Chapter One
Amelie
Christmas day is one of the very few days of the year that I love; my favourite holiday. A small part of me was looking forward to spending it in the UK. It would have been my first cold Christmas, with hot chocolate and a fire.
Here it's a thousand degrees and there is no way we could wear ugly sweaters. Elsie was obsessed with them, she had already bought several before I left. I feel a pang thinking of her, but push it down.
Our family goes all out for Christmas. Dad and Chelsea invite anyone that has nowhere else to go over for lunch. She goes completely over the top: snags, chops, seafood...anything that Dad can cook on the BBQ. All surrounded by family and friends.
Aadi and I have our own small tradition, which is why it is safer to be the first awake on Christmas morning. I made sure to get him wasted last night and waited until he passed out to set up my prank.
“AHHHHH!” he screams, right on time. He wakes up like clockwork at seven each morning. “Milly, I’m going to kill you!”
“Over my dead body!” Smalls booms from his room.
I smile at how protective he is, right before a pang of guilt hits me hard. I haven’t told Smalls about the guys – not that there's much to tell – but for a brief moment, I felt like I had moved on from the way I felt about him. Being home changes things though.
“I will take you, man! I have a mouse trap stuck to my toe...someone help me.”
I laugh at the pathetic ending to his arrogant brag and push my covers back. I cross the hall and find my brother lying on the floor. A massive smile hits his lips.
“It’s nice to have you back. Shitty pranks and all. Even if we only have another couple of weeks with you.”
I force another smile out; I haven't told them I won’t be going back. I may have said I missed them so much that I was granted an extended holiday. They haven't questioned it, and no one from the school has called my father to tell him otherwise.
I help him remove the mouse trap from his toe, and laugh again.
We both look so incredibly stupid. Because I have this fantasy of a cold wintery Christmas, Chelsea bought us all matching Xmas onesies and blasted the air conditioning for the night and morning.
I love her so much for the effort she puts in to make it special.
Smalls comes out of his room grumbling about his onesie giving him a camel toe, and Aadi and I lose it; he looks so much more ridiculous than we do.
At six foot seven and a hundred and fifty kilograms he’s a monster of a guy.
Completely and utterly terrifying. When he’s not dressed in a fleecy reindeer onesie that is.
“Let’s go open gifts,” I say, unable to contain my excitement. The guys follow me downstairs, where Dad and Chelsea are already up and waiting.
“It’s about time you all woke up, I was going to start unwrapping gifts without you.” She gets as excited as I do, but we all have a one-gift each rule. We are allowed to buy everyone only one present; you can spend as little or as much as you like on the gift, but only one.
I count the gifts under the tree and notice that someone has not listened to the rule this year. Chelsea is still beaming like the Cheshire Cat.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Smalls asks her.
“I can’t keep it in anymore! I got a delivery this week and when I opened it, it was full of gifts for Amelie, with a letter asking me to hide the gifts until today!” She pulls out four boxes from under the tree.
“Throw them away,” I snap.
“Why, I thought they were from your friends? It's Christmas, open them.”
“Fine,” I huff. The gifts are all wrapped to perfection, except one.
I smile and open it first because I know it’s from Kalen and I miss him.
The parcel is hard enough that I know he hasn’t sent me lingerie – thank god – but a moment too late I worry that I’m about to open a sex toy in front of my family.
My cheeks flame but I needn't have worried; it’s a framed picture of himself in his speedo.
I shake my head, snorting. I still hate him, but this is so him.
Ugh, I hate him and I miss him. I need to sort my head out.
“Who is that?” Chelsea asks with girlish interest. “Your boyfriend?”
“No, that is Kalen. He’s one of the biggest jerks at Knox Academy, and also my future stepbrother.
..or I should say, our future stepbrother, Aadi?
The incubator just announced her engagement.
” I watch my brother's face screw up and the vein in his neck protrude; he’s trying to rein in his temper. My father’s face is impassive.
Next, I open a smaller box, which contains a charm bracelet.
It doesn't have many charms, but I know it’s from Sawyer: it has a pink cocktail; a classic car; and a running shoe.
I quickly move on to make work of opening the other two gifts which are from the twins.
A homemade mix CD that I know is from Slate, and from Onyx a Fitbit.
He’s obsessed about his fitness, and to many it wouldn’t seem like a sweet gift, but I know it is an exact match to his, just a little more feminine.
