Four
I lifted my gaze to meet the soft yellow Cape Cod house, its foundation adorned with natural stone, watching as it came closer with each passing step.
No sooner than I’d opened the door, a sense of relief poured over me.
Cream-colored walls with yellow-trimmed furniture welcomed me into its comforting embrace as the skylight cast a golden glow on the foyer.
A bouquet of sunflowers and lilies sat perched on the glass table situated in the center of the hall, encased between a large imperial staircase that lined both sides of the room, connecting to form an overhanging balcony in the middle.
I could finally breathe again.
At home, popularity didn’t matter. I could dance around in my underwear without a care, lose myself in the pages of a book, wear my retainer freely regardless of the words that spilled out with a heavy lisp.
Hell, I could even pick my nose if I felt like it.
With only six waking hours each day to be unapologetically myself, I wasn’t about to waste a damn second of it.
I slammed the door behind me and let out a shaky breath as I ran my fingers through my hair.
You’d never guess that the popular girl had social anxiety, but what did you expect from someone who was also secretly a total loser?
I was simply an outcast wearing the mask of someone much more popular.
Sometimes, wearing her old clothes brought me peace. I pulled the fabric over my head and wrapped my arms around my torso. It still smelled like her. I sighed. If I could just hug her one more time, I’d never wish for anything else.
“Clarke, is that you?” I heard my mom’s voice call out from downstairs.
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a second!”
Scurrying around my room, I frantically put away my belongings before making my way into the adjoining bathroom. Sliding my contact lens case to the edge of the sink, I unscrewed the caps and filled each compartment with saline cleaning solution.
“Ouch!” I cried, accidentally jabbing my eye as I attempted to pry the contacts out. “Fuck! Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Sweetie, are you calling me?”
“No!” I yelled back while still holding my eye. “I’m good! I’ll be down soon!”
The throbbing pain radiated through my face. I looked in the mirror and saw my eye was slightly pink. I sighed. Stupid contacts. After several more attempts, I finally removed the lenses and replaced them with black rimmed glasses.
When I finally came down the grand staircase, a deep thumping sounded outside the front door, followed by the familiar metallic jangling of keys clanking against the doorknob.
“Who wants pizza?” my dad shouted while bursting through the door, dropping his keys on the floor. He stood still as he tried to balance the two large boxes of pizza and three Coke bottles in his arms. “Shit.” He looked down, staring at his keys.
Without hesitation, our cat, Cleo, rushed over, pouncing on his keys as she began swatting at them, pushing them along the hardwood floor.
“Christopher! Language!”
I rolled my eyes at the train wreck of an entrance he had just made.
“I’ll take the pizza, hold the shit please.”
“Clarke!” my mother scolded.
My dad shrugged as he stifled his laughter. “Well, if we ever doubted it, she’s definitely got my sense of humor.”
I walked over and kissed him on the cheek while grabbing the pizzas. My mother sighed and knelt down to retrieve his keys from Cleo, who was less than pleased by the confiscation of her new toy.
“What am I going to do with you two?”
Their voices grew softer as I put some distance between us, entering the dining room. I placed the boxes in the center of the table and grabbed four plates from the cabinet. Swiftly, I pivoted on my heels, but as my eyes reconnected with the ceramic dishes in my hands, I froze.
Four plates.
We only needed three.
It was the small things I seemed to forget about my sister not being around. Sure, she wasn’t physically here—that much was pretty obvious—but grabbing three plates instead of four was a little harder to remember.
“Clarke, please tell your mother that talking about our day over dinner is completely normal.”
I turned around and saw Mom glaring at Dad. Hard.
“Clarke, please tell your father that rule doesn’t apply when he wants to talk about the surgery he performed today.”
I put the extra plate back.
“Yeah, I’m going to have to side with Mom on this one.”
My dad reached across the table, picking up the boxes once again. “Then, I’m taking these pizzas back!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Christopher. Put the damn pizzas down.”
