Making Bad Choices

by Rita Stradling

  “Cassie, he’s been my stepdad for eight years. The shit he and I have between us has nothing to do with you,” he sounded exasperated. “Anyway, you definitely took your hormones out on my mom.”

  “Yeah, and then I turned twelve.”

  He said nothing for a while as we approached the glow of another town. As streetlights danced past his profile, his jaw worked. Blowing out a breath, he turned to me, “I probably shouldn’t have said hate. I don’t hate him.”

  Jesus, I didn’t want to get into this with him.

  “Culter, I’m sorry. We don’t need to talk about it. My point was . . .” I cleared my throat, and then tried again, “My point was you used to be different to me, so I was a little rude to you before, thinking things would be the same. But I appreciate you coming out. You, doing all this, it helped a lot.”

  “Good,” he said, and then he said nothing more.

  Sitting with him in a very different kind of silence, I hoped I didn’t just straight up undo all the progress we’d made recently.

  Halfway through the new city we entered, Culter finally turned off the road we’d spent forever driving on. The house he parked at stood just a little way out of the lights of town. I’d seen pictures of Jen and Dad’s house, but didn’t recognize it from the little Culter’s headlights showed.

  “Mind waiting in the truck while I go turn some lights on for us?” he asked, but just hopped out. The two seconds of cold draft that hit me as he opened the door immediately convinced me to follow his plan.

  Why the hell did I think it would be a good idea to move here in January? I laughed at the idea that we were having a cold spell in L.A. now—it was like saying a light breeze was a hurricane.

  Lights blinked on, illuminating the front porch of a sprawling one-story. A wooden porch swing hung from the overhang, just beside the front door. It was hard to tell in this light, but I remembered the house being light blue in the pictures.

  Knowing that I had to face the inevitable, I pushed open the truck door.

  “Oh my God,” I hissed as the cold air attacked me like it had a vendetta. “Holy shit.” My boots sunk straight into a couple inches of snow, and I realized that my boots were not weatherproof. Snow slipped through every little stitch and button hole.

  Spinning, I tried to open the small access door to the backseat where my suitcase waited, but the handle didn’t cooperate.

  “Cassie, I got it. Go inside,” Culter said from directly beside me.

  I rubbed up and down my arms, my feet doing a little dance in the snow. “You sure?”

  He blew out a laugh. “Yeah, go. Just don’t run, there’s ice on the path, steps, and porch.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t run; I power-walked. The door waited open, lights shining out.

  Inside the temperature took a step up from fucking freezing to pretty damn cold. A small heater worked its magic from a rectangle hole in the floor of the hallway, and I walked over to stand directly over it. As the heat blew up my pant legs, I got a clear understanding of what a frozen piece of chicken must feel like as it defrosted in the microwave.

  “You don’t go to the snow much, do you?” Culter asked as he set down my bag and closed the door.

  Looking up, I tried to remember if I’d ever been to the snow. I’d seen it in movies, of course, but unless I was too young to remember it, I’d never been.

  “Nope,” I said as I kicked off my boots and put my wet socks right over the heater.

  Shrugging off his jacket, Culter asked, “Do you want to just sleep in my room tonight?”

  “What? Why?” I asked, likely sounding as startled by the question as I felt.

  He yawned, combing his hands through his hair at either side of his head. “I was thinking that I’d sleep in Josh’s room, and you could take mine. Your room isn’t set up, and I’m just not up to it yet.” He yawned again, covering his mouth. That boy yawned more than most people.

  Feeling a little embarrassed about my reaction to him offering me his room, I exhaled slowly. “I can take Josh’s.”

  “No, it’s disgusting. I don’t want to do that to you. Mine’s clean.”

  He trudged on past me, as if we’d decided something.

  Walking to my overstuffed purple suitcase, I yanked up the handle. Rolling my bag behind me, I came to a large living room space with the lights out. Walking past, I called out to Culter, “Hey, I’d rather just set up my room. I rarely sleep at night, so it’ll give me something to do. If you could just point the way?” When he didn’t answer, I muttered, “Wherever you are.”

