The cameras won’t pick up that she just whispered, through her bared teeth, Try to look like you care at least a little, Brooke.
They won’t get that her words are a punch in my chest, because I know I’m not what she needs. I know that I’m letting my parents down in a million little ways.
But I’m trying; I really am. They can’t see how I feel like curling up in a corner and dying. Because I love them, and I know they love me even though I’m not the popular size-two daughter with perfect skin and manners that they need right now.
So yeah.
Nobody can ever know that my glorious smile is actually cracking me in half. I know how to smile like nothing’s wrong. It’s a great talent of mine.
I am one of the lucky ones in Franklin City—I know that. A lot of people south of downtown went to bed hungry tonight, and I’m surrounded by mounds of foie gras and lobster, most of which will be thrown out. Not only do I feel guilty about my sweet-sixteen party, but I feel guilty for feeling guilty.
I suck in a breath through gritted teeth, still smiling for all I’m worth.
Halfway there.
My vision is almost blurring, but I smile and say hello to one of the investors my dad is courting for this big outdoor mall deal he’s putting together. I try to remember the details. He’s been to our house. We let him use our vacation home before we secretly sold it.
The investor asks me about my schoolwork, and we’re having a good conversation—at least I think we are until I look over and see my mother’s ashen face, her mouth a tight line under her powdered nose.
My heart starts pounding like crazy because I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, and I’m so hungry and exhausted that I’m suddenly fumbling my words and saying uh and um, and we’ve practiced how many hours on that? He wishes me luck with exams and leaves.
Mom grips my arm tight enough to make the skin white. I hold my breath, wondering where I screwed up. Afraid to know but needing to. “You called him Mr. Kimball,” she hisses.
“But that’s…” I’m about to say that’s his name when I realize it isn’t—Mr. Kimball is one of his rivals. They drilled me on everybody’s names right before the party, but I’m not thinking straight. My throat feels thick. “He didn’t—”
“Correct you?” Her gaze shoots after him. He’s too polite. She doesn’t have to say it.
“Should I—”
“No!” she says. Meaning, don’t go after him, don’t apologize. Meaning, the damage is done.
She wouldn’t say it, though. Not here and not like that. Somehow that makes it worse.
Why are the things parents don’t say the most painful?
Right then the Shaffer twins come up. They’re beautiful and good at everything. They were my friends in tennis camp, but teens smell blood in the water way faster than adults. Enthusiastic greetings turn to frozen smiles and awkward excuses to leave.
Leaving before the dinner—not a good sign.
Slowly but surely, I'm ruining this. There’s so much more at stake here than a party. There’s my dad’s company. My mother’s social standing. I can feel her eyes on me as I smile and thank them for coming.
It’s then that it happens—this feeling like my chest is expanding, filling with stuffed-down sobs that won’t be contained any longer. My eyes are hot, and I’m sure my face is red as a cherry. I mumble something about going to the bathroom.
Mom squeezes my shoulder. “Take your time, honey,” she whispers.
And I know she says this partly because she needs me to calm down and stop ruining things, and partly because she loves me and, really, this is hard on all of us, which gives the sobs even more power. They feel like fists, pounding up from inside my chest and throat. So I’m walking through my party crying, but lucky for me, I know how to smile so brightly that it makes people not notice the shine of my eyes.
I see a trio of neighbors from Mom’s bridge club heading into the bathroom. No going there, then. I pass it by and push through the next door, a swinging door, which leads to the food-staging area.
Some of the caterers look at me funny. I manage a wave. “Looking good out there. Maybe another round of canapés on the far side.” I keep walking, a wild girl in a gorgeous, secondhand dress, cheeks burning, chest feeling like it might explode with undetonated sobs.
I push through another swinging door, heading into the kitchen. Stainless steel counters display the delicious food I can’t eat. Curious pairs of eyes monitor my progress. I keep going, heading for a red exit sign.
I burst out the door. I shut it behind me.
A sob escapes, and then another and another. I stand there, full-on sobbing.
I sound pathetic.
I’m a Givenchy-wrapped crazy person in the lonely service parking lot of the Franklin City Starlight Ballroom.
Even now, even crying, I’m thinking about appearances. About family and duty. I cry strategically, avoiding mascara stains on the dress. I stay standing, because if I sit, I might pop a seam. This isn’t my dress. This doesn’t even feel like my party. Appearances.
A moth flies into my updo, and I bat it out. Then another flies in. Suddenly I’m doing this whole ridiculous sobbing dance. It’s the light above the door, attracting bugs. “Shit!” I stumble, sobbing, slapping my hair, into the shadows between catering vans.
No more strategy, no more duty.
My hair is utterly ruined and maybe even has dead moths in it. At least it matches my mascara-smeared eyes. I have to laugh-sob at that. I’m a mess.
It actually makes me feel a little better. So stupid.
I have to get back. Fix my face. Retwist my hair into a simple bun. Just one more minute, I tell myself.
It’s bad that I’m gone, but it would be even worse to go back like this. I open the bejeweled clutch that hangs from my wrist and check my phone through bleary eyes. Twenty minutes until seating for dinner.
I start to pull myself together, and that’s when I hear the footsteps. They’re loud—somebody running from far off, way down the alley, maybe, running toward where I’m standing. My pulse pounds.
I’m not even supposed to be back here.
I swipe at my cheeks, determined to stay silent as a mouse until they pass.
Another set of footsteps sounds out. The first is drawing nearer.
Being chased? I pull deeper into the shadows to the sound of gravel churning, crunching. They’re close now—just a few feet away, behind the van.
Close enough that I hear loud breathing. A grunt of surprise. I stiffen. Suddenly there are loud thwaps and thwocks and guttural groans of pain. Hair rises on the back of my neck.
I’ve never heard these kinds of sounds before, but the animal instinct in me recognizes them as deep and real and serious. Life-and-death serious. There was figurative blood in the water inside that party, but out here, the blood is real.
More thwaps. I’m holding my breath, shocked and horrified. Can this be happening? Someone is being hurt, really hurt. This isn’t about canapés. It’s not about appearances.
A man—the attacker, I think—is gritting out questions. Something about a cop— “You fucking tell me…gimme a name…” Something else—foreman or Dorman. “…working for Dorman…frame my friend…gonna pay…”