Pretty Reckless (All Saints High)

by L.J. Shen

  I know it’s foolish, but my heart is dancing in my chest at the reminder that he actually cares. Bracing myself and taking a deep breath, knowing he is about to see Penn, I open the curtain in one go. But Penn isn’t there. I bite down on my lower lip to hide my shock, then turn around back to Dad and shrug.

  “Accept my apologies, princess.” He smirks. “And while you’re at it, stay away from boys.”

  “Fine.”

  “I mean, forever.”

  “Go away, Dad.”

  “Go to bed. Daddy loves you.”

  As soon as he shuts the door, I re-enter the bathroom, looking around frantically. There’s no window, so where on earth is Penn?

  “Down here, hideous little monster.” I hear a chuckle.

  He is fully clothed, lying in the bathtub, smiling up at me with that grin that can crack up the sky and pull the sun closer.

  “Move,” I growl, stepping in with him.

  We lie there, him hugging me in the tub, until we drift asleep. There’s no more talking or fingering or kissing. Just the two of us, soaked in something wrong that feels so right.

  At half past four, his alarm goes off. We both fumble back to our rooms, and when we reach our doors, his closes with a hiss, not a slam. I smile to myself.

  Small victories.

  I hate lying to your face

  But I love watching what I can do to you

  When my mouth says things

  That undo you

  The next day, I help my mother in the kitchen. She takes out a vegetable casserole from the oven at the same time I’m chopping a tomato for a salad.

  “That looks like way too many vegetables and not enough meat. Right, Scully?” Dad walks through the front door and into the kitchen and plants a kiss on my forehead, then on Mel’s lips. Bailey is excused from helping today because she has an exam tomorrow, and besides, Melody says her grueling ballet schedule has left her extra tired.

  “Damn straight, sir.” Penn waltzes into the house behind him, still in his football gear. I check the time on the grandfather clock across the room. Seven forty-five. Something kept him in San Diego for an extra hour after practice. Someone, maybe. Addy, probably.

  Don’t get jealous. You don’t have the right to get jealous.

  “Baby, we need to talk about Bailey’s homeschooling and the other thing.” Melody kisses my dad on the lips, and entirely too much kissing is going on in this kitchen to keep my appetite healthy.

  Hold on, what? Bailey is quitting school?

  I shoot Melody a look.

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” She waves away what must be my bitchiest expression to date. “We’re just trying to make it easier for Bails now that she has six ballet classes a week.”

  So I was right, after all. Melody was going to take Bailey and Via and move with them to London. I bet she is devastated that Bailey is hell-bent on staying in Todos Santos with the rest of the Totholes—children of the Hotholes.

  “Do I have time for a quick shower? Didn’t catch one at school,” Penn asks.

  I smirk to myself, my eyes still on the tomatoes. My mother is very strict about dinnertime unless we have a really good excuse, and we’re already forty-five minutes late to the table. Banging your baby momma, in case Penn is wondering, is not one. She already moved it back once since he moved in to accommodate his football schedule.

  She won’t move it back again.

  “Sure,” Mel chirps. “Bailey’s not done with her homework, anyway.”

  I stand there, slack-mouthed, trying hard not to snap at her. She’d have never let me get away with something like this.

  I dump all the vegetables inside the salad bowl in sharp movements.

  “Here,” I growl. “I’m going to watch The Real Housewives of Dallas until we eat.”

  “Or you can stay with me, and we can look at the new Chanel catalog,” Melody suggests, cracking open a bottle of white wine.

  “No thanks,” I quip.

  “Hey, maybe we could—”

  “Nope.” I plaster my most plastic smile, making a show of batting my eyelashes. “Please don’t embarrass us both by trying again. Even if you offer me a shopping spree in Milan, the answer will still be no.”

  Twenty minutes later, we’re eating dinner. Spirits are high. Bailey’s excitement about her ballet classes is contagious. The girl is entirely too perfect compared to the huge bag of flaws that is moi.

