At the start of summer, I’d had no idea I would exchange one set of problems for another. It wasn’t until I got on that plane—well, more like shoved on—that it really sank in.
I’m not the perfect princess Mom wants me to be. She doesn’t need me now that she’s having her own baby princess with her new husband. No one needs a teenager who is “out of control.”
My dad is waiting for me at the airport. Even though I haven’t seen him in person in four years, he looks almost just as I remembered. He’s tall with a slim, muscular build. His dark hair is shorter, peppered with a few gray hairs now, and his deep blue eyes water at the sight of me. He has this amazing smile, and when I see it, I burst into tears as I run and hug him tight, like I’m still a little girl. I can’t help it. He has always been my rock. My real parent.
My mom on the other hand…she’s never wanted this life and has made it clear that I wasn’t planned. I was an accident. She’d had dreams and, apparently, I’d ruined them by existing. Dad wasn’t part of those dreams either. My mother not only broke my father’s heart when she’d cheated on him. She’d ruined him in the most brutal way. By taking the only thing he wanted—me.
She hadn’t cared who she destroyed in the process. She’d wanted the dream life. Apparently, that had included me playing happy family with her, her new husband, and his kid in New York. I’d only been twelve, but I’d thought she had forgotten I existed until then. I was forced to move across the country, away from my dad. My friends.
My mother is a selfish bitch who only thinks of herself. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. She cheated on my father with a first-class passenger. Yeah, my mother, the flight attendant, joined the mile high club and decided her life was more interesting with Mr. New York City. She packed her bags and left us.
It had been fine with me. I barely saw her, and when I did, it wasn’t a loving relationship. If anything, she’d used me to make herself look like this amazing mother figure to her friends. I’d been happy when she left me with my dad. He was my everything.
But, a few months later, she’d returned and took my father to court for full custody. He wasn’t working full time, so the judge determined he couldn’t support me on his income.
It wasn’t his fault. He worked part time to take care of me while my mother had her dream career. Dad only worked the hours I was at school. He was there to pick me up every day. My mom never picked me up, not even once. She spent her days off drinking wine with her friends instead.
Dad couldn’t fight her or the new husband’s money. He tried. I know he did. I’d had no choice but to live with mom and my stepfather in New York and play happy family with her, Malcolm Senior, and his son—Malcolm Junior, my stepbrother.
He was named after his dad, but he goes by Junior. I mostly call him Malcolm just to piss him off. The rest of the time, I call him asshole. Never Junior. He’s a year older than me and stays at the academy he attends, so I only see him a few times a year when he isn’t at school or with his mom.
Last week had been the exception. He came back to town for the summer before college and didn’t tell anyone he was staying at the apartment. Mom and Malcolm were in Paris, celebrating the pregnancy, you know, like regular people do when they find out they are having a baby. Pompous assholes. But it gave me time away from them, so I didn’t care.
Junior invited his academy friends over and partied. So, I joined them. When in Rome and all that. Only, the days blended into each other. Drugs and alcohol were passed around like candy. I might have dabbled a little—okay, more than a little—in what was on offer. I was angry with my mom. Angry at the world.
I was having a moment and enjoying it.
I hadn’t known Mom and Malcolm would return to the apartment so soon. What had felt like two days of partying had actually been seven.
Let’s just say, they weren’t happy. With me. Junior is a good kid. I’m the troubled one. My grades are bad, I get into trouble at school, and I hang out with the “wrong crowd.”
I’m the “bad influence” on Junior, taking advantage of him with my “feminine wiles.” And I had to go.
Who the fuck uses the term feminine wiles these days? My old-as-hell stepfather, that’s who. Really showing his age with that one. He’s in his late sixties, while my mom is still young at thirty-five.
She had me at eighteen. Nothing like a high school graduation party and hooking up with the star football player with a college scholarship. Then finding out you’re pregnant just before you start college. Yep, I’d heard that story one too many times.
Dad gave up his scholarship to attend a local college to support Mom and me. She never mentions that in her sob story. That he gave up his dream. I asked him about that, but he told me it was his dream to be a father, and football was always second. That I made his dreams come true. My parents are polar opposites of each other.
When Mom told me I was moving back with my father permanently, I didn’t get upset. That didn’t sound like a punishment to me at all. It is what I have wanted for the last four years.
“It’s bad for the baby, Malcolm. She has to leave now.” She’d put on her stupid pouty face and batted her eyelashes at him. “She’s taking advantage of Junior, and we have to think of our baby now. Our baby and Junior come first.”
That still stings, even though I know she’s like that. She doesn’t want me but doesn’t want my dad to have me either. She’s a petty, hurtful bitch.
