The music came from the only open door in the upstairs landing, and I swept into Nathan’s room without knocking. Two beds were tucked into the small room. On one side, the walls were decorated with Star Trek posters, clothes carpeted the floor, and a stack of video games next to the computer almost reached the ceiling. The other side, Nathan’s half, was clean and simple, with only a music stand stationed in the corner to indicate it was his space. He was lying on the bed closest to the door, eyes closed. His fingers slowly passed over the strings of his guitar as he worked out a song.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked, hurt flooding through me. We’d only known each other for a few days and still I felt betrayed. Nathan was supposed to be my friend in the house. He was the one who’d run with me the past two mornings, his constant chatter keeping painful thoughts of my family at bay, the one who walked me to class so I wouldn’t get lost, and the only person who warned me about Cole, his own brother.
Nathan lifted his head and peered at me over the top of his guitar. When he saw me standing in the doorway, he sat up.
“Jackie, I—” he started, as if he was about to give me an excuse. Then he shook his head and started over. “Look, I’ll tell you straight up. We have this thing between us kids where we agreed to never tell on each other. If we ratted each other out for every little thing someone did, we’d be grounded permanently, as in forever.”
“But how was I supposed to know?” I complained. Were the Walters really upset about some agreement they didn’t even tell me about? I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. “Nobody told me the rules. I just didn’t want your mom to be mad at me.”
“It’s stupid,” he agreed with me, “but so are most of my brothers.”
“So Isaac and them? They’re mad at me?” I hugged my arms across my chest, trying to convince myself that everything would be fine.
“No. I don’t know, maybe.” He pulled his hand through his hair.
A long sigh hissed out of my mouth. “That’s completely unfair.”
“Trust me, I know.”
“So how long do you think they’ll be pissed?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t know, a week maybe?” he said somewhat uncertainly as he gave me a sideways glance. “I can try and talk some sense into them.”
“Thanks, Nathan,” I said, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “That would really mean a lot.”
I wanted to tell him that it was stupid that he even had to put in a word for me, but I knew it was no use. If there was anything that I’d learned about the Walter boys so far, it was that they were unpredictable. I couldn’t force my tight, neat world where everything made sense upon them. They lived by their own strange set of rules, and somehow I was going to have to learn to work within those boundaries and still strive for perfection.
***
Back in my room, I found Cole standing next to my dresser, studying the different picture frames I’d arranged on top.
“Who’s that?” he asked, staring down at my sister in the way most boys did.
Lucy was flawless. There was no other way to describe her. She could roll out of bed in the morning, her long, straight black hair looking as if she just stepped out of the salon. I never once saw her put on makeup—she didn’t need to. Her skin was always porcelain smooth, with a natural pink blush over her cheeks. But it wasn’t just Lucy’s beauty that made her so astonishing.
She was a natural when it came to modeling, and for that reason my mother loved her. Lucy always knew just the right way to move her body—a slight turn of the neck or curve of the leg—to create the most dramatic pose. Her eyes always shined as if they were flirting with the camera, and her smile was big and bold. In my mother’s eyes, Lucy was a dream, everything a fashion designer could want from a daughter.
We were only a year apart, and still I looked at her in a “you’re so big and wise” sort of way, like freshmen do seniors on the first day of high school. Maybe it was because everything she did was so natural, as if she had been born knowing something that the rest of us didn’t. Each year after my birthday, we would be the same age for exactly eleven days, and each time I would think, this is it. I’m finally going to feel as old and smart as Lucy. Somehow I would suddenly know the things she did, and then my mom would notice me too. But then Lucy’s birthday would come and she would magically skip ahead five years, fifteen going on twenty, always out of my reach.
In my heart, I knew I could never be like my sister—we were just too different. She was like our mom, carefree and personable, while I was like our dad, calculating and serious. I don’t remember when I came to the conclusion, but I realized that if I could be as successful as my dad, my mom would start to love me the way she did Lucy. After all, she fell in love with him even though they were opposites.
That was the start of my obsession with being perfect. If I was going have the kind of career that my father did, there was no room for mistakes. I started planning out my life. First, I would graduate as valedictorian of my class. Next, I would attend Princeton University, same as my father, and intern with a top New York corporation. Then I could start working at my father’s company, my rightful legacy.