by Eden O'Neill
She eyed me. “It wasn’t like that. Anyway, I handled myself. Kicked him right in his balls.”
I didn’t like how she was passing this off, nor how I didn’t know about it for literally four fucking years. I sat on the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her head titled. “You wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. Anyway, I’m good. So please. Stop.”
She pushed me, and I grabbed her. “Paige…”
“You know what? I’m thinking I’m going to go to this party of yours,” she said, doing what she did best. She averted anything from herself, always protecting, protecting me, and had since we were kids. She didn’t know it, but she always acted like a buffer for me with my dad. Her very presence in my life frustrated the shit out of him, and he gave up on me. He stopped trying to force me to do things and washed his hands. Both the mental and sometimes physical burden of him stopped. He just stopped caring, and I had too, the need to please and try to earn my dad’s forgiveness from what happened so many years ago gone. I’d given up on him too, both of us done with each other.
That could be the greatest gift this girl on my bed ever gave me, and because of that, I let this go, but only for the time being. We’d be talking about this again, but I knew how she was. I couldn’t push Paige too hard or she reverted. She ran. She kept playing on her phone, and I stood, switching out my shoes.
“One second,” she said, taking more than a sec. She stuck her tongue out at me when I eyed her. “Just a second.”
“It’s been more than a damn second.” I took the phone from her. “Come on. We going?”
She took it back. “Chill the fuck down. My sister’s going on some date with a guy, and I’m trying to talk her down off a cliff about what to wear. It’s the first since that tool Dean.”
Paige didn’t talk a lot about her sister or really, hardly any personal stuff, but that thing with Dean I’d heard about. She hadn’t said much about that either, but I knew the guy hurt her sister in some way.
Paige thrust her phone at me. “Tell her the pink one looks the best. I need to go to the bathroom and change my tampon.”
I made a face again, another one of the joys of having a female best friend. I sat on the bed, but before doing what she told me to I clicked on the picture. Her sister, December, wore a pink dress, one that hugged her hips and made her curves superior to probably ninety percent of the girls I’d screwed in our junior class, and I’d screwed a lot of them. Paige was right. I was a complete ho and un-the-fuck-ashamed.
I scrolled to the next picture, her sister in a black dress this time and completely gorgeous. I’d never tell Paige that. It’d probably freak her out and make her hit me or something.
“The black one’s best,” I texted to her sister, smiling at how her eyes complemented it. She had this long dark hair, thick and perfect with how it fell across her shoulders. It also worked well with the color of the dress, amazingly well. I smiled again. “You look beautiful.”
Honest about that, I put the phone down, and when Paige returned, she picked up her cell. After reading what I sent her sister, she threw a pillow at me. “I said to tell her the pink one.”
“The black looks better.” I waggled my eyebrows. “You want me to lie?”
She blew a raspberry, her gaze going to her phone. “She said thanks,” Paige stated, but then her eyes flashed up. “You called her beautiful?”
Shrugging, I threw an arm around my friend’s neck, wrestling with her out of the room. I got a sock in the gut for that, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to lie to her sister, no reason to.
Nineteen
December - Present
Rosanna said I could come stay with her and her family… but only if I went back to school. She also said she was going to tell my dad what’s going on, which was the main reason I didn’t tell her I was back in town in the first place. I knew she’d tell my dad and probably felt obligated to morally. I mean, she worked for him, so yeah, I pretty much knew she was going to tell him. Needless to say, my phone started ringing with Dad’s calls again, and my aunt’s weren’t far behind.
“You need to talk to him,” Rosanna had said that first night. She put me up in her daughter’s room, her oldest away at college. Rosanna had three kids, the housekeeper a single parent, I guess.