  “Also, they’re going to take off my braces next week!” she announces, and she and Penn fist-bump across the table. I tell her I’m happy for her because I am, and then she says, “I know, right? Just in time for New York.”

  “New York?” I scrunch my nose, confused.

  “Mom is taking me to New York!”

  I drop my fork onto my plate. The room goes silent, and everyone is staring at me. I need to say something. Something positive. And I want to—I love Bailey, I do—but I can’t. It’s not even the Hulk that’s pissed. Melody is right. It’s me.

  Bailey looks around nervously, and I hate that she is in the middle of this.

  “It’s an early birthday present. It…it was my idea,” she stutters. “I…hmm. I wanted it to be a whole week, but Mom only agreed to four days.”

  My birthday is before hers, but I don’t point that out. Now I know why Mel wanted us to look at a Chanel catalog. Funny, she failed to mention a trip to New York is my dream. I’ve been twice, but once was a layover and doesn’t count.

  “It’s for a business meeting.” Melody clears her throat, dabbing her napkin on the corners of her mouth. “And of course, I was going to ask you to come.”

  Dad changes the subject before I can reply.

  “I’ve been looking at colleges for you, Penn.” He coughs into his fist. “Made a real dent in this project. I’ve got a list of at least six I want us to see.”

  “I’ve only gotten three invites so far from D1s.” Penn shoves a forkful of casserole into his mouth, his eyes focused on his plate. I think he’s pissed, and I don’t know why. I’m the one who should be angry. I’m the one constantly ignored. “Coach told me to choose wisely because, at this point, it’s a formality. Once they pay for your flight and accommodation, you’re expected to accept it.”

  “No son of mine is going to the wrong college just because they’re shelling out an economy class plane ticket,” Jaime says.

  “Guess it’s a good thing I’m not your son because I can’t be picky. Sir.”

  I wonder how Adriana feels about her athlete boyfriend and the father of her child moving away. Maybe he plans to take them with him. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Your talent and good looks say differently,” Dad banters.

  “Really, Dad? His good looks?” Bailey releases nervous laughter.

  I wish my parents would stop calling Penn son, so I wouldn’t feel ultra gross about kissing him and rubbing my thighs and stomach and the thing between them all over his cock through our clothes.

  “You’re like our son.” Melody smiles across the table to Penn, who doesn’t smile back.

  “Which puts your number of children back to two after you dumped me,” I mumble into my glass of water.

  “Thank you, Daria,” Mel bites out, cutting viciously into her casserole, her eyes sparkling. “We can always count on you to dampen the mood.”

  Penn frowns. I think he is starting to see that I’m not the only one to blame for this whole mess. He opens his mouth, but then my mother says, “Penn, sweetheart, we have something to discuss. Privately.”

  “Before or after you speak to Bailey about New York?” I inquire, tossing my napkin on the table and standing up. “And what about me? Do you need to talk to me about anything? Maybe about cheer? School? Who I’m hanging out with these days? College applications? Anything, Melody? Any-freaking-thing that’s not Chanel?”

  Silence.

  “Whatever.” I flip my hair. “Casserole’s a dud, anyway. Enjoy your carb-fest, losers.” I plaster my fingers into an L-sha
pe on my forehead before retiring upstairs on a huff. I don’t know why I’m leaving in such a hurry. No one is going to come after me. Melody used to before the thing with Via happened. Then she realized I was never going to confide in her about what was bothering me. Bailey tries to talk to me sometimes. It majorly sucks when that happens. Bails is so sweet, but she has zero life experience, and everything freaks her out. Dad…Dad will always be there for me, but I can’t tell him anything about his precious wife. He loves her too much to see past the blinding glow she casts on him.

  I slam the door, but the walls are thin, and I hear a chair scraping across the floor. It pains me that I know who it is without looking. Only one person in this house hasn’t given up on me, and that’s because he never believed in me in the first place.

  “Leave it, Penn,” I hear my mother say, and I can practically envision her taking a generous sip of her wine. “That’s just Daria being Daria.”

