“Doesn’t matter who did it. Not anymore. I did the time. It’s over.”

When Drix was convicted of a crime—one he didn’t commit—he thought his life was over. But opportunity came with the Second Chance Program, the governor’s newest pet project to get delinquents off the streets, rehabilitated and back into society. Drix knows this is his chance to get his life back on track, even if it means being paraded in front of reporters for a while.

Elle knows she lives a life of privilege. As the governor’s daughter, she can open doors with her name alone. But the expectations and pressure to be someone she isn’t may be too much to handle. She wants to follow her own path, whatever that means.

When Drix and Elle meet, their connection is immediate, but so are their problems. Drix is not the type of boy Elle’s parents have in mind for her, and Elle is not the kind of girl who can understand Drix’s messy life.

But sometimes love can breach all barriers.

Fighting against a society that can’t imagine them together, Drix and Elle must push themselves—Drix to confront the truth of the robbery, and Elle to assert her independence—and each other to finally get what they deserve.

Also available from

Katie McGarry

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Long Way Home

Pushing the Limits

Crossing the Line (ebook novella)

Dare You To

Crash into You

Take Me On

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Chasing Impossible (ebook exclusive)

Red at Night (a More Than Words ebook novella)

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Say You’ll Remember Me

Katie McGarry

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Katie McGarry 2018

Katie McGarry asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9781474074650

Version 2017-12-12

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Hendrix

Ellison

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Playlist

Acknowledgments

Extract

First Teen in Governor’s “Second Chance”

Program Chosen; Pleads Guilty for

Robbery and Attempted Assault

By: Jane Trident, Associated Press

The Lexington teen who was arrested for robbing a neighborhood convenience store at gunpoint and possessing an illegal firearm has pleaded guilty and is the first teen selected for Governor Monroe’s Second Chance Program.

The program, which is currently under heavy fire from critics, has promised to end the “school-to-prison pipeline.” This pipeline is defined by the American Civil Liberties Union as “policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.”

In an effort to help slow the rising crime rate among teens and the number of these teens funneling into the adult prison system, Governor Monroe kept his campaign promise and has created the Second Chance Program. This program is focused on therapy, specialized educational programs geared toward the individual needs of the teens while incarcerated and a leadership program that will help prepare the teens for when they return to their homes.

Critics point out that the money used for this program is needed to fund other programs in the state. One high-level source, who remained anonymous, stated that the people of Kentucky don’t want to see their tax dollars used on teens who can’t be helped, and instead prefer for their tax dollars to be used on students who are driven and want to succeed.

Many eyes will be on this program, and many feel that the governor’s political future will be tied with the program’s success or failure.

Hendrix

“Everyone says you have a blank slate.” My brother, Axle, sits beside me on the ground, arms resting on his bent knees, and he stares at the bonfire I built with my own two hands with only flint and sticks. It’s one of the many tricks I learned over the last three months. That and how to survive on my own in the middle of nowhere.

Trees and bears I can handle. It’s not knowing who I can trust, now that I’m home, that’s the problem. Axle knows this. It’s why he’s next to me as our friends and family walk around the backyard for the impromptu “Welcome Home” party I told Axle I didn’t want.

Someone in this yard is the reason why I spent a year away from home for a crime I didn’t commit.

My neck tenses, and I roll it in an attempt to release the anger. It took me close to eight months to find some Zen, and it has taken less than thirty minutes for some of the old underlying rage that followed me around like a black thunderhead to return.

Across from us, two girls I used to go to school with are roasting marshmallows. They’re waiting for me to talk to them. That’s who I was before: the smooth talker, the guy who made girls laugh and caused them to light up with a few specially chosen words. The right smile dropped at the right time, and panties would be shed. But I don’t feel up for conversation and I don’t feel like manipulating anyone anymore.

Crazy—I used to thrive when surrounded by people. The more, the better. But after being in juvenile detention for nine months and spending three in the wilderness taking part in an Outward Bound program for troubled teens, I’m more at ease by myself in front of a fire.

“They’ve all confirmed you’re walking out of all this with sealed records,” Axle continues.

He’s leaving out the part of how those records only remain sealed if I uphold my end of the plea deal—the agreement I made with the district attorney after I was arrested. I agreed to plead guilty, and the DA didn’t charge me as an adult and send me to hard-core prison. Considering we had no money for a lawyer to help prove my innocence, the deal sounded like the better of two bad options.

“You’re getting a massive second chance,” Axle says.

It was rotten luck that got me into this mess, but it happened at the right time. Our governor was searching for screwed-up teens to use for his pilot program. Someone high up in the world thought I stood a chance at turning my life around, but that second chance comes with a price. A price my brother is currently breaking down for me.

“This is a good thing. A blank slate. Not many people get one of those.”

Blank slate. That’s what I’m scared of. I may not have liked parts of the person I was before I was arrested, but at least I knew who I was. This blank slate, this chance to create someone new, scares me. This is a new type of pressure. At least I had a good excuse for being a delinquent before. Now, if I mess up, it’s because I’m truly broke.

The fire crackles then pops, and embers rise into the late May night. My younger sister laughs at the other end of the narrow yard near the aging shotgun house, and the sound is like an eight-eight beat with a high hat cymbal. It’s welcomed, and it’s the first time this feels like home.

She’s sixteen now, grown up faster than I’d prefer, and she’s one of the four people I love more than my own life. She’s also the only reason I’m still out here instead of holed up in my room. According to Axle, it was Holiday’s idea to set up the party.

Old Christmas lights are strung from one towering oak tree to the next, zigzagging green, red and blue across the yard. Most people brought their own chairs and a dish to share. My first meal as a free man and it’s hamburgers, hot dogs and potato salad. I don’t have the heart to tell her I would have given my left ball for a slice of thick crust pizza.

“She missed you,” Axle says, catching my train of sight.

“I missed her, too.” Those are my first words since we pulled in the driveway. I used to be the life of the party, but that was before, and as I said, I don’t know who I am anymore, so for now, I’m quiet.

“I missed you,” he says in such a low tone I barely catch it. “We weren’t the same without you.”

I take a deep breath because I’m not sure any of us will be the same again.

“Is that jerk still coming around?” I ask.

Axle watches Holiday as she punches my best friend, Dominic, in the shoulder. They’re both all smiles, and he places her in a fake headlock, but she easily slips away.

Then, because when one speaks of the devil, the devil appears, Holiday’s bastard ex-boyfriend shows up.

His black hair is in uneven waves, he’s wearing a Styx T-shirt like he has the right to claim anything related to rock ’n’ roll, and he has a smile that makes me want to knock his teeth into his throat. According to the therapy I went through this past year, I shouldn’t enjoy my sense of satisfaction at his crooked nose and scar. Those features were courtesy of my fist from my life before. He deserved it then for how he treated my sister. I’m betting he deserves it now.

Holiday beams when Jeremy slinks up beside her and wraps his arms around her waist like he’s too familiar with parts of her I’m going to pretend he’s never touched. Even though the kid has a slight build, he looks sickly white, especially against Holiday’s healthy glow and brown tone.

My sister looks a lot like her mother, at least in the pictures I’ve seen of Holiday’s mother when she was younger. She was a black woman with dancing eyes and a smile that could light up the darkest night. Holiday’s skin is lighter than her mother’s, but other than that, she’s a spitting image.

Jeremy eases my sister away from Dominic, away from the lights, away from anything good in the world. I can still see them in the shadows, and I consider re-breaking his nose.

“I thought you said she broke up with him.”

“She did,” Axle says. “Six months ago. But then he came crawling back two months ago claiming he’s changed. She took him back last week, and I told her there were rules. I’m going to need you to remember the rules. If she breaks them, then we’ll have to stand firm.”

A twenty-six-year old roofer, attending night school to be an EMT, and me, a seventeen-year-old juvenile delinquent, are now raising a just-turned sixteen-year-old. That’s got to be the picture of dysfunction. “Is one of those rules he can’t be within a hundred feet of her? A restraining order?”

“She swears he’s changed.”

Changed. That’s what I’m supposed to be. In the forest, the therapist talked forgiveness. Does it mean I haven’t changed because I don’t forgive the guy who made my sister cry?

“Did he change?”

Axle’s lips flatten, and he tosses a stick into the flames. Within seconds it’s engulfed and will soon be ashes. Yeah. That answer is a kick in the gut.

“I say too much, I push her away and into his arms,” Axle says.

I’m the living proof of this. I got into it with Holiday over this jerk before I was arrested, and the entire situation exploded in my face.

“I keep quiet, it’s like I’m the one auctioning off her soul. No one handed me a playbook on raising a teenager when Holiday’s grandmother signed custody over to me. Holiday didn’t have rules before. In my house, she does. The rest of it I’m playing by ear.”

I glance at my older brother out of the corner of my eye, waiting for him to explain that’s how he felt about me before I was arrested. Except, I wasn’t falling into the wrong person’s arms. I was the asshole parents hated.

“But you’re back,” Axle continues, “and you can help keep an eye on her. Moving her in full-time means I can finally set some boundaries. Rules. At least limit her time with him.”

“Think she’ll listen?” I ask. “To the rules?”

“She may not listen when it comes to Jeremy, but she listens to everything else.”

Translation—Holiday’s not me. “Are you laying down rules for me?”

Axle snorts. “Do you need them?”

Probably, but I only lift my fingers as a response.

“How about you don’t screw up again.”

“Got it.” At least I hope I do.

“What’s up, Axle. Drix.” A friend of mine from when I used to play gigs at local clubs offers Axle his hand and me a nod. The two of them exchange how are you’s and fine’s. I alternate between watching the flames of the fire licking up and glancing at them as they talk.

My older brother is now my court-appointed guardian. I did too many stupid things while living with Mom, and Dad’s not reliable. Axle is nine years older than me, has a decent job and inherited all the recessive responsible genes neither Mom nor Dad possessed.

Axle and I favor Dad. Dirty blond hair, dark eyes and we both used to be hard-core metal boys. I guess we still are when it comes to music, but not so much with style anymore. He has the tats up and down his arms, and earrings in his ears. Earrings and tats were never my thing, and I used to wear my hair to my shoulders where Axle has always kept his shaved close to the scalp.

First thing that happened when I entered juvenile detention was a shaved head. While mine’s not shaved anymore, it is cut close on the sides, has some length on top and naturally sticks up like I styled it on purpose. As Holiday told me when I walked in, I got the good boy cut with the bad boy stride.

Our friend leaves with a fist bump to Axle and a pat on the back to me. Way to go, bro. You survived time on the inside and then time on the outside in a forest.

“It’s weird not hearing you jump into a conversation,” Axle says.

It’s weird not being in the thick of things. Not being the one telling the story, sharing the joke, or the one in the crowd laughing the loudest. I used to be the guy who drank to get drunk, threw a punch, then threw too many punches, and then dealt with the guilt in the morning.

Thanks to one year of group therapy, I’m different now. Seven months of that therapy was while I was living behind bars, then the other three months of therapy was in the wilderness. Three months of hiking, three months of paddling along forgotten rivers, three months of climbing up and down mountains, three months of being too damned exhausted to remember who I had been before they handed me a backpack that weighed fifty pounds and too damned exhausted to even contemplate if that was a bad or good thing.

As much as I hated parts of who I had become after I went to live with Mom at fifteen, there were parts of me I liked. Don’t mind so much losing the bad, but there’s an uncomfortable shifting inside me at the thought that I also lost the good.

“How does this play out?” Axle asks. “How do I make this better for you? Easier?”

Axle isn’t talking about the party; he’s talking about living here with him and Holiday. He’s talking about how I readjust to parts of my old life and adjust into the new life the plea bargain has created. He’s talking about the thing we never mention aloud after the night I was arrested.

That we both think someone we know and love is the one who really committed the crime.

We both think it was Holiday working with Dominic or Dominic on his own, but neither of them could have survived being behind bars. I’m tough. I could handle the fallout, and all that mattered to me was that my family believed I was innocent. They did, but the police didn’t, and they had a crap load of evidence that pointed in my direction. This is where Axle would say he’s thankful for plea bargains.

“It’ll be good to have you playing again,” Axle continues, desperate to find the easier. “No one can play the drums like you.”

The drums. For months, I’ve dreamed about playing the drums. Being away from my family and the drums was the equivalent of someone chopping off my arms. Part of the reason I didn’t want this party was because I wanted to come home, go straight to the garage, sit in silence on my stool behind my set, then play. Feel the beat in my blood, the rhythm in my heart, the music filling an empty soul. Just me, my drums and the comfort in knowing that at least one good thing about me didn’t change.

But the thought of playing the drums also causes my stomach to dip. If I play again, do I become the same asshole that I was before?

“When is the press conference?” I ask.

Part of my penance, part of the deal, is that the state needed ten troubled teens, and out of those ten, they needed a poster child to prove to the public their hard-earned tax dollars were going to stop the school-to-prison pipeline. In other words, the voters need proof that this program could prevent teens, who don’t do well in school and get expelled, from wandering in and out of juvenile detention, and after eighteen, beelining it straight to prison.

Last year, Axle had lost his mind when the DA had mentioned if I didn’t accept the deal and plead guilty they would charge me as an adult. My brother then begged me to agree to anything they were offering, including them owning me for my senior year of high school. Appearing whenever they want, saying whatever they want, all while I keep my nose clean. Can’t say terror didn’t seize me at the thought of being charged as an adult. I might be strong, but real prison has never been on my bucket list.

Axle pops his knuckles, and my stomach sinks. I’m not going to like his answer.

“The press conference is tomorrow.”

Bullet to the head. “Where?”

“May Fest in Louisville. I guess they already had a general press conference planned, and when they found out you’d be out in time...” He trails off.

Makes sense to go from one prison sentence to another.

“It won’t be bad. They said they’ll have what you need to say written out. Ten minutes. Twenty, tops. I thought we’d all go together. Spend some time on the midway, bring a change of clothes for you, get it done and then we’ll head home.”

All in a neat package, to be done and repeated until I graduate from high school. That’s the deal, and it’s the deal I’ll see through. The only reason Axle agreed to take on custody of Holiday, getting her out of her crap situation, was because I agreed to come home and help him take on the burden. Financially, emotionally and whatever the hell else it requires to be a parent, since our biological parents can’t find their way out of a wet paper bag.

“Guess I should get a good night’s sleep, then,” I say.

“You probably should.”

But neither of us move. Instead we keep staring at my fire. Both amazed I created this. Both scared of what the future is going to bring.

Ellison

Fair midways are my happy place. Rides with merry, shrieking people are to my right, and to my left are the bells and lights of games.

