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Still, I’ve got to give Dani some credit. She’s got everyone in the zip code believing she shits out rainbows. Even my social butterfly sister sings her praises. New kids with no pedigree don’t rate much attention around here but within a few short months Dani went from being the unknown mousy new girl to playing the starring role in all the drama surrounding the three princes of West Emerald.
There are rumors that she fucks them all. Conner, Gage and Micah. At the same time too, although I don’t know how that would work. Anyway, I have my doubts this is true. I’ve watched her carefully and from what I’ve seen, she’s only got eyes for Gage.
But I’ve been very wrong about people before.
“Haven.” Olivia Davison snaps me out of my trance. She unwraps a pale green breath mint. “I couldn’t reach your mother.”
No surprise. My mother has little interest in bad news. Her ex-husband pays her enough alimony to keep her quiet and it’s a safe bet she’s either loaded down with armfuls of shopping bags or sprawled on a spa table somewhere with cucumber slices on her eyes and her phone on mute.
The mint disc is pushed between Olivia’s crimson lips. “So I had no choice but to call your father. He’s on his way. We’ll talk when he gets here.”
Fuck. Fuck. FUCKITTY FUCKING FUCK.
This news has caught me off guard. I haven’t even seen my father in four months. The idea of him showing up here to deal with my cafeteria fight is practically unthinkable.
I’m sure the horror shows on my face. The corner of Olivia Davison’s mouth turns up. There’s a crunching sound as her jaws demolish the candy. She leaves me to stew over this new development and shuts the door to her office.
Aric Marchenko’s anger is the kind that simmers rather than erupts. I’m not worried about getting hit. My mother is the one who lashes out with slaps but the last time she did that I slapped her back so hard that I don’t think she’ll be doing it anymore. But my father expects a certain standard of behavior from his daughters and his chilly disappointment is more brutal than any punch.
He has a son now. That’s one big reason he’s far less interested in me and Lita. He signs the hefty tuition checks and pays child support but rarely answers my calls. His time is spent with his brothers on the shadowy east side of Emerald City in neighborhoods I am under strict orders not to visit.
Our last name is feared in some parts of the city. That much I know. The rest of the picture is incomplete, just a murky cloud of gossip and rumors that I don’t have the nerve to ask him about.
Lita insists she doesn’t give a shit if she sees our father again or not.
That’s fine for her. But she doesn’t understand why Idocare, why the hurt curdles and festers deep inside my chest and crowds out everything else.
Lita shrugs over our father’s abandonment because she is used to being favored by everyone else. She takes it for granted. If I were to tell her this she would get annoyed and remind me that a little personality adjustment would go a long way.
But she wouldn’t deny being thegoodtwin. Thefuntwin. Thebelovedtwin.
Lita knows it’s all true and she doesn’t lie.
I can’t explain why we can’t stand being in the same room these days. Sometimes it feels like we’ve always been at odds. I have to look at old pictures to remind myself that’s not the case.
But if your identical twin doesn’t know how to handle you, then who the hell does?
At least Lita has been decent enough not to gloat about the Conner situation. She tiptoes around me with pitying glances and stays artificially cheerful. She knows I don’t need to be reminded that she tried to warn me.
“Haven, I like Conner but even when he’s not drunk he’s not real particular about who gets to handle his dick. He sure as hell doesn’t understand how you feel about him. Don’t do this.”
My eyes return to the courtyard. I wish they wouldn’t. Conner’s cousins have moved on, probably because the bell is about to ring again.
Only a pair of cheerleaders remain in the area with Conner. They hitch up their skirts and strut around. He rubs his jaw and ignores them, his gaze fixed in the distance. If I didn’t know better I’d say he was upset.
But I do know better.
Life is a big fat fucking orgy of sex and candy to Conner Wiseman. He lives for the moment and nothing else. The smart, sensitive boy who taught me how to shoot baskets from the foul line and listened to my secrets on our long walks home disappeared six years ago. A fall from a tree ended with a severe concussion that extinguished large chunks of his memories.
Some important things were lost in those memories. Including me.
For years I’ve watched him from the sidelines, gritting my teeth and swallowing the painful lump in my throat as endless streams of pretty girls competed for scraps of his attention.
When it seemed like my turn had finally arrived, I could have passed out from sheer joy.
What an idiot I was. My own stupidity is the reason I’m sitting here.
Stupidity and hope, because I desperately wanted to know what it feels like to be of supreme importance tosomeone.