I told her I’d agree to her demands. I’d go to school, but that didn’t mean I’d be talking to my father. I was still mad at him and my aunt, so no, I wasn’t talking to either of them. Frequent calls I could deal with and did, if anything to not be homeless again. It’d kinda sucked the first time, and it was cool to be able to see Rosanna again. She’d hugged me so tight when I arrived at her door, like a mom, and I didn’t have too many of those in my life. I loved my aunt, but she wasn’t my mom. No one could be. I only had one, and she was a pretty good one from what I remembered. She’d do exactly what Rosanna was making me do, go back to school, and while I waited for her to hammer out all those details, I got to chill with Hershey at Rosanna’s. She didn’t have to go to daycare with me at the house and I finally got to be with my girl legitimately. We read books and binge-watched TV while we waited for Rosanna to come home in the evenings, and one day, she didn’t come back empty-handed.
About two bags full of stuff came with her, my stuff, and the things I left behind at my dad’s. She had my school uniforms and everything, ironing them the next day for me. She also had a wool jacket for me and a matching uniform scarf.
She said they’d been my sister’s.
More of my sister’s hand-me-downs graced my body, my hands smoothing over a pleated skirt I paired with the coat. I could only hope this time wearing my sister’s clothes didn’t turn my life on its head. I didn’t think I’d be able to survive a second time.
“Good luck at school today, sweetie,” Rosanna said, she and her two girls at the table with bowls of cereal. She smiled small. “The school says they’ll get you caught up. You should still be able to graduate.”
Yippee for me.
Nodding, I genuinely thanked her for what all she’d done for me, and when I opened the door, I fully expected to take the bus.
Imagine my surprise when I saw my ride.
Hubert, my dad’s driver Hubert, opened the door of a sedan for me. He took off his hat. “Happy to have you back, Ms. December. I’m here to take you to school.”
Dad’s orders. Though he didn’t say. If my dad couldn’t control me directly, he’d do so through kind-faced drivers and housekeepers.
“Good to see you too, Hubert,” I said, very happy to see him as well. I got inside, getting good at holding my skirt so it didn’t ride up against the seats. We took off, and my destiny awaiting, I let it happen.
I didn’t have a choice.
“Ah! You’re back. You’re back. You’re back!” came about twenty minutes later—Birdie when she, Kiki, Shakira, and about half the female basketball team waited outside my locker. They had donuts and everything, vegan donuts.
I could have cried.
I couldn’t help smiling as I gave hugs to friends, true friends who were obviously looking out for me. I admit I had been a little sore about not being able to stay with Birdie, but she said it’d been her dad and that wasn’t her fault. She was also by no means obligated to help me. It was what it was, and I was happy to see her now.
“Good to be back,” I said, kind of sorta not lying. I was happy to see them so… I shrugged. “What did I miss?”
I immediately realized it wasn’t me as we walked to first period—people taking a second to notice I was back but after that gratefully going back to their conversations. It seemed me, my situation, and my leaked news about my past seemed to be old hat, and Birdie put her arm around me, confirming that.
“I told you they’d all move on,” she said, whispering the words while the other girls told about their college plans. Apparently, many had gotten their entrance letters while I’d been away. Many like Royal.
I tried not to thin
k about him because anytime I did, I saw his dad. I saw him hurting him, and I saw Royal lashing out at me because of that. I knew that’s what that was. He was probably embarrassed about what I walked in on and raged at me. It didn’t give him any excuse to treat me the way he had, but being on the outside now, I got it.
Trying to be present, I blended back into the conversations around me, all of us stopping when the headmaster, Principal Hastings, passed us.
He pulled his glasses off, noticing me. “Ms. Lindquist. Good to have you back.”
I smiled. “Thanks, sir. Got a lot of work to do, though, if I want to graduate.”
He nodded. “I’m sure you’ll manage, and happy to see you hanging out with the right people to help you do so.”
Birdie and the others smiled at him saying that, but I didn’t. Before everything with Paige, the principal had given me a warning about who I hung out with. He hadn’t liked seeing me with Royal and Knight for whatever reason.
My smile tight that time, I let that go, and he advised me to see the guidance counselor sometime this week. He said, “It might help,” but I had a feeling that wouldn’t be happening, me being helped that was. All this was still too raw, too soon.