Dad and Mom brought me to May Fest so I could be present for Dad’s press conference, and they allowed me a few hours this afternoon to explore. I should be in my zone, filled with so much joy I could combust, but I’m not. There are two guys who have been stalking me for the past five minutes, and they’re ruining my mood.

My cell buzzes in my hand, and I step away from the crowd and between two game booths to read the text. I’m hoping if I appear interested in my phone, the two boys will keep walking—away from me. I’m also expecting a text from my cousin Henry. He’s twenty-four to my seventeen, in the army and should be home any day now. It’s been too long since he’s been in Kentucky, and I miss my best friend and older “brother.”

To my complete happiness, it is Henry: I’ll be in state tonight. Can you drive down to Grandma’s tomorrow?

I sigh because I’d rather he put aside his differences with Dad and come home to stay with us during his leave, but I won’t push him on this...for now. Some things are best done in person.

Me: I should be able to. I have nothing planned then. I’m at May Fest now. Dad has a press conference later this afternoon.

Henry: Sounds like hell.

Me: It’s not so bad.

Henry: Liar.

Really, the press conference will be boring. The fund-raisers and campaign events are often soul crushing, but admitting so will only add fuel to Henry’s current anger at my father, so I switch subjects.

Me: I have good news.

Henry: What?

Me: I’m a finalist for the internship!!!!

Henry: That’s awesome! Congrats, Elle!

I’m smiling like a fool at my cell. Since this past spring, the last semester of my junior year, I’ve been competing for a final spot in the interview process for a four year college internship with a computer software company. I found out an hour ago via email that I’m in the final round, and Henry’s the first person I’ve told. It feels good to finally share the joy.

Because I wasn’t sure that I would make it as far as I have in the application process, my parents are on the dark side of the moon with all of it. Mom and Dad have high expectations of me, and lately, they’ve been disappointed that I haven’t truly shone in any area of my life. I’m good at things, and they know this, but they want me to be first place for once instead of third.

So now I need to tell them, and I need to tell them soon, since I’m required to have a signed permission slip for the next phase of the interview process. My parents might not be thrilled that I’ve omitted some critical goings-on of my life, but I’m hoping they can see past what I’ve been withholding and instead focus on my win.

“You really are beautiful,” a guy with a red baseball cap says from my right. He stinks of too much aftershave and a hint of alcohol.

Fantastic. They followed, and my texting didn’t tip them off to leave me alone.

I drop my cell into my purse, grab my bottle of Pepsi out of the side pocket and start walking again, praying that I’ll lose this jerk and his friend in the crowd. Yet they somehow have the uncanny ability to twist and weave through the fair’s packed midway to remain at my side. I try to ignore them.

Last week in an email, Henry challenged me to be happy, because lately a lot of the fund-raisers for Dad were making me miserable. Nothing makes me happier than thrill park rides, games and, because I’m feeling rebellious, a real Pepsi. My health nut of a mother abhors all things in cans.

Somewhere between exiting off the Himalayan and purchasing my drink, these two guys, Idiot One and Idiot Two, obtained the wrong idea that I wanted their company.

I’m a big girl and can take care of myself. Much to my mother’s dismay, Henry taught me how to throw a punch and knee a groin. But I’m not stupid enough to think that doing either of those things is going to impress my parents. In fact, it would infuriate them to the point of implosion.

The two annoying guys are a bit older, walk with that I’m-in-college swagger, and have that sharp-edged jaw of a frat boy with a money-to-burn-and-wallet-wielding daddy. I know the type as Henry was friends with many of them during high school and his two years of college.

“Hang out with us,” Idiot One says. “It’ll be fun.”

“I’m not interested,” I respond, “and I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone.”

Idiot Two, the non-baseball cap wearing one, steps into my path. “But you really are beautiful. Blond hair, blue eyes, kicking body beautiful.”

“I said no.”

“Have you considered you don’t know what you want? Come with us, and you won’t have to make a single decision. We’ll show you a whole new world. Listen to me, and I’ll make sure you have a great night, beautiful.”

Won’t have to make a single decision. Beautiful. He must believe there’s nothing in my skull beyond the beginnings of hair follicles.

My muscles tense, yet my perfectly practiced smile slips upon my face because Mom has told me to never let my anger leak out in public. I hate the word beautiful. Hate it. The word beautiful somehow gives the world permission to make wrongful assumptions about me, like that I don’t have a brain. Beautiful somehow gives men permission to say the phrase as a secret password in my direction, and I should therefore fall at their feet. Beautiful makes people believe they can say anything they want about or to me and that I shouldn’t be angry.

Nothing in the universe could be more wrong.

Disapproving of their existence, I force the smile higher and have a pretty good feeling that it’s starting to appear as nasty as my current thoughts. I then step out of the path of Idiot Two and over in the direction to my game of choice: Whack-A-Mole. There is a large snake calling my name, and I will be the victor.

Unfortunately, Idiot One and Idiot Two have never been taught kindergarten social cues, and they follow.

“You look familiar,” one of them says, and my internal warning system flares.

For most people, I’m a case of déjà vu. One of those big, white fancy furry cats that crosses their path more than once, and it causes their mind to glitch. I’m not nearly famous enough that people follow me on the streets, but I’m more of a mere shadow of a newspaper clipping memory: I’m the governor’s daughter.

Best course of action? Push them away. It would mortify my mother, but if, for some strange reason, she learns of this, I’ll claim it as an accident.

I glance over my shoulder as I loosen the cap on my Pepsi. “Really? Who do I remind you of?”

“I can’t remember. A movie star maybe?” Idiot One brightens like me responding means I agreed to strip naked in the back seat of his car and have sex. Me hooking up with them is somehow a reality in their pathetic lives. I’m half wondering what their success rate is, and if it is high, there should be a mandated course on how girls are to avoid guys like them.

“Which movie star?” I spin on my toes, “accidentally” lose my footing, fall forward and my much-anticipated Pepsi becomes a sacrificial lamb. Brown fluid drips down the shirts of both boys, because I’m just talented that way.

“Oh, my gosh.” Hand to my mouth, fake wide eyes. “I’m so sorry. You should go dry off. Get some napkins. There are a million sweat bees here, and if you don’t clean up, they’ll swarm.”

Death stare in my direction complete with splotched red face from Idiot Two. “You did that on purpose.”

Yes, I did, and it’s hard not to smile when the first sweat bee lands on his arm. Sting, buddy. Just do it. I’ll forever be grateful if you cause him pain.

“Come on.” Idiot One places a hand on Idiot Two. “Let’s go.”

My fingers flicker in a shoo motion, and I finally turn my back to them. They can either go clean themselves up or die of sweat bee stings. Either option works for me. Now, it’s time for me to be normal for a few minutes. Well, to be normal and win. I’m sure normal people are also highly competitive.

* * *

The red light in front of me flashes, bells ring and I raise my arms in the air, savoring my victory. I even mimic the dance I performed in my limited and excruciatingly failed days as a cheerleader for Pee Wee football by slightly swinging my hips side to side.

I split my “v,” I dot my “i,”, I curl my “ctory.” Pee Wee football cheer taught me I not only lacked rhythm, but I lacked enthusiasm for my team when it was thirty degrees and raining. But in my defense, how many six-year-olds love cold rain?

The group next to me toss their padded mallets onto the game. Only one groans as if their loss was monumental. The rest laugh and good-naturedly tease each other. They’ve been fun to beat. For three games in a row, these two rugged guys and two girls have hung with me. Three times digging into their pockets to ante up, three times we’ve trash-talked the other in ways that are only done on fair midways, three times each one bites the dust.

Whack-A-Mole is not for the faint at heart. This game is for the serious, and only the serious win, and I’m a serious type of girl when it comes to carnival games and hard-earned stuffed animals. Someone’s got to play and win, and it’s going to be me.

For a few minutes I forgot I had to be perfect, and being just me felt great.

“Good game.” One girl of the group offers me her fist, and the multiple bracelets on her wrist clank. She’s my age, has curly black hair in tight rings and friendly dark eyes. Her clothes, I love. Tight jeans, a tank that ends at her midriff and a jeweled chain around her flat, brown stomach that’s attached to her belly button ring. She has a daring grin and style. Both I admire.

I’m not the type to fist-bump, and by how long I’ve hesitated, the girl’s aware this is out of my territory. I finally do fist-bump her, though, because I’m not only highly competitive, but I rarely back down from a challenge. For those reasons alone, it’s amazing my mother lets me out of the house. “Good game.”

Her grin widens, and I hold my breath as she tilts her head in that familiar déjà vu. I silently pray for her to shake it off, and when she does, turning so she can talk to her friends, I blow out a relieved breath.

Most of her group appears to be the same age as her, about the same age as me, except one guy who I’d hedge is in his twenties. By the way they all listen when he talks, it’s apparent he has their respect.

I watch them longer than I should because a part of me envies the way they all seem to belong to each other. Henry is twenty-four and loves me, but about the only thing we have in common is my parents, and he hasn’t talked to them in two years.

The carnie clears his throat, and I’m drawn back to the sounds of people laughing on rides and the scent of popcorn. I offer the pink-and-black-striped medium snake I’ve already won to him and motion with my index finger that I’m on the hunt for the massive, big daddy snake that could wrap around my body a few times. To the victor goes the spoils.

The carnie doesn’t accept my medium snake and instead hands me a green-and-black-striped small one. “You have to win four times in a row in order to get the big one.”

Four times. Good God. At five dollars a game, I could have bought five of these hardened toys, but that’s not the point. Winning is the actual prize.

I pull my cell out of the small purse I have crossed over my body. I ignore Andrew’s “Where are you?” texts and check the time. I’ve got an hour to make it back to the convention center, change and be ready for Dad’s press conference where it is my job to sit, smile and “look pretty.”

If I’m really careful, there won’t be time for my mother to berate me for taking off without Andrew. He’s a friend of the family a few years older than me, and my mother chose him to “babysit” me for the afternoon. She allowed me to go to the midway with the understanding I was to tag along with him. But I don’t like Andrew and Andrew doesn’t like me, so I turned right while he walked left and neither of us looked back to see if the other was following. Maybe Andrew will rat me out that I abandoned him. Maybe he won’t. Either way, I’m happy with my choices.

Any way I look at it, I have time for at least one more game. I flip my blond hair over my shoulder and give a tempting grin that’s meant to rub it in that I not only won, but won three times in a row. “You know you guys want to play again.”

You know you hate being beaten by me.

From the expressions of the guys, I pegged them correctly. The girls...I could totally become best friends with because they knowingly laugh at their expense.

“I’ll play.” It’s a small voice belonging to a child, and my smile falls. Long unruly ringlets over a chubby preschool face. She stands on her tiptoes to hand money to the carnie, and he accepts it without giving her a second glance. “I’m going to win this time. I have to. Daddy says it’s my last game.”

The aforementioned daddy hands another five dollars to the carnie worker and picks up a mallet next to his daughter’s spot. Ugh. Knife straight to the heart as he throws me a pleading glance. He wants her to win. He needs her to win. He wants me to help her win.

I totally hate being conned, but if I’m going to lose, it will be to a five-year-old.

“Are you going to play?” the carnie asks me because it’s his job to make money. I want to answer no, but because I was once five and my father did the same thing for me, I fork over my five dollars, then tilt my head in a princess-worthy stare over at the boys.

It takes four to play, and I need one of them to lose so this kid can win. They glance at each other, waiting to see which one is going to man up.

“Your ego can handle being beaten by a five-year-old,” I say.

A guy in their group that had been hanging back strides up. “I’ll play.”

For a second, there’s a flutter in my chest, the lightest touch of butterfly wings. I secretly wish this guy would chance a look in my direction, but he doesn’t. Instead he hands the carnie five dollars and claims the spot next to me.

Wow. I’m definitely okay with this.

He’s taller than me and he’s in worn blue jeans. His white T-shirt stretches against his broad shoulders, and he’s gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. The defined muscles in his arms flex as he switches the mallet from one hand to another, and I’ve stopped breathing. His blondish brown hair is shaved close on the sides, but the rest of his longer hair is in complete disarray. His freshly shaved face reminds me of a modern day version of James Dean, and everything about him works well. Very well.

I’m staring, I need to stop and he’s also aware that I’m staring and haven’t stopped. He turns his head, our eyes meet and those butterflies lift into the air. Warm brown eyes. That’s when I’m finally scared into having the courage to glance away. But I peek back and sort of smile to find he’s now looking at me like he can’t stop.

For the first time in my life, I like that someone is looking. Not someone—him. I like that he’s looking at me.

“We let her win,” I whisper.

He nods, and I lift my mallet. It’s tough to not get into position—to be poised and ready to strike. I love this game, I love winning, and losing to be nice is all fine and good, but I have to fight the instinct to go full throttle.

“You’re good at this,” he says.

“I play this game a lot. At every fair and festival I can. It’s my favorite. If there were an Olympic event for Whack-A-Mole, I would be a gold medalist several times over.”

If only that were enough to make my parents proud—or to make a living at when I graduate from college.

“Then I’m in the presence of Whack-A-Mole royalty?” The laughter in his eyes is genuine, and I watch him long enough to see if he knows who I am. Some people do. Some people don’t. I’ve learned to read the expression of recognition, and he has no clue who I am.

My body relaxes. “Totally.”

One corner of his mouth edges up, and I become tongue-tied. That is possibly the most endearing and gorgeous grin I’ve seen. He twirls the handle of the mallet around in his fingers, and I’m drawn by the way he makes the motion seem so seamless.

This incredible fantastic humming begins below my skin. To be brutally honest, I’m not sure what attraction is. My experience with boys has been limited, but whatever this is, I want to feel it again and on every level of my being.

The bell rings, my heart jumps and I inhale when the worn plastic moles pop up from the holes. The instinct is to knock the hell out of them, but the tinkling laughter of the little girl farther down causes me to pull back. I hit one. Then another. I have to score something. She needs to think we at least tried.

The guy next to me hits a few moles, but in a rhythm. A crazy one. A catchy one. One that my foot taps along with. The bell rings, the little girl squeals and my hopes of winning the large snake die.

A chirp of my cell, and I immediately text back my mother: Still at the midway. Heading back now.

Mom: Hurry. I think we should curl your hair for the event.

My hair, my outfit. That’s what’s important to her. I squish my lips to the side. It took her an hour this morning to decide she wanted me to wear it straight. Then it took her another hour to decide what I should wear on the midway, in case I should be recognized. Then there was the painstaking additional hour to decide what I should wear to the press conference.

When I look up, disappointment weighs down my stomach. The boy—he’s gone. Not really gone, but gone from beside me. He’s rejoined his group, standing with them and belonging. I will him to glance one more time my way, but he doesn’t.

That’s okay. I’m just a girl on a midway, he’s just a boy on a midway and not everything has to end like a daydream. Truth is, once he found out what my world is really like, he’d have taken off running.