  In the book Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk, there’s a scene where the narrator realizes, after eating most of a lobster, that its heart is still beating. Living under the same roof with the Followhills is a little like that. You’re being eaten and picked apart, but your pulse is still there.

  Talk.

  I frown at the unanswered message I sent her an hour and a half ago.

  I’m lying in my perfect bed, in my perfect room, in this perfect gingerbread house, where everyone is so deeply flawed, they can’t even stand each other. Who would have thought pristine, gorgeous Daria Followhill was the black sheep of her family?

  The worst part wasn’t that Mel ignored Daria’s existence. It was that she was casual as fuck about it. As if her daughter was an annoying fly.

  Mel is batshit scared of her daughter, who acts like anything but her daughter, and Jaime is tired of choosing sides. And Bailey is in the middle of this mess, gathering some bomb-ass material for her future therapist to work on.

  Earlier this evening, when I washed the dishes and Jaime towel-dried them, he asked if I wanted to join his friends and their boys for a camping weekend. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea because Daria was already feeling fifty shades of messed up about Bailey and me monopolizing her parents’ time. The funny thing is, I don’t want their time. I just want their fridge. Bed’s nice, too, I suppose. Especially when their daughter’s inside it.

  “Since when do you care about Daria’s feelings?” Jaime frowned at a plate he was drying. He couldn’t hide the delight in his voice.

  “I don’t,” I confessed. “But your daughter’s got ammo for miles on my ass. And as she is very trigger-happy, I don’t want to be in her line of fire.” This part was bull wrapped in a lot of shit.

  Jaime stared at me skeptically.

  “Are you bullshitting a bullshitter, Scully? You don’t care if you go to war with Daria. You don’t even care if you go to war with Russia. You’d still show up. Probably in these jeans and your holey shirt, and maybe a cigarette.”

  “Daria could tell people I live here.” I half-shrugged. She wouldn’t. I don’t know how I know that, but I just do. She’s not that much of an asshole unless explicitly provoked. Even then, she is more about the bark than the bite from what I’ve seen. She thinks she’s the Antichrist when, in practice, she’s more like Mary Magdalene. She’d watch Christ getting crucified without lifting a finger, but you better know she won’t be happy about it. No, sir.

  “And if she did? You don’t need a scholarship,” Jaime gritted. “I’ll pay for your education.”

  “Sir, I really appreciate your generous offer, but for the millionth time, I ain’t about to take your hard-earned money.”

  “It’s not that hard-earned, boy. The good thing about money is that when you have enough of it, it creates itself.”

  But it’s not just my Southern upbringing or basic morals. It’d be weird to explain how my ass landed at Notre Dame all of a sudden. My friends would stab me in the balls if they found out I’ve been living in this sick crib and kept it from them.

  “Besides, you’re using it now,” he countered.

  “Because I have no choice. Well, I do, if you consider homelessness a choice.”

  We wrapped it up, and I went back to my room, waiting for Daria to initiate something. She didn’t. When it became clear that she extended the cold war with her family to me, I shot her the unreturned message.

  Talk is code for meeting in the basement. We can’t risk it in case her parents decide to go through her texts.

  Tired of sitting idly like some desperate loser, I kick my door open. It’s past one thirty, and she may be asleep, but I’ll take my chances.

  I knock on her door. No answer.

  I push it open. She is lying facedown on her bed with her blankets still tucked under the mattress. It’s something the cleaners in this house do every day like it’s a hotel. She reminds me of Via laying in the yellow grass the day Daria and I got rid of the letter.

  Lights out. No one’s home. Hopeless.

  I think of ways to make her laugh. Of saying that her ass looks great from this angle (it does). Or maybe to tell her that it gets better (it doesn’t).

  Stopping over her bed, I splay my fingers on the small of her back and press. Hard. Sinking her into her plush mattress until she is drowning in satin fabric.

  She groans. “Go away.”

  “And miss out on all this delicious teenage angst?” I murmur, mesmerized by how beautifully she fits under my palm. As though she was born to have my hands on her. “It’s practically Netflix for free.”

  “I don’t want to tell you anything.”

