to prevent it. The horn blares from the garage, eliciting my groan.
“Your brother is anxious,” she says, rolling her eyes as well. “You know how he gets.”
“Oh, I know.” I dig a fist into the small of my back, trying to reacquaint my spine with the weight of a backpack. “Now that Campbell’s in college and they are ‘keeping their options open’,” I use finger quotes here, “he’s on the prowl.”
Mom’s nose wrinkles. “Honey, don’t talk about your brother like that. And Campbell is a sweet girl.” She frowns as she says this, as if she could will it to be true.
“Uh huh.”
Sometimes it’s easier for my mom to live in a delusion than face reality, especially when it comes to my brother. Campbell Clarke is a bitch, through and through. She has my brother completely wrapped around her well-manicured finger. But if Mom looked beneath the surface of that choice, she’d have to acknowledge a lot of the other crap my brother does, and that would take the attention off me for a second. God forbid.
Preston Prep is everything to Emory. He’d been instantly accepted when he arrived as a freshman, his social status secured by his position on the football team and admittance into the quasi-legit fraternity, The Devils. He lived and breathed Preston Prep, the letterman jacket, and the older, more experienced girlfriend. He fully embraced the entitled, privileged attitude of the majority of our classmates.
He’d live in the dorms if he could—if he were allowed to. But there was no way my parents would allow me to live on campus, which meant there was no way he could live there either. Even for my parents, some tit-for-tats are just inevitable. Ultimately, that was probably a good decision. Last year, during Emory’s junior and my sophomore year, the Devils outdid themselves, ultimately getting disbanded. The administration finally stepped in after a series of events that not only violated school policy, but brushed with illegal. To be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention at the time. I spent my days trying to catch up on the schoolwork I fell behind on as a freshman, and my afternoons in physical therapy. I also spent the majority of time blissed out on painkillers, to the point that most of my classmates thought I was an idiot.
Or, so I learned over summer break. I’d been in the country club locker room when I overheard Amanda Brown ask Sydney if the accident had caused a brain injury. Apparently, she didn’t remember me being so slow.
Ouch.
It was only through hushed talks between my parents and gossip at the swimming pool this summer that I learned what the Devils, including my brother, had really been up to for the last couple of years. None of it was necessarily good.
“I can’t wait to hear about your first day tonight at dinner.” Mom runs a hand through her hair, something she does when she’s a little nervous. It’s hard, sometimes, feeling all this bitterness toward her when she cares so much. She adds, “I’m making your favorite. Shrimp and grits.”
I force a smile. “That sounds good.” It seems a little much for the first day of junior year, but I’ve learned by now that if my mom wants to spoil me, the path of least resistance is to just let her.
The horn blasts again in the garage, and I roll my eyes, heading through the door.
“Finally,” Emory says, as I climb into his truck. It’s a beast. My parents only relented to getting it for him if he agreed to the lower running board so that I could step up to get into the cab. “I mean, what do you even do up there? It’s not like you spend a bunch of time doing yourself up like the other girls.”
Double ouch.
I scowl out the window. “You know Mom doesn’t let me wear a lot of makeup.” She also doesn’t let me wear anything revealing, or go out with boys, or stay out past nine.
“Exactly,” he replies, backing out of the garage and swinging the car around, “it shouldn’t take you so long.”
“My leg hurt this morning,” I mutter, looking away. “I had to do some stretches.”
“Oh.” I notice how his fingers grip the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “Right, yeah.” The ‘sorry’ is implied.
It’s not totally a lie. My leg didn’t hurt, but I did have to do stretches. I know from experience just how difficult it is going from a summer free of academics