But I have to admit, it would have been nice if he had at least asked for my name.

Hendrix

Holiday smacks my arm and wrath owns her eyes. “Why didn’t you talk to her?”

I glance around at my family—Axle, Holiday, my best friend, Dominic, and his younger sister, Kellen. I’m searching for at least one of them to have my back and tell her to step off, but instead they’re curious for the answer. Even Axle’s giving me a questioning gaze, and the last thing my womanizing brother deserves is an explanation from me in my decisions regarding women.

Last time I was home, his reputation was as bad as Dad’s, minus the progeny. There are three siblings in this family, and we have three different birth mothers. Dad not only didn’t know how to use a condom, but he didn’t know how to stay true to one woman.

“I talked to her.”

My younger sister throws her arms out and drops her voice to what I’m assuming is to mimic me, but I don’t sound like an idiot. “You’re good at this.” She resumes her normal tone which is entering high-pitched. “Seriously? That’s all you’ve got? Did you get some sort of amoeba that eats your brain while hanging out in juvie?”

I fold my arms over my chest and wonder if my sister can read pissed-off body language.

“You can still catch the girl and talk to her,” Holiday continues, proving she doesn’t care I’m silently informing her to quit. “Don’t make me chase her for you because that would be embarrassing. Embarrassing for you. Not me. I’ll have to tell her you sent me, and because you’re a wuss, I’ll have to ask her out for you like we’re in sixth grade.”

I find myself missing the middle of nowhere. Trees, bonfires, mosquitoes, mud, bears...company that didn’t talk.

“She’s out of my league.” I haven’t spoken truer words in months. She was beautiful. She was poised. She was a cool breeze after a hot humid rain. She was that first ray of sunshine in the dark woods. She was the smell of honeysuckle in bloom. She was the first damn thing that made me forget who I am and what I’ve gotten myself into over the past year. That means she was out of my league.

Granted, she was out of my league before I was arrested. Everything from her manicured nails, to her brand-name clothes, to her high-end purse, to the way she held herself said she was about a hundred times higher on the social and economic spectrum than me, but the person I was before would have made the play because I was smooth—just like my father.

“She is not out of your league.” Holiday hounds me. “She smiled at you. I know when a girl likes what she sees, and she liked what she saw in you.”

Tension builds in my neck. Yeah, the girl smiled, but she didn’t know what she was smiling at. I’m a pretty façade on the outside. On the inside, I’m a house of cards teetering on a bad foundation.

Axle throws an arm around Holiday’s shoulder and edges her away. “Let’s get some food. Drix is going to have to talk soon, and we don’t want him to do it on an empty stomach. Passing out on TV isn’t a great first impression.”

Wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?

“Hamburger?” Axle calls as he walks backward for the food truck. “With everything?”

I nod. My brother knows me...at least who I used to be.

“I’m agreeing with Holiday on this,” comes a deep rough voice to my right. “Pathetic.”

I do a slow head turn toward my best friend and cock an eyebrow at an even slower rate.

He smirks at my expression. “We picked a game we always let you win, and you didn’t even try.”

They picked that game because I used to kick their asses at it, and they were trying to get me to be the old Drix. But I only offer one sloppy lift of my shoulder because I don’t know how to explain that it’s tough to engage.

“It’s creepy hanging with you,” Dominic continues. “It’s like you’re the Walking Dead. I’m half expecting someone to jump out with a samurai sword and slice out your heart.”

“Brain,” Kellen corrects as she adjusts the Spider-Man beanie on her head. It’s a hundred degrees outside, and she wears that hat like it’s thirty below. “They’d take out his brain.”

“That, too.”

Dominic and Kellen stand side by side. Siblings who look and act nothing alike, except for their attachment to me and my family.

Kellen’s barely sixteen, the baby of our group. She’s blond braids with black bows at the ties, and she wears her beloved fitted black Captain America T-shirt and worn jeans with rips. It’s weird seeing her with lip gloss and eye shadow. I’m betting that would be Holiday’s doing, but at least Kellen’s somewhat the same.

Since we were kids playing baseball in the street, Kellen’s been a sucker for a comic book hero. It gives the possibility to her that the world might make sense. Good guys in one corner. Bad guys in the other. It’s how Kellen found her way to survive in a very gray household.

Something about her makes me feel protective. Maybe it’s how Dominic hovers over her. Maybe it’s because Kellen still has the limp from a bad bone break she got when she was eight. Maybe because playing hero to her might make me redeemable.

“I’m the Walking Dead because I didn’t play a game?” I ask.

Dominic jerks his thumb toward the game. “Because you didn’t hit on the girl.”

The girl no longer needs to be part of our conversation. I liked her. She liked me. I’m on parole for a crime I didn’t commit. A plus B doesn’t equal C in this equation.

“And you only played after we lost. How much did we lose? Three games, five dollars a shot. That would be...”

“Fifteen dollars,” Kellen says, the math freak that she is. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the hell out of her for it. I’ll also admit her nonstop ticking brain scares me. Someone that smart is going to take over the world—in a lab-coat, stroking-a-cat, manic-laughter type of way.

“Fifteen dollars,” Dominic echoes. “Times five.”

“Seventy-five dollars,” Kellen pops in.

“Seventy-five dollars in total. Just to get you to play.”

“I never said I wanted to play,” I say.

“But I wanted that snake. That girl is walking away with my prizes. You’ve been gone a year, and you can’t help a brother out? That would have completed my collection.”

“He needed the pink one,” Kellen adds.

“See, my world is now incomplete.”

Dominic grins, and I can’t help the automatic grin in return. It feels strange on my face, especially when joking with him used to be as natural as breathing.

Where Kellen makes me feel like I need to clear the path, Dominic is a category five tornado; a broad-shouldered brick wall. He has to be for the neighborhood we grew up in. He has to be because his home is even worse, and he considers himself the protector of him and his sister.

The deep scar across his forehead tells one of many war stories. So does the long one on his arm from a surgery when he was ten. He has black hair, blue eyes and is a good guy to have in a tough spot. My best friend is cool on the outside, but deep down he’s two pieces of uranium always on a collision course. He’s volatile. Too many emotions and nowhere safe to store them. They stew until there’s an explosion, and Dominic hates explosions. He hates fallouts. Most of all—he hates tight spaces.

But he loves a guitar, loves music, and from all the letters and emails he sent while I was gone, he loves me. Kellen, Dominic and I are more than friends. We’re family, and I’ve missed my family.

“You let us down,” Dominic continues. “We got beat by some little blonde, and she was a sore winner. And the worst part? I didn’t hit on her because she smiled at you, you smiled at her, and I thought you were settling in and returning to playing the game.”

“You didn’t hit on her because she would have laid you out flat with her no.” I mock a jab to his jaw. “That girl was fireworks.”

Kellen smiles at the dig, Dominic snorts, and a heaviness avalanches onto me. There’s a pause they’re waiting for me to fill because that’s what I used to do: announce what’s next, but I don’t have a next. This should be easier than what it is, and I hate that it’s not.

“Dominic,” Axle calls from a food truck. “Get over here and help.”

Kellen starts before Dominic does because where she goes, Dominic does, too.

Dominic steps forward then stops. His shoulder next to mine. Us facing two different directions. It’s the first time we’ve been alone since before I was arrested, and I lower my head as the two million things I’ve wanted to say to him become stuck in my throat.

With the way he sucks in a breath, he’s feeling the same.

My heart beats faster at what he might say and what I might say in return. Did he do the crime? If so, will he confess? What about beyond the crime? Will he bring up how he screwed me over the night I was arrested? Does he have the balls to explain how he left me high and dry, and will he apologize for that? If he does, can I forgive him? Because I’ve struggled with that—forgiveness. It’s not something that occurs naturally for me.

Dominic angles his head so he’s looking at me, waiting for me to lock eyes with him, but I can’t. I watch the blonde as she walks the midway. She’s beautiful. Possibly the most beautiful girl who’s talked to me. When she smiled at me, it was like I was being warmed by the sun, and I was her only planet. What I envy is that she seems to know where she’s going, where she’s headed in life. I’ve never been so jealous of anyone.

“I’m going to make this up to you,” he says.

Sharp pain in the chest. Of all the ways I saw this moment playing out, those weren’t the words I imagined. It’s not an apology for leaving me behind. It’s not an admittance of guilt. It’s a promise.

In my final therapy session in the woods, sitting next to a bonfire I created, my therapist asked what would help me transition back into the real world. I told him I needed the truth. He told me there’s no such thing, but he did tell me that forgiveness was real.

Forgiveness. In my mind, forgiveness and the truth go hand in hand.

“Why did you leave me behind that night?” I ask because I’ve waited a year for that answer, and I can’t wait anymore. Not if Dominic and I are going to be friends again. “We had a pact—never leave one of us behind, and you left. Why?”

“I thought you went home.”

“I didn’t, and you need to admit you didn’t try to find me. Something big had to have happened for you to have ditched me. What was it?” Or did he really think I was gone from the store and saw that as his opportunity to rob it?

“Dominic!” Kellen calls, and she’s juggling several drinks. “I need help.”

Yes, his sister needs help, but I need help, too. I look straight into his eyes, and there’s no way he doesn’t see the plea in them to talk to me, but he doesn’t talk. Instead, Dominic pats my back and heads to help his sister.

That night, Dominic had walked me to the convenience store, and dared me to shoplift, but then disappeared, and I passed out behind the store. I was too drunk and too high to know my own name, and he left. Disappearing, leaving anyone he loved behind, wasn’t his style, but he was desperate for money. Did his desperation cloud his judgment when it came to me and our friendship?

And that night, Holiday was closer to the crime scene than I had known. Both of them had something to gain, both of them felt as if they had nothing to lose and both of them had motive.

But it’s hard to imagine Holiday holding a gun. Dominic, on the other hand, he was capable of aiming a gun, and at the time, he was crazy enough to pull the trigger.

Good thing that bullet missed the store clerk or I would have been charged with more than robbery with a weapon and attempted assault. Manslaughter would have messed up my day—for twenty years.

Do I know for sure Dominic did it? No. There’s a chance my sister let her ramped-up emotions control the decisions for her that night and that she talked Dominic into it. But 80 percent of me believes it was him alone—my best friend—and I don’t know how to live with that yet.

Ratting him out to the police was never an option, because no matter what, I love him. Dominic can’t handle tight spaces, and I could. Dominic wouldn’t have survived. I did. I roll my shoulders, but the tightness in my neck doesn’t go away. How can I forgive someone who won’t admit guilt? How can I forgive when I don’t know who to forgive?

Axle joins me. “We found a table over by the merry-go-round.”

Soon I have to announce to the world I’m a criminal, even though I’m not. Sealed records and the truth won’t mean anything once I open my mouth in front of reporters. Guess the therapist was right on the truth. It doesn’t exist.

“I need a few minutes to myself.” Food doesn’t sound appealing anymore.

“I’ve got your dress clothes in the car. Meet there in a half hour?”

“Yeah.”

Axle returns to our family, and I walk forward, in the same direction as the blonde. Her path has to be better than mine.

Ellison

Idiot One and Idiot Two have made a reemergence, and like all things that have died and have been brought back like a zombie, they return more grotesque than before. The dumb duo call out taunts as they follow. Each shout more degrading than the last, each shout causing my blood to heat to the point of melting steel.

“Are you one of those girls?” one calls out. “The type who needs to be shown what to do? Come here, and I’ll show you exactly how it’s done.”

They both laugh, congratulating the other for their wittiness. My fists clench, and I glance over my shoulder. Idiot One slides his hand down to his crotch and says, “Don’t you know a guy’s—” ringing of a game next to me “—goes into...”

His comment is muffled by the screams of people on the Tilt-A-Whirl, but I can read his lips, spot what he’s grabbing at, and tears burn my eyes. I could smack myself. Tears. I’m so incredibly mad my eyes are filling with tears because that’s what happens when I get furious, and that only causes me to get angrier.

I swipe at my cell and text Andrew. Where are you?

Andrew: Midway crowded. Still on my way to you.

More frustrated tears that I lowered myself to asking Andrew for help, but it’s either that or tell the college boys off in a very public way. My instincts are informing me another Pepsi bath will cause them to morph into Satan’s grandchildren.

I scan the area, hoping for an ally, but there’s no one who seems interested in the position beyond a few moms whose hot expressions suggest they’d shoot the guys behind me if they had a carry-and-conceal license.

But those moms have children, and their job is to protect them. The rest of the crowd fleetingly glimpse at me then at the jerks, but choose to remain silent. There’s this unwritten code in society that tells us not to get involved.

Options:

Stay the course, continue to listen to their taunts and eventually reach Andrew, so I can keep up the appearance of being a sane person.

Destroy my pride and run while people stare.

Grab that baseball on the game ledge, throw the ball straight and hard like Henry taught me, hope it knocks one of them out and then inform the other one in really big words I not only know, but can spell, the exact route he can take to hell.

The third option is my favorite, it’s the one that is my most honest reaction down to the core of my being, but doing that will disappoint everyone but Henry. I promised Mom and Dad I would never lose my temper in public, that I would never let my emotions crack beyond the surface.

“Hey, you!” one of the guys calls. “Let me show you a girl’s mouth is for—”

Another round of happy screams from a ride, yet I catch the tail end of his statement. My body whiplashes forward as my feet abruptly become concreted to the ground. The sights and sounds of the midway fade, and all I hear is buzzing. I close my eyes as more pissed-off tears fill my eyes. Why won’t they go away?

“You okay?” a guy asks.

I open my eyes and focus on the ground. My eyes are red, I know they are. I can feel the puffiness of my skin. I take a deep breath, look up to explain I’m okay, and freeze.

Holy hell. It’s the boy from Whack-A-Mole. He’s so much more breathtaking this close, and I have no idea how that’s possible.

“Are those guys bothering you?” he asks.

My forehead furrows. Yes, they are, but telling him the truth and inviting him into my problems seems wrong.

“Since you’re so talkative, I’ll start the conversation,” he says. “If you want to get rid of those guys then stand here and talk to me, and I’ll stand here and talk to you. You can smile like you know me because it’s tough to make me smile, and it will seem fake. Then I can try to win you a stuffed animal. Won’t be a snake, but it will do. Those losers will catch on we’re friends. Eventually, they’ll keep walking, and then they’ll return to their loser frat house where they’ll play with themselves for the rest of the night because they don’t know how to properly talk to a girl.”

I blink because all thought processes have taken a mini break. Either that or I’m having a stroke.

“Just a smile. Maybe a few mumbled words. Tell me anything. Doesn’t have to be poetic. Just your lips moving in my direction without your current blank expression.”

