Chapter 2

Mady

The pages of the book no longer smelled of her. What remained was merely the coffee note. Bitter and yet somehow soft.

Automatically, warmth arose in my chest.

"Your mother is addicted to this devilish stuff."

He had laughed and taken her in his arms, kissed her tenderly as if it had been their first year.

Blinking, I tried to focus on the book. The words blurred, and a wild pile of letters made it impossible to decipher a single word.

I slammed the book shut and wiped away the tear with the sleeve of my emerald-colored cardigan.

Enough reading, even if I didn't know what to do with all this time until summer was over. My bookshelf was full of horror and dark romance books I'd borrowed from the public library, but if all I did was read all the time, I might get neglected here.

My gaze wandered from my coffee cup to the window, down to the street, where a young man with a suitcase in his hand was hurrying up the stairs of the abandoned house next door.

I held my breath.

Julian . The loner from high school with the dark hoodies. I'd never understood why Nash had pushed him away like that. Why he had pushed me away...

Automatically, I reached for the coffee cup, but it was empty.

With a sigh, I withdrew my hand and tried to focus on the present.

Julian had just strolled through the overgrown garden of the white house. Carrying a suitcase...

Confused, I watched the street. And then I spotted the girl with shoulder-length brown hair. She followed him into the house.

The ringing of the front doorbell forced me away from the window and down the stairs.

I didn't even have to peek through the glass to see who was standing there on our porch. Relieved that she hadn't forgotten me yet, I pulled open the front door.

With a crooked grin, Mia looked around to the street as usual and entered the house I'd been holed up in for weeks.

She wrapped her arms around me, and I automatically felt better. Longing mingled with lightness, but I suppressed the urge to pull her tighter against me. It was as if I needed that hug. Still, I quickly let go of Mia.

"God, you wouldn't believe how demanding Dad is again," she laughed, heading up the stairs, "and this time it's not because of the missing people cases."

The Bexleys had managed to get Mia's father and my big brother unnaturally worried about us two with their news channel. Until a month ago, we had been out in the woods, enjoying the weather and gossiping about annoying girls in high school, but now there was a curfew for those under age, which meant Mia wasn't allowed out after 10 p.m.

I actually liked Blairville Police Chief Graham Bardot , her father, but this measure was excessive.

I followed my high school friend up the stairs and thought three times about asking her. And then I did.

"Is he drinking?"

Mia said nothing until we arrived in my room. I regretted bringing up the subject. I had a talent for bringing up the wrong topics.

"No...," Mia finally sighed, running a hand through her full dark blonde hair. It had grown longer over the past few weeks, whereas mine seemed to have stopped growing a year ago.

"But he's been giving me lecture after lecture about how careful I need to be." She rolled her eyes and dropped into the pastel green beanbag. "With boys ... And then he did start seriously telling me about birth control."

I laughed softly, and a pillow crashed into my face two seconds later.

"Ouch!" Giggling, I sank back onto the windowsill.

"Julian saved me," it escaped her with widened eyes, as if she were reviewing the conversation with her father before her inner eye.

The corners of my mouth moved upward.

She was lucky to have her big brother...

A shadow settled over my thoughts. I had never had that relationship with Ezra. He cared about me... But it didn't feel like he was my brother. More like someone who was trying to hold on to everything our parents had left behind before it collapsed in on itself.

"Is Ezra still at work?"

I looked at Mia, caught.

"Yeah, he…"

"He's gotten really hot."

"Mia!" it escaped me, and I threw back the pillow, which she caught with a gleeful look. "He's way too old for you! And besides... No! " I laughed, feeling the warmth in my cheeks. "He's my brother !"

My eyes wandered to the window outside, where Julian was pulling two suitcases out of the car. His arm muscles visibly tensed. " Your brother got hot."

The pillow hit me straight on the head.

"Don't you dare!" It sounded like a warning, but the grin returned a few seconds later, making us both laugh out loud.

I raised both hands as she reached for the other pillow.

"Don't worry. I'm through with guys... for now."

A lie. I wanted it to be, but the dreams still hadn't stopped.

"I hope Nash hasn't gotten any hotter."

My smile disappeared for good.

Mia rose from the beanbag and came to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry...that was stupid of me."

"It wasn't," I tried to assure her, but I couldn't even manage to hold her gaze.

"If I don't talk about it, this crap will eat me up eventually," I sighed softly, finally rising from the windowsill. "But you know what? Soon, I'll be in a new place with new people, not to mention..." I paced lightly around my room. "I have a degree that I'm going to invest my seemingly endless time in."

In front of the mirror, I paused and looked at the girl with wavy black hair and eyes that matched the color of her emerald green cardigan.

"Listen... You might not like this, but..." Mia paused for a moment, and our eyes met in the mirror. "They're all going to stay here."

I couldn't stop something in my chest from tightening, contracting, and growing heavier.

"My friends told me that Vivienna and her friends will be attending Vanderwood."

Mia hesitated. And I had to take in what she had just told me. I should be excited that I might get another chance with them, but all I felt was this tugging in my chest.

"And Julian said that Emely is staying too."

My breathing stopped completely. I was just waiting for her to say it, to say the damn thing I was most afraid of.

"Nash is staying, Mady."

My heart stopped.

What had I done to deserve this? How had I managed to manifest all this bad luck in my life? How?

"But look, you're going to meet new people, and the campus is so big, you'll probably never run into each other."

I turned to Mia, unable to get a word past my lips.

I had spent far too long saying goodbye to him internally. I had applied to many universities and colleges in Canada and even in the United States. The same response has always come: rejections. And it had always been because of my grades. They didn't say it, but I knew it. My grades weren't good enough.

I tried to push the thought away, but it somehow boxed itself forward.

I wasn't good enough.

My eyes wandered to the papers on my desk—a pile of disorganized documents, at the top the scholarship I had received only because I had been involved in Blairville, all the clubs I had joined, all the events I had helped to organize.

Ezra's words came up, and with them, the guilt.

"You should be happy that you can study at all without having to pay anything."

Maybe he was right. I was ungrateful for my undeserved good luck.

But this? I had assumed that they would all go to private universities. Their parents were so rich, and they were all so smart. Even if they hadn't been... Why Vanderwood , of all places? All doors were open to them...

I understood that Julian was going to Vanderwood, and I didn't care. But him ?

He would stay here. So would I.

"Mady." My vision sharpened, and instead of the images in my head, I saw Mia again. She touched my arm. Her skin was a heater, as always. "You won't even look at him with your hot ass."

Her encouraging smile made me smile, too, and I blinked away the tears.

A rhythmic buzzing sounded – Mia's cell phone.

"Dad?" Mia turned away from me, and I looked out the window again. "Yeah, I'm at Mady's." My gaze slid over the facade of the white house next door. "See you in five minutes then."

Mia slid the phone back into her pocket and turned to me.

"My dad. There's dinner."

I nodded, and Mia turned to leave.

"One question..." I put in, and she paused while walking, turning to me. "Do you know who these new neighbors are?"

Mia glanced out the window. "An old friend of my father's." Then, shrugging, she looked back at me. "That's all I know."