Before Read online

  As soon as my dad’s Jeep pulls into the driveway, I grab my purse, check the mirror one last time, and rush down the stairs, where I nearly run into my mom—not that she even notices my fishnet tights or red leather top. She just mumbles something while looking at her e-reader. That’s all she ever does.

  The front door opens, and my sister walks into the living room with my dad. Sierra, my baby niece, is asleep in my sister’s arms.

  “I’m so tired,” Olivia announces to the room as she strolls through it.

  Quickly, my mom appears, closing the case of her tablet and setting it absentmindedly on the mantel of the fireplace. Of course, for Olivia she can take a break from her precious screen.

  “Stephanie can drive you home, honey,” my dad offers on my behalf.

  “Dad, I have to get my prom dress, and they close in thirty minutes!” I toss my bag across my shoulder and reach for his keys.

  “Olivia and Sierra can ride with you.”

  My sister interrupts. “I won’t mind. Just let me use the bathroom for a second.”

  Her soft brown hair moves when she talks. She’s wearing khakis and a short-sleeve shirt with bright flowers printed on it. My dad smiles like his eldest daughter is the most thoughtful and considerate girl alive.

  It’s super annoying.

  “Fine,” I huff. “But this is the last day they’ll hold it for me, so if I can’t go to prom, it’s your fault.” I glare at my sister. Olivia nods, and I push past my dad to get outside. “I’ll be in the car.”

  I start the car and wait for Olivia. Five minutes pass. Ten minutes pass. I send two texts and she doesn’t respond. I know she read them from the little indicator on my phone. Yet she’s still inside the house. I’m guessing her and my mom are on their fourth goodbye hug. My mom does that when we go to my grandma’s house, too, requiring multiple hugs to satisfy her need for affection. Twelve minutes go by, and I finally leave the car to return to the house.

  Just as I begin to close the car door, my sister walks outside with a languid pace and an oblivious smile on her face. She still has to buckle Sierra into her car seat.

  “Olivia, we have to go,” I say, to rush her along.

  She sighs and mutters a half-hearted apology.

  IT’S 8:03 WHEN I PARK in front of the dark shop. The sign on the door is turned around to CLOSED and the lights are off.

  And now I can’t get my dress. Today was the last day, and this was after my second extension. I begged for extra time, but I was told repeatedly that this was my last day. This sucks so bad.

  “I’m sorry, Stephanie,” Olivia says as I lay my head on the steering wheel.

  I turn my head to the side and scowl at her. “This is your fault.”

  “It’s not my fault,” she says, with the nerve to look surprised. “Dad wanted to take me shopping to get some new shoes for Sierra. She outgrows them so fast—”

  New baby shoes? Are you freaking serious? I missed my prom dress because her baby needed new shoes—the child doesn’t even walk!

  “Why couldn’t Dad just take you home directly? You would have been back way sooner,” I say, raising my head, and my voice.

  “I wasn’t tired then . . . I don’t know.” She shrugs her shoulders like my time means nothing to her. Like this isn’t a big deal.

  “This is such bullshit!” I shake my head and put my hands over my face.

  “Don’t talk like that in front of the baby!” my sister whisper-yells.

  I groan and back out of the parking space. We’re both silent the entire way home. Olivia doesn’t feel as if she’s done anything wrong, and I’m too mad to talk to her right now. I’m so tired of her stealing everything from me—and on top of that, Sierra keeps crying as if she’s trying to split my brain in half.

  I hate my life.

  When we get to Olivia’s house, she thanks me for dropping her off. I don’t want to step foot into her new house, so I’m glad she doesn’t ask me in. A house that I’m pretty sure my parents helped her and Roger buy. Her husband is quiet; he doesn’t say much around my family. Olivia probably tells him not to. I’m sure everyone gets the warning label read to them before they have to have any exposure to me.

  I don’t really want to go inside, but I have to pee and it’s another fifteen minutes back to my parents’. Walking into Olivia’s house, I immediately notice that it smells heavily of cinnamon. Olivia burns those candle-oil things in every room.

