But what the fuck? Rebel was making me crazy.
The only way to keep my mind off of her was to pretend she didn’t exist.
Chapter Eleven
Lila
Seven months. That was how long it took Derek to decide he had no interest in looking after his dead wife’s kid.
One month after my mom died, Derek brought his girlfriend home to meet me. Ha, joke. He didn’t bring her over to meet me. I just happened to be there when he pulled up on his Harley and she climbed off the back of it. Her name was Mindi with an i and she wore painted-on jeans, plunging necklines and acrylic nails. Her bleached blonde hair had two-inch roots and her heels left divots in our front lawn but Derek acted like she was the best thing since sliced bread. If he was trying to find the antithesis of my mother, he’d succeeded. Biker Barbie had moved into our house and into my mother’s bedroom that she shared with Derek. For six long months I had to deal with Mindi, her makeup and cheap perfume littering the shelves of the bathroom, her cigarette smoke wafting through the screen door and polluting my air.
I’d dug up the garden that Jude had helped me plant because I didn’t want Derek and Mindi to have a nice view.
I was small and petty and bitter.
Everything was dead and broken.
The only surprise was that Derek had hung in there for as long as he had. He’d waited until the day after my seventeenth birthday to inform me that he was putting the house on the market and moving to another town with Mindi.
I didn’t even know where Derek was moving nor did I care to ask.
Now it was June, school was out, the house was sold and my life had been packed into a few boxes that were being shuttled over to the McCallister house.
The one bright spot in my junior year was Christy Rivera who jokingly called herself The Tampon Girl. I called her a lifesaver. Pathetic as it sounded, she was my first true friend who was a girl. As for my other two best friends... I missed them. So much.
Especially Jude. I missed him like a missing limb and as I watched him go from one girl to another, I knew I had no one to blame for our rift except myself.
I told myself it was for the best. I couldn’t bear to lose another person I loved. Jude was leaving, he was going to enlist and leave Cypress Springs right after we graduated high school, so it was better to keep my distance. If I got too close, it would only hurt more.
But now, I was moving in with his family and I had no idea how to navigate this uncharted territory. Avoiding him would not be an option.
“How’s it going, L?”
“Let’s put it this way. I had two choices. Shitty. Or shittier,” I said, using his words from four years ago. It felt like another lifetime ago.
“Yeah, I get that.” Brody flopped down on my bed and tucked his hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. “You’ve got a sky full of stars though.”
“What?” I asked, transferring my clothes from my suitcase to the oak chest of drawers.
This bedroom used to be the guest room and I’d heard that Gideon was supposed to move out of the room he shared with Jesse but now that I was here, he had to forfeit his own room. Which made me feel bad, just like so many other things about this living arrangement.
“You’ve got stars,” he said, pointing at the ceiling.
I looked up but at first, I couldn’t see anything.
“Turn off the light.”
“Why?” I asked but I did as he said and turned off the lamp on the dresser. It wasn’t that dark out yet but it was dark enough to see the stars glowing on the ceiling above my bed. I studied them, trying to work out the pattern and figure out which constellation it was but astronomy wasn’t my thing. “Have they always been here?”
He chuckled under his breath. “Nope.”
Jude. But would he have really done this? For me? He hated me now. I’d gotten my wish. He left me alone. Never tried to talk to me. Wouldn’t even look at me when we passed each other in the hallways at school. He didn’t bully me. Didn’t go out of his way to make my life hell. Didn’t even actively avoid me or ignore me.
He just looked right through me like I didn’t even exist.
So why would he have put stars on my ceiling?
“Did you do it?” I asked Brody.
He just laughed. “You two deserve each other. You’re both dumbasses.”
I opened my mouth to protest but Kate poked her head in the doorway, stopping the words from coming out. “Hi honey. Need some help?”
“Oh, um... I’m okay. Thank you.” I flicked the light back on and smiled at her. I loved Kate. I loved the whole family. But I knew how Brody felt now. Even though their intentions were good, I hated feeling like a charity case.
“Brody. Get your boots off Lila’s comforter,” Kate said.
His boots hit the floor with a thud and he got to his feet, leaving me with dried mud that had flaked off his boots and landed on my sunflower-patterned comforter. “Catch you later, L.”
When Brody was gone, Kate brushed the dirt off my comforter and into the wastepaper can next to my desk then came to stand in front of me and held out her arms. “Come here, honey.”
I took a step forward and she wrapped me up in a hug that was almost as good as my mom’s. Almost. She stroked my hair and she held on tight and I hugged her back. I tried to swallow my tears but the lump in my throat was too big and something inside of me cracked. It was like a dam