  A light flashed on and I followed it into a cozy kitchen space. Culter stood in front of the refrigerator, hanging into the fridge.

  “You feel like stir fry?” he asked, not looking over at me.

  I leaned against the doorframe. “Culter, did you hear me? I’m going to go set up my room. I’m not taking yours,” I said.

  “Yeah, suit yourself.” After a pause, he looked over and asked, “What foods do you like?”

  “Anything.” I shrugged.

  A grin spread across his face. “Cool, I’ll make you the best stir fry you’ve ever tasted.”

  “Thanks, sure.” I stepped away, but stepped back. “Can I have some directions to my room?”

  “Yeah.” He pointed to the left. “Your room is at the end of that hall there, right next to mine.”

  Great. Here was to hoping that the wall that separated us was thick, especially, if he ever felt the need to use his FIMR playlist.

  Nodding, I backed out of the kitchen.

  “I’ll find you when this is done,” he said, ducking back into the fridge.

  Chapter Eight

  Culter knocked on my door just as I finished applying my mascara.

  Last night, after eating an admittedly amazing chicken and vegetable stir fry, I set up my bedroom in the most basic of ways and passed out before midnight. This would have been awesome, if I hadn’t then woken up at three a.m., fully awake in a quiet, dark, and unfamiliar house.

  Even though it hadn’t been the full forty-eight hours, I took a much needed shower and did the after care for my peeling tattoo. With three hours left until we were supposed to head off to school, I did a full clean of my room, which was more musty than dirty.

  Strangely, I distinctly got the feeling that my dad and Jen had made up this room when I had been planning to live here all those years ago, and had never repurposed it for anything else. Decorations that were very much more geared at an eleven-year-old Cassie hung on each wall. On one wall, stretched a large framed photo of Movieworld’s castle, on another hung a poster from some of my old, favorite cartoons. The bedspread that I’d replaced last night was a worn purple, flowery pattern. The room had been clean, but in a never been used way. I fixed it up as much as I could, situating the few possessions I’d brought into their appropriate spaces.

  Once all that was done, I spent all morning sitting in front of the long closet mirror, fixing myself up for my first day of school. To be honest, I felt pretty hot. I blew out my hair before straightening it down and curling the ends. I applied my makeup flirty, and not too heavy. I also put on a shirt Jen gave me last Christmas that I had yet to wear, a long white eyelet shirt with lace at the trim. It fit surprisingly well, but unfortunately all of that would be covered under the two sweatshirts I planned to wear.

  This was not my usual outfit, but I wanted to blend in at this school so I was going for a more typical look. Usually, I sported colorfully streaked hair, paint-stained pants, and a tight tank top. If my friends from school could see me now, they’d tease the shit out of me.

  When Culter knocked again, I called, “Come in.”

  Standing up from the floor, I wrapped my curling-iron’s cord around its handle.

  “Hey, I brought you my jacket, if you want to wear it,” Culter said as he opened the door with a big, thick black jacket hanging from his hand.

  He looked a little tousled, brown hair stuck up in different direc
tions like a licked kitten. And, Whoa Nelly, he had no shirt on. Obviously, playing multiple sports paid off because I was pretty sure he had an eight pack. Basically, he was just a series of rippling muscles. To top off seeing way too much of my stepbrother, his sweatpants hung low on his hips, showing a hint of his blue boxers. Jesus, he was something I was going to have to get used to seeing in the morning.

  “Here you go,” he said, holding up the jacket between us.

  “Thank you.” I took it, careful not to touch his hand.

  “You put makeup on,” he said, voice a little hoarse. When my gaze came up to meet his, I found his bright blue gaze moving slowly over my face.

  I paused, before saying, “Um . . . yes, I did.”

  “You look better without makeup,” he said it like it was a fact. And dickwad strikes again. “It’s a compliment,” he added.

