Something of a Kind - By Miranda Wheeler Page 0,58

see this? The chances of it not being completely planted are nonexistent. It looks exactly like the other crap. I'm shocked you didn't see this. Considering you obviously know everything if you're going to come in here and tell people three and four times your age how to do their job. Do you understand what seasoned professionals mean? A damn long time. I-"

He continued to speak, his voice low, angered, and controlling. Blood pounded in her ears as he reached across her, snatching a remote from the top of a stack of Forbes and flicking on a flatscreen. He scrolled through a standard black and white menu, pulling up a file slideshow almost identical to hers. Each slide was a punch in the stomach, and by the time he started the video she struggled to breath. She turned away, a thousand doubts rushing into her throbbing head. He stopped, confused at the tears brimming her lids, and seemed confused.

"I..." Greg paused, scrutinizing her, "I didn't realize you were so convinced. I am sorry. I'm pulling the files. No one needs to know about this. You're a minor, so it's relatively unaffiliated.I shouldn’t think it will affect lifelong credibility, although any further reports… well, that I can’t say."

He moved passed her, retreating like a kicked dog that won the fight, down a curving hallway. In his wake overwhelming waves of Pinesol flooded her burning nose. He left the images of faux print casts and profile silhouettes labeled ‘John Locklear’ scrolling.

Of course it was too easy. Him, me. Us. Always laughing.

She suddenly wanted to blame Noah, to pin the humiliation and lies on his head. Everything was always so funny, so easy. Was she a joke? Was that ease calculation?

No.

She couldn't deal with it. She knew in the core of her chest she hated Greg. For leaving her, for stringing her along, for snapping her in half when she made herself strong enough to break. For shaming her, for weaseling inside her head, for trying to make himself a martyr in the face of her pain.

Aly longed for her mother, an embrace, the perfect words to heal her wounds. To have a lock of hair tucked behind her ear, a joke that harrowed and weakened sorrow, or shared dreams of wandering the whimsy of Paris.

Her mother's choices to condemn Greg's passions as ridiculous weren't unfathomable. Despite the separation, despite her overworked absence, despite allowing Aly to idolize the figure of the vacant father, despite dying when she was needed most, Aly desperately loved her.

She knew what her mother would do. She would weed doubts into Greg's doubts. Aly would lay in the grave she dug herself until Vanessa lifted her out, a spineless rag doll, and dusted her off. She would help Aly into her coat like she couldn't find the arm holes, smear away tears that smeared mascara, and dare her to find the truth.

A dare made the brave.

Aly rose from her chair, breaking into a run for the lobby doors. As though she were still in Kingsley, she expected the buzzing stickiness of a hot night to greet her. Instead, the pressure of a temperature drop followed her into the street. The sky was nearly black without city lights, instead bathing Ashland with the glow of the moon and the stars.

Tears still falling, pain and loneliness swelling and clenching in her chest, she slowed to a stop. Adjusting eyes grasped for her target along the road, scrutinizing the shaded storefronts. With the cool ground more solid with each step, she was walking.

In the distance, she could see the flicker of Yazzie's fluorescents.

CHAPTER 14 | NOAH

Noah preferred his family interactions limited to checking in on his sister, avoiding his brothers, and appeasing his mother with as much marginal distance as possible. Mary-Agnes had problems, but she rarely hurt anyone unless Andrew or John crossed her. Her issues were more sad than terrifying. She was sweet at heart, even dazed and self-loathing, her actions expressed in trying to make Isaac cheerful and Mark laugh. Behind the issues, she was a mother

– his, theirs, and messed up – but still a mother. It was his father that he wanted no closer than arm’s length.

Noah wanted to spend the night like he spent any other. There were chores, then scavenging for dinner when the kitchen emptied, and a late-night shower. After, he would lay in bed with blaring headphones trying to decipher the world of Alyson Glass or sit on the widow’s walk and