  Roger is sitting on the couch with a remote in one hand and a computer on his lap. When he notices us entering the room, he smiles up at his wife and then politely asks me how I’ve been. I say I’m the same as before, though I can’t remember the last time I actually saw him.

  After a few minutes of awkward small talk, Olivia tells us that she’s going to put the baby to bed. She walks upstairs with a stuffed teddy bear in one hand and a bottle in the other. Roger barely glances at me as I walk by, looking at all of their stupid family pictures on the mantel above the fake fireplace. Roger stands up and walks into the kitchen—trying to avoid further conversation with me, no doubt.

  In the last picture, their perfect little family poses in all matching white and black in a small wooden frame. Heading toward the kitchen, I find, hanging on the hallway wall in a big metal frame, a picture of Olivia and Roger on their wedding day. She’s so perfect in the picture: perfect hair, perfect makeup, and her dress is beautiful. A soft, silky white dress that touches the floor in a regal way. She looks like a princess, like she was made for that dress.

  Her dress is the exact opposite of my would-be prom dress. The dress I was supposed to pick up tonight is made from black cotton and tulle. The bodice is tight, lined with lacy tulle along the edges of the star-shaped skirt. It’s a dress that, thanks to Olivia, I’ll never have. I find myself wishing I had a bucket of black paint to ruin her stupid, perfect dress. I look to the next photo on the wall and stop at a picture of Roger, his arms wrapped around Olivia’s pregnant stomach.

  She ruined my prom dress. I’ll ruin her wedding dress.

  When I walk into the kitchen, Roger is standing in front of the fridge, his face buried inside and hidden by the doors. I tap my hand against the stone counter to get his attention. The moment he turns around, I tug on the hem of my shirt, exposing a nice amount of my cleavage to him. He inhales and then lets out a little cough.

  I smile. I bet my sister hasn’t fucked her husband since she popped out his baby.

  “Sorry.” I wrap my hair around my finger as Roger’s eyes try not to run down my legs, taking in my fishnet hose.

  “Hi,” I say, and keep walking toward him.

  My heart is racing and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m pissed off at my sister and I’m fucking tired of her getting everything and I’m thinking of how everything is always about perfect Olivia and nothing is ever mine and so she shouldn’t have anything that’s hers either. Especially not a cute and loyal puppy of a husband.

  “W-what are you doing, Stephanie?” Roger asks me, his face much paler than it was just seconds ago.

  “Nothing. Just talking.” I grab the waistline of my skirt and pull it up further, to the middle of my stomach, showing my lace panties to him, and when Roger backs away, his back hits the wooden cabinets, slamming one of the doors shut.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask with a laugh. My stomach is in a knot and I feel like I’m going to pass out any freaking second, but I feel amazing and powerful at the same time. Adrenaline, it must be. I love it. I want more of it. I step even closer and reach for the zipper on the front of my shirt.

  Roger covers his face. “Stop it, Stephanie.”

  Fuck this, he’s actually a loyal puppy like I thought. Knowing this adds to the burn of my jealousy.

  “Come on, Roger, don’t be such a—”

  “Stephanie! What the hell are you doing?” Olivia’s voice fills the kitchen.

  I look over to the doorway to see her leaning there. She changed into pajamas, flannel o
nes with blue lining. She’s pissed.

  After a few seconds, she turns to her husband. “Roger?”

  “I don’t know, babe, she just came in here and started trying to take her clothes off.” He tosses his hands up in the air in a frantic plea for his wife to see how crazy her slutty sister is.

  She turns in my direction, glaring a hole through me. “Get out, Stephanie.”

  “You didn’t even ask me if it wasn’t true,” I tell her, getting pretty pissed off about that fact. I toss my purse over my shoulder and pull my skirt back down to cover my body.

  “I know you,” she says matter-of-factly.

  She knows me? She doesn’t know me at all, actually. If she did, she would know better than to be such a selfish cunt.

  “And . . . ?” I look at Roger, and he inches back like I’m a snake. Like he can judge me? If he wasn’t afraid to get caught, I guarantee he would have me bent over their shiny granite counter.

