“Kimber Celeste!” Tess snaps, finally losing that tentative control on her cool. “I have a deadline this week, your father has five surgeries scheduled, and your sister is trying to adjust to her new life. Have some compassion.” She hands me her phone as I feel a small surge of triumph beneath my ribs. You go, Tess! But the outburst fades as quick as it came when Kimber’s eyes tear up and she turns on her heel to race down the hall toward the stairs. With a sigh, Tess follows after her. “You can go ahead and place the order once you’ve chosen,” she tells me, reaching up to cup the side of my face and then pausing at the last second, like she’s thought better of it.
Tess disappears after her daughter—her real daughter—and I’m left to float there in the middle of the cavernous living room like a boat with no sails. The sadness comes roaring back with a vengeance, and my arms pebble with goose bumps.
“Hey,” Maxx says softly, drawing my attention back over to him. His shoulders are a bit broader than Parrish’s, like he doesn’t work out just for his physique, but like it’s a part of who he is. Maxine did describe him as some sort of up-and-coming motocross star, so I suppose that makes sense. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn't she be?” Parrish scoffs dismissively, wincing as he turns the sink on and begins to wash his tattoo with some orange Dial soap. He watches me, rather than his tattoo. I ignore him as best I can. I try, I really do, but I’ve only got so much in me.
Without really looking at the menu on Tess’ phone, I click the most appealing thing I see—it just so happens we’re ordering Mexican food, and I’ve chosen street tacos—and submit the order.
“Because her entire life has been upended,” X says, his voice patient but verging on frustration. He gives his friend a look that Parrish doesn’t notice because he’s still staring at me. “Your mom can’t even call her by the right name.”
“Mia is her name,” Parrish snaps back, finally deigning to glance Maxx's way. “It’s printed right there on her birth certificate, the one that’s fucking framed and hung on the wall in the entryway.” He turns back to me, his expression less cruel but somehow harder to look at. Resolute, is what it is. He delivers the next words to me, not like an insult, but like a fact that I damn well better get used to. “Tess is your mother—your real mother. She picked the name Mia. She raised you until you were taken from her, and then she ran herself into the ground looking for you. Fight it all you want, but you’re Mia Patterson. Dakota is just the name given to you by some filthy fucking drug addict. You know why she picked you, right? They told you that part?”
“Parrish, stop,” Maxx growls out at him, taking a step in his direction. “She's been through enough.”
“No,” I interject, my voice almost too loud for the sterile space. It echoes just a bit. That’s how empty and cold and weird this house is. Back home, there was no such thing as an echo. Not with the antique furniture strewn about, the old but faithful rugs, the oil paintings on the walls. There was too much love, too many people, for that house to echo. “I want to hear this. Apparently, Parrish knows something that I don't.”
He doesn't smile at me this time. I don’t think I could handle it if he did. Instead, he continues on in that no-nonsense, matter-of-fact voice of his, like he needs to deliver this information to me so that I can understand. So that I can conform. So that I can fit in here and stop fucking up his perfect life.
“Saffron Banks, the meth addicted junkie who snatched you from the daycare?” He phrases this like a question. I don't know why. I knew all about Saffron. My grandparents never tried to hide the fact that their daughter was a sad, broken person searching for something they couldn’t understand. “Her own baby died just a few weeks before she kidnapped you. She picked you because you looked like her dead kid. That’s it. Chance and circumstance. There’s nothing more to it. You are not a member of the Banks family, just a coincidence. Dakota Banks is dead and buried. You are Mia Patterson.”
Parrish pauses as Tess’ footsteps sound on the staircase. Despite his faults, I know that he—with the exception of the school incident last week—goes out of his way not to hurt Tess.
I’m staggered. Fucking staggered by his words.
My mind spins with this new information. Why didn’t anyone tell me that about Saffron? Why keep it hidden? Then again, it doesn’t change anything, does it? It doesn't really matter why she kidnapped me, only that she did.
Except … somehow knowing there was a real Dakota Banks, a girl who was a member of that family in her blood, who was Maxine’s real little sister, that’s a hard pill to swallow. How can I be Dakota Banks if my identity belongs to someone else?
Shit, shit, shit. I’m spiraling. I feel my energy leaking out through my feet, my spirit being sucked into the dark underworld of depression.
“Shall we set the table?” Tess asks, sweeping into the room and smiling at me.
I just don’t have the energy in me to smile back.
Not this time.
Guess there really is a limit to how many forced smiles a person gets before they break.
Crack, Dakota Banks. Crack, crack, crack.
I trace the metal heart brooch with my fingertip. I’ve decided to pin it to the strap of my book bag. According to the rulebook for Whitehall Prep, I’m allowed exactly three pins, patches, or other decorative items on my bag at any given time. Guess this will be one of them. It should make Tess happy, at the very least. I’ve decided to put it next to a button that reads Dump Your Pornsick Boyfriend and a metal book-shaped pin with a 24K gold backing that Maxine got me for Christmas last year.
I’ve got one day left until I start school and to be quite honest, I’m counting down the seconds. Anything to get out of this house. The only bright spot at dinner earlier was Maxx. He was the only person who easily and willingly called me Dakota without it sounding like a curse. I ate my street tacos across from Parrish—whose order I’d apparently copied without even meaning to—with a fork and a knife.
A fork and a knife.
For street tacos.
There’s a soft knock on my door, and I resist the urge to sigh, setting aside the book bag before moving over to answer it.
It’s Maxx.
“I’m heading out,” he says, right hand tucked into his pocket. He looks so casual and comfortable in his own skin, like he doesn’t owe an apology to anyone for existing. That’s what I like most about him. He seems to be able to placate every corner of the room without sacrificing himself in the process. That’s what I need to learn to do—keep other’s needs in mind but also take care of myself.
“To the party, I’m guessing?” I ask as Parrish’s door opens, and he steps out looking more beautiful than I’ve ever seen him. He’s got on what just has to be an ultra-pricey jacket, some khaki-colored preppy thing that screams rich-boy-walking, along with a black t-shirt, a silver pendant of—is that Baphomet?!—and loose-fitting jeans.
He levels a look on me that is very clearly a challenge.
Both my body and my rage respond in equal measures.
How the hell do I find him so attractive when it’s clear that his mission in life is to piss me off? And why do I care? Why can’t I just say ‘hot but rude, no thanks’ and move the fuck on. Instead, I stand there and I stare at him as his eyes go hooded, his mouth quirks up at the corner, and my scalp tingles with the promise of an incoming insult.