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“Muito bem, senhor.”
On my way out, I closed my journal—the black-and-white speckled kind you could find anywhere—and set it on the stack of others like it on my mahogany desk. More journals filled a locked trunk I kept under the window. My life story. A story I’d been writing since I was ten years old and desperate for an outlet for the clamoring voices in my mind.
Loud voices that told me to be bold and live life fully and never give a fuck what anyone thought of me.
Quieter voices that whispered sinister things in my ear; that I was broken, that my mind a labyrinth that I’d never map.
Writing was my map.
Someday, I’d write something official. I’d distill my life through fiction. Pile the pain on a hapless character and make him suffer. Maybe he’d get a happy ending.
Hell, one of us should.
I dropped my Djarum Blacks into one pocket of my coat and a silver flask filled with Ducasse vodka into the other, then took the path through the backyard, past the pool I’d never swim in, to Mags and Reggie’s huge beachside Craftsman.
Because they had more money than God and not a shred of imagination, the house was slathered in nautical décor. Blue and white striped everything, anchor-themed art on the walls, and glass bowls of seashells for days.
In the depressingly cheery kitchen, Mags and Reginald lounged over breakfast, their mugs filled with steaming coffee. Beatriz, small but spry for a woman pushing seventy, maneuvered around the white and chrome kitchen.
“There he is,” Reginald exclaimed, then frowned. “You look quite…elegant, Holden.”
I could hear today’s weather report behind his words, but over the past three weeks, my aunt and uncle had learned not to question my winter wardrobe choices. Not unless they wanted an earful of Alaska.
“Thanks, Reg,” I said, pouring myself a cup of black coffee from the French press. I stifled a yawn and joined them at the table, stretching my long legs.
“You’re something of a night owl, eh?” Reginald ventured. “I heard some activity late last night down in the basement gym.”
And before that, I snuck out to break into your neighbors’ empty house, Reginald.
It was a little habit of mine, begun when I was a kid in Seattle and driving my parents crazy with my “sociopathic antics.” Breaking into people’s houses was easier than you’d think—a key under a pot or a window left open. I never stole anything; I just liked to see what real homes looked like.
But no sense in freaking out Auntie and Uncle so soon. The year was young.
“What can I say? I’m a health nut.”
My aunt frowned. “But exercising at three in the morning? Is that…normal?”
“I’m not familiar with the term.”
They exchanged concerned glances, and a twinge of guilt nipped at me.
“I don’t sleep much,” I explained. “Racing thoughts, anxiety… Sometimes exercise is the only way to burn it out of my system.”
I didn’t add that obsessively working out was another piece of my armor. I honed my body into a temple of lean muscle for future lovers, and because I’d be fucked if I let anyone overpower me again.
Reginald smiled brightly. “Well, you’re free to use the gym however you like. It’s been gathering dust, quite honestly. Glad someone in the house is getting use out of it.”
I sipped my coffee.
“Are you excite
d for your first day of school?” Aunt Mags asked. “Senior year. That must be exciting.”
“We hear you’re quite the intellectual,” Reginald chimed in. “In fact, the curriculum at Central might not be enough to challenge you.”
“I’ve been challenged quite enough already,” I said bitterly. “Don’t you think?”
Another unwarranted flash of guilt lanced through me at my aunt and uncle’s distressed expressions. They’d known perfectly well what my parents had planned for me in Alaska, and neither had said a damn word or lifted a finger to stop it.