  “You don’t have a lot of options.”

  “I have friends,” she shoots.

  “No. You don’t,” I say softly. “You have people you hang out with, and you’ll never give them a truth. Not even a half-truth. Not even a fucking quarter. Now look at me.”

  She rolls to her back, and I suck in a breath. She’s crying. She’s been crying for hours probably. Her entire face is wet and swollen. I cup her head and pull her into me, sinking into her bed and cradling her. The door is open. The Followhills can wake up and walk in here at any moment. I hope they do. They need a wake-up call. A whole goddamn siren, more like.

  “Talk.”

  “No.” She laughs for the first time since I met her, wiping her tears quickly, only to make room for new ones. “I’m always the one who talks. You’re the one who listens. I don’t even know who I am talking to. Your walls are still up, but mine have been lowered enough for me to see that this relationship is one-sided.”

  She’s right. I want to be her Trojan horse. To slip through her barriers undetected. But I never give her any part of me. I’m always the one to take.

  “Pretend that I’m your friend.”

  “I don’t have any friends, remember?”

  “Sucks to be you.” There’s no menace in my voice. She shrugs.

  “So why are you here?”

  “Because it sucks to be me, too.”

  Because it sucks less when we’re together even though I should hate you.

  I pull her into my embrace, and she pushes back. That only makes me hold her tighter, and she stands no chance. A cheerleader against a wide receiver? You don’t need a PhD in physiology to guess who wins.

  “Say it,” I growl into her ear. “Your family is bullshit right now. Your mom’s all up your sister’s ass, and your dad is torn. Make it real. Because the minute it gets real, you have to deal with it.”

  I speak fluent Dr. Phil because the only thing the woman who gave birth to me did for the past six years was lie on the couch watching his show and judging other people while getting high.

  Shying away from your problems only makes them multiply. Kinda like cancer. Left to its own devices, it will spread to other organs in your body.

  Daria is thrashing in my arms, desperate to push me away, her soft crying turning into heart-wrenching sobs. She is shaking against my chest, but her lips stay pursed.

 
She doesn’t want to admit to the hood rat that life in the golden castle ain’t perfect.

  I envelop her. Even when Daria is growling like an injured animal in my ear. Even when the sea glass necklace, her sea glass necklace, burns a hole in my back pocket, right next to her pompom string, demanding to go back to its rightful owner. Even when a scream rips from her throat, and I need to cover it with my palm. I hold her.

  “Go to your girlfriend. She needs you more than I do.”

  She does. Addy and Harper need me desperately. But they’re not who I want to be with.

  “I bet this is your first time breaking.” I wipe her tears away. “I used to break all the time. Under a bridge. Next to a bunch of homeless people. I used to scream at the river and punch concrete walls after Via disappeared.”

  She wanted something real and inconvenient, so she is getting it.

  “I couldn’t talk for days afterward. I once punched my own face to see if I could cry. The answer is no, by the way. And when my mom died? I went to the snake pit hoping Vaughn would kill me. I let him fuck me up just so I could feel something. Because, you see, I’m the tin man. I have no heart. Not since Via left. She was my entire world. Adriana and Harper, I take care of them, but it’s not the same. My heart was rusty before she left, but after? After, it was gone. Is that real enough for you, Daria Followhill?”

  She sniffs and gazes up at me. Her blue eyes are so spectacular, they look like two bowls full of diamonds. Skull Eyes’ lips are trembling around the words she is still too proud to say. Her whole face is shiny with tears and snot. I press a soft kiss to the tip of her runny nose. She immediately sniffs. Like I give a fuck about a little snot.

  “You’re Saturn,” she whispers. “Made of iron-nickel and surrounded by protective rings of ice and rock.”

  “How do you know that?” I smile, and I know the smile is warm. I know it’s fucking up something in her chest, and even though I shouldn’t, I like it. After all these years, I still want to ruin her. Then put her back together. Then do it again and again and a-fucking-gain.

  “Bailey knows stuff about stuff. Sometimes I pick it up at the dinner table. Why were you home late today?” she asks.