5. Lilah
LILAH
My dad had remembered to get groceries last week, but the twins seemed to devour food before I could even put it away. He’d also gotten distracted or forgotten to put cold and frozen things in the fridge or freezer, so that had been a fun mess waiting for me when I’d gotten back from school.
I’d been waiting for someone else to get home to cook before finally giving up and making dinner. At this point, I was used to eating alone.
I shook out all the penne and set it in the salty water, bringing it to a boil. Pasta (again) and a kinda-wilted salad that was mostly iceberg lettuce with a couple of okay-looking cherry tomatoes. A microwaved-back-from-the-dead piece of French bread turned into not-so-bad garlic bread.
The jar of spaghetti sauce stayed tucked away in the cabinet above the fridge.
The thought of it turned my stomach. After the dining hall debacle, I might not be able to eat spaghetti with meat sauce ever again.
I mixed butter and plaster-shaker Parmesan cheese with two handfuls of creamer I’d stolen from the coffee cart at school.
No feast, but it didn’t take long to make and it would fill our stomachs—well, my stomach.
I had shoveled my first forkful of penne into my mouth when Eliza walked through the door.
“Hey, Lilah.” She hung her bag on her hook beside the door. “How was today?”
I chomped through my mouthful of pasta and turned off my iPad, where I’d been relistening to my class lecture. “All good.”
She threw her sweater over the back of the chair beside me. Tiny paper stars glided across the table and slid onto the floor.
She ducked under the table and scooped up the colorful little folded stars I’d made in between scribbling down notes or rereading them. My secret weapon when I needed to focus.
She dropped the handful back onto the table. “That bad?”
“Nope, not bad at all.” Only had a guy I was trying to avoid take over my sanctuary, got called out for my secondhand uniform and had an entire class tell me to get the hell out of their school. “Everything was fine.”
“Even after English?” She looked at me with concerned eyes before glancing over her shoulder like Mason was going to creep up behind her.
“How did you—”
“Some girls were talking about it when I grabbed stuff from my locker at the end of the day.”
Of course they were. I was practically a celebrity.
“They said they’ve never seen him single someone out like this—well, at least not a girl. Most people didn’t even know you two knew each other.”
My stomach twisted up like one of my little stars. “We didn’t.”
“Then why? Is it because we moved in here? Is he going to do that to all of us?” A panicked breath escaped her and she gripped the back of the kitchen chair.
“No, you don’t have anything to worry about.” I covered her hand with mine and searched for a topic change. “What about you? How is it finally being a sophomore?”
“It’s weird.” She pulled a cookie from the Hawthorne Prep coffee cart out of her pocket, broke it down the middle and held out a piece to me.
“Especially living here now, instead of with Mom. Like wow, your new husband buys us all this stuff, but it kind of feels like she doesn’t want to be around us anymore. ” A flicker of hurt in her eyes.
“Of course she wants you around. But I’m sure she didn’t want to disrupt the start of your school year with all the traveling they’re doing.
” I took the offered half, touched she’d wanted to split it with me.
“But I know it still sucks to not be able to see her every day.” The pain wasn’t the same as losing a parent, but it still hurt.
I took a bite of the cookie. The rich chocolate melted in my mouth.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if Dad…” Eliza glanced at the door.
Was around. Like at all. And had remembered to order the groceries like I’d asked.
I reset my thoughts. He was trying his best. He kept me clothed and fed—mostly.
And now he was keeping us all housed. Getting saddled with three teenage girls probably wasn’t his idea of a stress-free existence either.
“Where’s your mom now?”
“Mom and Stuart are sailing off the coast of Greece.”
There were postcards on the bulletin board in her room.
“When do you see her next?”
“Christmas.” Eliza picked at her cookie. “She’s flying us out to meet her for skiing in Austria.”
“Wow.”
“I’ve never skied before in my life. She said Stuart wants us all to learn.
But she hasn’t sent the tickets yet.” A small, gloomy laugh and a shrug, then she crumpled bits of the cookie on the wrapper in front of her.
“Who knows if she’ll change her mind again.
She was supposed to come back for Thanksgiving, but now she’s thinking they’ll be in Turkey, so… ”
“I’m sure she misses you guys.”