I blink again, many times, as the sights, sounds and smells of the midway blast back as if someone had pushed the play button on my life. I flash the perfectly practiced public smile I’ve used too many other times in my life.

“I don’t know how to get them to leave me alone.” I pause, then the bitterness leaks out as well as a grim grin. “At least not without a baseball and a well-placed throw. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to continue their genetics.”

The right side of his mouth tips up, and my eyes narrow on him. “I thought you didn’t smile easily.”

“I have a twisted sense of humor, and I didn’t think a girl like you could make me laugh. You’ve done it twice now. That’s a record for the past year.”

I bristle, still on the dangerous edge of anger. “A girl like me?”

“Yeah, one that’s out of my league. Listen, if you want to get out of this situation without it escalating, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll take a step back, and you can do whatever you need. I’m all about helping, but I’m not looking to get into a fight. Your call on how this goes down, but if it’s violence, you’re on your own.”

He says he doesn’t want to partake in violence, but there’s an essence about him that says he could drop anyone at any time and do it without breaking a sweat.

He’s looking at me, I’m looking at him, and the flutter in my chest returns. “Thank you for the offer, but I can take care of myself.”

Sure can. Just need that ball, a good throw, and then my mother will be seriously ticked off. I’m tired of people like those guys, and I’m also tired of pretending to be perfect. I rub my eyes at the exhaustion caused by the combination of both.

“Don’t doubt you can,” he says, “but you really think they’re going to back off if you give them a reaction? And if you keep walking, do you think they’re going to leave you alone? They aren’t some third grade bully who’ll run when you sock him in the nose, and ignoring them isn’t working either. Guys like them get high off your anger, get off on your fear. Trust me on this one. I’ve spent almost a year in the presence of some real assholes.”

“Why are you helping me?”

He lifts one shoulder like he doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t care he has an answer, yet he answers anyway, “I have a younger sister. You met her earlier.”

It’s not an explanation, but it is, and he inclines his head to the game. I move to stand in front of it, and as I go to retrieve money from my pocket, he shakes his head, and pulls out his wallet. “It’s on me.”

The anger that had been boiling in me retreats because him paying for this game feels old-school James Dean. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, but don’t expect much from me. Odds are I’m going to lose.”

The urge is to perform a sweep of the area to see where my tormentors have settled. Predators like that don’t give up easily on their prey.

“They’re off to our right,” he says as if reading my mind. “Next to the popcorn stand, but don’t look at them. Don’t give them the satisfaction of knowing they have power over you.”

“They don’t have power over me.”

“Good.” He lays five dollars on the table. The carnie takes a long look at him and then a long look at me as if we’re a defunct science experiment, and eventually places three balls on the ledge.

The two of us are different. Complete sliding scale different. The only thing we have in common, as far as I can tell, is that he appears about my age and that we are both wearing shoes. My sandals to his scuffed combat boots. His sagging jeans with rips and white T-shirt to my ironed khaki shorts and fitted blue top. My diamond earrings and gold bracelet with a heart charm to his black belt that has metal studs and silver chain that hangs from his belt loop to his wallet.

By looks, I should have more in common with the loser college boys, but it’s this guy I’m comfortable with. “What’s your name?”

He throws the ball, and he’s right, he sucks at it. While he has unbelievable power, his aim’s completely off. The ball hits the back curtain with a loud thud, then drops to the floor. “Drix.”

“Drix?” I repeat to make sure I heard him correctly.

“Drix. It’s short for Hendrix. Like Jimi Hendrix.”

“That’s cool.” Because it is.

I wait for him to ask for my name, but he doesn’t. Instead he says, “Are you here alone?”

He throws the second ball, and this time he hits the top of the three bottles, sending that one to the ground.

“No. My parents are here. I’m supposed to meet them at the convention center. What about you? What happened to the people you were with? Or are you here alone now?”

“Yes, but no.” Drix pulls his arm back, releases the ball and when the ball hits the bottom bottles, my heart lifts with the idea that he won, but only one of the bottles goes flying. The other stays completely untouched.

He turns in my direction, but his gaze roams over my shoulder, then flickers to the left. Drix then glances behind him, and when he returns his attention to me he raises his eyebrows. “They appear to be gone.”

That’s awesome news, but I’m still stuck on his answer of “yes, but no.” Honestly, I’m stuck on him. He’s a million questions without a single answer, and he makes me incredibly curious. “My parents weren’t thrilled about me hanging out alone at the midway, but I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. It’s just Whack-A-Mole, you know?”

“And a ball toss.”

“And a ball toss. None of it should have been complicated.”

“Shouldn’t have been.”

“Elle!” Part of me is relieved to see Andrew craning his neck over the crowd. Another part of me is majorly disappointed. There aren’t many times in my life I’m left alone. Not many times I’m able to explore new places and people without someone hovering and not many opportunities when I would meet someone like Drix.

“Elle,” Andrew calls again. I wave at him, hoping it will buy me a few seconds, and he waves back in a way that tells me he needs me to walk in his direction. That works well for me.

“Is that a friend of yours?” Drix asks.

“Yes, but no.” I borrow his answer because it’s apropos. Andrew’s a few years older. More friend of our family than a personal friend of mine, and I don’t like the idea of explaining that my parents think I need a babysitter.

Drix’s mouth twitches at my words, and my lips also edge upward. “I just made you smile a third time. Is this a Guinness Book of World Records thing?”

“I liked your answer.”

“I’m just creative like that.”

This time, there’s a short chuckle, and I like that sound almost more than I like him smiling. I kick at a rock before gathering my courage to meet his eyes again. “Thank you for helping me out.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I’m waiting, and I don’t have much time. He needs to ask my name. He needs to ask for my number. I’ll give him both—in a nanosecond. “I’ve got to go.”

“It was nice to meet you,” he says with all the smooth edginess that can only belong to a gentle rebel. It’s like his voice was created to slay unsuspecting hearts.

Adrenaline courses through my veins because if I do this and he rejects me, I might as well tattoo a big fat L to my forehead and die of humiliation. “I’ll give you my number if you want or you can give me yours...if you’d like. If you’d like to talk again or...hang. My name’s Elle, by the way.”

Drix rubs the back of his head like what I said made him uncomfortable, and I seriously want to crawl behind the game and die. I’m being rejected.

“Look.” He hesitates, and my entire body flashes sickeningly vomit hot. “I meant what I said earlier. You’re out of my league. Way out of my league. And it would be easy for you to think I’m a good guy because I stepped in.”

And because he paid money to let a little kid win, but hey...who’s keeping score?

Me. I’m keeping score.

“I just got home from being gone for a year, and I’m only interested in making friends. Besides, I don’t want you to think I stepped in because I wanted your number. I ask for your number, and it’ll come off that I’m saving the day to get something out of it. That’s not why I did it. I stepped in because not all guys are assholes.”

His voice just doesn’t melt hearts, his words do, too, and this guy doesn’t want my number. As far as rejections go, it could have gone worse.

“Let’s go, Elle.” Andrew cups both of his hands to his mouth. The sand must be narrowing down in the hourglass.

“Well...” Find something graceful. “Thanks for stepping in when you did...both times.”

Drix inclines his head, and his dark eyes soften in such a way that I may as well become a puddle on the ground. “Anytime.”

Why doesn’t the world have a million guys like this? That should be one of my father’s political agendas—create more gentlemen.

Drix turns away from me and walks toward the midway. I stay rooted to the spot because I don’t want this moment to end. Some people live their whole lives for the past few minutes I just had, and I want to savor it a little longer.

This time, though, he glances over his shoulder to look at me. I smile. He smiles. That would make it number four. Guess I’m just talented like that, and then with a sigh, I leave.

Hendrix

“Let me make sure I have this correct.” Cynthia leans forward, places her elbows on the table and has this starry-eyed take-me-to-bed expression that’s going to get me into trouble. So far, my brother isn’t nibbling the bait, but I don’t have much luck left. Axle hooking up with someone involved in my future won’t do me any favors.

“You’ve taken on custody of not only Hendrix, but your younger sister, as well?”

Axle is in the folding chair next to me, and he draws his long legs in as she edges farther in his direction. Cynthia introduced herself as my “handler” when we arrived ten minutes ago for the press conference. She’s in a pink dress top, black pants and suit coat, and she’s good-looking. Not as beautiful as Elle, though. Not as charismatic either.

My lips slightly edge up at remembering the fire in her eyes when she described her idea of taking out those guys with a baseball. I almost stepped back because I wanted to see her do it.

Have to admit, the girl put the fear of God into me. She had the most intimidating blue eyes. Eyes that made my heart pound, eyes that made me feel like she saw past my skin and into every crack, crevice and shadow. Eyes that made me feel alive. Eyes that also made me want to hide.

Girls like that are one in a billion. Shots with girls like that are even rarer. Another tally mark in the column of things I lost.

Cynthia laughs too loudly, and my brother and I share a side-eye-what-the-hell because Axle’s comment about feeling too young to be a dad wasn’t funny.

For the fifth time since I put on the white button-down shirt, black dress pants and tie, I pull at the collar. Between the humidity and the pressure at my neck, I feel like I’m choking. The convention center is air-conditioned, but there’s also a thousand people worth of body heat.

We’re sitting at a table near center stage. When Axle and I first got here, a group of kids were tap-dancing. They’ve left, so have their parents, and now reporters with cameras are preparing for the press conference. Time feels like it’s speeding up while my thoughts are slowing down.

“Yes,” Axle says to bring the conversation back around. “To taking on Holiday and Drix.”

“You’re so giving.” Cynthia twirls her black hair around her finger. She’s about Axle’s age, and I don’t know if it should bother me how inexperienced she acts for her job. Flirting with the older brother of the person you’re in charge of should be at the top of the Don’t Do playbook. “Not many people would give up so much of their life for their family.”

I can’t argue with that, but I’d still like her to leave us alone.

“How does your girlfriend feel about all this?”

Axle’s chair squeaks when he scoots back. “I’m single.”

“I didn’t know. Sorry.” Cynthia appears anything but sorry as she scribbles a few notes. “I know you said your father is out of the picture. How about Hendrix’s mother?”

“They both gave custody to me,” Axle says.

“I’m aware, but are they both out of the picture?”

“Legally,” Axle answers, and I glance at him from the corner of my eye. He and I haven’t talked about my mom or our dad yet. I haven’t heard from Mom since my first month in juvie. Odds are she’s drinking away her problems. That’s where she was before I moved in with her, and where she was while I lived with her. Can’t imagine that’s changed. For Dad—Axle, Holiday and I have never been more than playmates for when he was alone and bored.

“Legally?” Raised eyebrow on her part.

“They won’t be problems.”

Satisfied with the answer, she moves on. “Do you want to run through what you’re going to say again, Hendrix?”

I didn’t want to go through it the first time. “No.”

Cynthia’s cell vibrates. She checks the message then lands her narrowed gaze on me. “You say exactly what’s on that sheet. Feel free to read from it onstage. No one expects you to have it memorized. We will open it up to the press, and I have two reporters who have agreed to ask my questions. I have a few prepared answers typed up for you. Memorize those so you can rattle them off. Those I don’t want you to read from the paper.”

Axle frowns. “That happens? People are okay with you prepping the media?”

She waves his question away. “It’s not something we do often, but we do want to seem transparent with this program. With Hendrix only being seventeen, we have two reporters who agreed to take it easy on him and ask simple questions. Oh, and, Axle, make sure you give me Hendrix’s cell number.”

“I don’t have a cell,” I say.

“I know.” A bat of her eyelashes at Axle. “The moment you get it, Axle, I need that number. I have to be able to reach Hendrix to give him plans. But, of course, I’ll use your cell in the meantime. And, Hendrix?”

Axle’s phone pings, and a dark shadow crosses his face.

“What’s wrong?” I ask in a low tone. Cynthia’s close enough to hear, but she’s not included in this conversation.

Axle slides his cell to me. The text is from Dominic: Holiday’s boyfriend showed.

Fantastic. Last I checked, the ass wasn’t invited. “Go.”

“Drix,” Axle starts, but I shake my head.

“Go. I’m good.” My sister is more important than being grilled by my handler.

There’s a pout to Cynthia’s mouth, and she gives sad eyes when she tells my brother goodbye. Cynthia watches him leave, and when she turns back to me, she giggles over some joke no one told. It all seems forced, and it places me on edge. I drum my fingers on the table.

“You know Marcus would have been a better fit for your poster child. He was the real leader.” I don’t know why I say it other than it’s the truth. Marcus was my best friend through this past year’s entire ordeal.

Cynthia regards me with interest, as if she’s shocked I might have something intelligent to add to any conversation. “The position of spokesperson came down to you and Marcus, but the governor and his team believed you would be the better fit.”

“He was the real leader.”

“You became one, as well.”

“I only became one because he pushed me to be better.”

She flips her cell phone in her hand as she weighs our conversation. “The home life you have returned to is more stable than his. We believe that means you have a better shot of being successful in your return to society. It doesn’t mean Marcus won’t be successful, but it will be a tougher road.”

“Should you be telling me this?” I ask, if only to annoy her like she annoys me. “Doesn’t that break confidentiality?”

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

True story. Marcus and I became tight, and the program’s aware of this, even commenting on it several times. Thinking of him causes a sense of uneasiness, as if I’m unbalanced. I haven’t heard from him yet. Yeah, it hasn’t been long, but after talking to someone day in and day out for a year, I miss him.

“So I spoke with your therapist from the program,” she says, “and he told me how you floated the idea of applying for the youth performing arts program at Henderson High School as part of your reentry strategy.”

Oddly enough, there’s a silver lining to Holiday’s boyfriend showing—I never told Axle of my plans to apply to the youth performing arts program for my senior year. I haven’t told him yet that there’s a scrap of me that’s considering applying for college. Before the arrest, my entire life was living one high to the next. No future. Just living in that minute. Going wherever my emotions dictated.

“You know this is a private high school, correct?”

I nod.

“You’re hoping for one of the scholarship spots?”

I nod again.

“I know that the program promised to help in any way they could with securing your future goals. Specifically, I know that there had been some conversation of pushing along your application to help you secure an audition, but after much discussion, the governor’s office doesn’t feel that would be the best course of action.

“The performing arts program is extremely selective, and the competition to gain one of those spots into the school is fierce, especially with a transfer student about to start their senior year. Our involvement would send the wrong message to critics of the Second Chance Program, and alienate parents and students who have worked hard to claim those spots. So, instead, we are highly encouraging you to apply on your own. If you receive a spot in the program and are awarded money to go, won’t it feel good to know you did it all on your own?”

She smiles then. Big white teeth against red lipstick. I didn’t know I had hope until my gut twists. Getting in on my own. Like that’ll happen. Will they trash my application when they see my transcript that’s C’s and below, or will they deep-six me when they read my essay of what I did on my summer vacation in juvenile detention?

