If there was one thing Sabrina Delacorte-Rowe did not tolerate, it was a lack of respect.
If you asked me, she needed to remove the giant stick from up her ass. But when you had more money than sense, it gave you license to treat people like objects apparently. Although I was pretty sure she treated most of her expensive vases and favorite sculptures far more delicately than she did her own children.
“Good morning,” I said flatly.
“Were you out on the roof terrace again last night?”
“I didn’t know it was a problem with me going up there.”
“It isn’t. But you really should tidy up after yourself.”
“I didn’t—”
“Harleigh.” She let out an indignant sigh, scowling at me. “You need to try to fit in here. I know things haven’t been… easy, but you are a part of this family now and I expect you to cooperate.”
Cooperate.
I detested that word.
A word the staff at Albany Hills loved to band around.
We need you to cooperate, Harleigh.
Do you feel like cooperating today, Miss Maguire?
You know, Harleigh, this would go an awful lot easier if you just cooperated.
I shook off those memories: the voices, the intrusive dark thoughts, and centered myself with a therapeutic breath. Inhale slow and deep through my nose, hold, and exhale slowly through my mouth.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
In through the nose, out through the—
“Harleigh?” Sabrina clicked her fingers and I blinked.
“S-sorry, I’m a little tired.” I yawned for effect.
“So… will you?” She glowered at me.
“Will I what?”
“Cooperate. Will you try to fit in here and cooperate, Harleigh? Really,” she muttered, “it’s like talking to a brick wall.”
Brick wall. Nice.
Although she had a point. But I couldn’t help it. Sabrina wasn’t interested in my diagnosis. In her eyes, it was a cry for attention.
I could see myself, staring at her, gawking. Wondering what made her so… so cold. Was it something that happened in her past? Were her parents as absent as mine had been? Did she grow up desperate for attention? Craving affection? Did she—
“Harleigh.” She slammed her hand down on the counter, making the fruit in the crystal bowl clatter.
Flinching, I forced out, “Cooperate, right. Got it.” I ran a hand through my lifeless brown hair.
Her lips pursed, but Max’s arrival saved me from yet another one of his mom’s tirades. “Mom,” he said, turning his attention to me. “Weirdo.”
He made a beeline for the refrigerator, and I flipped him off behind Sabrina’s back.
“Maximilian, I hope you’re going to refrain from using the pool as your own personal hangout today.”
“I had three friends over, Mom. Three. You need to relax a little.”
“Yes, well.” She cleared her throat as if the idea was too ridiculous to comprehend. “You left quite the mess. Mrs. Beaker was out there for hours cleaning up after you.”
“I’m sixteen, Mom. A kid, remember. It’s what we do.” He shot me a knowing smirk, and I scowled back.
‘Weirdo,’ Max mouthed.
‘Douchebag,’ I countered.
Sabrina’s head whipped around to me, her perfectly made up face barely cracking. “Did you say something, Harleigh?”
“Who me? Nope.” I grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl. “I’ll pass on breakfast. If anyone needs me, I’ll be on the roof.”
“Do us all a favor and jump,” Max called after me.
“Bite me.” I flipped him off over my shoulder, only part hoping Sabrina wasn’t watching.
Her silence suggested she wasn’t.
By the time I reached the roof terrace, exhaustion had settled heavy in my bones. Verbal sparring with Sabrina and Max usually did that to me. But no one would bother me up here.
I sat in the swinging egg chair and inhaled a deep, calming breath. It was one of the first things I’d learned in therapy. To breathe. To ground myself in the moment. To feel the steady beat of my heart as I inhaled and exhaled. Because if my heart was still beating, if I was still breathing, I was still here. Alive.
And fighting.
The fingers of my left hand ran over the wrist of my right. Circular soothing motions, feeling the jagged scar there. The permanent reminder. My ‘battle scar’ as Celeste liked to call it. But it didn’t feel like a trophy. Not to me.
A dark cloud swarmed into my head, blotting out the slither of light. Breathe, I silently demanded. Breathe, Harleigh. I sucked in a sharp breath, too fast, too greedy, and almost choked on the air caught in my throat.
Dropping my head back against the cushion lining the rattan egg, I closed my eyes. This didn’t feel much like living. I hated it here, hated it with every fiber of my being. Celeste and this roof terrace were the only good things about living in this house. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.
I wouldn’t be trying to keep a promise I should never have made.
Nix
“Hey baby.” Cherri ran her chipped pink nails up my chest and fisted my t-shirt. “I missed you last night.” She pouted, flashing me puppy dog eyes. But they barely touched the ice around my heart.
Cherri was a means to an end. An itch I liked to scratch sometimes. Nothing more. But from the longing in her eyes, it was becoming increasingly fucking obvious she hadn’t got the memo.
“Yo, Cherri,” my best friend Zane called. Cherri glanced over her shoulder at him, arching a thin brow. “How about letting my boy breathe, yeah?”
“How about you go fuck yourself, Zane?”
“Ouch, she has claws.”
“She bites too.” Cherri snapped her teeth together, and I smothered a laugh. She was something else.
But Zane had a point.
She was growing clingy. Trying to put her claim on me. But I wasn’t looking to go steady. With her or anyone else.
Girls were a distraction. A fucking headache I didn’t want or need.
“Back up, Cher,” I said, nudging her off me. “I’ve got shit to do.”
“Come on, Nix, don’t be like that. I came tonight for you.” There was that pout again.
Jesus, she sure knew how to lay it on thick.
“Go find another dick to bounce on tonight, yeah?”
Anger flared in her overdone smoky eyes. I never understood why girls felt the need to smear that shit all over their faces so much.
“You bastard,” she fumed. “I thought we were—”
“Run along, Cher.” Zane could barely contain his laughter. Motherfucker was colder than me.
She stormed off, shouldering the other girls circling us out of her way.
“No pussy is worth all that aggro,” Zane said, draining his beer. He threw it in the trash can and grabbed another from the cooler.
“I thought she knew the deal.”
He gave me a pointed look. “They all say that, Nix. Until they catch feelings and think they can tame you into more, or even worse, trap you.”
“Where’s Kye?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Some drama with Chloe.”
“Again?”