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I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. I’ve worn the girl with the dead sister like a badge pinned to my chest for the past year, and even after all that time I still can’t stomach the sympathetic words and looks.
Everyone feels bad for me.
I don’t want sympathy, I want my sister back.
I leave Mariam in the kitchen, after barely touching my sandwich and head back up to the room I claimed. Noah’s still in his office.
I collapse back onto the bed, feeling the soft comforter against my skin, the dip of the memory foam mattress. I want to take comfort in being among these luxurious things. Before, I would have enjoyed them. I loved the wealth that came along with Noah, it was something I had never experienced before.
My family isn’t poor. We’re upper middle class, but nothing compared to having money like the Bancrofts. Billions of dollars just sitting in bank accounts. The kind of money where you could say “fuck you” to whoever you wanted, consequences be damned.
Being with him was electrifying. I felt on top of the world. He had fancy cars, nice clothes, and ate at the best restaurants. I felt like I was someone when I was with him.
His friends accepted me into their group as one of their own, and for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged.
But then that all came crashing down when he killed Auden.
I lift my hand, glancing at the rock on my finger. He gave it to me that night, before everything went to shit.
He asked me to marry him and I happily declared yes, and then we partied. I was so fucked up I can’t even remember what happened, everything from that night is distorted, blurry. I remember the beginning but not the ending.
I huff, pulling the ring from my finger and tossing it onto the side table. I can’t wear the damn thing more than I have to.
Three Years Earlier
SHE DOESN’T LOOK LIKE THE other kids here. Not that she’s really a kid anyway. The older Wilder girl is newly eighteen.
Pale blonde hair hangs in waves down to her breasts with wispy bangs that are far too long. Her slender hands are wrapped around her phone and I see her purse her lips and blow a gust of air to move the bangs out of her eyeline.
I want to know what she’s doing. What’s on that phone that’s so much more interesting than my father’s party?
Most of the kids of the men who work for my father show up in suits and pretty dresses, representing their families in the best light possible. The younger Wilder girl fits that definition perfectly. She wears a navy blue sundress with a pair of low wedges. Her hair is darker than her sister’s and it looks like she spent more time curling it. She looks like she cares more about her appearance.
My father would like to see me with a girl like that, one that appears perfect.
A trophy wife.
Instead I’m drawn to the blonde that wears torn black jeans and Keds. The one who avoids everyone around her. The one who looks like it’s painful for her to be here.
I want to know her.
“What’s so interesting?” I ask. I hover over her rather than sitting next to her. She’s on the concrete bench with angels carved along the legs in my mother's garden.
She looks up at me, those wispy bangs covering her eyes again. Her hand comes up to move them out of the way, letting her green eyes take me in. They burn a trail down my body and back up, and then she goes back to her phone wordlessly.
“Are you deaf?” I ask.
She pauses, then sets the phone down on the bench beside her, turning her body to better face me. “Are you dumb?” she asks, her face cold as stone, not even a twitch.
All of the blood in my body begins to simmer, heat rising up to my head. I don’t like to be spoken back to.
“Pinched a nerve, did I?” she asks with a lopsided smirk. Picking the phone up on the bench she goes back to whatever she was looking at.
Without thinking I snatch the damn thing out of her hand, what the fuck is more interesting than me? The screen is lined with words, sentence after sentence. She’s reading a damn book instead of socializing.
“Hey,” she whines. “Give that back.”
Calm sweeps over my body, I feel better now that I have the upper hand. She springs to her feet, reaching out to grab the phone back from me, but I stop her with a single hand, holding her away from me. I flip through the book with my other hand. “What is this shit?”