  “An ass-backwards compliment. Thanks for making me insecure about how I look before my first day at a new school.” I shrugged on his jacket, which was amazingly soft and warm, but that didn’t make up for him basically saying I looked like a ho-beast.

  Culter smirked, leaning into my doorframe, looking like he was almost rolling his eyes. “You’re kidding, right? Cassie, obviously you’d never need to be insecure about the way you look, not in L.A. and definitely not here.”

  My annoyance extinguished. Jesus, I needed to get a handle on this vanity thing. Boy was leading me around by my big, fat ego. I leaned in toward him. “Culter, go put a shirt on.”

  “Why? I’m heading to the shower,” he said, eyes lazy.

  Honestly, I couldn’t think of an answer, so I just said, “Have a nice shower, Culter,” before closing my bedroom door.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” he asked through my closed door.

  “Already ate,” I called. It was a lie. Bitter bitch that my hunger had turned into, she’d left me this morning, leaving only a faintly queasy feeling in her stead. Looking into my mirror, I decided that I liked the makeup.

  I extracted my backpack out from where I had it rolled up in my suitcase. Unzipping the pockets of my suitcase, I found my notepads, binder, combination lock, colored pens and stash of pencils, and filled the old girl up. Returning to the mirror, I examined the whole picture.

  “Okay, this is going to go fine,” I told my reflection, while she said the same thing to me. We almost believed each other.

  I wandered to the front of the house to the front window to peer out at the snowy yard. The neighbors stood a fair distance off, an open space of rocks and shrubs lightly covered in snow separating us. The blue sky felt further above today for some reason, which was strange as I was a lot closer to the sky than I had been three days ago.

  “Hey Cassie, put this in your backpack.”

  Spinning around, I found Culter walking over with a paper bag in his hand. He also wore a white shirt, jeans and a backpack over a black jacket. We were twinsies.

  When he stopped in front of me, he said, “Let me see your backpack.”

  A little confused, I swung my bag around.

  Culter unzipped it, stuck the bag in and zipped me back up.

  “Are you having me smuggle contraband in for you?” I raised my eyebrows. “I’ll do it, but I want a cut of your profits.”

  He fought a smirk. “It’s breakfast, in case you get hungry.”

  I guess I wasn’t fooling him with the lie that I’d already ate. Oh well. “Thanks,” I said as I swung my backpack onto my other shoulder. “Are we leaving now? Aren’t we going to be crazy early?”

  “Yeah, we should get there early if we want to pick up your schedule and rearrange our classes. I want to make sure that we at least have a couple together.”

  I grimaced a little. “Culter, you don’t have to do that.” As in, he really, really didn’t have to do that. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be around him—despite all my expectations, I was beginning to enjoy his smirks and teasing. But I had to go back to my original plan of slipping under the radar until graduation, and hanging out with Culter wouldn’t work with that.

  “Of course I don’t have to. I want to.” He headed for the door.

  During the car ride into town, I tried to think of a way to politely tell him that I didn’t want to hang out with him at school. But there was no polite way to say that. I’d probably just go with it, and then sink into the background as soon as my novelty wore off.

  The town looked to be more dusted with snow than truly entrenched with it. We crossed a long line of little shops, all waking up for the morning, and continued into another residential street. Most parked cars and sloped roof houses had that powdered sugar look that likely meant it snowed a little in the night. As we parked in a sparse parking lot, I eyed the distance to a two-story brick and glass building, I estimated one hundred feet of freezing my ass off.

  On the upside, the entire school looked to be one huge brick building. I hadn’t considered that Bulvin High was likely an entirely indoor school. Which made sense, but I’d never attended an indoor school.

  “You ready?” Culter asked as he shifted into park.

  “To go to school or to walk across the frozen parking lot?”

  His hand went back to his gear shift. “I’ll drive you to the door.”

  “No, I’m being a big baby,” I opened my door, grabbing my backpack as I slipped out. We crossed the parking lot together as the frosty air nipped at my face and ears. By the time we made it up the steps to the glass doors that said Office, my jaw clenched to stop my teeth from chattering.