“Did you just…” I lowered my voice before continuing. “Cuss?”
My eyebrows drew closer to my hairline as my eyes bulged from my skull.
My dad wore an expression that mirrored my own. At a loss for words, he put the boxes back in the center of the table, still looking onward in shock.
Our eyes bounced around, shifting as we gawked at each other. Then, almost simultaneously, we all broke out into laughter.
In an effort to compromise, my mother proposed a solution: she would tell us about her day while we ate, and my dad could tell us about his day when we were done.
As we sat around the table, her story unraveled as she explained the general outline of the new book she was drafting, which, in my opinion, was definitely better than hearing about some unsettling surgery. It was a tragic romance between two childhood friends turned enemies.
“I just can’t think of a good ending.”
“You’re New York Times best-selling author, Sarah Taylor…you’ll figure it out,” I said, my words coming out garbled as I gnawed at the pepperoni pizza on my plate.
“I hope so. If I don’t reach my deadline for my first draft, my agent will kill me.” She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Anyway, how was your first week of school?”
“Could’ve been better. Could’ve been worse.”
“Anything special happen?”
Switch one of my favorite classes to stupid fucking art class? Check. See an incredibly hot yet overly nauseating boy? Check. Get detention during first period? Check. Deal with crippling social anxiety while pretending to be a stereotypical dumb blonde? Check and check.
“Nope. Just the usual crazy high school stuff,” I mumbled, dismantling the garlic crust, my fingertips slick with greasy crumbs.
She and my dad exchanged a silent glance. My lips tugged to the side as I watched them watch me. Letting out a quiet breath, my mother rested her hands on top of mine. My gaze drifted downward.
“Honey, you’re a shit liar.”
The tension building in my shoulders dissipated as I let out a small laugh. Six lame dad jokes, four slices of pizza, and one sappy family hug later, I was upstairs lying in bed with my journal sprawled open on my lap. I read and reread my plan to win Prom Queen, and each time I was less impressed.
I stared at the words until they lost meaning. It was good enough. I wasn’t good enough. I needed to be more specific—more detailed. Less room for error.
Grabbing my pencil, I pressed down firmly onto the paper and began to write an additional line next to step one.
That was a good start. I closed my journal and pushed it to the side, replacing it with Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg. I spent the rest of the night submerged under an ocean of ink and pages as I melted into the book, becoming enveloped in every word.
The next day, the house was eerily quiet, and after an hour of binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy , I found myself wanting to talk to an actual doctor.
Not about anything medical, I just needed an excuse to go annoy Doctor Dad—anything to escape the silence that my room was offering.
I grabbed my journal, shoved it into the pocket of my oversized hoodie, and hopped out of my bed to see exactly where he was hiding.
As I galloped down the stairs, the faint sound of a television became increasingly louder.
“Dad?”
“In here!”
I followed his voice into the living room to find him snuggled up with Cleo as he stared intently at the screen in front of him.
Sunlight streamed through the large Palladian window off to the side, obscuring the television with its harsh glare.
My eyes squinted as I flopped down on the couch, sinking into the cushions. Glancing over at him, I snagged Cleo from his lap, placing her onto mine.
“Hey!”
“What? She’s my cat, too.”
“I paid for her,” he muttered.
I shrugged, stroking her fur, feeling like the villain from that one James Bond movie.
Looking up at the television, my eyes slowly adjusted to the light as my pupils constricted.
That’s when I realized what he was watching.
The Great British Bake Off. My entire body shook with laughter, prompting Cleo to hop off my lap.
“No way you’re watching a cooking show right now.”
“First, you take my cat, now you judge my show?”
“Oh, come on, Dad. Isn’t there like some sports game on right now?”
“That’s very anti-feminist of you,” he said, his attention still fixed on the television.
I stood from the couch and placed my hand on his shoulder. “I’ll remember that next time I ask you to buy me some tampons.”
“I just didn’t know which ones to get! I thought you still wore pads!”
