My eyes brush over her and I flick my T-shirt. “Matching armor.”
She rolls her head toward the passenger window and watches the cars we pass for a good while. “The day of the fire, Lo and I got expelled for gambling at school. She kept all her odds spreadsheets in the school’s cloud account and she’d log bets in the computer lab at lunch. Our house was always full of squatters, but when I got home early, there was only Dad and a guy I didn’t know. Don’t even know what happened to him after. Guess he took off or whatever. I went upstairs and the next thing I know there’s screaming and…” She takes a deep breath. “I remember getting trapped on the stairs because the fire had already spread. Destiny soaked some blankets and we wrapped them around ourselves and ran through it. The fire trucks were just showing up, but Destiny and I just kept walking after we got out.” She shakes her head. “It’s all a little fuzzy, but I think we stayed at Lo’s group home that night. After, we kicked around between some of Destiny’s friends apartments until we found our crappy apartment in the Tenderloin.”
She’s quiet for a minute, but I wait to see if there’s more. “No one ever came looking for you?” I finally ask. “CPS or the cops?”
“Destiny thought if we kept our heads down, no one would think to look for us.” She shrugs. “Turns out she was right.”
“Wow. So you guys have been on your own since you were fourteen?”
She turns to me then, her eyes wide, and again, I see that vulnerability. She opens her mouth and looks like she’s going to say something, but then closes it again.
Acid burns through my insides at the knowledge that her drug addicted parents nearly killed both of their kids. I scrub a hand over my chin to keep from punching something. For a long time we’re quiet as I get my temper under control.
“Where was the rest of your family?” I finally ask when I can keep the shake of my rage out of my voice. “Grandparents, aunts, uncles. If your parents were strung out, someone else should have stepped up and looked out for you.”
“My uncle’s the one who started my parents using. Grandma knew things were bad, which is why she took us in the summers, but it didn’t get really bad until after she was in the nursing home.”
“Have you seen your parents since?” I ask, fury running like a river through my words. “Confronted them?”
She shakes her head. “What’s the point? It won’t change anything that happened.”
My jaw is clamped so tight I don’t know how I’m not cracking teeth. We get stuck in some traffic getting across L.A. to the Sony Studios in Culver City. A few blocks from the parking garage, there’s a diner. I pull into the lot.
Lilah makes no move to get out. “I’m not hungry.”
“Me either, but you should eat something.”
She shoulders open her door and gets out. I meet her at the front of the car and we head inside. We’re seated at the window and she stares out at nothing as the waitress fills our coffee mugs.
“Listen, you’re right about the past,” I say once she’s gone with our orders—a side of bacon for her and a slice of apple pie a la mode for me. “There’s nothing we can do to change it. This is about right now, and right now, your best friend is about to make something pretty spectacular happen, so that’s where your head should be.”
She pulls her gaze back into the room and finds mine. “You’re right. Fuck the past. The future’s going to be kickass and I’m not going to miss it because I’m too busy wallowing over my fucked-in-the-head parents.”
I nod. “That sounds about right.”
?
We jump through all the hoops to get parked and through security, and we’re led to seats in the second row, in the “family box.” The minute we walk in, Lilah’s face lights. Her eyes scan the room, over the stage that’s being prepped and the seats where the judges or coaches or whatever sit, and she drinks it all in.
We settle into our seats and she reaches for my hand, nearly crushing it in her surprisingly strong grip. I focus on the feel of her skin on mine and realize, if I close my eyes and soften my hand, I can feel her pulse. It’s racing and she’s flushed with anticipation.
God, she’s beautiful.
And when she smiles at me, it knocks the wind out of me.
Finally, the four coaches take their seats and the show starts.
Some spit-and-polished guy with hair as shiny as his shoes stands up onstage in a monkey suit and tells us this is what the entire season has been leading up to; that one of the final four will be crowned The Voice and score a recording contract that will launch his or her career. But all I see is Lilah. I can’t take my eyes off her.
Each of the singers takes their turn, and when Shiloh is announced to perform last, Lilah screams and bounds to her feet.