by Abby Brooks
After we finished the work, I gave my brother a thump on the back and left before I could change my mind about telling him. I drove with no clue as to where I was going, just a tornado of destructive thoughts whipping my emotions into a frenzy. For as many times as I tried to bring things back to my father, or to Madeline, my brain kept circling back to Kara.
Intellectually, I knew she was caught up in the mistakes of her parent—just like me. But I wasn’t in the mood for rational thought. I was in the mood to point fingers and lay blame. I was in the mood to self-destruct.
I pulled to a stop at a red light and frowned at the building in front of me. On some level, I had to have known where I was going. I had to have been perfectly aware I chose to drive to this particular spot. As much as I wanted to claim it was an accident for me to end up in front of Kara’s fancy, private school, I knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Not with the way she had spun through my thoughts since the day her mother presented her to me like some fancy prize she knew I would claim.
After a month of staring at the school address on the invoices, I finally caved. I wanted to see what she had that my brother and sister didn’t. It was no accident that I was where I was. It was, however, an accident that I arrived exactly as school let out.
Streams of students poured across the road in front of me, barely pausing to make sure traffic had stopped, safe in their assumption of immortality. They laughed with friends, backpacks bouncing, books clutched to chests, and jokes flung over the crowd with an air of confidence reserved for the young.
Two girls paused on the walk, catching my attention. Though the plaid skirts and white shirts they wore were identical, they couldn’t have been more different. One was tall and thin, blonde and vibrant. The other was small and curvy, with dark hair, olive skin, and gray eyes that hardened when they met mine.
One was a stranger. A normal teenager doing normal, teenaged things.
The other was Kara Lockhart.
She glared at me, catching the attention of her friend who followed her gaze to land on mine. I knew what it looked like. A man my age, parked in front of her school, staring her down as she crossed the street.
I expected fear to tighten Kara’s features.
I expected her to misunderstand.
I expected her to freak out.
I certainly didn’t expect her to arch an eyebrow, flip me the bird, and walk away without another glance.
Chapter Four
Kara
My mother, ladies and gentlemen. A pillar of parental responsibility. Capable of seeing her teenaged daughter in danger and leaping into inspired action. Taking out bad guys in one ferocious swipe of her mama-bear rage.
Oh, wait.
No.
Never mind.
My mom was the one who learned some creep was stalking her daughter outside school and decided to play matchmaker.
“Mom!” I held out my hands in exasperation because even though I knew it was worthless to argue, I couldn’t not try to get her to see the situation for what it was. Wrong! “He was parked right there. Just glaring out his window at me. There was malice in his eyes, Mom. Malice.” I popped my hand on my hip. “I don’t feel safe.”
“Oh, Kara. You are too dramatic, you silly little thing!” Mom swiped a dress—a skin-tight red number with a low front and an embarrassingly short skirt—out of her closet and held it against her body, meeting my gaze through the floor length mirror. “I knew Wyatt was interested in you. I could just feel it. Oh, baby. This is such a good thing!”
I plopped on Mom’s bed, remembering the intensity in Wyatt’s stare as he watched Brooke and me cross the street. As an early bloomer, I was all too aware what boys looked like when they were interested. Wyatt Hutton did not look at me like that. “Interested in me? You mean intent on planning my abduction and subsequent murder. Where exactly is this good thing you’re talking about?”
“Wyatt isn’t a kidnapper,” Mom murmured, her attention still mostly on her reflection.
“Right. Because you know him so well? You didn’t even know Burke had kids.”
Mom whirled. “Well, no. But anyone could see that man is gentle and kind.” She grinned like she was already planning our double wedding—mother and daughter to father and son. “You guys would be so good together.”
“What? Mom! Ew!”
“I’m just saying, Burkey’s fortune is going to have to go to someone when he dies.” She leveled me with a look that meant she expected me to fill in the blanks for myself. Which I did. Easily. Her thoughts typically spiraled around finding a man, getting her claws in him, and siphoning away his money. But there was no way I would give her the satisfaction of hearing me say something so despicable.
When she got tired of my silence, Mom gave me a little verbal nudge. “And given how much Burkey loves you, wouldn’t it just be peachy if his money could go to you?” And, by her logic, if I was dating his son, that would be a surefire way to seal the deal.
She and I sparred like this all the time. She tried to lead me right up to a bad idea, set it up so I was the one to actually speak the words, and then when things exploded, she could blame it all on me. After a lifetime of living that way, I caught on last year, then spent a solid week looking back at all the ‘mistakes’ of my life, wondering if my mom was a moron or mastermind. Had she intentionally made me feel like everything I touched fell to pieces? Or was she just a disaster of a human being who had stellar instincts when it came to keeping herself free of blame? I spent more time contemplating that question than I wanted to admit.
“Does it not bother you that Wyatt is five years older than me? That I am still a child and he is an adult, legally able to drink and vote and own a firearm?”
“Believe me, Poopsie,” Mom replied, trotting out the nickname she knew I despised. “With a body like the one you’re rocking, you do not count as a child. Besides, five years isn’t that big of a difference. When you’re twenty-one, he’ll be twenty-six. What’s the big deal?”
