Chapter Six
Leah
I sipped on my iced coffee, taking in what would inevitably be the only moment of peace I’d have for the next few hours.
On the sidewalk below me, students were rolling out in packs for day parties around campus.
I was jealous; normally, that wasn’t my scene—I preferred being drunk when the sun was down—but today, I would’ve done anything to be down there with them.
“What time do we have to leave to get there on time?” Mags asked, and I turned to look at her.
She smoothed down her shirt, her always agreeable hair falling in an easy blowout.
We both used to dye our hair, but I’d ended up giving up because, while Mags never seemed to have damaged hair despite bleaching the fuck out of it, I’d completely fried mine.
After months of not bleaching and using a lot of hair masks, it finally felt healthy again.
It’d been a big transition to go back to my natural shade, but I’d grown to like it, even though it'd been borne of necessity.
“I’m excited to see Mom and Dad. First trip down senior year.
” I could hear her rifling through her things, picking up her keys.
It’d only taken her this long to remember that she needed them when she left the house.
The number of times I’d had to run across campus to let her into our dorm over the years wasn’t small. “Big deal.”
“Yeah.”
My tone conveyed possibly negative enthusiasm, but Mags was unaffected, as usual.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and moved onto her phone.
It was like she’d hear the words other people—or maybe it was just me—were saying, but wouldn’t process anything else.
She was physically incapable of reading the room.
I took two giant gulps to finish off my coffee and then put my mug in the dishwasher.
Mags kept her eyes glued to her phone. Being this close to her confirmed my suspicion that she wasn’t wearing makeup.
My chest tightened with familiar annoyance and the same raging jealousy I’d experienced around her since we were children.
There was the basketball star who could dress however she wanted, do whatever she wanted.
And then there was me, the one who wasn’t and the one who couldn’t.
Nobody at the county club gave a fuck how Mags looked, but they apparently gave a fuck about me.
If I couldn’t have high aspirations for my parents to brag about, I needed to at least be pretty.
“We should head out, we’re going to be late,” Mags said, glancing up at the clock on our microwave. It was 10:22 a.m., exactly the time I’d said we’d needed to leave. Even though she might as well have been agreeing with me, she had a way of making it sound like every idea was hers first.
“Okay,” I said and headed to the front door for my shoes and purse, not even bothering to wait for her.
Every time my parents came to town, they stayed at the same hotel and ate at the same restaurants. They’d become honorary regulars, memorable between campus celebrity Mags going everywhere with us and all four of us towering over most people that we met.
“There they are,” Mom said when she saw us walking toward her on the sidewalk.
She was dressed impeccably as usual, in a dress that I recognized from a Southern California-based boutique we both loved, which fit perfectly on her body.
She treated pilates like her full-time job, and it showed in how lean and firm her arms were.
Her blonde hair—hers wasn’t natural, either, but she’d been dying it so long it might as well be—looked freshly blown out from a salon; it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d gotten it done somewhere locally this morning.
When she leaned in to hug me, she gave me two polite taps on the back like I was an acquaintance she barely remembered the name of.
She did the same thing to Mags, but I still couldn’t help but feel like there was a little less love behind the hug I received.
“The campus is beautiful this time of year,” Dad remarked.
He looked just as expensive as Mom did, his dress pants and made-to-look-casual dress shirt tailored to him.
His warm, dark blonde hair had gone fully gray when Mags and I were in middle school, but he’d always pulled it off well.
Rather than aging him, it added a cool, relaxed, California-appropriate air.
“The leaves turned beautifully,” Mom acknowledged with a curt nod. The intentional physical distance between my parents was noticeable. Mags and I exchanged a silent look. No matter how agitating I found Mags, my parents’ dynamic was one thing we were always able to connect on.
“Hard to believe this is our last fall at Lakeside Green,” Dad continued. My parents were experts at talking around each other, neither of them directly responding to each other, but also not completely ignoring each other. It was practically an art form. “Maybe our last fall in Colorado, too.”