It was all too what I was seeing when I turned around.
They came down the hallway in a pack, the Court, but at the center was the main attraction. LJ, Jax, and Knight all had girls under their arms…
But it was Royal’s who wore a necklace.
The necklace beamed beneath bright red locks—Mira—when she flicked her hair over her shoulder. It was Royal who had his arm around her, hugging her close, and at seeing me, the whole party stopped. He stopped for a moment.
But then, he looked away.
He rushed the group on, clearly not expecting me to be here today. LJ, Jax, and Knight headed away with him, but I noticed Jax did look apologetic. In fact, all the guys passed a glance my way. Even Knight, his frown hard before his gaze averted too. One person who stared me right in the face was Mira, her fingers twirling her necklace before pressing herself closer under Royal’s arm. I couldn’t see it close, but the necklace looked just like the others the girls with Court boys had, the ones in serious relationships with Court boys.
“Oh, yeah, that’s new too,” Birdie said, frowning. She frowned at me. She and the entire school knew Royal and I hooked up thanks to Mira. I never let on about it being more, but she had to know something was up since I’d told her he made the call to bring me to Windsor House. She touched my arm. “Yeah, that.”
That, the couple walking down the hall and to what was probably their first classes. Royal and Mira together.
Mira was Court-kept.
Twenty
December
The what-the-fuckery only continued into the rest of the week. I was so far behind in school it was embarrassing, and even before I left, I hadn’t been great at everything. I was sent home daily with a stack of books, and even though my friends attempted to help me, things felt beyond help. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be in this school and with constant reminders of what happened with my sister. Royal bopping around with Mira only drove the dagger deeper. The two were inseparable, quite literally hanging all over each other, and I just about reached my breaking point not even a full week back.
Christ.
The Bentley was parked outside of Rosanna’s duplex, Hubert stopping right next to it. I honestly wondered how I managed to not see my dad sooner. He obviously knew I was home, sent Hubert for me for school and everything. Maybe he was just letting me get comfortable.
I almost told Hubert to take a drive around the block a few hundred times, but something told me he was in on this too. He answered to my dad after all. Braving up, I grabbed my bag and took the iced steps up to Rosanna’s door. She gave me a key, and I opened it, expecting to see a man in a full suit from his day at work…
Not a damn intervention.
My dad was there. This was true, but there was also someone else, and that someone shot to her feet the moment she saw me.
My aunt Celeste, Aunt C. was here and all the way from California. She threw her arms around me, holding me close. “Oh, December, I could strangle you.”
I held her back, my heart severing in two. I missed her. I did, but…
I opened my eyes, peering over her shoulder to my dad. He sat on Rosanna’s couch, Hershey on the sofa next to him. She had her little head on his lap, sleeping.
I guess dogs on the couch were okay when it wasn’t his own.
He stared at me, a hand on Hershey’s head. The two had gotten a little closer before I left, but I figured he’d just been putting up with her. He stood, my puppy waking up but only to go to the kitchen. Rosanna handed him tea, tea she’d been making. She was a servant in her own house to her employer.
I closed my eyes, holding my aunt again. Why they were both even here besides being out of obligation for their daughter and niece was beyond me. And maybe that was all this was, obligation.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said to my aunt, meaning that. She’d taken care of me most of my life.
She pulled back, my heart aching how much the middle-aged woman looked like my mother. She always did, the soft features and everything. She touched my face. “You didn’t scare me. You broke my heart. We already lost your sister, and you pull this? Running away?”
I called her on that about Paige. She’d dismissed my sister just as much as Dad had, telling me not to get my hopes up about the lost cause who constantly ran away.
I let go of her, easing back, and the two watched me like I’d run again. I idly wondered if this was some kind of intervention, a damn bust and officers would come pouring into the room to take me away and force me to do what they said. They couldn’t do that to me. Not legally, and that was the only thing keeping me in this room and not running for the hills.
