Chapter Ten
Lemon
Twelve Years Ago
“Papa! I get it, okay? I’ll delete it.” I swipe my hand across my eyes and sniffle, not even caring how gross I sound as I rush down the staircase after him.
“I said I’m sorry! Es tut mir leid, okay?” I grab my MacBook from the window seat in the drawing room and stumble back to the landing to show him my Myspace page. “See, Papa, see? The picture is gone! Weg! I deleted it. Only so many people even read the—”
“I do not care who saw this one instance, Zitrone!” Father’s anger is so potent, I feel it in my soul.
“Das Internet never forgets. And the things you say about that poor girl…after what she has been through. She may not recover from her wounds, yet you give her more through heartless gossip. I did not raise you this way. Rumors for a worthless crown.”
My stomach clenches. Am I heartless?
I jingle the charms on my bracelet, the seven colorful crowns marking each pageant I’ve won hang from the bangle. What words of wisdom might my mother offer if she were here?
But she left us like a used nail file.
If she wanted to say something, she could raise me herself and say it, right?
I don’t want to be like her.
To run.
To hurt the ones I love.
I don’t want to be heartless.
I pinch the largest of my crown charms in my thumb and forefinger and decide I never want to care for something so deeply that I become even a shred like Cordelia Perkins.
I will never want something so bad that I drag another heart through fire it doesn’t need to burn.
Not a title, or a job…or friends.
With confident fingers, I pry the Junior Miss crown from my hair and snap it in half.
No more.
No more pageants or skating for the win.
Lemon Perkins will be a vessel for hope and positivity, and there is no room for competition here.
I’ll be selfless. I will not be like my mother.
I take one last look online at the girl I used to be, delete my entire profile, and say goodbye to being selfish forever.
Yanking all seven crown charms from my wrist, I find solace in the person I vow to become as they settle at the bottom of my wastebasket.