“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I say as I sit up, and my sister stirs beside me. My arm aches where Billie cut me, and I find my fingers subconsciously teasing the edges of the wound. “It’s just a two-day suspension, no big deal. I’ll be back to school tomorrow.”

“And where are you now, exactly? I’m coming to pick Heather up.” Pamela sniffs, and I can just imagine her checking her nails for any signs of imperfection. Imperfection should be buffed away and forgotten about, covered up, replaced. That sick, hollow feeling in my stomach opens up, threatening to swallow me whole.

“She’s at her friend Kara’s house,” I say, which isn’t even a lie. Not that I give a crap about lying to my mom. She long since lost the privilege of my honesty. “When you’ve been lied to by everyone around you, when you have nothing else, you realize the one currency you can carry is truth.” I lick my lips and wonder when Vic’s words started to get inside my head like that. “I’ll pick her up in a bit and we’ll be home in time for dinner, okay?”

It literally makes my mouth hurt to be that nice to her, but it’s the only way I can diffuse the situation before she starts making threats.

“Well, we’ll talk about this suspension thing when you get home,” she says absently, her attention wandering when I don’t prove to be the target she wants me to be. “I had a few calls about some classes you missed, too. If you don’t want to finish your senior year, fine, I didn’t, but I had your father all lined up and turns out I didn’t need a degree.” She pauses as I close my eyes, quietly seething. A deep inhale brings Aaron’s scent into my lungs, and I feel myself calming against my own will. Ugh. Who knew I was such a sentimental bitch?

“I had a bad period and cried in the bathroom during those classes,” I say, not caring if the missed days match up to a proper cycle. Pamela won’t pay enough attention to notice.

“Okay, honey,” she says, clearly bored with me already. “Be here at five, or I’m calling your father.”

She hangs up, and I find myself clutching my phone so hard my knuckles hurt.

“He’s not my fucking father,” I grind out, slipping out of bed and throwing on a hoodie, so I can go outside and smoke. It doesn’t occur to me until I actually step out the back door that it’s Aaron’s hoodie I’ve got on.

Speak of the devil …

“Morning,” Aaron says, sitting in one of the outdoor chairs and smoking a cigarette of his own. He offers me a light, and I take it, curling up in the chair next to his. My eyes stray to the freshly mowed lawn and the mulched flower beds with the green-leafed rhodies in them. Everything else is orange, red, and brown, the full array of fall colors spinning around us as the maple next to the fence sheds its leaves.

“Sorry about the hoodie,” I say, inhaling and holding the smoke in my lungs for several long seconds before I blow it out and let it kiss across my lips. “I was mad, and I slipped it on without thinking.”

“You know I don’t care if you wear my hoodie, Bernie,” he says, dressed in a red zip-up sweatshirt and black sweatpants. His gaze is on the yard, but his focus is elsewhere. I wonder what he’s thinking about?

“Um,” I start, feeling my own pride kick me right in the throat. Aaron turns to look at me, green-gold eyes swirling with emotion. If I were to really look into them, I bet I could get lost in that gaze of his, tumble down into the endless depths of verdant flecks and hazel sparks. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asks, but we both know what I’m talking about. My eyes narrow. The asshole just wants me to say it. Fine. I’m not too prideful.

“For taking the fall for me,” I say, and Aaron’s entire body goes stiff. “You risked a lot doing that …”

“Not really,” he says, but we both know that he did, and I can’t figure out why. He tossed me aside once in order to protect his sister and cousin, so why change up the act now? I study him, that wavy chestnut hair I always loved playing with, that full lower lip I could tease with my tongue, that inked body I no longer recognize as belonging to the boy who took my virginity during freshman year.

“Tell me about Kali,” I say, feeling my breathing quicken. I try to focus on my cigarette, using the inhales and exhales of smoke to calm my pulse. “Tell me everything.”

“Bernadette,” he starts, sounding tired. I guess he would be. Somebody has to mow this lawn and pull the weeds from those flower beds. Somebody cooks the girls breakfast, makes their lunch, worries about dinner. Somebody puts those cute little braids in Ashley’s hair, the ones with the pink and blue ribbons. My heart contracts painfully, and I close my eyes. “Why bring up the past?” he continues, his voice far-away, almost dreamlike. “It’s over and done with.”

“I have a right to know why you bullied me,” I say, opening my eyes back up. “I have a right to know why you decided to smash an already cracked vase.”

“I told you: Kali had the info I needed to keep my sister and cousin safe.”

“Really? And you just became her bitches for half a year?” I shake my head. “No, you’re fucking lying to me.” I gesture at him with the butt of my cigarette, the black sleeve of the hoodie falling over my fingers. “You’d have just kicked her ass to get the information you wanted. It must’ve been something else. Why can’t you just be honest with me? I thought we were in this together now.”

“We are, I just …” He turns to look at me, and there’s an expression hiding just behind the mask he’s wearing, something he wants to say, but doesn’t. “When did you and Vic fuck?” is what he chooses to ask me instead.

I just stare at him.

“And seriously? No condom?”

“You know what, Aaron?” I say, flicking the still burning cigarette butt into his lap. He curses and flicks it off onto the pavement. “Fuck you.”

I head inside, grab Heather, and then kick Hael’s shoulder with my foot as he snores on the couch.

“Take me home,” I demand, and surprisingly, without complaint, he does.

Thursday at Prescott High, always a treat to be here. At least now that I have a reputation for stabbing someone, it’s become interesting. And no matter how bad it gets here, it’s always better than being at home. That dinner with Pamela last night nearly suffocated the last vestiges of life from my body.

“Told you: she belongs with Havoc,” a girl says as I sweep past. “She's fucking ruthless.”

“I can be,” I say, pausing and turning toward her, loving the way her eyes widen just before she scurries off with her friend in tow. “Bitch.”

I keep on going, avoiding the downstairs bathroom and heading for my first period English class instead.

“Head's up: the Ensbrooks and the Charters are out for Havoc blood,” Stacey calls out as she sashays down the hall with bored, half-lidded eyes and too many rings on her right hand to simply be decorative. “Watch your back, Blackbird.” She takes her posse into the restroom as I grit my teeth and exhale, pushing open the door to Mr. Darkwood’s class.

Everyone turns to look at me, including Kali, one hand wrapped over the bandage on her arm, her doe eyes wet with fake tears. Part of me wishes the boys would kill her. That's how dark my life has become. But the thing is, her betrayal helped seal my own coffin years ago. It's natural for me to want her dead, isn't it?