Chapter 9

“But it isn’t my fault he likes me more than you, Ash. Otherwise he wouldn’t be with me, would he? But how did that happen? You’re supposed to be the best of all of us—scraped-knees girl.”

“Catherine, enough!” Pat cuts her daughter off, slapping her open palm on the table. “I asked you not to. Can we at least keep things civil at home and respect each other?”

“I am keeping things civil,” her daughter argues back, stubbornly pressing her lips together in response to the reprimand. “If only you knew what I think of your respect.”

“Brian is here, young lady.”

“So what? Him too. I can say it out loud. It isn’t hard.”

I exchange a look with Dad, and with his eyes he asks me not to get involved. Then he turns away, pretending to be busy with the food.

Well, damn. This is going to be one rough year for all of us if even Officer Wilson, the terror of the county, can’t say anything back to one spoiled girl. I don’t even know what my stepmother is hoping for.

“No. Do me the favor of keeping your thoughts to yourself,” Patricia tells her daughter sternly. “I already answered you once and for all, Catherine. Brian is my husband. Anything you say out loud won’t change what I think of him.”

Kate and I both know that well, and this time she doesn’t try to argue. Pat is not someone to mess with. This woman knows how to defend her position. After their fights, Kate has gone to her father’s more than once, but she has always come back. In part, I understood her. She also had to share her mother’s love with a stranger, but while I eventually accepted Dad’s right to be happy, she fought for that love selfishly.

But right now my stepsister has a different goal—to get to me—so she doesn’t continue the fight. With a shrug, she accepts the plate of paella my father sets in front of her and casually announces:

“This Saturday, Sean’s throwing a big party at his house. People from school will be there, and guys from the Golden Eagles. I’ll be home a little late. Maybe around midnight… We want to have a bonfire on the beach. It’ll be fun.”

She looks at me, but I don’t react. I keep chewing. It’s much better than burning each other to ash with our eyes. We’ve already done all of that in our shared past, and it got old a long time ago.

“The loser wasn’t invited, obviously. But I’m sure our smart little Ash will definitely find something to do with herself.”

“Don’t doubt it,” I mutter, and Kate starts guessing:

“You can always cry surrounded by pillows. Oh, or put together jigsaw puzzles. That’s exactly how I picture it: a quiet evening, your bedroom, and there they are—the puzzles. A thousand witnesses to your loneliness. God, how romantic. And not one cute guy nearby. I’d just die.”

What a bitch.

“Catherine, I think that’s too much. Everything needs boundaries.” Dad finally loses patience and drops his hands in distress, but I’m already getting up from the table and leaving after thanking him for lunch.

“Don’t bother, Dad. Bye. Boundaries won’t help here. I’d rather count the days until I leave this place for good.”

But the evening is long, and Kate and I accidentally run into each other in the kitchen again. This time, though, we’re alone.

Our parents have gone out, but they don’t need to worry about us. No matter how much we fight, we’ve never sunk to hitting each other.

I’m standing by the coffee machine, making myself a cappuccino, when Pat’s daughter slams a cabinet door louder than necessary, drawing my attention.

“Hey, Wilson. What was that today in the gym? Tell fat Couch she’d better not piss me off, and next time she should watch her mouth when she talks to my girls.”

“You’ll live. Keep an eye on your friends.”

“Simba, of all things. Brian never called you that around us. Funny. How did he come up with that? Listen, it’s probably because you’re not just redheaded and nosy, but stupid too, right? Who knows a kid better than her own father?”

I make my cappuccino and pour a packet of sugar into the cup, but I still turn my head to look at her. She’s standing three steps away, leaning one hip against the table and studying her flawless manicure in the rays of the setting sun.

What she wants from me, I don’t know. And I’m hurt. My supply of patience for today is gone, and to my own surprise, I forget about the coffee.

“You know what, Princess Snotty Ringlet?” I turn fully toward her. “Yes, it’s my nickname. It’s personal, and my father doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for it. And you don’t even have that. You have nothing except, ‘Catherine, I’m busy. Isn’t it time for you to go home to Mommy? You whine so much, sweetheart, you’re giving me a splitting headache.’” I imitate Howard Harding.

Kate goes pale, lowers her hands, and clenches them into fists. I’ve just told the truth, and she knows it. Her father has no time for her. He spends all his free time on his career and on women who get younger every year as the sixty-year-old rich man Harding grows thicker and softer. Right now he has a fiancée, a twenty-two-year-old fitness instructor and aspiring actress, and Howard spends his personal time on her much more willingly than on his only daughter.

Because I’m hurt, I don’t stay silent. I bite back.

“Shut your mouth, Wilson.”

“You shut yours, Harding.”

“Just admit I won.”

“In what event? Or do you mean the cruelty contest? You’re so talented I’m afraid I’ll get lost in all your gifts.”

“Renton is my boyfriend now.”

“And deservedly so. One rotten apple deserves another. I’ve never been into garbage. Choke on it.”

“Then why were you so upset, Ash?”

“I wasn’t upset. You imagined it.”

“Really? You know, it wasn’t hard to make Sean like me. He took the bait right away. Kept saying he’d never had such a popular girl before. Want me to tell you everything, dear sister? Everything that happens between us? He’s not much of a kisser, of course, but he tries so hard to make me like him…”

“I feel sorry for you, Kate.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you don’t even like him,” I suddenly understand.

“Yes, I do.”

“For what? You don’t even notice you’re making fun of him right now.”

“At least because he thinks I’m better than you, you nasty upstart.”

I look into Patricia’s daughter’s blue, angry eyes for a while longer before I turn away, take my coffee, and leave her with the last word:

“Then I’m happy for you, Heartless Doll.”

I go up to the second floor, enter my room, and close the door. Stopping at the threshold, I spend a little while looking around at it—a bright, spacious classic-style girl’s bedroom straight out of an expensive advertising catalog, with its own bathroom, a bright window, and a walk-in closet.

When we moved here, Pat said I could consider her house mine. She wanted me to feel comfortable in it, and cozy in my bedroom. But honestly, I still thought of my small room in the house Dad and I had shared as the truly cozy one. The one with the old pistachio wallpaper and green curtains; the wooden window that creaked every time it was raised or lowered; the oak bed with half a century of history; and my favorite posters on the walls. As a teenager, I loved Netflix series and anything built around romantic gothic.