lessen the blow, “you’re just looking for London’s...mom.”
I’m glad my eyes are closed. He can’t read what he can’t see.
“Look, man, I know you miss Emily.” Walt is whispering now. I don’t know if it’s so London won’t hear, or so I’ll have to actually work to listen.
“If you’re implying I still have feelings for her, try again. That was a teenage thing.”
“Maybe so. But I know you still feel guilty you made it and she didn’t, and that you don’t feel like you’re as good a dad as she would’ve been a mom.” He pauses. “It’s been six years. Stop hunting for some totally perfect replacement. You aren’t going to find one.”
I shift on the couch, lying sideways, and grab the remote. Nothing like mindless reality shows to shut down the conversation.
“Hey, Ry, will you look at me, please? I know you don’t like talking about this shit, but you really—”
The batteries pop out of the remote and roll across the table, I slam it down so hard. “Shit.” I crouch down to gather them. One flew under the recliner where he’s sitting, so I motion impatiently to the footrest.
Slowly, he pulls the handle.
“I just think you’re going about this whole thing backwards,” he adds, while I crawl under and grope for the battery. “Find a woman you like, that you’re attracted to, and then see how she does with London. You can’t know if someone would be a good mom on the first date, just like you can’t force yourself to be attracted to someone you picked solely because you think they’d be a good mom.”
“Fuck.” I bump my head on the extension hard enough to draw blood. Thankfully, it doesn’t. When I get out and sit back on my feet, he’s got his arms folded, staring past me at a ceiling fan commercial.
I go back to the couch, fix the remote, and resume scrolling. It’s pointless: my mind’s planted firmly on everything Walt just said, my eyes not even making sense of the titles.
“Did you see what London did, while you were gone?” he asks, when I’ve gone through the entire guide twice.
“Besides throw the world’s biggest tantrum? No.”
He sighs and nods at London’s toy box in the corner. The lid is shut. Two plastic snow globes, Los Angeles and Laguna, are arranged side-by-side in the center.
“Said she wants a whole collection, now,” Walt yawns. The recliner creaks as he pushes to his feet. “Just like Colby.”
The click of his bedroom door echoes all the way out here.
Colby
My first week at Myrtle Grove is uneventful. Literally nothing to write home about.
I should be glad: this is what I wanted. No distractions from work, where I’ll become the best assistant Dr. Aurora’s ever had, save my money like it’s 1939, and get into vet school by next fall, when I can officially tell my mom, without irony, “I don’t need your money.”
I’ve got twelve months. A lot can change.
By the time my first real weekend in the new apartment rolls around, though, I’m restless. The thought of perusing vet schools and financial websites any more than I already have makes my legs ache, eager to get out of here.
Luckily—for once—I get my wish.
“We would,” Clara drawls apologetically, when I suggest a beach day early Saturday morning, “but Sweet and Co. just sent us this huge package yesterday, so we have to do an unboxing.”
“Unboxing,” much like “kawaii,” is a word I never knew until I lived with The Hurley Twins of TwinsceneMakeupTuts, as seen on YouTube and WordPress! They weren’t wildly famous, I’d learned, but had their share of fans and clout. To be honest, I didn’t get it. Not even a little. Girls showing you how to put on makeup? Sure, I saw the appeal. Girls showing you the free stuff companies lavished on them, or slowly opening Japanese candies and toys in front of a camera to bouncy K-pop? Clearly, I was out of touch.
“Maybe tomorrow, then,” I mutter. They’re already setting up the camera and lights, though, and don’t hear me.
A tiny knock comes at the door. It feels weird to answer it, since it’s almost definitely a friend of Clara and Georgia’s, but their inattention leaves me no choice.
When I open it, London is standing there, looking up at me and giggling.
“Colby,” she says, and I can just tell this is completely rehearsed, “can you come to the zoo with me and my daddy today?”
“The zoo?” I lean out of the doorway and glance around. Orion is nowhere to be seen. “Does your dad know you’re here?”
