“Okay. Just a cake. A cake would be fine.”
“You need presents, sweetie. You can’t just have a cake. Is there anything you want, any new boyband tickets I could buy you, or one of your wizard books I could buy you –“
“I haven’t listened to a boy band in ages, Mom. And I don’t read ‘wizard books’ anymore. Plus I don’t have time to go to a concert. Not with this test coming up.”
“You work so hard, you deserve a break –“
“I deserve you in my life,” I muttered. Mom went still.
“What did you say?” She asked.
“Nothing,” I shook my head. “Forget it.”
“Sweetie if there’s something you want to talk about, I –” Her phone rang just then, and she looked to me, then back at it. I waved at her.
“It’s fine. Answer it.”
Mom sighed and picked the phone up, walking out of the room. Her voice faded with her. “Jenny? Hey, I didn’t expect you to call so soon. Where are the others? Oh, that’s just down the street. Sure, I’d love to –“
“Are you going out again?” Dad’s voice came from the living room. Mom said something back, too low to hear, then Dad scoffed. “Don’t give me excuses, Angie. Just go. It’s what you want to do. Far be it from me to keep you from living your life.”
“You always do this!” Mom raised her voice. “You always make me feel like crap if I try to do anything for myself!”
“Well how am I supposed to feel,” Dad bellowed back. “When my wife doesn’t come for a week straight? What am I supposed to think, huh?”
“You’re supposed to let me have my space!”
“Oh, that’s hilarious – it’s not like you don’t have plenty of space already!”
I shut my textbook and winced. They’d always used to fight in the garage, but now it’s bled over to the house. It’s like they didn’t remember I existed. I felt sick, and every second I listened to their argument I felt sicker. I picked up my phone and texted Kristin.
Can you get me into a party?
Her reply came three agonizing minutes later.
Sure thing ;)
I never used my window before to sneak out – my bookworm ass never needed to. I thought it was stupid and immature to do something everyone saw in the cheesy 80’s teen movies all the time. But now I had to. Everything was different; Mom and Dad were different, our house felt different. And me? I was a little different. I was different from the girl who sat at her desk every night, poring over books and notes. I’d been to a party. I’d held hands with someone. I had what resembled friends. This was what life was like for everyone else – normal. And I wanted more of it. Everything was different and I needed normal like a suffocating fish needed water.
I pulled on my jacket and put my phone in my pocket after I double checked the address Kristin sent me. I didn't even care how I looked - I just needed to get out of the house. I turned back once, listening one more second. The fighting had turned into a screaming match.
I flinched, and propped open my window.
It was easy enough to crawl out - my window overlooked the garage roof, and with a bit of foot-flexing and a sort of scary dead drop five feet down, I was out on the sidewalk. I thanked every god who was listening as I started the car - it was so quiet compared to a lot of other engines I'd heard. Mom and Dad wouldn't realize I was gone until it was way too late. If they noticed I was gone at all.
I quashed that depressing thought and drove. The car was no convertible, but I did roll down the windows to let the chilly air in. Maybe if kept them down, they'd dry the tears on my face by the time I got to the party.
That was even more depressing.
I stepped on the gas pedal harder, zooming past trees and houses, but still too scared to do anything beyond fifty. I kinda understood, all of a sudden, why Burn liked driving so fast all the time. It was hard to think about anything else but keeping the car from crashing.
For a moment, I wasn’t sad. I was just trying to stay alive.
The address Kristin gave me was, of course, in the upper-crust part of town, a lot farther from Riley's party I first went to, and a lot fancier. This house was on a hill, isolated all on its own in a golden cage of curly wrought iron fences and perfectly manicured hedges. Not a single autumn leaf was left on the ground - that's how you knew they had money; money enough to pay an army of people to rake their lawns spotless at the height of autumn. The glimmer of a moonlit pool caught on the whitestone of the house. Wolf was up there, I knew that for certain. Kristin told me. Something squirmed in my chest as I thought about him, about seeing him, meeting him. Being in the same room as him. I wrote it off as second-party-ever nerves, and pressed the button on the gate intercom. A very drunk voice answered.
"WhoooooOOO goes there?"
"Um. It's Bee. Kristin's friend. She invited me."
"She did, did she?" The voice sounded familiar, but it was so fakely accented like a Victorian grandma and marred by the intercom static that I couldn't tell who it was. "Well, I suppose I'll let you in. If you give me the password."
I shivered and stomped my boot. "Oh come on! Just let me in! It's freezing out here!"
"Password, my darling."
"I don't know any passwords!"
"Oh, just guess. Entertain me. This party is so boring I'm practically in tears."
Now THAT speech pattern I could recognize.
"Fitz? Is that you?"
"I know not of this 'Fitz' you speak of!" The voice turned offended. "I am....Ms. Pennyworth, a delightfully rich young widow with absolutely no clue about cloche hat colors or moral standards."
"Fitz, are you okay?" I asked. "You sound really drunk."
"Pennyworth, darling, the name is Pennyworth!"
"Is that Bee's voice?" I heard a deeper voice say. "Move."
"How dare you accost a wealthy widow!"
Fitz's voice faded, replaced by the deeper one.
"It's open."
"Burn, is that you?"
"Yeah. Come up before you get hypothermia."