Chapter 3

I kick rocks on the road, mood simmering and feeling listless as I make my way back up the huge, curved drive to our house after walking Elisa home. It’s getting dark because I hung out at hers for a while to pass the time and give my so-called family a chance to get over their current fight. Elisa made me dinner, and we avoided all talk of earlier, seeing as it was not the first time. I’m tired and looking to go to my room to catch up on study notes before bed. I have a test tomorrow in English lit.

As I round the bend obscured by the bushes of our manicured garden, I catch sight of Dane coming this way, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, head down and kicking at debris the same way I am as he walks. He’s changed from his school clothes into that rumpled, badass casual he prefers. Light ripped jeans, a white Tee under an open check shirt with graffiti embroidery across a shoulder and one side. His hair is freshly ruffled, and he’s sporting all the metal he usually wears in his face and ear, so it shines in the light. I always hated how his eyebrow bar and lip ring suited his face and transformed him from a good-looking teen into something older and sinister. He used to be a clean-cut, cute boy, and now he looks like a gang thug.

Dragging his steps and sighing as he watches the ground ahead of him. He seems deflated with a blank expression. Just the mere sight of him annoys me, and I exhale sharply, pull up my chin, and speed up my pace to get by him as fast as possible.

He glances up at the scuff of gravel under my sneakers, sees me under that floppy side bang he has going on, and sighs harder, turning his head to the opposing side with a look of ‘this is all I need.’ It makes me grit my teeth. He shifts from walking centrally towards me to meandering two or three paces to the right with a veer as he gets closer, making it clear he has nothing to say.

“Asshole,” I murmur under my breath as I pass him by with a good five-foot gap now, focusing on the house's lights ahead. I keep my pace and posture brisk and avoid looking at him.

“What? … If you have something to say, don’t be shy…. didn't take you for a coward who mumbles.” He snaps at me, temper riled from whatever happened in my absence, and pushes my kill switch too.

“I called you an asshole because you are. Always making problems where none were needed. I’m sick of your drama.” I spin on him, fury unleashed with such little encouragement because it’s always brimming under the surface when related to him. I’m tired and anxious because my mom will be in a sour mood, making me irritable. As it’s down to him, he deserves my rage. “You need to grow up and stop acting like a spoiled brat. It was your dad’s birthday dinner. It’s not like they asked for anything else except your presence and a little respect. You’re so selfish.”

“Gimme a break. Maybe your mom needs to get off my back and stop her shit. You always side with her and never step back and think maybe it’s not always me. You’re so brainwashed.” He spits back, and even though I intended to go home and not do this, there is something about Dane that always pulls me to this. I can’t ever let it go; I guess this is how my mom feels. Why, no matter what, she bites. He always has a smart-ass response and shirks blame.

“Why should she? You treat her like trash. It IS always you. You moved in with us, are fed and clothed by them… handed cash without question, and get away with near murder, and yet you act like you are so hard done by. You’re spoiled and rude, and my mom should kick you out. See how you fare on your own.” We have ended up face to face, his towering height not fazing me, and I lift my chin to meet his glare.

“Whatever… look, I’m not in the mood. Go inside and read a textbook or something. Count your good girl certificates. You make your mom soooo proud.” Dane shrugs off my words, his brows knitting together, shakes his head, and pastes a frown on that pretty boy face before moving to leave, but this whole dismissive crap and the constant put-downs he throws my way notches up my temper a gear further.

I hate him. I hate how he wastes his life and causes drama constantly and, whenever confronted, acts like this.

“You're not the only one, you know? Who got hurt, who lost their family, and everything was uprooted….I was the other kid. My home was pulled apart too. Our parents did this to both of us…. Do you ever think about that?” My voice is tense, and emotion tints it, so I sound huskier as tears mist my eyes with the sheer frustration this boy causes me. “At least your parents stayed in the same county for the past decade, and you could see them anytime. It was your choice to spend the bare minimum here. My dad moved his entire business to New York so he wouldn’t have to witness my mom happy in her new life. I hardly see him, and I got no say in that.”

Dane stops mid-walk, tilts his head back, and stares skyward before exhaling so heavily like I’m the most annoying thing on the planet. He murmurs under his breath and then turns his head my way.

“Bye, Kayla… I’m done. I’m not talking about this. Same record, different day. Goodnight.” He moves off, walking at the same slow pace, raising a hand casually, and gestures for me to go away at the side of his head, his back to me again. Emotion swirls up in my throat, my fiery side taking grip, and I stalk after him. Something deep inside gripping this insane need to shake some sense into this moron.

“You’re selfish and arrogant and act like this tough bad boy who hates his dad, but if you really didn’t want to be here, you would have gone to London…… Why piggyback my grades, huh? Surely an out to leave was the best you could have asked for.” I stomp at his heels, catching the back of his shirt, and tug him to a halt with a vicious yank, my voice trembling with the sheer anger I am trying to hold in.

Dane stops so abruptly that I walk into the back of him with an ooomph noise, bang my forehead on his spine, and stumble back, rubbing my face.

“Why are you following me? You're like a chihuahua chewing on my leg… go away, Mosquito.” he turns, pushing his two forefingers into the center of my forehead, and nudges me back with a gentle prod, making me bend backward, and I slap it away hard.