  The transition from the outside to the heated office felt so amazing, I sighed. Even though there were very few cars in the lot, a couple of people waited in line. At the front, a girl was practically having a fit.

  “Ms. Vale,” she whined. “If we could just switch around my first and third periods, I really, really don’t want to be in computers.”

  “Ashley, what does the sign say?”

  “But if maybe I switch with a friend—”

  “Ashley, your schedule is final unless you, a) have already taken the class, or b) have an immediate health concern and a doctor’s note. Read the sign. Please step aside so I can get through this line.”

  The girl who must be Ashley whimpered before marching away, her blonde ponytail bouncing as she paced to another set of doors and threw it open, rushing into what I was guessing was the main hall.

  “Looks like we won’t be able to switch,” I said, turning up to look at Culter. I couldn’t help feeling a nice dose of relief that I’d be able to duck out of switching classes without insulting him. “No point in waiting with me, I guess. I’ll be able to figure this stuff out.” I shrugged, attempting to look disappointed.

  His lips formed a little smile as he shook his head slightly. Leaning in, he whispered, “I’ll make it work.”

  Of course he would. Shit. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have this crazy boy in my classes. I really needed to work on not letting him get his way all the time.

  The other people in line had similar interactions with the school secretary, though theirs consisted of less whining.

  “Hey Culter,” a girl’s voice said from behind us as the person before us stepped up to the counter.

  Both Culter and I turned, though I wasn’t sure why I did—I wasn’t going to know them. A very pretty girl, who stood perhaps a couple of inches taller than me, grinned widely, eyes all for Culter. Her shoulder-length blonde hair layered in a particularly cute cut, a trendy type of look that would fit in well in L.A. She wore a light sweater and even though it was cute as hell, just looking at it made me cold.

  “Hey Misty, how’re you doing?” Culter asked.

  Misty, that was a seriously cool name.

  “Good. How was your winter break? Noticed that you missed Spencer’s New Years’ party.” Misty had an upbeat type of voice. With her look and voice, I’d bet twenty bucks she was a cheerleader.

  I turned back, hoping to enact stage one of my slipping
-by-unnoticed plan now. Hopefully, Misty the probably cheerleader, would claim all of Culter’s attention and I’d get away with not switching classes.

  As the guy in front of me stepped away, I immediately walked up to the counter to avoid the secretary yelling “Next.”

  The secretary gave me an absent smile, like she had so much going on I only got ten percent of her brain power. She looked about Jen’s age, but her hair grayed in fat chunks that would almost look punk rock if the rest of her wasn’t so wholesome looking.

  I leaned in. “My name is Cassandra Michaels, I just transferred in today. My old school was supposed to send you my transcripts from Los Angeles.”

  “Michaels?” she asked, looking over to her computer at the corner of her desk. “Cassandra Michaels,” she mumbled again, to herself. “Here you are. You are in our system here. And looks like we have everything. You are good to go.” She looked back up at me. “I’ll just print you out your schedule.”

  “Hey, Ms. Vale.” Culter leaned in, right up next to me, setting his elbow on Ms. Vale’s desk.

  “Hello Culter,” she said, her lips fighting an immediate smile.

  He hit her with full wattage—a dazzling set of whites and two very prominent dimples. “I wanted to talk to you about something quick.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to wait until Cassandra here is done.” She nodded to me, before turning back to her computer.

  “Well, Cassie here is my stepsister.”

  “Oh . . . oh,” she said, giving me a look that said a thousand words. Her mouth straightened into a line as she returned to looking at me. Her voice lowered, “I’m friends with Jen on social media. . . I am so sorry to hear about your mother. She sounded like an amazing woman.”

  Crap. Jen posted about Mom?

  “Thank you.” I said before looking away, not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, they had a close relationship and she probably just did it to honor my mom, but at the same time, I’d rather have chosen who knew.