bear their memories being put on display and dissected like this. They were my jailers and I loved them. I love them still. How fucked-up is that? I glare at Gabriel, desperate to change the subject. “What about your parents?”
“You forget, I’ve seen the posters in your room and the stickers on your notebook. You know my story.”
I do know his story. At least, what truths Gabriel offers up to the gutter press alongside his carefully-constructed facade. I know his parents are rich and titled, and they publicly disowned Gabriel when he left to pursue his music. I know his surname – Fallen – isn’t the name he was born to, but the name he chose to mark his own path in life.
Gabriel. The fallen angel. The dark prince who tries so hard to be good.
I turn to Noah. “What about you?”
Noah shakes his head. “When my father looks at me, all he sees is the son he wishes died in Felix’s place.”
He speaks in a flat voice, like he’s discussing the weather instead of his father’s neglect. Noah accepts it as true that he’s a consolation prize, but I will never, ever accept that. I don’t offer up the platitudes that dance on my tongue. I know how useless they are.
“My father was determined that Felix would be his legacy, his greater achievement. Neither of us was a person to Dad – we’re just extensions of his own ambition, and I’ve always disappointed him. He honestly believed Felix would be president one day, and I can’t compete with that. Felix couldn’t help being everything Dad wanted, and that made it impossible to hate him – he was the only thing that made living in that house bearable. Felix would never have taken those drugs if Dad hadn’t insisted, if he hadn’t tried to give his son yet another advantage.”
“Was your mom on board with this?”
Noah shakes his head. “Mom tried to speak up, to say she didn’t think he should be taking something that hadn’t been through proper medical trials. But Dad never listened to anyone. And Felix just went along with it because it made Dad happy. We’ve spent our whole lives making sacrifices and hiding who we are to make Dad happy, and in the end, it killed the two people I loved most in the world. Now I couldn’t give a fuck about Dad’s happiness, but in his rage and guilt he can’t see that he’s killing Grace, too.”
“And me.” I say it flippantly, but my heart slams against my chest. I hate how much I want him to say that he cares for me with that fierce protectiveness he feels for his stepmother.
Noah’s gaze flicks to the empty pool outside, and I know he’s thinking of his mother lying in the water, the brick still tied around her ankle. He sinks into the chair, his head falling forward into his hands, dark hair tumbling over his eyes. “If that Brentwood guy doesn’t kill you, Dad will find someone else. He’s used to getting his way.”
“So am I.”
Noah lifts his head, his voice cracking. “Claudia, I—”
I cut him off. “I should find something for breakfast.”
I flee the ballroom as fast as I can. I don’t look back. How can I tell Noah that if his dad is determined to kill me, then I might just have to beat him to the punch?
9
Eli
I sit out on the porch swing, Gizmo in my lap and a dusty bottle of homemade cider from the cellar in my hand. I drink and rage into the nighttime, falling in and out of consciousness until the sun peeks over the horizon.
I consider hiding at Everlasting Hart Ranch forever. I have Gizmo in my lap and enough money in my wallet for a few weeks of food and supplies. No one will miss me. I can drink my way through the cider in the cellar until my skin turns green and I melt into the landscape.
Until I forgot Mackenzie Malloy – the girl I loved who left without a goodbye – and Claudia August – the bitch who stomped my memories into dust.
Gizmo leaps off my lap and bounds toward the outbuildings scattered along the edge of the field behind the shed. There’s a big red barn filled with rusting farm equipment, and a bunch of smaller workshops and a tack room for the horses my dad never got to ride. Gizmo wiggles her tiny bum and disappears through a hole in one