Chapter 3
Amelia
I’ve already checked my phone twice for a message or missed call from Clare and nothing. After waking up this morning, last night’s party is a blur. I know I was there, I remember how it went down, but it’s like I watched it in a movie.
As I jog downstairs, I call my best friend until it rings out and I get her voicemail.
“Clare, call me back, I’m getting worried.”
In the kitchen, the smell of pancakes and muffins fills the air, and I smile at Catherine.
She’s our housekeeper and like a second mom to me.
Hell, she may as well be my mom. Rachel Haynes isn’t what you would call a doting, affectionate mother.
She spends most of her time jet setting here, there, and everywhere.
I don’t doubt she loved my dad at one time but where he knows where his priorities are, she doesn’t care to remember hers.
She had me young and she’s terrified of missing out while she’s still young enough to entice fancy men behind my dad’s back.
I asked him once why he’s still married to her, and his reply was it worked out cheaper to stay married to her than divorce.
“Happy birthday, darling,” the man himself beams from the head of the kitchen table. He stands and envelopes me in his arms and I sink into his embrace.
At least he remembered, mom hasn’t shown her face in six weeks, and I don’t have high hopes she’ll return just because it’s my birthday. Even for my eighteenth.
“How does it feel to be old?” he asks, laughing his deep throaty laugh that will always remind me of my childhood. His swept back dark hair is peppered with grey and the lines around his eyes are beginning to deepen when he smiles.
“I don’t know, you tell me,” I throw back at him.
“Yeah, yeah, sit down, you’ve got gifts to open.”
A small box with a red bow attached sits on a larger box with a pink bow stuck on the top.
I pull out a chair and take a seat. “You’re eighteen now and as much as I want to keep you wrapped up here where it’s safe, I know you want to explore the world and everything it has to offer.”
He nudges the gifts closer toward me, and I open the small one first. I’m expecting jewellery not a car fob sitting pretty on the velvet cushion.
“A car? You got me a car?”
I’ve wanted my own car since I got permit last year.
“Like I said, I can’t keep you around here all the time, so I want you to be safe getting around the city, and in style of course.”
“Of course.” I grin and reach for the second box.
Inside is a Prada purse and a matching wallet.
“A gift from your mom,” Dad mutters and I look it over, but I’m more interested in what car awaits me out front.
Mom’s gift is thoughtless and unoriginal.
She’ll probably hope I don’t like it so she can have it when she eventually comes home and sees I’m not using them. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“What time did you get home this morning?”
“Oh, a little after midnight. I didn’t feel well so I came home. I feel fine now though,” I add so he doesn’t worry.
“Are you sure? I have to leave on business soon, but I can call a doctor out.”
“Business?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, darling, but I can’t postpone…”
“Honestly, Dad, it’s fine. I don’t want a fuss. As long as Clare can come over, that’s all I need.”
“She’s always welcome, darling.” He smiles and tucks the car fob into my hand. “Do you want to go look at your new ride?”
We head out front and sitting on the stone cobbled drive is a Porsche, blood red and gleaming under the morning sun.
“No way, you got me a Porsche?”
“It’s the one you wanted, right?”
I’ve been dropping hints like mad since I got my permit.
“Yes.”
I go to leap forward to run my hand along the body work when my phone rings in my back pocket. Digging it out, Clare’s name lights up the screen and I don’t hesitate to answer.
“You’re still alive then?”
“I feel like I’m dying. If I order a cab, can I come to yours and you pay. I’ve lost my purse and have no cash. I’ll pay you back.”
Eyeing up my new wheels, I have a better idea.
“Wait there, I’ll come and get you.”
I hang up and bounce on my toes. “I’m going to pick up Clare.”
“She only lives up the road.” Dad laughs lightly and I tense forgetting he doesn’t know where she is.
“Yeah, but then we’re going for a spin. We won’t be long, I promise.”
“Okay, there’s only two rules. The first, drive safely and two, never drive through Dog City. A young woman like you in a car like this, I dread to think what those Dogs would do to you.”
I feel bad because I’m already planning on breaking rule number two before I’ve driven the thing.
“I won’t leave until you get back,” he yells behind me as I climb into my new car.
“Half hour, tops,” I yell back.
He waves me off and I use the time during the drive to digest my dad’s words back in the kitchen. He’s giving me freedom and that beats any materialistic present in the world. Especially a Prada purse my mother ordered online using my father’s credit card.
The scene changes from clean and well-tended to houses to the highway and then I enter Dog City.
The streets become crowded with much smaller houses and dingy shop fronts covered in graffiti and gang markings.
I ignore people on the streets staring as I drive by and pretend I don’t have to stop here, not until I pull up outside the party house.
