Make Me - Tessa Bailey Page 0,7
Abby had been shipped off to Camp Einstein, while her stepbrother had stayed home with the housekeeper.
Camp had started off well enough. She’d made friends with her bunkmate, Patty, who didn’t seem to mind Abby’s quiet awkwardness or that she always got picked last for kickball. The food wasn’t the calorie-conscious fare served at the Sullivan house. Plus, she got to wear T-shirts and khaki shorts every day instead of the pressed slacks and blouses of which her usual wardrobe consisted. Three days into camp, however, Patty had found the cool girls who used the F-word a minimum of three times per sentence and boys had been discovered on the other side of camp.
Abby could still remember sitting in the mess hall, harboring the distinct feeling that she had no idea what was going on around her. Secrets were being told in hushed tones, spots were being saved—was she in someone’s saved spot?—and girl who’d been her friend mere hours before no longer even glanced in her direction.
Camp Einstein had set the course for the next twelve years. Private school had been a concentrated version of summer camp, alliances being formed and disbanded so quickly she couldn’t keep up. Any type of misstep or flaw could earn you a get lost card from your group of friends. She might have been able to overcome her fear of making friends and losing them, but her home life had only amplified the one fact she’d lived by her entire adolescence. Screw up and you’d find yourself eating alone. Often even living alone. Before meeting Roxy and Honey, that feeling she’d had sitting in the mess hall had never seemed to go away. That feeling was what had driven her toward the reliability of numbers and tempted her to hunker down and never come up for air. That, and the responsibility she had toward her family.
But right at that moment, with paramedics rushing past her on the sidewalk and chaos blooming around her, the insecurities she’d been trying so hard to suppress came circling back, leaving her unsure how to proceed. Should she try to communicate to someone that her ankle hurt or should she just go home? Was she required to give a statement? She couldn’t see any of her coworkers amid the confusion. Thank God her father hadn’t been in the office. Then again, her father hadn’t been to the office in a month.
Oh, no. What if she had to answer questions about his absence? Finally encountering the sense of urgency she needed to take action, Abby tested her ankle and winced. Probably not sprained, though, or it would feel far worse. Using the stone building at her back for leverage, she rose slowly, but her foot slipped in the sooty sidewalk, sending her back down onto her bottom.
“Manache.”
A string of further Italian curses—courtesy of her parents’ insistence on a decade of lessons—were dying to burst free of her mouth. It always made her feel better, without the negative side effect of offending anyone who didn’t speak the language. Outbursts had never been tolerated in their household. When Abby gave in and allowed her temper to show, her parents’ displeasure usually resulted in their absence. Absences that could stretch for weeks, giving time for her defiance to fade and regret to appear. Even referring to her father’s new wife as stepmother hadn’t been allowed. She’d been required to accept her stepmother’s new status as mother with no questions asked, disapproval being heaped on her when she failed to address her correctly.
Abby’s litany of Italian curses was stayed when a commotion to her left captured her attention. Warmth flickered and glowed in her chest when she saw Russell arguing with a police officer, trying to get through the makeshift barrier. Oddly, a part of her had been expecting him even if she hadn’t consciously acknowledged it. The officer seemed adamant about keeping him out, but Abby pressed her hands to her heart and gave the man a pleading look, finally succeeding in making him relent.
Russell was by her side a split second later, kneeling on the concrete and running his eyes over every inch of her. He was filthy, sweating, and breathing heavy. One of the most welcome sights she’d ever encountered in her twenty-four years. “Ankle?” he barked over the sound of shouting and sirens.
She nodded.
“How?”
Abby was so busy marveling over how good it felt to have someone there—just for her—that she forgot the question. “What?”
He appeared to implore the sky