eye of his friends tonight—Carlton, Ben, and a few others I didn’t know—and I saw the gleam of power in their eyes. They wanted this. The cred. The legacy. The power that had been yanked from them last year. Them I understood, but Emory already had all that. I couldn’t figure out his angle, his motive.
But now I know for certain.
That’s why I snapped when I saw Baby V skulking around the yard, eavesdropping on me and her brother. She’ll blow this before Emory ever gets it off the ground. I’ll get tossed out of Preston before that.
From the dark, fearful look in her eyes, she’s probably already hoping I fail.
I turn the light off, slamming my fist into my pillow before rolling onto my side. I’m walking a tightrope here. One foot on the wire, holding myself above the fray. The other dangling, one bad move could send me tumbling. I do know one thing for certain; Vandy Hall is not going to be involved.
My body wakes like clockwork, still attuned after years of early morning PT even after having been here a while. Every day, I’m still up at the ass-crack of dawn. I feel like hell, my body sore from the game the night before. Sore, but also good, and sort of proud. We kicked ass on the field. Me and Emory make a good team. We always have.
I try to train myself to sleep a little longer, at least until the birds are awake, but it’s futile. Even if I could go back to sleep, my body craves a strong dose of caffeine and I feel the headache coming.
It’s obvious the moment I walk into the kitchen that my father has been here. Seemingly, not alone.
Apparently, making up for being married to my mom all these years includes a lot of sleeping around. Not that he was loyal back then or anything. It’s hard to tell with the way my parents always kept shit so tight behind closed doors, but if I had to guess, I’d say their biggest troubles started after the wreck. It was impossible not to notice the tension when they came to Mountain Point for visits. The strain on my mother’s face and the twenty pounds she gained, most likely from binge-drinking wine, were glaringly obvious. For my father, this was a perfect excuse to fuck around with one or more of the recent college graduates that worked in his office. The weight gain and affairs ultimately led her to the personal trainer, who apparently thought working out in bed would be appropriate exercise. The night of the crash was like knocking over a domino, everything tipping over until there was nothing in this family left standing.
A bottle of wine is uncorked, ninety percent empty, on the counter along with two empty wine glasses. A black leather purse sits on the kitchen table—the table that, once upon a time, we sat at as a functional family.
The contents are painfully dull. Chapstick, tissues, keys, wallet, driver’s license. Tammy Killian, same birth month as me, but seven years older, one hundred and thirty pounds, five-seven, brown eyes, brown hair, not an organ donor.
She has a crisp fifty-dollar bill in her billfold. Like, obviously that’s…
Mine now.
I put it all away, eventually hearing the stirrings of an awkward morning-after occurring in the master bedroom down the hall. I snap alert and move to the counter, searching for the coffee. I didn’t drink coffee when I left home. I was fourteen. My prime sources of energy back then were candy, soda, and masturbation. But six a.m. mandatory runs at school had made coffee an integral part of my diet. I open cabinet after cabinet, increasingly aware that at least half the dishes and glasses and everything else is gone. Did my mom come here and split everything down the middle? Did that include the fucking coffee? I go to the pantry and stare at the empty shelves. Where the fuck is it?
“Check the freezer.”
Tension rolls up my spine, settling at the base of my neck. I close the pantry door and turn around. My father’s opening a cabinet, pulling out a bottle of pain meds. From the look on his face, I’m confident in calling it a hangover. His hair is disheveled—a darker shade than mine—a scattering of gray at the temples. I guess he’s what you’d call distinguished, although I can tell he’s had some work done on his face since I saw him a few