Broken by Lauren Layne
Chapter One
Olivia
Only in Manhattan would parents throw a dropping-out-of-college party for their daughter. And only on the Upper East Side would people actually show up.
Now, to be fair, the invitations didn’t actually acknowledge the whole dropping-out bit. Nothing so crass as that. I mean, this is New York, after all. People have standards. At least when other people are watching.
See, the twelve-dollars-each invitations spun the whole debacle as a “sending-off celebration for Olivia Elizabeth Middleton.”
Sending-off indeed.
The destination? Bar Harbor, Maine.
The reason? Charitable endeavors.
Ahem. Not exactly. At least they got the location right, although even that’s a bit of a joke. It’s not exactly Rwanda or Haiti or any of the places that Olivia Elizabeth Middleton originally intended to go with the intention of saving the world. But when your parents know someone who knows someone who knows everyone, you’re bound to get hooked up with someone who needs help a little closer to home. So Bar Harbor, Maine, it is.
But the whole do-gooder motivation? Total bullshit. I should know.
See, I’m Olivia Elizabeth Middleton: NYU drop-out and soon-to-be resident of Middle-of-Nowhere.
And let me tell you, my reasons have nothing to do with charity. I’m not that good. Not even close. I certainly don’t deserve a freaking party for the things I’ve done.
But I’m a Middleton. Parties are what we do. At this point, I’m just counting myself lucky I talked my mother out of the Mother Teresa ice sculpture.
I wish I were kidding.
So here I am, dressed in a brand-new Versace cocktail dress, trying to make everyone believe I was bitten by the philanthropic bug just in time to bail on my senior year of college.
The most depressing thing is that everyone seems willing to just go with it. Well done, Liv! So proud of you, Olivia. Lovely inside and out.
Blech.
My best friend, at least, doesn’t seem to be buying it. “Liv, you can’t be serious. I mean, where are you going to get your hair highlighted all the way up in Maine?”
Some deep part of me wants to snap at my oldest friend to stop being so superficial. But the other part of me—the one that’s more familiar—is dying to grab her by the shoulders and give her an Oh-my-God-I-know! shake. Because the truth is, I’ve spent way too much time wondering about how I’m going to keep my honey-blond hair from returning to its natural mud color while in Maine.
Bella Cullinane and I have had the same hairdresser since our mothers decided it was time we become versed in the difference between highlights and lowlights. We were thirteen. But Bella and I were inseparable long before that. She was the cute brunette to my classy blonde all through twelve years of private school. Bella taught me the art of rolling my plaid uniform skirt just enough to be interesting without being obvious, and in return, I was her alibi when she let Todd Akin talk her out of her lavender couture dress on prom night. Even when Bella went off to Fordham and me off to NYU, we made a pact to see each other at least a couple times a month. So far we’ve stuck to it.
And since I dropped my off-to-Maine bomb on her two months ago, she’s been telling me she’ll be my best friend no matter what (the no matter what, of course, being the not-so-minor fact that I won’t be finishing my senior year with that management degree I’ve spent three years chasing).