Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
The boy I love just told me he loves me back and all I can feel is fury and despair.
Because maybe he is right. Maybe I did ruin everything because of my insecurities. Deep down, I’ve always known I wasn’t as beautiful or charming or engaging as my older sister. As talented as my mother. As badass as my dad.
I storm into my room and start opening all of my drawers, tossing clothes and underwear and knickknacks until I find what I’m searching for.
Last Christmas, I got prescribed some heavy-duty painkillers. I never took them with me to New York because I figured I’d try to kick the habit during the semester.
Now? Now it’s time to take the edge off.
I shove two down my throat and swallow. Then I start pacing.
Lev is in love with me. I’m in love with him. We should be together. I’m not even a real addict. I just spent weeks taking nothing other than low-grade painkillers, for crying out loud.
My phone pings on my bed with an incoming text. I tackle it, thinking it’s Lev, asking me to come downstairs and talk it out.
Thalia: Hiiiiiii. Whatcha up 2?
I like her, I do, but I also take her existence as a personal slight.
Bailey: Bored. You?
Thalia: Come to the beach. There’s a party!
Bailey: No can do. #HouseArrest, remember?
Thalia: I thought your parents went to a play or something???
So Lev told her. She knows he is babysitting me. Now I’m determined to go meet her at the beach just to prove a point.
Bailey: Yup. Your boyfriend won’t let me leave the house, though.
Thalia: If I distract him for a few minutes, would you be able to slip out?
Glancing out my bedroom window, I decide that yeah, I probably could.
I did it for four years, after Lev lost Rosie and I snuck into his bedroom every night. Other than a few summer camps away and the odd sick day, we slept together for the entire duration of my high school.
Bailey: Do your best, girl.
Thalia: 👍😈
A few seconds later, I hear Lev’s phone going off downstairs.
He answers. I can tell he is in a crappy mood by the clipped tone of his voice.
Cracking my window open, I slide down the roof and make my way to the ground. Whatever sound I’m making is drowned by Lev’s cutting words to Thalia.
“…unhinged if you think I’m going to leave Bailey and come meet you at some house party. What’s wrong with you, T?”
She is covering her tracks, making him think she’s somewhere else in case I get busted. Daria’s words dance along my skin. She’s a manipulator. Takes one to know one.
Daria used to wipe the floor with other mean girls. She was unmatched in the cunningness department.
“…no, I can’t bring her with. She’s an addict. There’ll be alcohol there. And drugs. It’s like bringing a gambler to Vegas, a sex addict to a whorehouse, a white, drunk chick to a karaoke bar—a recipe for disaster.”
Whatever Thalia says on the other line calms him down because he lets out a sigh. “Sorry. I’m just…frustrated. You have fun, yeah?”
My sneakers land softly on the lush grass of my parents’ front lawn. I turn around and bolt out of my street without looking back.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m at the beach. I pull my phone out of my pocket, about to text Thalia, when I spot her running toward me from a huge bonfire.
The low grumbles of the bass shake the loose sand beneath me as “I Want to Start a Religion With You” by Fireworks blasts through a stereo.
Thalia is wearing a tiny, white cotton dress and has golden star stickers on her tan, freckled face and I want to die because she is so, so, so much prettier than me, and if Lev is the sun and I am the sky, she is every single shining star, and maybe one day he’ll wake up and realize a starlit night is as beautiful as a clear summer day.
“Bailey!” She grabs my hands, tugging me to the sand. “I’m so glad you made it! You didn’t tell Lev I invited you, right?”
“What? No. I’m not a snitch.” Not anymore, anyway.
My body is humming with adrenaline from sneaking out. It’s also trembling from pain after that spontaneous jog. Those two painkillers must’ve been placebo or something.
The doctor prescribed you placebo? Are you listening to yourself? Next you’ll think there’s a 5G chip in your annual flu shot.
On the sand, there’s a bunch of people drinking and dancing.
She introduces me to some of them until she gets to the last one. A short, redheaded guy with shrewd eyes. “And this is Sydney,” she coos, plastering a kiss on his cheek.
Sydney. Sydney. Sydney.
Is this a trap? If so, I don’t want to admit it to myself. Not only because Thalia is my only company these days but also because I really, really need some painkillers.