“What thoughtful gifts! It seems like you all get along really well,” Chelsea says. She’s always looking at the positive side of life.
“Until we didn’t,” I say quietly, and thank God Smalls knows me so well because he sidetracks Chelsea with the gift he bought for her.
After we all exchange gifts,
I take my stuff to my room and get changed into a Christmas themed summer dress and braid my hair. The humidity at this time of year sends my curly hair into frizz overload, so it’s easier to keep it up at all times.
“Hey,” Smalls says from my door. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “We need to talk,” I tell him. He steps into my room and shuts the door, taking a seat on the bed beside me.
“I thought we might.” He sighs. “Is everything okay?”
“We’re still best friends...right?”
“Forever, you know that.” He reaches over and takes my hand in his huge paw, patting it reassuringly.
“I’m not going back,” I say carefully, gauging his reaction. He doesn’t say anything.
“I can’t. I failed without you and Aadi to protect me. I did some things, things I can’t take back.”
“Okay…” he says slowly, drawing the ‘a’ out forever. “Does your dad know?” I shake my head.
“I’ll tell them after Christmas,” I vow. “But that isn’t how I messed up. Promise you won’t hate me?”
“Hey,” he says, throwing his large arm around me, pulling me into his side.
He lightly kisses my temple and as I gaze up at him, I feel warmth spread from my stomach outwards.
Smalls is home. Safety. Familiarity. Everything I know and love.
My lips part as he looks at me in the same way and we move towards each other.
There’s a pull, but it’s not magnetic or burning.
More a call for comfort. Our lips touch, and I sigh.
Smalls is my everything, but it just doesn’t feel like it did.
We pull apart, and I rest my forehead into the crook of his neck. I take a deep breath of his cologne – Joop – which I have told him numerous times screams ‘drug dealer’ but he always just laughs. It fills my nose, and for once, it calms my nerves.
“I slept with my stepbrothers.” I feel his body go stiff.
“Plural?”
“Yeah, all four of them. I thought they liked me.” I laugh at myself, that sounds so cliché. “But it was all some stupid game to them, so I kinda did something to ensure they never want me back.” That makes him laugh.
“What did you do?”
“With the help of a good friend, I broke into the stepdaddy’s safe and stole the students’ files, had them copied, and pasted all their crimes onto the walls of the school. The number one rule at Knox Academy is to not ask others why they are there.”
“So you exposed them?” Smalls asks. He sounds angry, but not at me.
“The whole school,” I admit. He hisses out a breath.
“I hate to say it,” he hesitates, probably not wanting to piss me off at Christmas. “But exposing everyone was a really shitty thing to do.”
“I know, but I needed to ensure that the school wouldn’t take me back. There is no way that can be overlooked, they’ll have no choice but to expel me.”
“Let's forget this for now and go gang up on Aadi with the water guns.”
I don’t miss the fact that he didn’t comment on me sleeping with the guys.
I wanted him to yell or have an opinion or something.
Him not saying anything hurts. I went away for a couple of months and everything has changed.
I’ve tried to ignore it over the last few weeks, tried to focus on enjoying being at home.
I just don’t think it’s them who have changed, it’s me.
I’m not the same girl from the courtroom. Yes, I did something stupid to get out of Knox Academy, just like I always do, but something about me has changed and I’m not sure I like it.
I forgot how much I missed my friends. Most of our gang come from shitty home lives; drugs, alcohol and violence are all common family issues here. Aadi, Smalls and I are lucky because we have a functional family, even if it’s not traditional.
Dad is at the BBQ drinking a beer, chatting away to his best friend Mike – Uncle Mike to me. Chelsea and one of her friends are rounding up the younger children from playing under the sprinkler to go get some food.
Smalls seems to be avoiding me. Uncle Mike’s teenage daughter Bella is trying to teach Aadi how to use the app, ‘Musically’. Everyone is having an amazing time.
“Hi.” Sarah sits down next to me. She was new to the group when I left, so I haven’t really had time to get to know her.
I would be lying if I said watching her interact with all the guys hasn’t made the green-eyed monster want to come out to play.
Yes, I’m jealous; I feel replaced. But jealousy aside, I just don’t like her.
“Hey, enjoying your day?” I ask, taking a sip of my Corona. I’m not usually a beer drinker, but on hot ass days like today, a Corona with lime hits the spot. It’s the only thing that does.