“If you hated your dad as much as you say you do, you would be long gone… I don’t think you do. I think you want to be here and act like this so he spends all his time and attention dealing with your bull. You’re just an angry little boy who can’t forgive him yet still wants his love.”

“Gimme a break… what are you, a shrink like your mom now? Trying to psychoanalyze me?” He laughs at me, a breathy bro chuckle, and shakes his head as though I’m hilarious. Still infuriating with his hands in his pocket pose and casual lounge. “Newsflash, she sucks at her job, and you’re mini-me attempt is as sad as she is. You don’t know anything.”

“Yes, I do, and don’t talk about my mom like that. She’s an amazing doctor and does it well. She tries hard to make this work. You just…”

“No, she doesn’t. You’re as deluded as she is if you see how she is and think that is her trying to make this work.” Dane yanks his shirt from my hand, where I was unaware I was still gripping it, and steps away from me. “I had enough of this shit in there and don’t have the energy for round two. Go away, leave me alone. I’m sure you have a biology essay calling for you. I have a date, and I’m late thanks to your mom, so back off, Virgin.”

Dane’s tone is forceful with a tint of exasperation, and I know we are going round in circles. This is not the first time we have had this argument in the past months, and it turns out the same every time. He walks off. Insults me, evades it, and leaves.

“You’re a loser who is so caught up in resentment that you’re ruining your own life.” It’s my last ditch attempt to wound him, and before I storm off, his laugh cuts into the growing tension as he turns towards me but continues to walk backward.

“What about you, Little Miss Perfect? Straight A’s, class president, leader of so many mind-numbing afterschool clubs, charity volunteer, and stray animal savior…. Never give your mom a reason to complain and do everything she tells you to, like a good little puppet. Ever ask yourself why you have to be so perfect?… Could it be because you’re afraid she’ll get tired of you like she did your dad and up and leave you?”

His words cut into my chest like a knife. Winding me and pushing my eyes to mist over. He’s always known how to twist the knife in my soul.

“You don’t know me…. none of that is accurate. There’s nothing wrong with being a good kid and doing well. I want to be something with my life and not waste it the way you are.” My voice trembles, and my breathing gets raspy. Hating him for touching a nerve, even if it’s not entirely accurate.

“There is when it’s become an obsessive compulsion from fear of your mom no longer loving you. Try failing something and experiencing the panic it causes you…. We’re both screwed up, Kayla…… You’re in no position to lecture me.”

“You know nothing…. You're an idiot.”

I have no words to come back at him. Incensed at the nerve of this jerk, thinking my need to succeed in life is some sad scar inflicted by my parent's divorce. I’m not him, so caught up in old hurts that I let them rule my life. He’s so stupid.

I can’t argue with it, insult him, think of a sassy response to shut him up, and instead try to brush it off the way I do his insults by not rising to them.

“Carry on living in denial and your boring day-to-day good girl existence … I’ll continue enjoying my youth.” He smirks, dismissing me.

“The fact you are walking tells me my mom took your bike again. Don’t come crying to me tomorrow for a loan of my car again. I won’t give it to you, and you better call Tyler for rides to and from school because I’m not your chauffeur.” I sneer at him, knowing it’s the only punishment my mom can ever exact that my stepdad will support. They take his bike keys and helmets for a few days to try and teach him the consequences of his crappy attitude. He’s always soft on him and holds my mom back when, maybe, if he let her rip at him once in a while, he might grow up.

“Whatever. Look, butt out of my business, okay? We may live in the same house, and our parents may be married, but you are nothing to me but an annoying girl who should stick in her own lane. Concentrate on your own life and get out of mine.”

I want to scream at him. My skin prickles and my heart is pounding through my rib cage, so my breathing is labored while he acts cool as a cucumber. Every word out of that arrogant mouth somehow makes me always want to have the last say. To shut him up, close him down. He’s so self-absorbed.

“You think it’s that easy? Do you even know what the past ten years were like? Being questioned every day after school to check in on you. How you were, who your friends were… your grades…. were you happy? You may have avoided your dad, but I became the source of information that kept him sane because I got to see you every day at school. I don’t want to be in your life, but it’s been about you since the day they got married.” I glare hatefully. “He loves you and tries, but you aren’t worthy.” I stamp my foot “I so wannabe nothing in your life, but you’re a curse I can never get rid of.”

“Feeling’s mutual, Virgin. Go home.” He salutes me with a mock military sign, a smirk, and a chuckle as though all of this is highly amusing, even though I’m panting like I ran a marathon. Holding back a mix of fury and tears borne of frustration. I don’t know how he always affects me this way.

The flash of car headlights rounds the end of the drive and illuminates the dark area behind him, indicating his date is here, and I scowl further as he glances their way and waves a two-minute signal. I catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure, but I can’t tell who she is. Another bimbo he's banging, and that alone is enough to worsen my already foul mood. He’s a man whore loser who will spend his life living on his dad’s money and doing nothing to earn it.

“Kayla, the best thing you could do, is stay away from me … at school, at home…. Wherever you see me…. and tell them you know nothing when he asks. I never asked you to be involved. I owe you nothing. Now… go, I’m leaving.”