“I agreed to being your poster child, and you guys agreed to get me the audition.” I can hold my own in the audition. There might not be much substance to me, but I’m good at music.

My current high school is a holding cell for teens between stints in juvie. If I want more for my life, then I’ve got to start making some major moves fast. Music was the only good thing about me before the arrest. Maybe music will keep me on track. That youth performing arts program was my best hope at building a résumé that could possibly get me into college. “I never asked for you to get me in. I only asked for the audition.”

“Well, we can’t,” Cynthia snaps, and after she briefly closes her eyes she returns to fake cheerful. “We would love to help, but you’re our model for the Second Chance Program. Hopefully, the entire state will know who you are soon and will know that the governor’s program is successful. But we can’t do anything that will bring criticism to the program. That includes the governor’s office calling in a favor. These things get leaked. How the public and media perceive this program is crucial. I’m sorry, but this is how it has to be.”

“You think they’re going to give an audition to a juvenile delinquent?”

“Your records are sealed.”

“But my transcript will speak for itself, as well as any explanation on time gaps in my education. Part of being in the program was your promise to help all of us in our future plans. Since I’m your circus monkey, that promise no longer applies to me? If so, I’m not seeing the benefit of going onstage.”

“Being the spokesperson was part of your plea deal. You’re choosing to see this in a negative light. You have no idea how this will play out until you apply for the program. Try thinking positively. Good things will happen if you remain positive.”

I stand abruptly, the seat beneath me cracking against the floor with the movement. “I’m going to let you in on a secret—hoping and wishing food would appear when I was younger didn’t work. Scamming people outside of grocery stores did. So I do know how it’s going to play out. The boy who has nothing is once again going to get screwed.”

Not how I should be talking to my handler, but it’s better than the string of four-letter words I’d rather be yelling.

My therapist told me when I couldn’t handle my emotions to remove myself from the situation. So I turn away from Cynthia and begin to walk.

“Don’t go far,” she calls out.

She shouldn’t worry. That leash she has me on is so tight it’s cutting off blood flow, and it’s so damn short, I’m surprised I haven’t fallen prone to the ground. At least now I know the score, and once again I’m on the losing end.

Ellison

“No more bringing animals home,” Mom says in front of an entire room of people, and it takes an amazing amount of self-control to not let my face show how mortified I am by her public admonishment. We’re in a private room at the conference center, and the clock ticks down for Dad’s press conference.

“The dog you brought home yesterday made a mess in the laundry room. There was mud everywhere, and it growled at me. How could you bring home something dangerous?”

“He didn’t growl with me.”

“He was feral.”

“He was lost.” Annoyance thickens my tone. “Someone needed to help him.”

“That someone isn’t you. I’m serious. No more. I’m tired of coming home and wondering if there’s going to be some rabid beast waiting to eat me when I open my front door.”

The poor thing had curled up with me. I fed him, gave him a bath in my tub, fed him again and then he rested his head on my lap and eventually closed his eyes. I loved him from the moment his dark, scared eyes first looked in my direction. “You probably spooked him when you opened the door to my room. He wasn’t alone in there but for three minutes.”

“Elle,” Dad says my name with finality. He’s lectured me easily a hundred times: no more bringing animals home, no more talking back to my mother, no more arguing. Just do what I’m told.

“Can everyone give us a few minutes?” my dad asks the room. “Elle, you can stay.” Very rarely does my father ask me to leave, since my parents love to keep a close eye on me.

In the mirror, my eyes meet Andrew’s, and I try to gauge if he became a tattletale. Andrew is twenty-two, is royalty in this state, and his family and my family are good friends. His grandfather is the current and retiring US Senator. While his grandfather is well loved and respected, Andrew is sought-after, and I understand why. He’s gorgeous with his blond hair, green eyes and built body. Plus, he stands to inherit a fortune.

But Andrew and I are complicated. Not only am I the “little sister burden,” but at thirteen I confessed my undying love for him. He laughed, I cried and, since then, there’s been a sense of embarrassment that includes my face morphing into crimson when I spot his amusement.

Today, I’m able to keep my embarrassment in check. Andrew’s been gone a year to study abroad in Europe, and the break has helped me realize he was mean to laugh at a thirteen-year-old. It also made ditching him earlier much easier than expected.

Andrew smirks as he walks over to me, and I immediately pull my gaze away and pretend to smooth out my dress. He presses a hand to the small of my back as he leans in. Years ago, my heart would have leaped at his touch and at how incredibly close his lips are to my ear, but now all I can think is...jerk.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “I didn’t tell.”

My eyes dart to his in the mirror again, and he waggles his eyebrows. Andrew, even after a year, still finds me amusing.

“I’m assuming you’re waiting for me to say thank you.”

“Why the bitterness? You used to love it when I babysat you.”

Babysat. He needs to be in pain. I check the mirror to see if my parents notice us talking and discover my mother watching us with rapt and joyous attention. Kneeing Andrew in the groin wouldn’t meet her approval.

“I’m a big girl,” I say under my breath, “and I don’t need you anymore.”

Full smile with straight teeth. “Been gone a year and I guess you’re all grown up, Ellie.”

“Guess so. And so you know, I go by Elle. Have now for a few years.”

He chuckles and finally removes his hand. “See you later, Ellie.”

Andrew bids goodbye to my mother and father, then leaves.

I pivot to confirm my sundress isn’t riding too high in the back. It’s beautiful, it’s purple, thick-strapped with no scoop, made of material that feels like I’m being wrapped in soft feathers, and tailored just for me. But sundress does not mean serious. It means pretty, it means fun and this means I will once again smile for the camera and remain silent.

My mother still watches me. Today she slicked back her blond hair and pulled it into a bun at the nape of her neck. She’s stylish in her white blouse and blue pencil skirt. People say we look alike, but other than hair and eye coloring, I don’t know if we do. She’s so poised, and I’m so different from her. She’s ladylike, reserved and calm, and I’m...not.

“You look beautiful, Elle.” Mom smiles in approval.

“Thank you.” The response is so automatic I barely register it.

Mom’s spent much of the past three years grooming me and teaching me how to react to people. As it’s been explained to me thousands of times, someone is always watching. The media, my father’s critics, current and future voters. What I do or don’t do is forever a reflection upon my mother and my father.

Perfection. It’s what the world expects of anyone in the limelight, especially from our leaders. Absolutely no pressure.

Speaking of zero room for error—there’s a piece of paper in my bag of tricks that needs a parental signature: the permission slip to enter the final stage of the internship competition.

Success, at least in my parents’ eyes in regard to me, is elusive. I have two left feet, I have no rhythm, no coordination and no athletic grace. I’m smart, I do well at school, but I’m not the kid who can rattle off the capitals of all the nations in the world, or has pi memorized past the sixth decimal place, or cares why I should have pi past the sixth decimal place memorized.

Sometimes it’s tough to be the daughter of two extraordinary people and not be nearly as successful as them. While other people my age have found their passion and are on track to whatever greatness they’re destined for, I have yet to figure out who I am and who I’m meant to be. But this internship is going to change that; I can feel it down to the marrow in my bones.

I inhale deeply and press my practiced smile on to my face. As I’m about to turn to gain their attention, Mom says, “Elle, come sit. We need to talk.”

A hiccup is created in my brain because that was not part of my plan, yet I slip into a seat at the small table and take comfort in the quiet and closeness of my family.

My dad is in a white dress shirt, and his tie is undone. Dad loathes dress clothes. He’s more relaxed in jeans and T-shirts, but people aren’t fond of politicians in dress-down clothes. When Dad practiced medicine, he said his patients weren’t particularly thrilled with the relaxed look either.

What I adore about Dad is how he gazes at Mom—like he’s still one hundred percent puppy dog in love as when they met in college.

“Everything okay?” I ask. T-minus ten minutes to a press conference. Not typical heart-to-heart time.

Mom and Dad do that thing where they share hours’ worth of conversation in a single glance. Someday, I want that special connection, but I’m not naïve. Their relationship is rare.

“Elle.” Mom uncrosses her legs and edges forward in her seat so that her arms rest on the table. “Henry called your father today.”

I perk up. Henry and Dad haven’t talked for two years. Maybe the Cold War is finally thawing. “That’s a good thing.”

“Yes,” Mom’s answer is hesitant, “it is.”

“Did you invite him to stay with us? I know he prefers Grandma’s when he’s in state, but maybe if you asked him to spend time with us, he’ll come home.”

A sad shadow crosses my father’s face. “I asked.”

A ball of lead forms in my stomach and rolls around. I miss Henry at home, and Mom and Dad do, too. Henry came to live with us when his parents died when he was a child, and he became like a brother to me. But two years ago, Dad and Henry got into a terrible argument, and Henry left. To this day, his room is exactly the same as when he walked out, just dusted and vacuumed every two weeks. It’s a living tomb.

Mom places her perfectly manicured hand over mine. Her eyes flitter over my flawed nails, thanks to playing the midway games, but she’s gracious enough to know that I need a mom and not a campaign adviser on appearance. “He initiated a call, and that’s a positive step.”

I hope it is because I’m tired of being torn between the two shores of a large ocean. Henry and I talk. Obviously, I talk to Mom and Dad. The three just don’t talk to each other. “What did he call about?”

“He’s worried about you,” Dad says. “He says you’re miserable.”

I withdraw from Mom and slump in my seat. Henry is a traitor. “I’m not miserable.”

“You sure look happy,” there’s a tease in my father’s tone.

A few weeks ago, I called Henry after a particularly rough fund-raiser for my father, and in my exhaustion and lapse of judgment, I might have cried a little too long to my cousin. If I had known that confiding in him would lead to this conversation, I would have never called him.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were applying for an internship with Morgan Programming?” Dad asks.

My head falls back. Henry is dead. I’m going to have to kill him. He’s the only person outside of school who knew about the internship, and he ratted me out to my parents. “Henry told you?”

“No, but your school called a few months back when you started the application process. I was wondering if the miserable Henry mentioned had any connection to this internship.”

Gaped. Open. Mouth. “You’ve known about the internship?”

“Yes, and I’ve had the school update me every step of the way.”

If I could fit into a sugar cube, I absolutely would. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mom counters.

All the air rushes out of my body because this is going to suck. “I didn’t know if I’d make it to the final stage of the interview process or not.” I didn’t want them to know if I had, once again, become a failure.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve applied for?” Mom asks.

“It’s a computer programming internship that will start in college and will last four years. I’m a finalist which means the last part of competition is to spend part of my senior year creating an app.”

One of my elective courses during my senior year will be an independent study in creating this app, and I’m expected to start that independent study over this summer. Knowing that the last part might not go over well due to my schedule for my father’s campaign, I keep that information to myself.

Mom purses her lips, and I can’t decide what that means. “Computer programming? When did you become interested in that?”

I shrug because the answer is since freshman year when I took a class that sampled new careers every quarter, and one of those quarters was on programming. I liked it. I also liked drama club and about a hundred other things, so I never thought much about it, but the truth is... “I didn’t give it serious thought until I saw the internship announced on the school’s morning news. Something grabbed me, and I thought...why not?”

“Why not?” she repeats in a slow way as if the words are new to her.

“Why not,” I say again and mentally add why not, me?

“Elle.” Mom touches her throat in search of the gold locket that contains pictures of me and Henry. “You agreed to help your father with the campaign. In fact, we’re paying you to help. You have a ton of scheduled appearances this summer. Then there is the fund-raising and...”

I sink lower in my seat. “I can still do all those things.”

“You believe you can compete in this final stage of the application process and still have time?” Dad asks.

“Yes.”

Dad shakes his head like I announced I’m attempting a solo trip to the moon. “Your counselor explained that the last stage of the application process is the equivalent to working a part-time job. How are you going to participate in the campaign, which requires traveling, keep up your grades in the fall and compete for this internship? I’m sorry, but it’s not possible.”

Dad’s not seeing the bigger picture. The last stage of the application process is to create an app from scratch. My idea. My conception. My responsibility from birth to production. “Creating the app will be considered one of my classes in the fall, and I have the summer to work on it, as well. I have time.”

“Twenty hours a week,” Dad says. “That’s the minimum the counselor said is expected of you to work on this program. Subtract the hours you’d work on the program at school, and that leaves fifteen hours to be done at home. I’m sorry, but I don’t see how it’s possible for you to create this program with the commitments you’ve already made to me and your mother.”

The ends of my mouth turn down. “So you’re saying I can’t apply for the internship?”

Mom slides the locket along the gold chain. “What we’re saying is that six months is your shelf life on anything. You try something new, you grow tired of it and then you flitter off. There’s something about your personality that loves to chase the new and shiny.”

“It’s not like that this time.” It’s not like that most of the time. Shame overwhelms me and I stare down at the table. I don’t grow tired of what I try as much as I grow tired of Mom and Dad waiting for me to be the best. When I don’t somehow become a brilliant star in the new thing I’m trying out, it’s akin to a failure.

“Elle.” Dad wants me to look at him, but I can’t. The table is the only thing I can focus on without feeling like the entire world is shattering. If I glance at Dad, what’s left of my pride will be destroyed, and that’s a loss in confidence that will take forever to repair.

“Elle,” Dad says again with a more direct and demanding voice. “I have a press conference. If you want to sit this one out, I understand, but I would like to finish this conversation before I leave. You’re my daughter, I love you and nothing makes me more proud than when you stand by my side onstage.”

My eyes flash to his then, because I want to make my father proud. I want him to want me by his side.

“We believe in you,” Dad says. “But you don’t understand commitment. Your mom and I do. We know what it takes to succeed.”

Dad grew up dirt-poor and on government assistance. Mom, on the other hand, grew up in the lap of luxury, but her father was emotionally and physically abusive. Life for them was brutal, and they had to scratch, claw and bleed to make it out of their childhoods alive.

“We’ve had to learn tough lessons with nobody there to help. Your mother and I are trying to give you the benefit of our experiences. We’re trying to keep you on an easier path and to give you everything we never had. Trust the decisions we’re making for you.

“Plus, I don’t know how I would feel if you were to win, and then you decline the internship. This is a large corporation in our state. A lot of eyes will be on you if you win. It would look bad on you and on me if you quit this like how you’ve bailed on most things.”

He believes in me, but he doesn’t. Somehow, through this conversation, I’m starting to no longer believe in myself.

“I’ll tell you what.” His face brightens like I haven’t been smashed to pieces. “Let’s pass on the internship, get through the summer and if you’re still excited about programming, and if we see a change in your understanding of commitment, we’ll allow you to take a coding class in the fall. But you have to give us a hundred percent this summer. Agreed?”