“Please sit down, December.” The first words my dad spoke to me. He put a hand toward the sofa, and I did take it, my puppy bounding over to me.
I scrubbed her behind the ears. “Is this an intervention?” I actually asked them, but no one laughed but me. Rosanna shook her head from the kitchen, gazing away, and my dad’s look could murder.
His frown narrowed his eyes. “I suppose you think this is all funny? Your sister died, you skip town, and this is all just completely hilarious to you? Humorous?”
He almost broke me with that, made those tears fall again, but I refused. I swallowed. “Nothing’s funny about wanting space. I thought you two would be happy.”
“Happy?” they said together, and I swear to God that’d been the first time they were on the same position about anything.
I nodded. “I heard you guys talking. In Aunt C.’s room?” That conversation still chilled me, all the pain that day coming back in a wash, and I shook my head. “I was releasing the burden of me off the both of you.”
The two exchanged a look with each other, and it’d been Aunt C. to close her eyes, come to me. My dad, on the other hand, stood his ground, looking away when he pushed hands into his pockets.
I had no idea what was worse in the next moments, my aunt suddenly groveling before me that what I heard wasn’t true or my dad being completely dismissive. They both came across as just ridiculous, and I wanted to end whatever this was.
My aunt touched my face. “It’s not true, December. I’ve always wanted you in my life.”
Well, she had a shitty way of showing it. I blinked away, and my aunt shot a look at my dad.
“Tell her what she heard was a mistake, Rowan,” she commanded, nostrils flaring. “Tell her you don’t feel that way. Fight for her.”
She called him out, called him right there, and my dad put down his tea, coming over to me.
“Do you want to stay here?” he asked, surprising me. His jaw moved. “Because if you do, I… well, I think it’s best.”
“Rowan!”
“I think it’s safe for you and,” he continued, his eyes av
erting, “I think you should stay.”
My lips closed, surprised at this but not really. I was getting what I wanted, wasn’t I? I didn’t want to go back to my dad’s and under his rules and regulations…
So why did I feel socked in the gut?
I picked up Hershey, leaving my aunt’s hands as I left the room and rounded a corner.
“What is wrong with you?” I heard my aunt cry, physically crying, and I did too, tears pushing through my lids. I touched my head against the wall, only to jump upon hearing a door slam. I assumed it was my aunt, and I was right when I turned my head. She’d left, only my dad and Rosanna in the room.
“Make sure you watch her,” he said to her. “That she’s safe, and Hubert will be looking out for her too. And let me know… well, anything. Just anything, and if she needs anything… yes, you know.”
How he pretended to care even now, still pretending.
I closed my eyes again.
Twenty-One
December
We cruised slowly toward holiday break, twinkling lights lining the streets and restaurants in Maywood Heights. People were preparing for the season, gearing up, and meanwhile, I was attempting not to have a nervous breakdown. I started getting anxiety after that meeting with my aunt and dad, it all getting worse, and I felt more and more buried under homework and stress. While others were getting psyched for their holiday parties and final exams, I was freaking out. I had a feeling graduation in the spring wouldn’t be an option for me, and it wasn’t like I cared much, but it was literally all I had. Lunches were filled with banter about what schools people were going to next year, and I just got to sit with my vegan chili, watching it all happen around me like I wasn’t a part of my body. I watched life continue on while I became more and more dead inside, and I hated it. I hated everything. I was even starting to feel a certain way about Rosanna. I knew she was looking out for me, but after that confrontation at the house, I felt like I was being watched. Like if I stepped out of line or did something off, she’d immediately report said thing to my father. It was making me hella paranoid, and that lingered amongst what used to be a pretty easygoing relationship. Nothing visibly changed between us, but I felt it inside. I was starting to feel not welcome in her house because of the feeling. Especially since holiday break was coming up and her daughter would be returning from school. I figured once that happened, I’d be reverting to the couch or something, a nuisance in her house, and I hated that feeling.