“But I’m not twenty-one. I’m sixteen. And so, you know, that right there is the big deal.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “It’s only a big deal if you make it a big deal.”
How could this woman be even remotely related to me? How could she look at her completely inexperienced daughter, me, the girl who hadn’t even had a serious boyfriend yet—a choice I made to avoid becoming like her—and be totally cool with her dating a full-blown man?
A man who just happened to be the son of her boyfriend?
A man who had been busy stalking children outside their school that very day?
The truth was, the glimpses I got of Wyatt by following his social media lined up with Mom’s assessment: Wyatt wasn’t a kidnapper. I had never seen a picture of him without a giant, friendly smile in place. Or heard a story where he wasn’t hard-working, or charitable, or involved in something amazing.
Though, if you looked at the stuff Burke polished up and showed to the social media world, you could say the same about him. On the outside, he looked like a real gem. It was only when you got to know him that you realized he wasn’t as perfect as he pretended to be. It made me wonder what secrets his son could be hiding.
“Well, listen,” I said, standing up and putting on my toughest face. “When you see Burke tonight, please tell him to call off his dog.”
Mom pulled another dress—tighter and shorter and redder than the last—out of her closet and held it up for comparison. “I’m not seeing Burke tonight.” She gave me a hard look through the mirror before conjuring up a sweet smile. “You’ll be on your own for dinner, though. And I won’t be home until late. Like so late it’ll be early, if you know what I mean. Maybe you should invite Brooke over to spend the night?”
I broke eye contact, wondering if I would ever be comfortable with how open she was about her sex life. “It’s a school night.”
“So? Don’t stay up too late. Or do! You only live once, you know?”
Part of
me resented the fact that she cheated on Burke. The part that appreciated he paid for our rent, our car, and my school. The part that recognized how kind he was to me. The part that wondered if he was misunderstood by his own wife and kids. I felt sorry for him because my mother was a parasite. Her survival was dependent on deriving the money and attention she needed at anyone else’s expense.
But the rest of me knew that Karma was a bitch. Burke was a cheater dating a whore. There was no illusion of love or comfort between them. He used her for sex and she used him for money and somehow, they were fine with the state of things between them.
While Mom finished getting ready for her date with Backup Guy—she liked to have someone waiting in the wings in case Burke ditched her and we found ourselves homeless—I stormed into my room and pulled up my newest fixation: Wyatt Hutton’s Facebook account.
His posts had changed tone recently. They weren’t as frequent. And as much as his pictures still had his trademark smile, his eyes looked strained. Maybe that was because he was busy plotting the abduction and murder of a certain teenaged girl. A teenaged girl whose mother just left for the night without so much as a goodbye or twenty-dollar bill with which to figure out dinner.
Lucky for me, I had been saving for my grand escape since I was twelve, squirreling away birthday money like my life depended on it. Over the years, I had accumulated quite a sizeable sum in an old shoebox I tucked into the back of my closet and covered with blankets. After I got a part-time job earlier this year, Mom had been adamant about setting up a savings account for me, and as the custodian of the account, she had full access to everything. I put just over half of each paycheck in there and pretended not to notice when she helped herself. Every other dollar I earned was stashed in that shoebox. If she knew how much money I had, well, I wouldn’t have it anymore. And there was no way I’d be able to leave the Keys at eighteen if I didn’t have money.
I swiped a couple bills out of my stash and sent a text to Brooke, letting her know I was heading to Bricks & Mortar—a wannabe posh pizza parlor—and humbly requested her company. Without waiting for a reply, I locked up and hopped on my bicycle. The wind stirred up by movement felt good as my hair fluttered behind me, and the energy I spent pumping my legs helped to burn through the frustration I always felt after dealing with Mom.
“Jesus.” Brooke rolled her eyes as I pulled to a stop in front of her brand-new Volkswagen Beetle. “Really? Still with the bike?” She pushed out of the car in a flounce of blonde curls and energy.
“Yes. Still with the bike. Some of us don’t have rich daddies to keep us in top of the line automobiles and an unending supply of gasoline with which to further destroy the environment.”
Brooke blew out a puff of air. “I’m sure, somewhere, there’s someone with more than enough money to buy you a car. Your mom just hasn’t found him yet.”
I hit her with a hard look, refusing to grace that statement with a response.
Brooke laughed, a breezy sound. “What? Too far? Was that a boundary?” As the only non-Lockhart person in existence who knew my story, she knew very well there were no boundaries between us.
I threw an arm around her shoulder. “Definitely too far. I’ll never speak to you again. Now, tell me all about your day.”
Laughing, we sauntered through the front door and Brooke paused. “Oh!” She turned to me, waving away the hostess with a hold-on-a-sec gesture. “There’s a party this weekend. At Ryan Smeltzer’s house. His parents are gone, so, you know what that means.”
“A torrid night of debauchery and bad decisions?” I asked, fully aware of what happened to my friend when she got anywhere near a party.
“Exactly. And what’s a night filled with bad decisions without you to save me when I make too many?” Brooke asked before relenting to the hostess and following her to a booth in the middle of the restaurant.