  “Well, did you try to come on to my husband or not?” Olivia’s mouth is trembling; she’s holding back tears. I should deny it, flip the script on both of them and blame him. He’s pathetic enough that she would believe me. I can cry on demand, too, and if I wanted to, I could convince her of anything.

  Oh, please.

  “You’re such a spoiled bitch!” she yells at me, and Roger crosses the kitchen and wraps his arm around her shoulders.

  I’m a spoiled bitch? Is she serious? She gets everything she fucking wants, and it’s bullshit. I’m sick of being the runner-up to her. She’s lucky I didn’t do something worse. I could have hurt him, or her, in a far more serious way. Even some of the thoughts I’m having now are surprising me . . . and I like it.

  “Get out, Stephanie.” Olivia shakes her head as her husband rubs her trembling hands.

  I do just that. I won’t have to put up with any more of this shit soon.

  I’m going to college soon.

  And once I’m there, I’m going to run that fucking campus.

  part two

  DURING

  Hardin

  He was misguided, moving through life with minimum expectations of himself. He was getting too used to life in that foreign place—even believing that his accent was slightly washing away with each night he spent away from home. He nailed his life down into a robotic loop of the same actions, same reactions, same consequences. The women were blending together, their names becoming an endless loop of Sarahs and Lauras and Jane Does.

  He wasn’t sure how his life could continue this way, day in and day out.

  And then the first week of the next year, he met her. She was strategically placed at Washington Central by someone or something more powerful than him—to taunt him. He—or it—knew who he was, the kind of person he was known for being, and he had an agenda. He was set to steal another innocence, to ruin another girl’s life. It won’t be so bad this time, he figured. He wouldn’t go to the same extremes as before. This was different, more juvenile. This was all just in fun.

  And it was, until the wind caught her hair and it whipped around her face. Until the gray of her eyes haunted his sleep and the pink of her lips drove him mad. He was falling hard for her—at first it was so fast that he wasn’t sure if he was actually feeling it or imagining it. But he felt it . . . he felt it rip through him like the roar of a lion. He began to rely on her for his every breath, every thought.

  • • •

  One night in the middle of it all, the snow falling, blanketing the concrete, he sat alone in the parking lot. His hands were gripping the steering wheel of his old Ford Capri, and he could barely see straight, let alone think straight.

  How could he have done this? How did it go so far so fast? He wasn’t sure, but he knew, he felt it deep down inside of himself, that he shouldn’t have done it, and he knew that he would regret it. He was regretting it already.

  She was supposed to be an easy target. A beautiful girl with an innocent smile and odd-colored eyes that weren’t supposed to hold depth or meaning behind them. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her, and she wasn’t supposed to make him want to be a better person.

  He thought that he was fine before.

  He was getting by just fine before—before he made the beautiful mistake of allowing her to become his entire world. He loved her, though, he loved her so much that he was terrified of losing her—for losing her meant losing himself, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to bear such a loss after going his entire life without something to lose.

  As his fingers gripped harder and his knuckles turned white against the black steering wheel, his thoughts became more jumbled. He became more irrational and desperate, and he realized in that moment, with the silence of the empty lot drowning his fears, that he would do anything—absolutely anything—to keep her forever.

  He had her, lost her, and had her again over the months that followed. He just couldn’t quite get it. He loved her. His love for her burned brighter than any star, and he would highlight passages from ten thousand of her favorite novels to show her that. She gave him everything, and he watched her fall in love with him, hoping he would stop letting her down. Her faith in him made him want to be good for her. He wanted to prove her right and everyone else wrong. She made him feel a type of hope that he had never felt before. He didn’t even know it existed.

  Her presence made him feel at ease; the fire in his heart was cooled and he was becoming addicted to her. He craved her until he had her, and once he took her, neither of them could stop. Her body became his safety, her mind his home. The more he loved her, the more he was hurting her. He couldn’t stay away, and through their struggles and growth, she became the normalcy he’d craved his entire life.