“Definitely our last fall in Colorado. I’m not playing for Cedar Creek,” Mags said.
The fact that she didn’t want to play for Cedar Creek because Theo was there was such a given for our family that she didn’t even need to say it out loud.
She’d never been good at being a team player and would throw anyone under the bus for her own benefit, but Theo in particular really brought it out of her.
Mags would never say it out loud to anyone—and probably hadn’t even admitted to herself—how jealous she was of Theo and her career.
“Should we head inside?” I asked. The sooner we started our meal, the sooner it would be over, and that was what I was banking on right now.
Dad glanced at his watch. It was a new one from the last time I saw them. My ballpark guess was that it was about as much as one of my semesters here. “It is that time,” he said and nodded.
The four of us walked inside. “Four under Moretti,” Dad said in greeting to the hostess.
The restaurant was busy, mostly with families.
Even though Lakeside Green University wasn’t exactly a small campus, I was always surprised by the number of parents I saw on a random weekend.
People seemed to really love it here—they loved the peace and quiet, the cute main street, the tailgating, the views of the mountains. I didn’t get it at all; I never had.
“Right this way,” the hostess said. My sister was deep in a conversation with my mom about the first game of the season, and I spent the walk over trying to figure out if the hostess was in my psych class last year.
Our table was near a window, which was perfect because it gave me ample opportunity to zone out and people-watch.
Meals with my family were an obligation, and usually just gave Mags the opportunity to brag about herself in person.
I used to try to compete, but that stopped in my senior year of high school when I realized my parents truly only saw me as an extension of my sister.
They made it clear when I was told I’d be going to Lakeside Green, no questions asked.
Wherever she went, I’d go too—purely out of convenience.
Mags and I sat next to each other while my parents sat on the other side of the table. For as long as I’d been cognizant, their preference was to sit where they couldn’t look at each other.
“I can’t believe this is really your last year here. And the last season of you playing college basketball,” Mom said, a hand to her heart. She pressed her lips together, doing a really good job of doing the my baby is all grown up face despite not being able to move it much due to Botox.
“I know.” Mags let out a breath. “I’m looking forward to a change of pace, though. You know this was never my first pick of schools.”
“I know. But look at you—and the legacy you’re leaving behind. It’s so wonderful.”
“If I just hadn’t gotten injured in high school,” Mags lamented, and I nearly groaned, already bored with this story.
I’d heard it too many times to possibly want to rehash it.
It was all so classic—star basketball player in consideration at some of the biggest basketball schools in the country gets hurt.
She’s good enough to be considered, but not good enough that they think they’ll recover fully and be worth the risk.
She does recover, but only one school has an offer left for her. Will she be able to go pro?
Gag me.
I genuinely felt bad about her knee the first one-hundred times I heard about it, at least. But when the moral of her sob story began essentially boiling down to everyone should feel bad because I’m not playing for a school like Point Brook instead of I’m just so lucky I’m able to play again at all, I started tuning it out.
Mags had never known how to keep herself humble for long.
“Maybe I could’ve ended up at a school I would’ve chosen for myself,” I mumbled.
“What was that?” Mom asked, looking over at me. It was a genuine question—the restaurant was loud enough that we had to raise our voices above our normal volume to be heard.
“The specials look good,” I said to her, gesturing to the menu.
Mom’s expression told me she couldn’t give less of a fuck. “I haven’t looked.”
I looked out over the restaurant for our waitress, hoping we could get out of here quickly.
My parents liked to complain about the service no matter what, but my preference was that their complaints would be about how fast the service was today and how they felt like they were being kicked out of the restaurant.
It’d mercifully happened before, and I wasn’t above wanting it to happen again.
Eventually, our waitress arrived. I sat up straight in my seat, silently communicating to her how badly I needed her to come through for me right now.
“Hi, can I get you anything to drink?” she asked, her voice cheery. She looked out over us and paused. “What a beautiful family—special occasion?”