“Okay, that’s enough of this conversation,” I said with a shake of my head as I rose to my feet and walked over to a nearby bookshelf in search of a new read. Pursing my lips, I glanced back and mumbled, “It’s Natracare size regular…or super, depending on my flow.”
He pushed himself upright and cleared his throat. His fingers plucked at the fabric of his pants.
I arched a single brow before turning to face the bookshelf again. I couldn’t help but chuckle at how uncomfortable he looked. I ran my fingers along the spine of each book, tracing the titles with my eyes as I waited for him to respond.
“Noted.”
“Chill, Dad. It’s just tampons.”
“I’m chill!”
“You’re literally a doctor.”
“Yeah, it’s different when it’s your daughter,” he groaned as he rubbed his temples. “You’re not supposed to grow up.”
“Can you control time?”
“No.”
“Then, I’m going to grow.”
“I know, smart ass. Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”
I flicked my eyes to the ceiling. “Well, you have fun with your old lady show. I’m going to go find a book to read upstairs. The choices down here are shit.”
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
“Touché.” I narrowed my eyes at him, taking note of the smirk he wore. “Do we still have any of that spaghetti you made a couple nights ago?”
“Leftovers are in the fridge,” he said with a smug expression on his face. “And by the way, I learned that recipe by watching Hell’s Kitchen, so you’re welcome.”
I shuffled away from him, never meeting his eye line as I refused to give him that satisfaction.
After warming up the bowl of spaghetti, I crept past him, stepping delicately on the balls of my feet.
Ten minutes were enough when it came to dealing with Doctor Dad. He was best handled in small doses. Thankfully, as it had turned out, he was far too invested in the show to even realize my presence, anyway.
By the time I entered my room, I felt like I had run a marathon. A big house was all fun and games until it took three business days just to get from one room to the next. I threw my journal haphazardly on my bed and placed the bowl of spaghetti on my desk.
While skimming over my bookshelves, my eyes eventually connected with the beautiful pastel covers on the top shelf.
The Twisted series. I’d heard good things about Ana Huang.
I plucked Twisted Love from the shelf and flipped to the first page as I sat down at my desk.
Happy endings always seemed to be easier to find in books.
Maybe that’s why I found myself so captivated by fictional stories.
It was nice to escape into a world where things had a pre-planned formula.
In fairytales, every problem magically worked itself out, and all the pain a character endured would eventually be worth it.
Too bad reality didn’t play by those rules.
In real life, the bad guys didn’t just win sometimes—they won most of the time.
Just ask Donald fucking Trump . Here, it wasn’t a Happily Ever After—it was more like a Happily Never After.
That’s why I had to put on an act at school, because, let’s be real, who always came out on top in the end?
The cheerful, obedient, blue-eyed, blonde girl with a radiant smile, and the IQ of a lemon.
You could probably thank Hitler for that one.
I just needed to work on the ‘dumb’ part.
But hey , what could I say? I was the child of a cardiothoracic surgeon and a world-famous author. Big brains and nerdy hobbies were in my DNA. Oh , and my dad probably gave me some of his cringey cursing habits.
Only a few chapters from the end, I heard my dad’s voice call out for me.
I felt my cheeks flush with color at the words I had just read.
Spice level rating 4 out of 5 peppers for sure.
I tried to erase the naughty thoughts from my mind as I scrambled to focus on something—anything else.
Looking down at the small spaghetti stain on my hoodie, I felt the color on my cheeks fade.
Yep, that’ll do it.
“Clarke, a boy is here to see you!”
A boy? Oh shit ! Abercrombie—I mean Elliot—was here.
I sprinted out of my room and jogged down the stairs.
At the entryway of the house, I saw Elliot and my dad locked in a standoff.
Gripping the door frame, my dad blocked Elliot’s path with his arm, preventing him from coming inside.
Elliot’s lips tugged upward as his eyes connected with mine.
Peeking his hand above my dad’s head, he greeted me in the worst way possible.
“Sup, Princess.”