There are a handful of guys sat out on the porch in various chairs and on benches.
One leans over and yells something into the house and then stands and walks over. He stops at the metal gate, leaning on the top bar. He motions for me to wind my window down and because I don’t want any trouble, I do. I just hope Clare hurries up.
“Back so soon, little lamb.”
Under the brim of his beanie, I realise it’s the same guy who offered me up to anyone who wanted me last night, the one with facial tattoos and a scar running around his eye.
“Just here to pick my friend up,” I tell him.
He pushes away from the gate and swings it open, stepping out onto the sidewalk. I sit frozen while he laps my car, nodding with appreciation at the wheels.
“Nice daddy to buy you these trims, what’d you have to do for them? Bat your eyelashes, open those legs for a little incestual fun time?”
The guy makes me feel sick, like my skin is crawling with spiders and I lose the ability to move.
“It’s my birthday.”
Cocking a brow, he huffs, “Nice daddy.”
This guy petrifies me and when he’s joined by the others who have been slowly moving closer, I pick up my phone from between my legs and hit Clare’s number. She answers on the third ring, and I’m flooded with relief when she says she’s on her way out.
Not a moment later, she walks out with Tariq’s arm around her shoulders. While they maul each other goodbye, I look around to see if the guy with the rose tattoo is around, but I don’t see him.
The passenger side door opens, and I jump thinking the worst, before I see Clare making herself comfortable.
“Your dad got you a car, I can’t believe this. Hey, and happy birthday, babe,” she rushes out.
“Hey to you too and thanks.”
I turn the engine on, but the guys don’t move from in front of the car to let me out. I can’t blast the horn at them, who knows what level of rude that is to them and how they’d react. All I have to do is make it back in one piece, so I don’t have to explain why I was ever in Dog City to my father.
Checking my rearview mirror, no one is behind me, so I throw the car into reverse and back up. Not one person moves as I change gear and drive around them. I shudder, knowing I don’t ever have to come back here.
“It’s good to see you’re still alive,” I mutter once we’re off their street and heading for home.
“Of course I’m alive, what did you really think would happen to me? Tariq always looks out for me.”
“You were snorting cocaine, Clare. Yeah, you’ve got a real catch there.”
At least she has the audacity not to argue with me, but she does say, “I got carried away, turned out, it was pretty fun, but it’s not something I intend on taking up full time. Anyway, Tar told me he loved me last night.”
Her excitement bounces around the small space and while I should be happy for her, I can’t find it in my heart to believe he meant the words.
Perhaps I’m judging too harshly, but how can you let someone mess around with drugs when you supposedly love them?
To love someone is to want only the best for them, to protect them, unless I’m the one who’s wrong.
“Can you picture my father’s face when I bring Tariq home to meet him. He’s going to have a heart attack.”
“You’ll put him in an early grave, for sure. I’d think twice.”
“That’s your problem, you think too much. Just because Tariq doesn’t live in the same part as us, you automatically think he’s going to hurt me, news flash, my dad is rich and lives in the best part yet he’s the one who hurts me the most.”
Her words sting and I slam my mouth shut. What do I say to that? She’s not wrong about her dad, but I’m not convinced she’s completely right about her boyfriend.
“Anyway, it’s my best friend’s eighteenth birthday, what are our plans, little Miss Porsche owner.”
I chuckle and the tension of Dog City melts away.
“Anything you want, my dad told me he’s leaving town on business for a few days so we have the house to ourselves.”
“You’re messing with me, right? Please tell me you’re not.”
“I’m not and he’s given Catherine a few days off so it will just be the two of us.”
A wicked gleam covers her face when I quickly look at her before settling back on the road.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, not really wanting to hear the answer.
I love her, God knows I do, but where I like to hang back out of the crowd, she loves to be the centre of it. On paper, we shouldn’t be friends, we’re so different but I guess that’s why we’ve been friends for the last ten years since she moved schools and onto my street.
“We’re going out.”
“Where to? I’m eighteen, not twenty-one,” I remind her.
“According to these we are.”
From inside her jacket pocket, she pulls out two ID cards. She pushes them closer so I can take a better look, and I see a picture of myself staring back at me.
“You got us fake ID’s?”
“I sure did, Tariq said they’re as good as the real thing.”
Of course he did.
“And where do you plan on us using these cards?”
“At Bar Ten tonight. Now your dad won’t be around to see you finally act your age, we’re going to get dressed up and have fun.”
“Just us?”
Tilting her head, she looks at me like I’m stupid and then grins. “Tonight is going to change our lives forever, just you wait and see.”
My excitement is bitter-sweet, her words should be nothing more than words, they shouldn’t ring true to the following events that were about to take a turn in my life.