“I don’t know.” I pretended to be trying to make up my mind. “Don’t you think you’d be too embarrassed of me if I showed up on my bike? I’d hate for you to have to find a way to live that down.”
“That’s why I’ll pick you up!” Brooke smiled. “Come on, Todd Hudgins will be there!” She sing-songed the last bit, certain it would be the nail in the coffin.
And, as usual, she was right.
Chapter Five
Wyatt
I always loved the dining room in The Hut. The giant table, big enough to fit all seven of us, made from strong and sturdy wood. To me, it represented the strength of our family and was the source of a wealth of memories.
When I was younger, Mom always took the time to cook a full meal on the weeknights and a giant brunch every Saturday. Back then, Dad used to help. He would pull her into his arms and press kisses into the top of her head, swaying to some song only the two of them could hear. We would take our places at the table, excitedly talking about our days around mouthfuls of food. We’d dream about the future. What The Hut might become. What we might become.
In my memories, the sun always shone, spilling through the giant picture windows like fairy dust on a perfect scene. No one ever got mad. Feelings never got hurt. And Dad never drank.
Life didn’t look like that anymore, though I did my best to recreate it for my siblings. By the time Eli, Caleb, and Harlow were old enough to join us for dinner, Dad was drunk more than he was sober, so I did what I could to take his place, smiling when he frowned, encouraging when he scoffed at childish achievements.
Today, I walked into the dining room to find Eli at the table, blankly staring at a slew of books and papers spread out in front of him. I pulled out a heavy chair and plopped down. “Uhhh…what exactly is going on here?” I asked, feigning confusion.
He stared at me, good humor glinting in his eyes. “It’s what they call homework, Wy. You know, a specific torture device designed by the old and bitter to inflict pain on those of us who are still young and beautiful.” He ran his hands through his thick hair, once blonde like the rest of us, but getting darker each year.
“I know what it is, jackass,” I replied with a laugh. “I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you doing it before. Hence my confusion.”
“Maybe I’m feeling inspired.” Eli gave me a lopsided grin. Both of us knew all too well that nothing about school inspired him. Ever.
“Or,” Mom said, as she swooped into the room, pausing to ruffle her youngest son’s hair, “maybe he’s been told he won’t be going to Homecoming if he doesn’t get his grades up.”
Eli ducked out of her grasp. “Or that.”
I peered at the papers in front of him. “Now that sounds so much more like the Eli I know and love.” School might not have been an inspiration to my youngest brother, but girls and parties? Those were things he could appreciate. Eli sat back, his attention on the waves on the other side of the window, whatever effort he had been willing to give his homework dwindling by the second.
Mom pulled out a chair and sat, her attention following Eli’s. “Have either of you seen Harlow?”
“It’s ten in the morning on a Saturday,” I replied. “My guess is she’s still in bed.”
Mom shook her head. “First place I checked.”
“What about down by the dock?” That was Harlow’s happy place. When things were perfect, she would sit and let her feet dangle over the edge and stare at the water. She swore her inspiration whispered to her from beneath the waves.
“Second place I checked.” Mom grimaced, which made me grimace, too.
If Harlow wasn’t in her happy place, that meant it was a bad day and we might not find her for hours. And when we did, she would be lost in her thoughts and almost totally unreachable. I was in the middle of wondering what might have happened this early on a weekend to deem it a bad day, when a shadow loomed in the doorway, presenting me with the answer.
“Wyatt.” Dad barked my name like an order and without another word, turned on his heel and stalked toward the office.
Eli scowled after him. “Have you ever con
sidered not following him?” he asked. “Just let him sit in there and rot?”
“Plenty of times,” I replied, staring at the now empty doorway.
“Why haven’t you?”
Because if I did, Dad would take his anger out on Eli. And Mom. And Harlow. Because I was strong enough to take his shit and not let it affect me, but would hate myself if, for one minute, his wrath fell on anyone else.
I shrugged and ruffled Eli’s hair. “Good luck with the homework,” I said before walking out the door. My brother thought I was weak. That was fine. He could think whatever he wanted because I knew it wasn’t true.
When I walked into the office, I found Dad perched on the edge of his desk, a glass of whisky in his hand. Because obviously, that was what every man needed at ten in the morning on a Saturday.
“I need you to run an errand for me.”
“You realize if you held off on the drinking, you could run your errands yourself.”
Dad lifted an eyebrow but didn’t pounce. Instead, he crossed the room and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, drawing me in close to whisper as he led me deeper into the office. “Kara’s in jail.”
I knew that girl was trouble the moment I saw her. The feeling had crept through the air between us, an undeniable something. I couldn’t name it, but I could tell she was going to wreak havoc on my life for as long as she was part of it. “Of course she is.”
“Don’t be like that. Kara is a good girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, right. Silly me. There I go getting confused again. I mean, they always put the good girls in jail. What am I thinking?”
“I’m telling you.” Dad pulled me even tighter, his arm a vice around my upper back. “Don’t be like that.”
I lifted his arm off my shoulder and stepped aside. “And I’m telling you, maybe you should worry about your own daughter before you go off rescuing someone else’s.”