Chapter Two
Two
UPSTAIRS, MOM AND VICTOR WAIT on the landing, talking quietly.
“Sorry,” I say, instantly giving in to the urge to smooth things over. “That really was me.”
Victor is already shaking his head, waving me off. He moves to leave, then pauses. “Blair, stay away from him at school.”
“Jamie?” I say with a laugh. “You don’t have to tell me.” As if Jamie and I have any reason to even pass by each other on campus.
Victor gives a single nod—Good—before heading down the hall to their bedroom. It might have been Sawyer who started this, but Jamie is always half culpable. The bad influence.
Mom watches Victor go, the stress of the argument clear on her drawn face. She crosses her arms over her middle, all sharp angles and jutting bones.
Beside her, I am a study in dissimilarities. I might match her in height, but Mom is ballerina-thin, while my build is more fitting of someone who spends her days hauling hay and milking cows. (But who am I kidding? I’m allergic to hay and probably cows, though I’ve luckily never had to find out.)
For my whole life, I’ve looked out of place with Mom and Sawyer. They’re both dark-haired and tan, while I’m blond and the kind of pale where a natural flush means patches of red blooming up my neck and high on my cheeks. Like a fevered peasant child.
Maybe that’s why I liked Victor so much when I first met him. He’s fair-haired and light-skinned like my dad—I guess Mom has a type—and with him, I fit in our family photos again.
Sawyer never had the problem of not fitting. Which must be why, over the last seven years, my brother has never treated our stepfather as anything more than a bothersome houseguest. And no matter how hard he tries—and he does try—Victor cannot strong-arm Sawyer into submission.
I think Mom still holds on to the hope that one day those two will get along, but I gave up on that dream a long time ago.
And year after year, as I strove for Victor’s approval rather than pushing against every rule and restriction the way Sawyer did, my relationship with my brother deteriorated like a pumpkin left on the porch long after Halloween, rotting from the inside out.
Despite every screaming fight we’ve had about this, I still can’t figure out the root of Sawyer’s issue with Victor.
It’s not like Dad was around—not come birthday nor graduation.
Not even the time I was hospitalized from anaphylaxis in tenth grade.
Victor was there for every milestone and injury, for me and for Sawyer.
Our dad is barely more than an anonymous donor at this point, just the star of some hazy memories older than my first report card.
“You’re home earlier than I expected, with Starr at the wheel,” Mom says, leaning over to kiss the side of my head. “I figured you’d be out past curfew.”
This sends me careening back into much bigger problems. I’ve been kicked out. I need a place to live, and I only have a week to pull it off.
Mom is a fixer, and I wish I could fall into her hug and let her find a solution for me. But I already know what that would cost. I cannot involve my parents in this when my classes at Stone looking in a mirror with no reflection; brushing his teeth with the tiniest sliver of a toothbrush.
The replicas of famous sculptures—my miniature adaptations of Michelangelo’s David, Anna Gillespie’s Let It Rain, Tony Cragg’s Paradosso.
The gummy bears I made while experimenting with resin, using leftovers from two summers ago when Leni poured the resin over her desk to make it sparkly pink.
(Instead, she ruined a Pottery Barn desk that had cost her parents thousands of dollars, which should have gotten her grounded for a decade, but Leni’s parents aren’t much for discipline.
If I’d ruined a piece of furniture that had cost thousands of dollars, my parents would have considered selling me to One Direction to make up the difference.)
I think of Leni and her unnerving silence in the car. Leni, who helped me apply to Stone & Spiral in the first place. Who helped me plan the talk with my parents. Who ran through it with me over and over, until I was brave enough to broach the subject one night over dinner.
Could she really not want to live with me now, with no warning? Starr has always taken the reins in tough situations. Can I trust that she’s really speaking for Leni, when Leni wouldn’t say a word in the car? Is it possible this is all Starr, and Leni is caught in the middle?
I open our messages, considering. Our most recent texts felt so normal. So us, even today. I have to at least try.
ME
Do you really agree with this? You don’t want me to live with you?
After a few minutes without even a typing bubble, I text again.
ME
I just can’t believe you won’t even talk to me? When Starr is insisting we’ll still be friends after this?
How is that even possible right now?
The typing bubble pops up, and my stomach gives a jump-scare lurch. I wait, trembling, as the bubble stops, reappears, stops again. Finally a message comes through.
LENI
I really think this is for the best. Of course we’ll still be friends but I understand if you’re mad at us right now. You have every right to be. But we didn’t want you to feel unappreciated or like you have to mom us all the time in the house or for resentment to build between us.
I stare at Leni’s message. I have every right to be mad at them?
Um, no kidding? They’ve given me no time to find somewhere new to live, and they know what my parents are like.
They know what’s at stake for me—how much I want to attend Stone & Spiral this summer, and how even the most minor enjoyment hinges on my parents’ generosity.
I set my phone face down on my desk. I can’t think about them or my hurt right now. I need to focus.
I open my laptop, pulling up the university’s affiliated housing page and clicking to the “Roommates” tab.
It’s time to find a new place to live.
Over the next two hours, I wash off the night’s allergic reaction, ice my welts, and scroll through pages upon pages of roommate ads. I’ve found a total of four for summer session, one of which I already received a response on: Sorry already filled. Forgot to take the ad down.
After that I have a mini breakdown that requires me to dig into my secret stash of sour candy, and I’m sucking on a rainbow belt that’s almost entirely numbed my tongue when the ads shift down, a new post populating at the top of the page.
It’s a roommate ad for University Green Housing, inevitably nicknamed UGH, which I know from my research is the worst of the campus-affiliated apartments.
It’s the farthest from CFSU, barely on the edge of the University Green neighborhood, with a shuttle that only comes every thirty minutes—often late—which will be a problem for me.
Mom and Victor won’t buy me a school parking pass when the house I’m supposed to be living in is walking distance from campus.
But I click the ad anyway, because it’s so severely cheap I can’t afford not to at least take a peek.
The photos paint a bleak picture. Brown carpet, yellowed linoleum in the kitchen, green countertops, and a sagging gray sectional in the living room.
A ground-floor apartment, it has a railed-in patio with mismatched plastic chairs.
The bedroom looks clean, the bare mattress free of stains, and the furniture is the matching set that comes with the furnished apartment.
Not a complete hovel, then, but really bringing the UGH brand to life.
I scroll down to the ad.
Looking for one roommate in 5-person apt (one couple in a room)! 2 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms. Mostly clean, crappy AC, CHEAP!!!!!
We’ll pretty much take anyone! We forgot to post our ad earlier and now we’re desperate lol! Please no racists, homophobes, recreational gun owners, or budding serial killers
Or seasoned serial killers
No serial killers of any tier at all
Text Felicity at 407-555-7274!!
It’s the least tempting ad I’ve ever read, like they only half-want a roommate—We need you, but this place sucks!
Still, the more desperate, the better. Most people who had open rooms already filled them months ago. I knew when I started this search that whatever was left would be the dregs.