“I won’t have a girl like you ruining the reputation of my son. Dragging our name down with your indecent behavior.”
Funny how it was me who took Junior down. I wasn’t the one naked, a joint hanging from my lips, pounding into the girl bent over the back of the couch when they walked into the apartment.
I was in the kitchen, pouring myself a glass of water, trying to rid myself of the pounding headache. Or maybe the pounding was just coming from Junior and the girl.
I hadn’t gotten a chance to sober up when I saw Mom and Malcolm, and I’d refused to defend myself when their idea of a punishment was my dream come true. Let them think I was this horrible person. I bet, even if I hadn’t been there, it still would have been my fault. I was going home to my dad, and that was all that mattered to me.
They packed two suitcases full of my clothes, dragging my half-hungover ass into a black town car. At the airport, Mom shoved the ticket into my hand as Malcolm Senior stood there, rubbing her back. Comforting his poor wife—that’s what it would have looked like to the outside world. A mother upset her daughter was leaving and the supportive husband there to comfort her. Always an actress, my mother. Putting on the right face and playing the part she wants others to see.
Only I see the real her. She’s ugly inside. Black and rotten to the core.
“You’re a whore, Mila,” she’d hissed quietly into my ear as she grabbed my wrist tightly, digging her perfect French manicure into my skin.
Pulling back, she glanced behind me, where the staff waited for me to board, and dabbed under her eye with her finger.
I rolled my eyes, so glad to be done with her theatrics. Looking her in the eye, I grinned wickedly. “I learned from the best, Mother. Thought you would be proud.”
Dad pulls into the driveway of my childhood home. It looks the same as it did the day I left. The shrubs have grown, but apart from that, it’s the same. White with a blue door. My heart swells at the sight. I didn’t know I’d be this emotional at seeing the house. But I am. This is my home.
I’m finally home.
I get out of the truck and take a deep breath of fresh air. I absorb the sounds of birds and a lawn mower. I love the smell of freshly cut grass. This is the place I should have been for the last four years. If only my mom had gotten knocked up by Malcolm years ago, she wouldn’t have bothered with me, and I would have stayed here with Dad.
“I’ll grab your bags.” Dad smiles as he rounds his old truck. The same faded blue truck he bought when he was seventeen. He’s always loved it, even though it smells a little funky and is loud as hell. It’s just as I remembered it. Like nothing has changed at all.
I hear a door slamming. I turn to the left, and that’s when I see him. A much older version of my childhood best friend.
Jace Montero.
Wow.
Like, holy fucking shit.
He’d grown up. He’s over six feet, maybe six-three. The dark brown hair he used to keep short is longer on top. Styled all messy, it looks good on him. He wears a white tee that accentuates his olive skin. The fabric clings to his skin, displaying the outline of a perfect set of abs.
Dang.
Growing up, Jace was scrawny and shorter than most kids our age. He was always shorter than me. Five gold stars to puberty.
Puberty shafted me in height. I’m five-five. Okay, that’s a lie, but let me think I’m that tall. I haven’t really grown in four years, so of course, Jace is taller. Most people are.
His steps falter as he notices me. His eyes meet mine and he freezes, like he’s seen a ghost. I guess, in some ways, I am one. Been gone four long years without a word. I could have been dead or in jail. But I guess Dad would have mentioned my passing.
My heart speeds up as he stares at me. God, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him. He looks away and he quickly makes his way to the driver’s door of a shiny black SUV in the driveway. When he looks up at me again, I take my chance—I smile and wave.
At least I have old friends here. I might not have spoken to them in four years, but I’d known Jace for twelve years before I left. I don’t have to worry about being the new kid next week at school, just the old kid returning.
Jace turns and climbs into his car, ignoring me. My heart sinks.
To be honest, it was what I’d expected from Jace and what I deserve. A positive reunion would have been nice, but I hadn’t been holding my breath for one. When I left here, I couldn’t handle the idea of seeing how happy my friends were. Couldn’t handle their happy smiles during video chats. While they had each other, I had no one. I spent the first few weeks crying to my mom to let me come back home. I was missing everything.
So, for the past four years, I haven’t spoken to any of them. I cut all ties with this life. The only connection I had was my dad, who I spoke to twice a week. Mostly about movies, football, his new job, and what I was doing in school. He never mentioned the guys. He must have known I didn’t want to talk about them.
I hadn’t known what to expect when I got back here. There hasn’t been a lot of time to process everything.
It’s not like I can take back the last four years like they didn’t happen.
They did.
I clutch my hands together, my left thumb brushing over the palm of the right. Over the scar that was left there the last time we were all together. The scar I know is on Jace’s palm too.
The one thing that still connects us.
