barks, and I do. I stumble back on trembling legs, and I run away. My body wracks with sobs as I weave through the streets. Tears and snot run down my face, and I can hardly see where I’m running through the flow of tears. My slipper suddenly catches on something, and I fall forward. My body thuds against the moist earth, and I rest on all fours, sobbing into the still air.
I cry for Madison.
I cry for a brokenhearted freak who never stood a chance.
I cry and cry until I have no tears left.
The sound of tires on gravel has me wiping my face on the sleeve of my sleepwear and looking up toward the source.
“Dear God, Mackenzie. Where the hell have you been? Your parents need you!” Sheriff Keller says, throwing open the driver’s side door of his squad car.
I don’t even bother wiping the tears off my face. Instead, I let a desperate sob slip free and look up into his worried eyes as he scrambles toward me.
“Sheriff Keller.” My voice quakes, and my lip trembles uncontrollably. I have no doubt my next words will cause a shitstorm of problems. “I have to tell you something about last night.”
“Mackenzie? Hey, you all good, babe?” Vera asks, snapping me out of the memory. “You spaced out for a second.”
I clear my throat, my eyes still glued to the photo and the words above it. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I just … I guess I was just thinking about work stuff.” The lie slips easily from my lips, much as it usually does around these girls. They’re my friends, sure, but I’ve never been truthful with them. About my past or even my present.
Katherine and Vera have always been the popular rich girls, and looking at me now, you’d never know that, at one time, I wasn’t. I’ve changed a lot over the past years. So much so, I don’t think anyone from my high school would even recognize me, let alone remember me.
I’m no longer fatty Kenzie. Now I’m just Mackenzie. Socialite.
After graduating from Ferndale High, I turned down my academic scholarship to San Francisco State University and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to move to the Big Apple. I haven’t set foot in California since then, and I haven’t so much as given any thought to going back either. There’s nothing left for me there, hasn’t been for a long time.
My friends are the crème de la crème here in the rich world. Their jobs? They don’t work. They just spend Daddy’s money, wear the latest in fashion trends, and get paid to look good. They appear in the hottest clubs, party with celebs, and spend a fortune on unnecessary things, like this meal that I’ll probably have to dig into my savings to pay for.
Pretending to be something or someone I’m not is what I’m used to. It’s how I’ve gotten by all these years. The nice girls? They don’t make it. They get stomped on and taken advantage of. I had to learn that the hard way. But the mean girls? They weather the storm and somehow always end up on top.
And that’s exactly what I’ve turned into—a mean girl.
I should hate it. I’ve turned into the vile version of my dead sister, and honestly, I don’t know what that says about me and my head space. I should be disgusted with who I’ve turned into, but if I’m being honest, I haven’t felt anything in a long time. I’ve been numb, coasting by without emotion. All until I saw the photograph Kat and Vera are still fawning over.
Katherine Van Der Pont is the daughter of a mogul. We met at an event I was working. She was an attendee while I was catering on the side, barely making ends meet. I had just gotten off my shift and was changing in the restroom when she ran into me. She thought I was another guest and struck up a conversation. The rest is pretty much history.
Vera Caspian is the heir to a family that owns a shit ton of land with oil. I met her a few years ago through Kat. The two have been besties for a while now, and I guess I was the final piece needed to complete their trio. Instead of telling them the truth about my family and me, I gave them some half-assed sob story—my sister died when I was younger, my parents cut me off financially years ago, and