She had only one friend named Noel. A Noel Gamble. So I clicked into his page, happy to see it wasn’t private. He didn’t have any Facebook friends named Colton, but he had three named Brandt. I was worried at first that I wouldn’t be able to determine which Brandt was his brother. No one seemed to have the same last name these days. Mason and I didn’t; we’d taken on our different fathers’ surnames. But luckily enough, one of the Brandts had the same last name as Noel.
So I clicked into his page. His profile picture showed two boys together, one older, about my age, and one younger, maybe seven or eight years old. The older one was cute. Way too cute for me to ever talk to face-to-face at school. But growing more and more curious about him, I clicked into his “about” page.
Brandt Gamble was a month younger than I was and lived in Pennsylvania. Hmm, he must not have updated that part yet.
Before I knew quite what I was doing, I swirled my finger over the mouse pad until the cursor was hovering over the “Add Friend” button. When I applied the slightest bit of pressure, the words changed from “Add Friend” to “Friend Request Sent.”
I gasped. Oh my God, no!! What had I just done? I hadn’t wanted to send a complete stranger who was as cute as he was a friend request.
Panicking, I scrambled to figure out how to undo it. Clicking into the request button, I saw the “Delete Request” option and skimmed the cursor toward it. Before I could click on it, though, a new notification popped up, saying, “You are now friends with Brandt Gamble.”
“Oh my God,” I squeaked aloud. He’d actually accepted my request. I couldn’t believe it. A warm little glow of accomplishment lit up inside me.
A second later, a message box popped up.
Do I know you? Brandt Gamble asked me.
Oh my God, times two! He’d just messaged me. My disbelief grew exponentially.
Crap, I should probably answer.
When I reread his message and really soaked in what he’d just asked, I rolled my eyes. Why had he accepted the request if he didn’t know me? Wasn’t the idiot worried about catfishers?
But then I realized I was a complete hypocrite. I’d just asked a total stranger to be my friend on Facebook, so I was no better than him. Except I was pretty sure he was my big brother’s coworker’s little brother, and in my book, that was enough for me to think he was safe.
So I typed, I’m Mason’s sister, just to be sure he was the right guy.
A second later, he asked, Who the fuck is Mason?
I blinked, rereading the word fuck over and over again with a stunned yet secret delight. No one had ever cussed at me before. Maybe that was because I was only thirteen or maybe because of my cerebral palsy, but I liked it. It made me feel...normal.
My biggest dream in life was to be normal, so I decided right then and there, I was going to stay friends with Brandt Gamble, and it was going to be oh-so-blessedly normal.
BRANDT
AGE 13
Noel’s girlfriend, Aspen, was a tiny thing. At thirteen, I was already taller than her and probably weighed more too.
That didn’t mean I trusted her, though.
After Caroline had broken up with her rich prick boyfriend for good, she’d gotten really sick, like I probably should’ve taken her to a hospital or called an ambulance sick. But all I could think about was how much money that would cost and that there was no way we could afford it. So I’d done the next best thing. I’d called Noel.
Twelve hours later, he’d showed up with his best friend, and they’d taken care of everything.
Meanwhile, I’d tried visiting her ex and knocking him around for hurting her. It was too bad the little bitch had been surrounded by his high school cronies. I knew I could’ve taken him on by myself. But as soon as I’d gotten in one good swing, his posse had swooped in and kicked my ass. A black eye, bruised knuckles, and a couple sore ribs later, Noel was there, packing us into his friend Ten’s truck and taking us back to college with him. For good.
It was all so surreal. I was happy to leave, escape that shithole trailer park, ditch the school where everyone thought I was trash, and never see Daisy again for as long as I lived. But it felt too good to be real. I kept waiting for the bad side of all this to strike.
Strangely, it hadn’t yet.
We’d stayed with Noel for a week or so in his apartment he shared with Ten. But there was no room for the five of us there, so Noel’s girlfriend Aspen had let us move into her three-bedroom house with her. Suddenly, Caroline had a room to herself, and Colton and I had our own beds in the room we shared while Noel just...took care of everything. And so did Aspen.
She took us to buy new clothes. Then she enrolled us into the local school. And then...then she fed us. Every day. Every fucking meal.
It was beyond bizarre.
The chick was too nice. It made me suspicious. She had to be hiding something awful. What if she turned out like Daisy and decided she had an appetite for thirteen-year-old boys? Okay, I doubted that part, but just to be safe, I locked the door every night so she couldn’t get in to either Colton or me.
But she just kept being nicer and nicer to us, which made me leerier and leerier. No one was that nice. Something fishy was going on.