Page 25 of Pretty Dead Things

His other hand is on my skirt, fingertips digging to the bone of my hip. It’s not aggression. It’s restraint. Like he’s afraid of what will happen if our bodies touch. The fact that he wants me this badly drives me wild. I haven’t been with anyone since Joel, and it’s been a long, long time since Joel wanted me like this. If he ever wanted me like this. I tilt my hips, close the distance between us. He groans against my lips. I get the sudden urge to bite him.

Instead, I reach behind me for the handle, pull open the door. We tumble inside, a confusion of limbs, of teeth bumping against lips. I tug my panties off, kick them onto the floor of his truck, and then I’m on top of him, straddling his lap. I am reaching down for the button of his jeans. He breaks the kiss, asks, between panting breaths, “You sure you want this?”

“I want this,” I tell Travis, lifting my hips, sliding my hand between us to guide him. I move my hand and ease myself down slowly until he’s deep inside me. Until my thighs shake. And it feels good.Every nerve exploding with satisfaction. It feels so incredibly good to do something I want. To get what I want.

Once, Izzy and I dared Ben to guess who was who.Kiss the real Isabelle, she said, standing shoulder to shoulder with me. I bit the inside corners of my mouth, trying not to smile when he came up close to inspect my face, squinting at my ear, at the hair tucked behind it. He always smelled like the same cologne Izzy bought him every year on his birthday. He searched my eyes then, and suddenly my body was betraying me, abdomen fluttering, breath hitching, heart tripping over its own rhythm. When he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine, my lips parted slowly, like a bruise blooming. I was fifteen, and it was my first kiss. Izzy howled with laughter, shoving him in the shoulder, and we all pretended it was fine, that it was nothing but a joke, but my lips burned hot all day like I’d been stung.

CHAPTER TWENTYKENNEDY CLAIRE

2000

“You look beautiful, darling,” Aunt Birdie says, sitting on the edge of her floral-patterned bed. Kennedy Claire is wearing the thrift store dress she’s altered herself to be her evening wear for Miss Lone Star Princess. Uncle Richard thinks the pageant is silly. Kennedy Claire knows it isn’t. She knows it is a stepping stone. One that comes with scholarships and a walking coach who has trained multiple former Miss Texas winners and even one Miss America.

She combs through Aunt Birdie’s best jewelry in a walnut box on her dresser and selects a silver bracelet. The metal is cool as water when it drapes across her wrist, and Kennedy Claire twists her forearm to reach the clasp, seeing the way those two bones—the ulna and the radius—rotate together as she does. She broke her forearm once, when she was seven, raising her arm to block a blow from her stepdad. She can’t even remember now what he was angry about. Her mother kicked him out in a flurry of swear words and thrown dishes. But when he came crawling back, a pathetic slur of apologies and promises and kisses, her mother let him back in. A pattern Kennedy Claire could set her watch to.

Her arm healed fine. She has pretty arms, in fact, thin and delicate, her skin unblemished. But she knows from watchingDatelineepisodes with Aunt Birdie that an autopsy can show whether a bone wasever broken, even if it happened years and years and years before. So that even when Kennedy Claire is dead, his marks will still be there on her bones.

She gets the clasp hooked, spins the bracelet on her wrist, and examines herself in the mirror.

Behind her, Aunt Birdie’s eyes well with tears. “You’re perfect,” she says.

And she is. She is absolutely perfect. She has done everything within her capabilities to be perfect.

But perfect won’t be enough if the crown is already meant for Ingrid Whitmore. The Whitmore name. The Whitmore smile. The Whitmore mother sitting on the pageant board, the very first Miss Lone Star Princess herself. Iggy has destiny on her side.

Kennedy Claire cares about Iggy—she’s her best friend.

But she doesn’t care about destiny. She doesn’t believe in being powerless against the whims of the universe. Because she is not powerless. Not anymore.

Once upon a time, she was. Powerless, which is just another word for weak. She doesn’t think about that time often anymore—she simply won’t allow it. But when she does think about that time, she hates that weak little girl she was.

Now, things are different. Now, Kennedy Claire can shape her future however she wants.

As long as she’s willing to do whatever it takes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONEMELANIE

Four Days Before the Pageant

“Hey, Melanie, it’s so good to see you,” Kennedy Claire says, hugging my neck when I first walk into the Sherman Ranch Events Hall. It’s a pretty building, vaulted ceilings with exposed wood beams, a massive stone fireplace, and a whole bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. I’m sure once the development is done, the view will be gorgeous. Right now, though, we’re looking out on a construction zone, the air filled with chitchat overlapping the background noise of beeps and men yelling and bulldozer blades scraping against stone. I can’t imagine that Izzy Whitmore hasn’t crossed the mind of every single person in this room at least once.

I hug Kennedy Claire back, giggling nervously and telling her how pretty her decorations look. The two of us don’t exactly run in the same circles, but in a town as small as Anhalt, you’re bound to bump into each other—at a Preston High football game, or at the Cedar Grove Café, or in the aisles of H-E-B.

The first time I ever ran into Kennedy Claire as an adult, it was at Meet the Teacher, when I was bringing Hannah up for kindergarten and she was doing the same with Sarah Lynn. She gave me a hug then too, and chattered away about their summer trip to Disney World and her plans of joining the PTA, as if we’d been old friends in high school, as if she hadn’t made my life a living hellback then. And what was I supposed to do, but chatter right back? That’s how it is in small towns, I suppose. Water under the bridge, and all that.

Whenever I see her now, we’re friendly, waving down the bleachers at each other. But I always get that momentary puke-in-the-back-of-my-throat feeling when I first lay eyes on her, the same feeling I get anytime I smell artificial watermelon, because the first time I ever got sick drunk was on a bottle of watermelon Boone’s Farm that Cat nicked from the Texaco when we were seventeen.

Kennedy Claire hands me a welcome bag and invites me to partake of the snacks table, an elaborate banquet of mini-quiches, pastries, fresh fruit, and a serve-yourself mimosa table.

“Hannah’s hair looks so pretty like that,” she says. “I didn’t realize it was so curly.”

Hannah spent the drive over here answering all my questions with grunts and one-word replies, still miffed about me opening her mail last night and confiscating those horrible diet pills. As soon as we walked through the doors, she ditched me, in search of teenage company, like a heat-seeking missile.

“She looks different, that’s for sure,” I say.

Then Kennedy Claire is off, moving and grooving through the room, handing out her party bags and making connections. I take a front-row seat by myself, the flimsy metal folding chair creaking beneath me, and I flip through the welcome folder, schedules, and recommended vendors. The women beside me are laughing at something I’m not privy to. They’re the type who live on Kennedy Claire’s side of town, who drive sleek white SUVs and fill their schedules with Pilates classes, manicures every two weeks and highlight retouches every six, and I know it’s absurd, but that old feeling that they are laughing about me creeps its way into my mind.

I scan through the prize list.