His spoiled mother had put it in his head that he should be a star—ensuring she could ride his coattails and the alimony from her fourth divorce straight into a permanent life of leisure. The quickest way to get his foot in the door was by cutting the hourshe worked as my dad’s admin at the plastic surgery practice to put in the grunt work as a personal assistant. Not to Maddie’s friend the douchey actor, but to an even douchier one.
The whole thing sounded like hell to me, but it wasn’t my life.
It also wasn’t shocking that she’d found Josh and his actor boss with a table of pills and coke between them. That was Hollywood up, down, and all around.
Nope, the real kick in the fucking face was Josh’s revelation that my father wasknowinglyproviding said pills.
My father is selling drugs.
It was like a cruel taunt on repeat in my head, slamming harder with each punishing step I took.
Father.
Drugs.
Father.
Drugs.
Father.
Drugs, drugs, drugs!
I stopped abruptly, nearly stumbling to the ground. My vision began to tunnel as my breaths came in short pants.
Selling prescriptions wasn’t simply going against his oath or a shady business loophole. It was illegal. It put his entire practice at risk—impacting Maddie’s parents, too, since our dads started that practice from nothing.
And, sure, powder snorting and pill popping were as much of a part of upper-class suburbia as inground pools and luxury SUVs, but that didn’t make it okay.
Peoplediedfrom drugs.
If something happened to one of his patients because of his overprescribing…
The practice.
Maddie’s family.
The reputations.
The humanlife.
I couldn’t even fathom the damage it would do.
I lifted my shirt to swipe at the sweat before it could roll down into my eyes as I looked longingly in the direction I’d come. As badly as I wanted to go back down the path, I didn’t.
I inhaled deeply and began walking again on the slim hope some answers waited for me at the top of the trail.
Maddie wouldn’t lie. I trusted her and Wren—our other bestie—more than anyone else in the world. But there had to be something more to the story. There just had to be.
I’m missing something.
Some explanation to make this make sense.
With each step, I shut out the guilt. Then the panic. Then the shock. I closed off my emotions and did what I did best.
I organized.
I visualized the bullet points of what Maddie had shared.
