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Eve
THIRTEEN YEARS OLD
The dayI went with my mom to work at the house on the cliff, I started to understand one of the greatest differences between people in the world.
Money.
Some had it, others didn’t.
Everyone wanted it.
It seemed that simple to my thirteen-year-old mind.
Cliff Point, a sign outside the gate read. A house so expensive, it didn’t have a number, just a name.
Walking up to Cliff Point, the biggest house on the exclusive, winding hilltop drive, the differences between my family and the one who lived in the mansion slapped me in the face.
They had everything.
My mom, brother, and I had nothing. The contrast had never been so clear.
The mansion was white, a masterpiece of turrets and vast windows. It sat behind a huge metal gate that my mom didn’t dare approach. We entered through a side gate that led us to the back of the sprawling property. A huge infinity pool dominated the backyard, dropping off into nothingness, the Maine coast down below stretching toward the horizon.
My mom rang a bell at a discreet side door, just as a crunching of tires on gravel pulled me to peek around the wall toward the front of the house. A car drew to a stop. It was white, just like the house, and big. A man got out of the driver’s side and ran around to open the back door. A sleek blonde got out, tossing her hair over her shoulder and stalking away from the driver without thanking him.
The other back door opened on its own, and a boy emerged. He looked to be about my age, though he was tall. As the tallest kid in my middle school class, most boys I knew were only just catching up to my height. But this boy was already taller than me. He slammed the car door with a vicious shove that made me jump.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Colette!” he shouted at the woman rounding the car who marched in her high heels with terrifying speed.
“Eve,mi vida, let’s go.” My mom’s hand wrapped around my arm, and she gently guided me toward the open side door.
I watched the boy a second longer. He was lanky, with too-long, shaggy black hair and dark slashes of eyebrows. His elbows were pointy and sharp, his collarbones visible even through his hockey jersey. His feet looked huge, and so did his ears, like he still had to grow into them. Still, he was magnetic somehow. It was his eyes. Dark and full of emotion. They seemed to burn.
The woman reached him and grabbed his arm hard. I felt the contrast sharply between my mom’s gentle tug and the way the woman’s taloned hand dug into the boy’s long, skinny arm.
His eyes collided with mine, just before I lost my line of sight.
Those eyes burned everything around them.
They burned me, too.
The house was just as beautiful inside as it was outside. Clearly, the family who lived here loved white, because there was such an absence of color it was blinding.
White marble floors and walls. White linens and blinds. White flowers spilling from large crystal vases.
I trailed after my mom from room to room. The housekeeper, Mrs. Linton, didn’t like the idea of me cleaning. In her opinion, a thirteen-year-old couldn’t meet her exacting standards. After a while, I pulled my favorite manga from my backpack and went to find a quiet place to keep out of the way. It was summer break, and my brother Asher was at a hockey camp that my mom could barely afford. She was working extra hours this year to be able to send him.
Usually, she let me stay at home in the summer as long as Asher was there, too. But since it was just me this year, I had to go to work with her. That meant a lot of long, hot days following my mom to house after house. But I didn’t mind. Asher needed to keep improving his hockey skills to make the team at Hade Harbor High, the best public school in a hundred-mile radius, and one that fed directly into Hade Harbor University, a schoolknown for sending players to the NHL. He had a dream, and the talent to back it up. I’d do anything to see him achieve it. Asher was my twin, and his dreams were my dreams.
Soon, I’d be able to work in the summer and earn my own money, and I couldn’t wait.
Money meant living in a house like this and having a worry-free life. The sooner I could earn, the better. Then I could help my mom retire and give up the back-breaking work that had aged her before her time.
I found a quiet spot near a room that looked like a library or study of some kind. I sat on a bench seat in the hallway and enjoyed the view out over the coastline, and the jagged, twisted road that led to Hade Harbor proper. From up here, surrounded by white, I wondered if the boy who lived here ever felt like a god, peering down on the mere mortals who lived their ordinary lives in the town below. If I lived here, I’d never be worried about anything ever again. If I lived here, I’d never want for anything ever again.
I was just finding my page when a door slamming nearby sent me jumping to my feet. It wasn’t just a slammed door; it was an angry sound. Echoing footsteps rang around the hallway. Someone was coming.
I didn’t know why, exactly, I felt the need to hide. Maybe it was the fury behind those footsteps. Something whispered inside me that I shouldn’t be found lurking around in this family’s private domain. I instantly regretted not staying with my mom.