She glanced up at me, eyes glistening with a glimmer of hope. “You think?”
“Of course. She’s your mom.” I squeezed her hand. My mom and I had never been apart for more than twenty-four hours before she went into the hospital. Even then, there were only a handful of ICU days where I couldn’t see her.
Going months without seeing my mom if she were still here would be a hard adjustment.
I don’t know how I’d feel if my mom had gotten married, sold my house and told me I had to live with my dad for the next year while she took an extended honeymoon.
There were times I’d wake up to my mom’s saved voicemail replaying on my phone and have a moment where I forgot she was gone.
But no amount of pinching myself changed my reality.
Eliza hopped up, fixed herself a plate and told me more about her day. At least one of us was having a normal high school experience. She bit into the garlic bread. “This is so good, Lilah. I’m going to eat every slice.”
I laughed. “Let’s save at least a couple for Dad…and Kelsey.” I kept my tone light, not wanting any of the hurt radiating inside my chest to spill over onto Eliza.
The front door opened. Kelsey walked in and dropped her bag on my pulled-out sofa bed—right onto my pillow—with her face scrunched up. “What the hell is that smell?”
“There’s pasta, garlic bread and salad for dinner,” Eliza chirped with a smile.
“That sounds terrible. Liza, I’m going to order. You want anything?”
She stared at the plate she’d been eating, dropped her gaze, pushed it away and hopped up. “Yeah, it’s not that good. What should we get?”
And then they were gone, closed behind their bedroom door. When it came to a choice between her real sister and the half she’d seen every so often over the past six years, there was no expectation Eliza would stick up for me.
It still stung. Still made me feel like, even in my own house, no matter how temporary, there wasn’t anyone who’d ever be there for me. I cleaned up my dishes and schoolwork.
I walked over to my beaten-up brown trunk and grabbed a cupcake twin pack from my secret stash. The twins couldn’t eat it if they didn’t know it existed.
I brushed my fingers over the stickers on the worn sides.
Whenever I’d asked Mom about a new country or city, she’d do some research, and then over a weekend, we’d make local recipes or ride the bus to a museum to look at art or jewelry or clothes from that place.
Then she’d always get me a sticker with the name to add to the trunk, like we’d visited.
We might not have been able to travel there, but at least I got to experience it with her.
I rubbed at the center of my chest. Would thinking about her ever not hurt?
I scrubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands, put Kelsey’s bag on the hook beside Eliza’s and went outside. Adding one more person had somehow turned the air in the house into a suffocating blanket.
Accent lighting around the garden made the whole place feel like a dream. The first time I’d walked back here, I’d wondered how I got so lucky.
A bitter laugh escaped my lips and I hugged myself. So much for that.
Tomorrow was another day and I’d have to see Mason all over again. What new torment did he have in mind for me? I frowned. Whatever it was, I had to be strong.
I had maintained a 3.98 GPA at one of the most academically rigorous schools in the state. I’d earned my place and there were only a few more weeks until my early decision college application was due. My dream was so close. The Plan was working. That was all that mattered.
I couldn’t let some petty high school drama derail me. Only none of it was petty. It hurt so badly I fought against shrinking under the weight of his presence. I straightened my shoulders like that could prepare me for whatever battle awaited me.
Stay strong, Lilah.
I slipped around the side of the house to the garden Dad had maintained over the summer. The flower beds were planted with lilac, hydrangea, dahlia, peonies and any other attention-grabbing flower known to man.
The whole thing took constant, back-pain-inducing work, so I didn’t begrudge Dad spending most of his time out there.
Alena’s exacting requirements went beyond her five Vogue covers and record Paris fashion week runway appearances.
Getting fired and having to move again if he didn’t execute her vision properly was a consequence that would be the sharpest spike through an already terrible year.
I ran my fingers over the lavender, which I’d weeded myself months ago.
With the sky dancing between orange and red, still air and crickets chirping, I ducked into the hidden alcove where vines were draped over a trellis to create a true escape.
A single bench with no lighting around it was the only signal that this wasn’t truly part of the award-winning garden.
No spotlights or other accents to make it show-worthy.
I sat in the spot, tucked away from everything.