  His relationship with his dad continued to grow slowly into something close to familiar. A few family dinners, and he had begun to chip away at the hatred he felt toward the man. He was seeing himself differently, and that helped him see the wrongs of his father in a different light. And that’s when he needed her to anchor him, as his life changed again and his family shifted. He was growing to care for a houseful of strangers in a way that he swore he never would.

  It wasn’t easy for him to fight against twenty years of destructive patterns and base animal reactions.

  He had to fight each day against the liquor calling to his blood, against the anger he was trying to let go of . . . but didn’t know how to. He vowed that he would fight for her—and he did. He lost a few battles, but never lost sight of winning the war. She taught him laughter and taught him love—and he has expressed this time after time to her, but he will never stop.

  one

  The last few days of summer break are always the best. Everyone is fucking frantic, living out their last-minute summer plans and wishes. The parties get more crowded, the girls get more wild . . . but even so, I can’t fucking wait for the semester to start. Not because I’m some idiotic freshman, excited for the wondrous world of university. No, I’m anxious because if I play my cards right, I’ll be graduating in the spring, a full year ahead of time.

  Not bad for a delinquent no one assumed would even attend university, much less graduate early.

  My mum was so terrified for my future that she sent me halfway across the damn world to the grand state of Washington to live near my father. She used the bullshit excuse that she wanted me to “reconnect” with him, but I wasn’t fooled. I knew she simply couldn’t and didn’t want to put up with my shit anymore, so off to America, like some colonial Puritan of old.

  “Are you almost done?” Pink hair and swollen lips look up at me from between my legs. I had nearly forgotten she was here.

  “Yeah.” I wrap my hands around her shoulders and close my eyes, letting the physical pleasure she’s giving me take over. A distraction, that’s what she is. They all are.

  The pressure in my spine builds, and I don’t bother to pretend that I enjoy her company for more than sexual pleasure as I release into her warm mouth.

  Seconds later, she�
��s wiping at her lips with the back of her hand and getting to her feet.

  “You know . . .” Molly reaches for her purse and pulls out a tube of dark lipstick. “You could at least pretend to be interested, asshole.” Her lips pucker, and she wipes a finger across the excess crayon painted onto her mouth.

  “I am.” I clear my throat. “Pretending, that is.”

  She rolls her eyes and raises her middle finger to me. I’m interested—sexually, at least. She’s a good enough fuck, and she’s okay company sometimes. We are a lot alike, her and I. Both rejects of our families. I don’t know too much about her past, but I know enough to know that some bad shit has happened to her to make her run all the way to Washington from some rich-bitch town in Pennsylvania.

  “Dick,” she mutters, pushing the cap back on her makeup. She looks better with naturally pink lips, lips that are swollen from having my cock in her mouth.

  Molly is an acquaintance of mine. Well, a friend with benefits, I would say. Our “friendship” isn’t exclusive, not in the least, and we both have full freedom to do whatever, or whoever, the fuck we want. She hates me half the time, but I’m okay with that. It’s mutual.

  The rest of our friends give us shit about it, but it works. I’m bored and she’s here. She gives good head and she doesn’t stay around long after. Perfect situation for me. Her, too, it seems.

  “You’ll be here tonight, for the party?” she asks.

  I stand, too, pulling my boxers and jeans up my legs. “I live here, don’t I?” I raise a brow at her.

  I hate it here, and daily I find myself wondering just how the fuck I ended up in a fraternity in the first place.

  My shitbag sperm donor. That’s how. Ken Scott is a grade-A fuckup, the worst type. Alcoholic fuckhead who destroyed my entire childhood, only to magically turn his life around and move in with some lady and her son, a loser only two years younger than me.

  His do-over, I suppose. Ken Scott gets a fucking do-over, and I get to be in a stupid-ass fraternity at the college he’s basically in charge of. On top of this, he practically begged me to move in with him, as if he thought I would actually live under his roof, under his control. When I refused, I had assumed he would get me an apartment, but of course he didn’t. So here I am, in this stupid house instead. It really pissed him off that I chose this shithole rather than his clean, pristine palace.