This is how Dad negotiates. He gives, I give, then we each win. But my mind is a swimming mess as, for the first time, this feels more like a dictatorship than a democracy.

Because I can’t stand the twisting in my stomach at disappointing Mom and Dad, because I want to take a coding class, I say, “Agreed.”

Dad smiles, a beaming one reserved for me when he’s proud. He checks his watch, stands and kisses my forehead before going on about how he’ll give me a few more minutes to collect myself before meeting him outside to walk together to the press conference.

The door opens, then closes. I’m staring at the table again. It’s white, has a couple of coffee mug stains and the table isn’t interested in crushing my dreams.

“We’re not doing this to hurt you.” Mom’s voice is soft and sweet. If we were home, we’d be lying on my bed, and she’d stroke her fingers through my hair. I’d be a millionaire if I had a penny for every time this scene has played out between us. “We’re doing this to help you.”

I suck in a breath and slowly release it. The good news is that my chest aches less, so I guess I will survive the stab wound that conversation created.

“Most people your age have a focus by now,” Mom continues, and I wish she’d stop. Do other people’s parents know when to stop? Do they understand that less is sometimes more?

“Whether it be sports or academics or a hobby. We have tried so many different things with you—dance, theater arts, numerous instruments, what feels like a hundred different sports. We have given you a million opportunities for you to find your focus, but you never focus.”

“The coding is different,” I say. “When I’m programming there’s this rush in my blood, and it just feels right.”

Mom gathers papers in front of her and places them in a folder in such a slow motion that it’s obvious she’s thinking her next words through. “We’ve heard this before, and if your father and I weren’t persistent with you helping him with the campaign, you would be graduating next year with a college application that says you have the inability to be focused and responsible. Do you really not see it? One of the reasons you were given a position in the campaign is because we need you to appear focused and driven. By having a steady position with the campaign over the past few years, you look exactly like a determined young lady ready to conquer the world instead of a teen who has no idea what she wants to do with her life. Yes, who your father is could open doors for you, but that’s not what we want for you. Don’t you want to be the woman who opens doors for herself?”

I nod, because I have never wanted things to happen because of my father.

“Life is cruel,” Mom says. “It’s hard. Don’t be sad because your father and I are trying to help you avoid the roads that cause pain. Do you have any idea how much I wanted a parent who was involved and supportive when I was younger? Do you know how badly your father wished he had the opportunities you do? We’re not trying to hurt you. We’re trying to help.”

Pain. It’s something both of my parents understand. My mother had every possession she could think of, but her father was a monster, and Dad’s father died when he was young. While my father had a great mom, he understood hunger pains far more than anyone should. Yes, my grandmother had the land, but sometimes farming the land didn’t pay out like they needed, and she stubbornly refused to sell.

Guilt pounds me like a hammer. “I should have told you about the internship.”

Mom stands, places her fingers under my chin and forces me to meet her gaze. Her blue eyes are soft, the stroke of her finger against my hot cheek softer. “I love you, and I hate being harsh with you, but the next few months are crucial for your father and me. We need you. I can’t help but think that if your father and I were more direct with Henry, like we’re being with you today, that he’d still be a part of our family. Henry made terrible mistakes, and I don’t want to see you make terrible mistakes, as well. I understand what real pain is, and everything I’m saying to you, everything I do for you, it’s to keep you from that pain.”

“Henry’s happy,” I whisper.

Mom grows incredibly sad. “He regrets his choices, and he’s too proud to admit he needs our help. I’m starting to wonder if he’s trying to turn you against us so he can make himself feel better—to justify his own bad choices. I know you love him, and I would never tell you to stay away from him, but I am asking you to be careful. Don’t let him influence you away from us.”

A tug-of-war. Mom and Dad pulling on one side. Henry on the other. Problem is, I remember how distant Henry was the summer before he left. Never home. Angry all the time. Moody. It was as if an alien had taken control of his body. “What did Henry do?”

“He doesn’t want you to know, and we promised we wouldn’t tell. Someday, he’ll come home, and we want to keep our promises. Just think of this as a lesson to listen to us. Henry didn’t and he made a mess. You think you know what you want, but trust me, you don’t. Seventeen is too young. Just let us make the decisions for you. You’ll have the rest of your adult life to make all the decisions you want. But these choices now, they’re too big for you to make and the consequences are too dire if you choose wrongly.”

After all my parents have done for me, all the sacrifices they made, both of them coming from painful childhoods, I have to listen. Bruises for Mom, and a farm that barely broke even for Dad, yet they both climbed from misery to success.

I nod, Mom kisses my cheek and she leaves. I have three minutes until I have to pretend in public that the last few minutes didn’t come close to breaking me.

Focus. Mom says I have none, but I do and I’m going to prove it to them. I have to be perfect over the next few months. Dot every i. Cross every t. Show them how passionate I am about coding and prove to them I have focus. I’ll show them responsible. I’ll wow them at every turn. I’ll do everything they need me to do and more.

In the meantime, I have to lie one more time.

The world is eerily hazy as I cross the room, dig the letter out of my bag and unfold it. This letter doesn’t go to the school, but to the company. My counselor won’t know anything until the fall which means Dad has lost his mole.

I’ll have to tell Mom and Dad, when classes resume, but until then I have three months to write as much as I can on this code. By then, hopefully, I’ll be so far into the project, they’ll be amazed that I balanced a schedule full of being on the campaign trail, fund-raisers and this coding that they’ll have no other option but to permit me the opportunity for the internship.

By the end of this, my parents will see me as a success.

Hendrix

“You stay here.” Cynthia, as it turns out, has an intern. She’s in college, and she points at the spot I’m standing in as if I’m a six-year-old with ADD. “Right here. Until the governor calls you onstage.”

In the convention center, at the front of the stage, there are cameras. Row after row of them, and there are people next to them and people behind them. Also in the crowd are the people who have planned to come and see the governor talk, people who are tired of being in the blazing heat and are taking a break inside, and people who are curious to watch the circus.

Come one, come all. Watch the politician smile and lie. Then watch the poor boy say he’s sorry for a crime he didn’t commit, and while I’m at it, watch me pull an elephant out of my ass.

“Once you are onstage, the governor will shake your hand.” Cynthia doesn’t bother looking up from her cell as she talks to me, and with Axle not around, she’s lost the sweet voice. “You will then turn to the podium. The speech is already there. Read it, I’ll select the reporters, you answer the questions and when you’re done speaking, look at me. I’ll signal to you when it’s time for you to walk offstage, and then you will go backstage and wait in the back room until I tell you it’s time to go.”

It’s the last part that catches my attention. “Why do I have to go in the back?”

“In case a stray reporter would want to talk to you. You only talk to people I approve. If anyone ever approaches you without my consent, you tell them that they are to talk to me. Then you contact me immediately. Got it?”

One more chain locks itself around my neck. “Got it.”

Applause breaks out in the crowd, and a man in a suit shakes hands with people as he slowly makes his way to the stage. It’s our state’s governor, Robert Monroe. I’ve never met him before. Feels weird since it’s his program that saved me from hard time.

He passes me, his wife at his side, neither making eye contact as someone like me isn’t worth their time. They then climb the stairs to the stage to join the other people in suits.

“The media loves her,” Cynthia says.

“Who?” The intern rises on her toes to try to see around the crowd that’s now focused on the next person coming up the aisle.

“The governor’s daughter.”

The governor’s daughter. I’ve heard about her. Most everyone has heard about her. Holiday used to talk about her all the time. Something about her being beautiful and poised and up on fashion. Gotta admit, I didn’t listen. I could care less about someone else’s life.

The governor passes by me again, braves his way into the thick of people and when he reemerges, my heart stops. On the governor’s arm is blond hair and intimidating blue eyes. It’s Elle.

The world zones out.

I’m going to strangle my sister if she knew Elle was the governor’s daughter and didn’t say a word. Damn. I flirted with the governor’s daughter. I scrub a hand over my face.

The man I have to impress in order to stay out of jail, the man who can tell my probation officer to flip the switch and send me back behind bars, I flirted with his daughter. I helped his daughter, but then I rejected her. Screw me. I can’t catch a break.

“Ellison,” a reporter calls. She turns her head, and flashes a smile. The reporters and the crowd see what I see—pure beauty in motion.

Elle scans the area, and her smile falters as surprise flickers over her face. But as quick as it’s there, it’s gone, and she returns to perfection. The upturn of her lips is sweet, it’s gorgeous, but it’s not the smile that caused me to feel like a moth to a flame. Earlier, I made her laugh, and she owned the type of smile that becomes seared into a man’s memory.

Elle’s bold. Bold enough to cock an eyebrow at me as she passes. A question as to what I’m doing here. I’ve been asking myself the same question for over a year. She walks up the stairs for the stage, and my stomach sinks.

To one person, for a few moments, I was the hero. Did I step in to help Elle? Yeah. But I also stepped in to help me. Because I’m selfish like that. I needed to know, before I made an announcement to the world I’m a thug, that one person saw me as good.

Now I got nothing.

Elle’s father walks her to the center of the stage, and the cameras remain on them, remain on her. Her smile stays steady, stoic. Her hand curls into the crook of her father’s arm. The governor leans in, whispers something to her and there it is...that smile. The one where those intimidating blue eyes spark.

He covers her hand on his arm, and she raises up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Cameras snap, a sea of cell phones record every second. Then with one last glance at the audience, Elle slips to the back of the stage, next to her mother. Instead of watching the governor as he begins to speak, I watch her, willing her to look in my direction one more time.

Cynthia steps in front of me, blocking my view of Elle. “You ready?”

Adrenaline pumps into my veins, and I scour the area, searching for an exit. Dominic is the one who is claustrophobic, but since being home, I get it. I understand the overwhelming urge to bust out, the need to rip off the chains so I can breathe. But while Dominic’s issues are with walls, my issue is my life. It’s closing in on me, and there’s no escape.

The governor’s voice drones over the audio system, and he talks statistics. Numbers that prove that messed-up boys like me can be helped by people like him. He talks about destroying the school-to-prison pipeline, he talks about juvenile delinquents being given another shot, he talks about second chances and blank slates. My heart pounds in my ears.

“I said, are you ready?” Cynthia prods.

No, I’m not, but I walk for the stage stairs regardless.

My name is said, Hendrix Page Pierce, and the crowd claps. For what I don’t know. The part of me that’s a glutton for punishment wants to gauge Elle’s reaction, but knowing I’ll see disappointment, I keep myself from looking. Some things I don’t need to experience.

I reach the podium, and in a motion so perfect it could have been practiced a million times instead of never, the governor and I shake. He places his other hand on top of our combined hands as if he has to prove he’s in control. As if I don’t know the score.

He leans forward to say, “I appreciate how much courage this takes.”

I appreciate not going to adult prison.

“I’ve heard great things about you. I heard you’re a leader. It’s why we chose you to speak on behalf of the other teens like you, whom we’re going to help.”

A leader. Is he talking about the guy who carried other people’s packs when they were too exhausted emotionally or physically to go forward? The guy who gave up his food when others were complaining they were still hungry? The guy who sat up at night with the two younger teens on the trip who were still scared of the dark?

That doesn’t make me a leader. That makes me a good older brother.

The governor lets me go, inclines his head to the podium, and Dominic’s loud two-finger patented whistle pierces past the polite applause. He’s in the back, Kellen by his side, and when Dominic catches me looking at him, he flips me the bird while giving me a crazy-ass grin.

The familiar reminder of my family causes some of the knots in my stomach to unravel, and it gives me the courage to read the words. That’s all they are, just words. Words that are unrelated. Words that don’t mean anything to me. Words that hopefully won’t mean anything to anyone else.

“One year ago, I made a mistake. One that put my life and the lives of others at risk.”

The speech talks in circles about the crime, but it skips key phrases like convenience store, gun and stolen cash. “I was on a bad road that was going to lead to more mistakes. Mistakes that could never be forgiven.”

I did make mistakes, and I was on a bad road. Living with Mom, I became her. Getting drunk, getting high. Thinking too much of myself, thinking I was as close to a god as a man could get when my mind was in a haze. That’s what happens when someone flies too high: they get burned.

“Once arrested, I confessed to what I did wrong, and I was given a second chance.”

I lift my head to look at Axle, who is now in the back. He has his arm around Holiday, and she has this beaming light about her like she’s proud. I’m not someone she should be proud of, but I want to become that man. I want to be the brother she deserves.

“I’d like to thank Governor Monroe for picking me for his program. In it, I learned how to believe in myself. I learned who I am, and who I am is not the person I was before. I learned I’m capable of more than I could have imagined.”

Light applause and Cynthia steps forward. “We’re allowing a few questions.”

More than two hands raise, and Cynthia points at a man. He introduces himself as a reporter from some newspaper in Louisville. “Can you tell us something you learned during your time in the wilderness?”

I learned I can be alone when I never liked being alone before. I learned the voices in my head that used to taunt me when I was high or alone aren’t as bad as I used to think. I learned, sometimes, those voices have something worth listening to. Like stepping in with Elle. That was worth doing. “I learned how to survive. I learned how to make a fire with nothing but sticks and flint. If anyone needs a fire or help after the apocalypse, let me know.”

Laughter and I glance over at Cynthia. She nods in approval. One down, one more to go, and I can get the hell off this stage.

“Another question?”

More hands go up, and as Cynthia goes to point, a man next to a camera yells out, “What crime were you convicted of?”

“Don’t answer,” Cynthia whispers to me, then motions to the man behind him. “Charles, you can ask your question.”

“It’s a valid question.” The guy continues to talk as if she didn’t ignore him. “How do we know he wasn’t convicted of jaywalking? The type of changes the governor is promising with this program sound good, but how do we know if the results aren’t skewed or tainted?”

My eyes shoot to the back of the crowd, straight to Axle, and my brother’s face falls because we both feel it coming. The tidal wave we felt the rumblings of in the distance is about to crest and hit the shore, destroying me in the process.

“What did you do?” the man shouts again, and when Cynthia turns toward me I see the question on her face. Will I do it? Will I answer and save the governor’s program?

Blank slate. Second chance. Sealed records. All of it is bull.

Ellison

It’s a train wreck, and everyone is watching. Someone needs to do something, and no one is moving. Cynthia wants him to answer the question. It’s also clear, Drix doesn’t want to answer, and I understand why.

“What difference does it make what he did?” I whisper in hopes Dad will hear, but he’s three people away.

My mother shushes me, and Sean, my father’s chief of staff, sends me a glare via certified mail. He and I live in mutual distrust purgatory. To Sean, I’m supposed to be mute and look pretty, but Drix helped me, and staying silent is wrong.

“Mom?” I say, and her head jerks at the sound of my voice. Me speaking onstage without a teleprompter or typed speech is the equivalent of me biting a newborn. “He shouldn’t have to answer.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” she snaps in a hushed tone.

