The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,516

to wrinkle, never folded or put away.

But that's not the point.

I want to do everything in my power to make sure she doesn't end up as the second incarnation of our mother because this life ... this latchkey, slob-village life, is all my sister knows to be normal, and it’s anything but normal.

Most people don’t live like this.

She's not even thirteen years old and already her life is a flea-infested sundae. The rotten cherry on top? A father who's lived the entirety of her life in prison.

I've never asked for much in my life, and I don't believe in wishes or any of that hope-wasting bullshit, but I'll spend my dying breath making damn sure my sister never ends up on an episode of Jerry or Maury.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" she asks, mouth gummed with cheap bread and store brand peanut butter. "Like ... I don't know … work or something?"

"Why are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?"

She chews, the sandwich balling in her left cheek, and then she swallows hard before glaring. "You're so annoying."

Good. Means I'm doing something right, which is impressive given the fact that there was never a precedent to go off of.

"Not having any boys over later, are you?" I ask. Not like she’d tell me the truth if she were, but I have to let her know that I’m one step ahead of her at all times. I was thirteen once. And girls like Devanie were low-hanging fruit: zero parental supervision, pretty but doesn’t really know it yet, attention-starved, and desperate to belong.

"Oh my God, Madd." Dev slams the last piece of her sandwich on the counter. "You really think I'd bring someone here? And if I did, do you really think it would be a boy ... that I want to impress?!"

I mean … valid point.

"What's his name?" I ask, referring to the one who put that giant grin on her face in the moments before I rolled up outside her school and rained on her seventh-grade parade.

She's quiet, sucking a dab of peanut butter off the side of her pinky.

"His name," I remind her.

My sister exhales, her wide, ocean-blue eyes lifting onto mine. “Kyler.”

"Kyler what?"

"Kyler Riggs."

"Sounds like a douche." I fold my arms against my chest and lean against the counter, giving her a good, firm stare, one that hopefully reminds her that I've got my eye on her at all times – even if that's not possible. "Stay away from him."

"Oh my gawwwd," she groans before twisting away and wiping the crumbs off the counter ... proof that she does hear what I say and she does listen. "Stop it, Madden. I'm not a baby."

"Exactly. You're a teenager, which means you’re not safe from the world and the world is not safe from you. Someone’s got to keep you in check.”

"You act like I'm not capable of making good decisions when I've never been in trouble," she says, voice reaching whiny-girl intensity. "I get almost all A's. I've never had detention. I've never smoked a cigarette or snuck out at night like some of the other kids at my school. Maybe you should give me more credit?"

“I know you’re a good girl, Dev.” But I know from experience a kid can go from goody-two-shoes to juvie hall regular in under a semester if the conditions are right.

“Then maybe you should act like it.” Her back is still to me and her voice is soft and low.

"What time does Mom get home tonight?" I ask one last question before I go.

She careens around, shooting me a dead-eyed look, one that implies we both know the answer to that: Mom comes home whenever she damn well pleases.

I wonder if she ever misses Dev, ever thinks about her when she's going into work at three, getting off at eleven, and hitting the bars until close. She sleeps through breakfast ... sleeps through most of the day actually ... then does it all over again.

The weekends are for her boyfriend-of-the-whatever. Day. Week. Month. She hasn’t quite made it to a year with any of them. They tend to crash and burn once they get past the first ninety days and the men realize my mother is a batshit crazy narcissist whose emotional maturity is permanently stunted at the age of seventeen—when she became a mother for the first time and was forced to grow up overnight.

"I talked to Mom last week," I say. "About not going out so much."

"Why?"