“Please, please, please?” She temples her hands and everything. I know it’s fake, but I’d have to be pretty heartless to resist that face. “They have a new tiger and the tiger had babies!”
“Wh— Uh...I guess I can? I mean, if—”
“Yay!” London bounces like a balloon all the way to the stairs before I can stop her. “Just come over whenever you’re ready!”
I’m left in the wake of her laughter, my mouth still open.
“Guess I’m going to the zoo?” As I shut the door and start gathering my stuff, I’m aware of two glitter-shadowed eyes, boring into my back. “What?”
“Pretty slick of him,” Georgia drawls, cutting her stare to Clara, who nods with her eyebrows piqued in a guru-like way I recognize from their videos. “Sending his kid over here to invite you on a date.”
“That’s not what.... It isn’t even a date. I mean, is it a date when the guy brings the kid?” I shake my head at them, but mostly at myself. Because, deep down, in some piece of me that’s probably glittery and pink and anything so stereotypically “girl” I’ve balled it up and hidden it away from the world...I hope they’re right.
The heat waves levitating off the parking lot turn the walk to Orion’s building into a full-on trek. At the stairs, I hear London’s voice again, this time from the Ford a few feet away.
“But I’m not ready to go yet!”
“Tough. I told you ‘ten minutes’ twenty minutes ago.”
“Uh...hi,” I call. Orion’s head pops up over the roof of the car. “I’m not too late, am I?”
“Late?” Orion’s brow furrows so deeply, I step back. Something definitely isn’t right, here.
Slowly, it relaxes. He shuts his eyes, tilts his head to the sky, and asks, “London. Where exactly did Uncle Walt take you a few minutes ago?”
From inside the car, I hear her swear she doesn’t remember.
“Walt!” Orion shouts. Again, I step back, both of us now staring overhead at the railing in front of their unit as Walt appears. He drapes his arms over the rail and smiles.
“You called?”
“What’d you do?”
Walt barely glances at me. “We went around the complex, that’s all. Got some energy out.”
“Uh-huh. And your big, last-minute date with Mark—was that also a lie?”
“I’m hurt you have so little trust in me.” He presses his hand to his heart and pretends to fight tears. “After all we’ve been through.”
Orion shuts his eyes again. His chest rattles with a deep b
reath, and I take another step back.
“I can leave,” I assure him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know the, uh...invitation—I didn’t know it wasn’t really from you.” Silently, I beg that small, glittery piece of myself to stay hidden. I should have known.
“I want Colby to come with us!” London chirps. “Please, Daddy?”
“Really, it’s okay.” I hold up my palms and back away another yard, never letting my feet come to a full stop. If I start leaving anyway, it’s way less awkward when he confirms that yes, this is exactly what he’d prefer.
“Don’t be silly,” Walt calls down. How or where he managed to hide during his little ploy with London on my doorstep, I have no idea. “I’ve got a date, so no sense in Ry wasting his extra ticket.”
All three of us look at Orion.
“I do have an extra ticket,” he relents, after a beat. When he looks at me, I feel that hidden, giddy ball of hope unfurling through my chest. “Would you...like you join us?”
It’s got to be the heat of the asphalt I’m feeling spread across me. I can’t stand the thought of blushing so intensely in front of him. “Would you...like me to?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Colby! Get in the car!” Walt wilts against the railing dramatically. “This is so painful to watch.”
Orion and I make eye contact again, laughing through our nerves.
“I’d love for you to join us,” he says softly. This time, I think he means it.
Eleven
Orion
In the week since Colby moved here, I’ve done a great job of pretending I couldn’t care less. Every time Walt mentioned her or the Hurleys or both, or anything remotely related to that unit across the parking lot, I sidestepped it like the landmine it was. Whenever London pouted because I wouldn’t let her run over there to show Colby her latest picture of Buttons or the new snow globes Walt bought her at Goodwill, I congratulated myself for seeing through their tricks. Fighting temptation.
