Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

I knew it was a loaded question and I swear her cheeks are turning pink. “He’s fine. He’s been out fighting the fires, the usual. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks since there was a big blaze up north near 100 Mile House where almost everyone was called in.”

The reason I asked about Fox is that I’m pretty sure he’s the reason Del got cold feet when it came to her engagement. Though no one has ever publicly acknowledged it and she’s never admitted as such, I think Del has secretly been in love with him for a long time.

I want to press the issue, but I’m not sure it would be welcome, so I say, “And has Fox been seeing anyone? I have a hard time believing that any of these boys are single.”

Another small smile. “They are, believe it or not. Fox was dating a girl while I was with Bobby, but they broke it off a few months ago. Mav is Mav. Always getting in trouble, but I haven’t seen him stay with a girl longer than a few weeks, though he’s not getting any younger and should probably grow up at some point. And Shane…” She drifts off and bites her lip while looking at dust rising in the distance, probably from Mav’s truck. “He actually had been seeing someone for a year or so.”

This is the first I’d heard of this. “Who? Do I know her?”

She nods. “Kristin McGee.”

It’s funny how when you talk about people you went to school with and grew up with you always use their full names. I frown, remembering vaguely that Kristin used to be the lifeguard at the community pool and Willow Lake during the summer. She was tall, tanned, hot, like a less done-up Pamela Anderson, complete with the giant rack. I also remember her because she was Fox’s girlfriend throughout high school.

“Shane dated his brother’s ex?” I ask.

Del laughs. “Yeah. Fox didn’t care since it was so long ago, but we were all surprised.”

I know I have absolutely no right to feel jealous over this, especially since I dated a few guys here and there in university before I met Samuel, but even so, I feel it.

“Is she still?” I gesture to my boobs.

“Yeah. Totally fake now too,” Del says. “I don’t know why she got implants because it just doesn’t fit in this town and people talk like crazy. Man, I used to hate her, but she’s okay now. They were an odd couple but it was nice to see Shane happy for once.”

I swallow hard.

I don’t have too much time to dwell on it because soon after my mother and Hank come by to start unpacking. After Del heads back to the bar to start her shift, the three of us work until around nine and then call it quits. With the setting sun burning red in the hazy sky and shining in through the windows, it gives the cottage an apocalyptic glow as we quickly munch down some simple sandwiches that Dick prepared.

My mother seems happy with it. Even though the cottage is small and old, with her stuff and personal touches, the place looks like it could be featured on HGTV, all reclaimed wood and folksy details.

By eleven, I’m exhausted. I head into my new—temporary—bedroom and crawl into bed, kicking off the thick covers and pulling the sheets over me. I rest my head back on the pillow and watch the gauzy white curtains dance as a hot breeze blows in through the open window. Craning my neck back, I can see a slice of the sky. It’s the color of the deepest ink, crowded with a million shining stars.

I see a flash of a shooting one but I’m too afraid to make a wish, too scared to look deep inside and find out what my heart really wants.

I’ve only made one wish before and it never came true.





7





Rachel





PAST – 13 years old





“Rachel, sweetie, it’s past your bedtime.”

My mother is hovering behind me while I sit on the couch, the TV on at low volume.

“I’ll go to bed in a minute,” I tell her, my eyes glued to Conan O’ Brien on the screen. I love Conan, but I’m not really watching him, not paying attention. It only looks that way.

“Rachel,” my mother warns, pressing her hands on the back of the couch. For a moment I imagine her hands coming down and strangling me. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what both my parents want to do with me. My mother, because she’s afraid of me, my father for the same reasons but different causes. Very different.

“In a minute,” I tell her, and I know how I sound. Bratty. Like a teenager. And I am a teenager now. I passed twelve a few months back.

For so long I wanted to be older. But now I realize what being older brings. What being older means.

It’s shameful.

I am so ashamed.

I’m tense, bracing for the argument to follow. That’s all we do now, my mother and me. We yell and argue and it goes back and forth until she has to drag my father into it.

And then I shut up, because that’s what I know how to do. That’s how I am to grow. In the corner, a hidden weed. I can’t take up too much space, I can’t be known. I can only slink back and be quiet and let them forget I exist.

Only he doesn’t forget. I wish he did. More than anything I truly wish I didn’t exist to him.

But my mother sighs. She’s tired. She leaves me and goes out on the porch to light a cigarette, waiting for my father to get home. I don’t know why she does that, why she doesn’t go to sleep until he gets home. She can’t fear him too. She loves him too much. Or maybe I don’t know the difference. Maybe I’m too young to know and too old to ignore it.

I don’t feel like arguing today. There’s too much I should be thinking about. My homework that I didn’t do, that’s due tomorrow. The fact that Angela Chase is having a birthday party this weekend and I wasn’t invited (and really why should I be—I barely talk to her, I barely talk to anyone). I’m looking forward to seeing Shane tomorrow in first period.

The thought of him is really the only reason I can smile these days. At first, I thought it was silly but I’m starting to understand that Shane isn’t just my friend anymore. He’s more than that. I don’t think he knows it, but it’s true.

But I could never have the nerve to tell him. That’s not what girls are supposed to do anyway. They’re supposed to wait for the guy to tell them.

I sigh, feeling my heart do this fluttering thing, like I’ve got hummingbirds in my chest. It’s so freaking weird how I can alternate between feeling so alive and wishing I was dead at the same time.

I go to my bedroom and close the door. I don’t know why I bother, but I do because maybe today it will stay closed.

I get dressed even though I know there’s no point, but it’s all I have. I put on my pajama pants, my tank top, a flannel shirt, and I crawl under the covers.

I pull them almost up over my head and I face the wall.

The lights are all off.

I try to sleep.

I breathe in and breathe out.

I pray to dream, to be taken away.

But time speeds up, maybe hours pass, and then the door creaks open.

I don’t have to open my eyes to know a narrow path of light is shining at my back.

He comes in the room. Shuts the door behind him.

I pretend to sleep.

I shrink in my mind, invisible.

I am not here.

I never will be here.

I cease to exist.