Lydia, my father’s press secretary, walks to the podium with that air of confidence that only she possesses. She’s an intelligent and beautiful black woman who has told me several times that how you walk into a room defines who you are before you open your mouth.

Whenever I see her, I believe this. She demands respect from the moment she comes into view, and I envy her how people so readily give it. “Mr. O’Bryan, I am kindly asking you to wait your turn and wait to be called on before asking questions.”

I’ve seen Lydia at work enough to know that the smile she just flashed Mr. O’Bryan, a loser reporter who has hated my dad for years, is telling him to shut up. There is a hum of uncomfortable chuckles from the families, and Lydia goes on to explain that Drix is still seventeen and that his records are sealed.

She’s saying all the right things, she’s saying all I want to say, but I see it on the faces of the crowd. They want to know what he did so they can judge. Drix’s past defines him, and that’s not fair, especially when it’s his future my father is trying to create. Especially when I know that my father’s program worked.

As Lydia wraps up, Mr. O’Bryan calls out again, speaking over her, “I saw Mr. Pierce and the governor’s daughter on the midway together.”

Lydia freezes her expression, and the entire convention center goes silent.

“The point I’m trying to make,” Mr. O’Bryan says, “is that this program has been the governor’s main priority for over two years. Lots of taxpayers’ money is going into a program we have no idea will work, and the first contact we’ve had from this program was seen, by me, on the midway with the governor’s daughter. This could be a friend of hers the governor has asked to read a speech to make us happy. If Mr. Pierce isn’t willing to tell us about his real past and let us, the press, verify who he is, what he’s done and let us judge how far he’s come, then how do we really know if this program has worked?”

Cynthia whispers to Drix, and he shakes his head slightly. She’s asking him to confess. He doesn’t want to, and he shouldn’t have to. I begin to run hot with the idea that I’m letting him down after what he did for me.

“Is this true, Elle? Were you on the midway with him?” my mother whispers under her breath, and her glare makes me wish I could disappear. Sean superglues himself to my side, and the way my father is eyeing me makes me feel as if I have somehow betrayed him.

“He saved me.” I shake that off because it sounds overly dramatic. “Drix helped me. Some guys were harassing me, and he stepped in to help.”

“What happened to Andrew?” Mom demands.

I shift from one foot to another. “I ditched Andrew.”

Mom’s eyes shut like I announced I kidnapped someone, and Sean pinches the bridge of his nose. “Did Hendrix Pierce get violent with these guys?”

“No. He offered to hang out with me until the guys got the hint that they should leave. Drix never said a word to them.”

“He saved you.”

“Helped me,” I correct Sean.

Sean stares straight into my eyes, and he’s making a silent promise to yell loudly at me later. “No, Elle, he saved you.”

My eyebrows draw together, and before I can ask what he means, Sean takes my hand and pulls me toward the podium. Drix’s head jerks up as I pass, and for the first time since I saw him earlier, he looks at me.

“Excuse me,” Sean says into the microphone. “I’m Sean Johnson, the governor’s chief of staff and Ellison’s godfather.”

People watch him, each of them curious, and I know what Sean has done—humanized himself and me. With a few words, he told everyone he’s in a position of authority, and that he should be respected. Me? I’m still the pretty girl standing beside him.

“We typically don’t allow people like Mr. O’Bryan to shout off like he has, but we’re trying to be respectful. In return we’re hoping he’ll be respectful to the governor and his daughter in the future.”

Lots of mothers shoot death stares in Mr. O’Bryan’s direction, and I’m okay with this. Mr. O’Bryan needs to be digested whole by a T. Rex.

“Secondly, Mr. Pierce confessed to his crime, has served time for it and he has gone through the governor’s program. He has paid his debt to society, and he has learned from his mistakes. To prove it, the governor’s daughter is going to explain the events that happened today on the midway.”

Sean tilts his head to let me know if I screw up I will never be let out in public again.

The lights are brighter than I thought they would be. Hotter, too. Makes it more difficult to see individual faces, makes it more difficult to figure out how many people are staring at me and if they are happy, annoyed or on the verge of rioting.

My mouth dries out, I swallow, then wrap my fingers around the edge of the podium. “Hendrix Pierce helped me today.”

Sean clears his throat.

“Saved me today. I was on the midway, and two college-aged guys began to harass me, and Drix...that’s what Hendrix introduced himself as...he intervened.”

Multiple flashes of light as pictures are snapped, multiple voices as people talk, even louder voices as people ask questions.

Sean talks into the microphone again. “We will take questions, but I want you to remember you are talking to the governor’s seventeen-year-old daughter. I will not allow anyone to disrespect her.”

Sean points, and a woman in the back asks, “You never met Mr. Pierce before?”

I shake my head, and Sean gestures to microphone. “No. I was playing a midway game earlier, and he ended up playing beside me, but then we went our separate ways. I left the game, and these guys started to harass me and then Hendrix asked if I needed help. I agreed, and he suggested we talk. He said that if the guys thought we were friends they would eventually lose interest, and they did. Hendrix played a game, and we talked until Andrew showed.”

“Andrew?” someone asks.

“Andrew Morton.” That causes enough of a stir that nervousness leaks into my bloodstream and makes my hands cold and clammy. Why is it that I feel that I said something terribly wrong?

“Are you and Andrew Morton friends?” someone else asks, and the question hits me in a sickening way. I name-dropped the grandson of the most powerful US Senator...the position my father is campaigning for. Sean is going to roast me alive.

“Yes. We’ve been friends for as long as I remember.” Friends, enemies, it’s all semantics at this point.

“Did you and Andrew Morton plan to attend the festival together?” Another reporter.

“Yes.”

“Were you on a date?” a woman asks.

My entire body recoils. “What?”

“Are you and Andrew Morton romantically involved?”

I become one of those bunnies who go still at the slightest sound. “I thought we were talking about Hendrix.”

“Did Mr. Pierce confront the men?”

Finally back on track. “No, he was adamant that there should be no violence.”

More questions and I put my hand in the air as I feel like I’m the one on trial. “Isn’t that the point? Hendrix went through my dad’s program, and one of the first chances he had to make a good decision, he made one. We’re strangers, and he helped me without violence. That, to me, is success.” A few people nod their heads, and because I don’t want to be done yet... “Mr. O’Bryan—grown men shouldn’t be following seventeen-year-old girls. I’m curious why you didn’t step in when I was being harassed. If you saw Hendrix and me together, then you know what happened, and it’s horrifying you didn’t help. Hendrix made the right choice. You did not.”

A rumble of conversation, Sean places a hand on my arm and gently, but firmly pushes me to the side. The raging fire in his eyes says he’s mentally measuring out the room in the basement he’s going to let me rot in for the next ten years.

My father approaches the microphone with an ease I envy. “Any more questions for Ellison can be sent to my press secretary. As you can tell, it’s been a trying day for my daughter, but we are most grateful for Mr. Pierce’s actions. We promised a program that was going to help our state’s youth turn their lives around, and, thanks to Mr. Pierce’s admirable actions, we are proud of our first program’s success.”

He offers Drix his hand again, and Drix accepts. Lots of pictures and applause, and Dad leans in and whispers something to him. I can’t tell what it is, but I do see the shadow that crosses over Drix’s face, his throat move as he swallows and then the slight nod of his head.

I don’t know what happened, but I don’t like it. The urge is to rush Drix, but Sean has a firm hold on my elbow, keeping me in place, silently berating me for causing problems.

Drix stands behind the podium and drops a bomb so huge the ground shakes beneath my feet. “Because Ellison had enough courage to explain what happened today, I’m going to tell you what I was convicted of...”

As Drix continues, it’s no longer just the ground that’s shaking—it’s the entire world. Because the guy who paid to let a five-year-old win at Whack-A-Mole, a guy who stepped in when no one else did, a guy who told me that not all members of the male gender were jerks...he committed a very violent crime, and my world is indeed rocked.

Hendrix

Armed robbery is a class B felony in the state of Kentucky, punishable by ten to twenty years imprisonment. Whoever robbed the convenient store with a Glock ran off with 250 dollars. That’s enough money to settle a cell phone bill and to fill the tank to an SUV. The payout doesn’t seem worth the risk, but I’m the one who did the time, so that makes whoever did it smarter than me.

Two hundred and fifty dollars. It’s still a kick in the gut.

Axle pulls into our neighborhood, and lights flash behind us as Dominic follows us in his car. Holiday’s asleep in the cramped back seat of Axle’s aging truck, and Dominic drove Kellen.

Me and Axle, we’ve been quiet. There’s not much to say. The whole world now thinks I robbed a convenience store at gunpoint. Won’t be long until someone does an internet search and discovers the trigger was pulled, the shot missed and that kept me from being charged with manslaughter.

“They painted you as a hero,” Axle says in a hushed voice. We pass box after box of the same house that are all stained yellow by the streetlight. It’s ten, and the night got darker once we turned down our street. “That’s what people are going to remember. You swooped in and helped the governor’s daughter when no one else would. That’s something to be proud of.”

Maybe. But I caught the expression on Elle’s face after I made the announcement. She wasn’t thinking about heroes anymore. She was thinking about a masked guy high on drugs waving a gun in someone’s face.

I glance back at my sister, and I take comfort that she’s in my life again. Holiday—the girl with the big heart and even bigger voice. Just like her namesake, Billie Holiday. “You want me to carry in Holiday?”

“She’s not six anymore,” Axle says as he coasts into the driveway. “She can walk.”

But she doesn’t look like she just turned sixteen. In her sleep, she reminds me of huge eyes, huge hugs, hours of coloring pages and her begging me to let her paint my nails pink.

There was a girl in the program, younger than Holiday, but she also had big eyes. During the day, she had an attitude a mile long, but at night she’d become terrified of the dark. First few nights, she didn’t sleep, and that made the hike the next day hell for her, especially carrying a pack that was a fourth of her body weight.

She was falling behind, she was getting down and with each new level of spiral she hit, her mouth got nastier. On the fifth day, she tripped. Mud in her hair, a tear in her athletic pants, blood on her knee and something in me shifted when her bottom lip trembled. I understood how she felt. Sometimes the weight of my problems and my pack was almost too much to bear.

I heard that she had never cried during her stay in detention, and five days into the woods, she was being cut off at her knees. I thought of Holiday then, and before this girl had a chance to break, I walked over to her, grabbed her pack and offered her a hand to stand back up. She took it and lost the attitude as she walk alongside me. After that, a lot of the younger people on the trip followed me like I was the Pied Piper.

“You’re right. Holiday can walk,” I say, “but I’ll take her in.”

“I’ll get her. Why’d you tell everyone? Your records are sealed. Only reason I agreed to this circus was because they promised no one would know what you were convicted of.”

Cracking of pleather in the back seat and Holiday’s groggy lids open, but her face remains pillowed by her hands.

There are some people you don’t say no to, not without there being consequences. The governor asked me to tell as a “personal favor.” He said it like it meant he would owe me, but I don’t believe that for a second. I rub the governor the wrong way, and he has the power to send me to prison. People like him don’t owe anyone; they own. Telling Axle that won’t make him feel better, so I lie. “Seemed like the right thing to do.”

Axle kills the engine and shakes his head at the wheel.

Dominic and Kellen lean against the back of his run-down 1980-something junker that’s put together with gray tape. Their dad doesn’t leave for his third shift job until ten thirty. Neither of them will enter the house until he’s gone.

I glance over at my front stoop, and my heart stops. “Holy hell, he came.”

Axle’s head rotates to the house so fast that I place a hand on his arm to calm him down. “It’s not Dad. It’s Marcus.”

My brother’s chest deflates, and I’m out the door. Marcus was my breath of sanity in the program. My cell mate. My fellow outdoor warrior. The guy who had my back. My friend. While some followed me around, I followed him.

Marcus rises to his feet, a six-foot-two towering black man, and his smile pushes the darkness of my neighborhood away. He’s barely seventeen, and due to a messed-up situation, he’s a year behind me at school, but it doesn’t matter. I call him a man because that’s what he is. Both of us offer our hands for a shake, but pull in for a hug. A hard hug with pats to the back.

“You said I could stop by anytime. Hope you meant it.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” I step back and take him in. It’s only been a few days, but seeing him here feels like a lifetime has passed since I saw him last. He looks a bit different with his hair shaved close to his scalp, and I had no idea his ears were pierced. Fake diamonds are now in both lobes. Marcus is the same height as me, but has the build of Dominic.

“How’s home?” I ask.

The smile fades. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

I nod because I get it. “How bad?”

“Bad.” His somber expression jacks me in the head hard. Marcus is as rough-edged as they come, but this year broke him down, built him back up and I know he’s just as scared as I am of screwing the second chance up.

“Mom’s moved up in the world,” he says. “Went from dating a dealer to a gangbanger. Hanging at home isn’t healthy for my probation.”

When the plea deal was offered to Marcus after he stole three BMWs in a single night, then crashed one of them while high, his mom promised the program she had changed her life. Guess she did change, just not how Marcus needs. I understand having a crap mom. Marcus, unfortunately, doesn’t have an older brother who gives a damn like I do so I told him he could borrow mine.

I owe Marcus my life. His friendship kept me sane during this past year. His friendship kept me from losing my mind. His friendship, even in the darkest moments, gave me hope.

Slamming of car doors and Axle automatically has his hand extended to Marcus. They haven’t met, but I talked about Marcus in letters and emails. I don’t make connections easily, so that makes Marcus welcomed.

“I’m Axle.”

“Marcus. Things were hot at home, and I needed some place that was cool. Drix said I could crash when needed.”

Axle shrugs like it’s nothing to find a stranger on his doorstep. “Air conditioner is broke most days, and I can’t promise it’ll be quiet, but our home is your home.”

Marcus tilts his head to the house. “Mind if I use the bathroom? Bus broke down on the way here. It would have been faster to walk.”

Axle goes to unlock the door, and my eyes land on the guitar-shaped material case next to a backpack. “You really weren’t messing with me, were you?”

Marcus grins again. “I’m full of it, Drix, but music isn’t something I lie about.”

The light flips on in the living room, and Marcus meets my eyes. “Thought about what you said last week about making plans. If you try for that youth performing arts program, I will, too. Let’s get in and show those rich pricks how to play.”

He picks up his pack, and I lift his guitar. “Is the program going to help you apply?”

Marcus shakes his head. “They told me they’d help me get into a trade school, though. As I said, let’s show those rich pricks that talent beats money.”

Gotta get the audition first, but I keep that to myself. Marcus has a shred of hope, and that can’t be easy after getting out of the program to find no home fire burning. “Meet me in the garage. I want to know if all this self-hype you’ve been rattling about for a year is real.”

