Brynna watched as her mother’s eyes studied her for a beat too long. “Five minutes then.”
She waited until her mother’s footsteps faded on the stairs before pulling her clenched fist from under her comforter. She dropped a palm’s worth of hair into the trash.
???
Brynna clutched her half-damp towel against her chest and frowned into her closet. It was twice as big as the closet in her old house but it was already chock-full, even with three moving boxes—still packed, still sealed up tight—waiting on the floor. Brynna was in no hurry to empty them, whether the items inside had a home or not.
She scanned then pulled out a sweater, her fingers feeling the super-soft weave. Then remembered it was Erica’s. Half of everything in her closet belonged to Erica. The other half belonged to Brynna, but one that didn’t exist anymore—the “before” Brynna. When her mother’s voice called a second time and a third, “honey, come on!” she grabbed a semi-new white hoodie and a pair of skinny jeans that had gone back and forth between her and Erica so many times that she couldn’t remember if they started out as hers or Erica’s.
They’re mine now.
The thought pinged through her head and lodged in her chest before Brynna even knew it happened. Erica was gone; Brynna was alone, spat out to start a new life in some stupid, Podunk town full of cookie-cutter houses and kids who boozed and lounged in old abandoned farmland.
The Lincoln High kids—back when she was one of them—boozed and lounged on the beach.
Brynna salivated and shivered at the same time. She hadn’t taken a drink of alcohol since her parents dragged her here, to Crescent City, and she hadn’t been in the water—showers not withstanding—since she was pulled from the tide at Harding Beach. Even this morning—and every morning since—she had had to take ten deep, steadying breaths the way Dr. Rother had shown her before stepping into the hot shower. She continued the ritual while the water pounded her forehead and scalp, and she pinched her eyes shut against the wispy steam that curled around her and sucked at her breath. Every inch of rising steam was like the fingers of fog that pulled at her that night on the beach…
That night.
She wondered when—if—that night would ever stop being so fresh in her memory.
Brynna started down the stairs, her feet landing on the brand-new super plush carpet on the landing. It had been four weeks since the Chase family moved into the Blackwood Hills Estates—a sterile-looking pop-up neighborhood that consisted of fifty homes all stunning and yet entirely the same. The place was so new that only about a quarter of the houses were populated, and Brynna knew exactly one person in the entire development: a girl named Riley who would be a senior—one year above Brynna—at Hawthorne High that fall. Riley had invited Brynna to the movies two days after the Chase family moved in, but Brynna had declined, citing a “family thing,” which was a total lie.
Brynna’s mother was an artist who was constantly covered in chips of paint, and her father was a salesman who spent most of his time on planes being friendly and charming to people that Brynna didn’t know. All she knew about her father’s clients was that they were high-powered executives who sent expensive bottles of scotch and whiskey during the holidays, signing the cards with a mass-produced stamp.
The only “family thing” she could remember them having was when they all sat in a line on the state therapist’s couch, saying nothing but silently blaming each other for Brynna’s issues.
Before the dare, her parents were talking separation, but if there’s anything that can bring a family together, it’s a Class A Misdemeanor. The move was supposed to be a fresh start for all of them. Brynna was supposed to be better, was supposed to start new without drinking or doing drugs. Her parents would be cheerful and respectful of each other—maybe her father would even tone down his drinking in an effort to be supportive rather than hypocritical, Brynna had thought grimly.
She picked her way down the stairs, careful not to mess up the neat stack of cardboard boxes her mother had flattened, and trudged into the kitchen where her mother was staring at coffee brewing and her father was grabbing his briefcase, a piece of dry toast sticking out of his mouth.
“Have a good first day, Bryn,” he muttered around hunks of bread as he made a beeline for the garage.
“Dad’s going in today?” Brynna asked.
Her mother looked up, almost surprised that Brynna was there. “Oh. Yeah.” She pasted a soccer-mom smile on her face and rubbed her hands together. “Excited? How about I make you those first day of junior year chocolate-chip pancakes?”
Brynna couldn’t help but smile. Her mother excelled at exactly two things: oil painting and enthusiasm. While she had recently begun some sculpting work, her cooking skills were still limited to Pop Tarts and making reservations.