He slaps me on my back. “I see you quaking in those boots. You know you can’t keep up with talent like me.”

Axle holds the door open to our house, Marcus enters, and before Holiday goes in, I pull on her sleeve for her to stop. The front door shuts, and my sister looks up at me with those big dark eyes. “Everything okay?”

I keep my voice pitched low because our windows and siding are thinner than paper. “Do me a favor and offer him some food. Some of the leftovers from last night maybe.”

She nods and goes into the house not asking why because she understands. There were times in her life she hadn’t been fed either, and pride has a way of making you deny your aching belly. If Marcus is anything like me—which, from what I know about him, he is—he might not accept the offer with me in the room.

Dominic and Kellen watch me from the street. I don’t know if I’m ready to play music with Dominic again. Music, chords, strings, melodies...that was a shared bond between us, but I don’t know where he and I stand anymore. Not until he tells me the truth about what happened that night—even if it’s only an explanation on why he left me behind. Not until he thanks me for what I might have sacrificed for him. I should invite him, it’s what he’s waiting for me to do, but I don’t and instead head to the garage.

It’s not a place where we park. A car hasn’t been in here for years. What’s in there is more sacred than any church I’ve stepped foot in.

Using the key, I unlock the knob, then use my shoulder to shove the aging and stuck door open. I flip a switch, and the shop light overhead flickers, cracks and snaps to life. The scent of dust, mold and motor oil fills my nose, and I briefly close my eyes with the familiar mixture.

In front of me are guitar stands, cords, amplifiers, speakers, a keyboard, a piano and cases filled with guitars. There’s an electric, a bass, an acoustic and anything else to be thought of, and it’s heaven.

In the back, covered with a tarp, is the only place where I’ve felt like I’ve belonged. More than the house, my room or even my bed. Behind the drums, I used to feel like I was flying, like I was free. Anywhere else, it’s like I was constantly a snake trying to shed dead skin.

I pull off the tarp, a cloud of dust rolls into the air and there’s a tightening in my chest. Last time I saw my drum set was after the gig. I had broken it down, then placed it in the back of a truck. Axle. This is Axle’s work. Only he would spend the time to have tracked down my drums. Only he would have set it back up and covered it up with such care. My throat thickens, and I rub at my face to push the emotion away.

The last words we had said to each other before the arrest had been in anger. He mad at me. Me mad at him. I was the idiot. He was justified. I thought I was smarter, better, but I was too stupid to listen.

I was playing the drums for a band that was going places. Locally, we were becoming royalty. Regionally, we were making a name. Nationally, we had people starting to look at us. The fame filled my inflated ego, and I partied and behaved like I thought a rock star should.

That last fight we had was Axle trying to tell me what an asshole I was becoming, and I told him he was jealous. Now my gut twists. Yeah, like I was someone to be jealous of. There’s so much I wish I could take back.

My sticks sit on the stool, and my fingers twitch with the need to pick them up, but what does it say about me if I do? That I’m weak? That I’ll return to paths I don’t want to go down again? I felt like a god behind the drums, and when I was behind the drums, I made every bad choice available. But the thought of playing sends a rush through me that’s greater than any high provided by a needle stick or inhale of smoke.

I slip my finger over the cymbal, careful to move slowly enough and soft enough to not make a sound. Smooth but worn, cold but warming under my touch. A winding inside of me at the thought of hearing the high-pitched crash.

“You should play,” Axle says, and I withdraw, shoving both of my hands into my jeans pockets.

No, I shouldn’t. When I was behind the drums I had no self-control. When those sticks were in my hands, I went to another level in my brain, another realm of consciousness. It was raw freedom, and that freedom made me feel invincible. I was addicted to that feeling, addicted to thinking that I could never die.

But I did die—at least the old me did—and I don’t trust myself to allow that sensation of flying and freedom that comes with playing the drums again. I wasn’t strong enough to handle who I became with those feelings before, and I don’t trust myself now. I’ve got to be better than who I was. I deserve that and so does my family.

“It’ll piss the neighbors off. We’ll do acoustic.” I’m also good at the guitar, and playing the guitar never gave me that manic rush playing the drums did. Maybe I can keep music if I go down another path because the feelings associated with the drums lead me to hell. “Where’s Marcus?”

“Eating and chatting with Dominic about Fender guitars. And the late excuse is sad. We’ve always played late.” My brother leans his shoulder against the door frame. “That’s nothing new.”

“Don’t want to wake up Holiday. I saw she was tired. She’ll want to head to bed.”

“You playing would make Holiday’s year. Since you’ve been gone, there hasn’t been a beat. No one will touch those drums.”

“Because they’re cursed?” I meant it as a joke, but seriousness leaks through.

“Because they belong to you.” Axle goes silent like his words are somehow meant to sink in and make everything okay, but they just bounce off me and hang in the air.

He pushes off the frame and enters the garage. “The rest of us know how to play, can do the counts, but none of us can hold it steady like you. We can’t shift fast enough with the change up in rhythms and still keep the beat. We couldn’t release the sticks like you do to get the same sound. When you played, Drix, it was all emotion, all heart. It was the type of beat I could feel in my blood.”

Yeah. I used to feel it in my blood, too. Playing consumed me, and that was my sin. “I was becoming Dad.”

Silence. The heavy kind. The type I dread. A pit in my stomach because part of me said it so he would disagree. It hurts he’s not offering up a denial.

“You didn’t commit that crime,” Axle says, “but I was relieved when you were arrested.”

Concrete fist straight to my head, and I hear bones snapping.

“You needed that year away. You needed that program. It gave you something I couldn’t. You were going one hundred miles per hour toward a cliff, and I couldn’t get you to stop.”

Because I wouldn’t listen.

“I know coming home is tough. I know you don’t know how to fit back in. It’s okay not to fit back in. It’s okay to be the person that’s come out on the other side.”

I crack my neck to the side. “That’s it. That’s the problem. I don’t know who I am.”

“But you know who you aren’t. That’s a big step.”

I pick up the banged-up guitar Axle bought me for my birthday when I was younger, claim one of the hundreds of picks left out and sit on a stool. My fingers begin moving before I give conscious thought to the motions. I’m listening to the notes, closing my eyes with the vibrations, twisting the tuning pegs searching for the perfect pitch.

After a few seconds of silence, Axle grabs his acoustic guitar, sits on a stool across from me and starts tuning his instrument by ear, as well. I’ve dreamed, literally dreamed, of this moment for a year. Me making music again...there’s not another feeling like it in the world.

“I’m thinking of applying to that youth performing arts school,” I say as casually as I can. Marcus is a good guy, but he can have a big mouth. If I don’t spill, Marcus will. “The application deadline is in a month.”

Axle’s fingers freeze, then he’s smart enough to keep tuning. “What instrument will you audition with?”

“They have to accept my application before the audition.”

“What instrument?”

When the hell did he become an optimist? “The guitar.”

“You’re a beast on the drums. Don’t throw that gift in the trash.”

I don’t want to, but I don’t trust myself. “We all switch up playing something one time or another. It’s time for me to give up the drums.”

“The drums are who you are. The rest of that bull you had going on before you were arrested, that was the aftermath of ego. That was you allowing Dad to play with your brain. Dad’s on tour, and I told him if he rolls back into town, he’s not welcomed here. The house is mine. Custody of both of you is mine. He’s gone. Playing the drums doesn’t make you Dad. How you decide to behave once you get some fame, once you succeed, that’s what’s going to separate you from Dad.”

Dad taught me to play drums. He was the one who hooked me up with a band that had success. He was the one that showed me how a real man celebrates his success—with a needle. “I can’t risk it again. I don’t want to return to who I was from before.”

“You won’t.”

My hand lies over the strings to stop any sound. “You don’t think I know the drums aren’t to blame? I know it was me. I know I made the wrong choices, and I’m scared as hell that I’m going to choose wrongly again. Getting back into any type of music scares me, but it’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s my only shot of doing something worthwhile. I can choose to look at it that music destroyed me, but I’m not. I felt like a god when I played the drums, and I don’t trust myself to feel like that again and make the right choices. I’m trying here, Axle. Try with me.”

“I’ll try with you.” Marcus walks into the garage, half of a ham sandwich in his hand. “Not sure what we’re trying, but as long as it doesn’t violate parole, I’m in.”

Marcus unzips his case and extracts his electric guitar and wiring. Outside the garage door, in the shadows, there’s movement. First Dominic hopping the fence to go home, then Kellen leaning against the fence between our house and hers, watching me.

Guilt feasts on me because playing without Dominic is sacrilegious, but so is how Dominic is dumping on our friendship by not opening up to me about why he left me behind after I passed out the night of the robbery. I’ve done my part, a year of it, and it’s time for him to tell me the truth. Only then will he and I play.

Ellison

Forget my mother and Sean, my father is never going to let me out of the house. The three of them took turns yelling at me, berating me, making me feel like the sludge of humanity because I wanted to play Whack-A-Mole. Because, as my mother explained, I lied by omission.

Now, all of them, along with other selected staffers for my father, are downstairs in his office, each trying to figure out how to contain me, the media abomination. I messed up yesterday, and I’m quite aware there’s no way my parents will ever allow the internship now.

I’m in my room, on the floor, laptop in lap, and I’m trying to find my happy place. I’m coding, and the code isn’t running correctly, but that’s okay. I find it calming to take something apart that doesn’t work, discard the broken parts, find ones that do work, and then piece it back together to make something functional—to make something new.

My cell buzzes, and I consider ignoring it, just like I’m ignoring any social media account and the news. Another buzz—it’s the fourth one in a row. Most of my friends have texted, wanting the behind-the-scene details to everything they’re seeing on the news, but I’ve remained silent. Another buzz, and I’m plain annoyed at the spamming. Though the urge is to throw something, instead I set my computer gently on the ground, and I swipe my cell:

Henry: You okay?

Henry: Answer.

Henry: Answer now.

Henry: Answer now or I’ll call your dad again and tell him you snuck out four months ago to go on a date.

Henry: I’m dialing.

And I’m texting, quickly, because I need more drama like I need a hole in my head.

Me: I’m okay and it wasn’t a date. It was a group of guys and a group of girls. That’s it.

Henry: There were boys, correct?

Me: Yes.

Henry: It was a date.

Did I wish it was a date? Yes. Was it a date? I sure as hell hope not. Some boy who spent most of the evening looking at my breasts and who kept trying to touch me instead of talking to me isn’t what I want a date to be.

Me: I hate you.

Henry: I can live with that. I saw the news. Who was the asshole you were with?

Me: There were two guys harassing me. I don’t know who they are.

Henry: Them I’ll figure out. I’m talking about the guy there’s a picture of you looking all googly-eyed at. You’re too young to look at anyone like that.

I groan. It’s long, it’s painful and the back of my head hits my fluffy bed. The media is having a field day with a picture of me and Drix. No wonder all my friends are demanding details. I go to an all-girls school, and besides the times I’ve snuck out with friends to go to parties where there were boys, I don’t date. I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to date. It’s not that I’ve been told that as much as there’s been this unspoken agreement. Boys are a complication.

Me: At least you agree with Mom and Dad on something.

I stare at my cell, waiting for his response, and my lips lift because I shut him down. Then I frown as another message appears.

Henry: Were you on a date with this Pierce guy?

Me: I really did just meet him. And I wasn’t looking googly-eyed at him.

Henry: Do we have to have the sex talk now? If so, here it is—you’re becoming a nun.

Neanderthal.

Me: I’m not Catholic.

Henry: Semantics.

The last thing I want to do is talk boys with Henry, and I silently thank the doorbell gods above when the loud chime rings through the house.

Henry: Can you come down to Grandma’s today?

I’ll probably never be let out of the house again. Me: I’ll try for tomorrow. Doorbell. Gotta go.

Barefoot, I pad along the plush carpet of the hallway, down the curved stairs, then cross the hardwood of the foyer.

I open the door and the late spring heat creeps in. When I lift my head with my practiced smile to greet whichever member of Dad’s staff has been summoned, my eyes widen and sweet nervous adrenaline floods my veins. The type that tickles and makes me feel like I’m floating.

It’s not Dad’s staff. It’s dirty blond hair sticking up in a sexy way, defined arms, broad shoulders and dark, beautiful eyes. My mouth drops open to speak, but absolutely no words are formed. There’s no way this is real. I want it to be real, but my mind can’t seem to find a reason why this is at all logical. Standing on my doorstep is the main lead of last night’s dreams. It’s Drix.

Hendrix

Elle was beautiful yesterday—perfection from a magazine—but today she’s my type of perfect. Cutoff jean shorts, a T-shirt that clings to her curves, blond hair piled upon her head in a messy bun and she wears black horn-rimmed glasses. Gotta admit, it’s the sexiest sight I’ve seen in over a year.

Those blue eyes go from big, round shock to narrowed and, once again, intimidating. “What are you doing here?”

I hook my thumbs into my belt loops and wonder the same thing. “My brother received a phone call from a guy named Sean Johnson an hour ago who said I needed to show.”

Her mouth moves to the side, and I follow the action more closely than I should. Elle has lips made for sin. The kind I would have worked my magic a year ago to spend an evening kissing. Me and sin, though, aren’t friends anymore, and I’m supposed to be avoiding temptation.

“That sounds like Sean. Super control freakish and bossy.” She widens the door and steps aside to create a path for me. “Come in, then, and I’ll track him down for you. Though it wouldn’t be hard for you to find him yourself. You just have to close your eyes and feel for the dark energy of the Force.”

Sean Johnson’s the guy Axle talked with the most after we signed on for the program, and Axle would agree with the dark Force association. My brother said that the guy wasn’t an ass, but was pushy. “A good friend of mine is a Star Wars fan.”

“I’ve seen it a few times. It’s good, but it’s not my thing, you know? My cousin loves it. I had my tonsils taken out when I was ten, and we watched every movie back to back.”

I walk into the house. “Was it torture for you?

She brightens like she’s listening to the best chorus of a song in her head. The type of chorus that touches your soul in a way you know you’ll never be the same again. “No. It was with Henry. Anything with Henry is worth doing.”

I get it. Anything with Axle is worth doing, too.

Elle closes the door, and I freeze. And I thought the outside of this sprawling house was a formidable fort of red brick. The inside of this place makes me feel like dirt on the bottom of someone’s shoe.

“I texted Sean.” Elle pockets her cell. “He said to give him a few minutes.”

“Okay.” Behind Elle is a massive staircase leading to the second floor with an open air hallway. Dark hardwood below me, walls with white crown molding, huge heavy solid oak closed door to my right, and to my left is a dining room with a long table and chandelier.

I finish the scan and find Elle watching me. Curiosity plain on her face. She’s studying me the same way I’m trying to figure out her.

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