I make myself keep smiling. Fake smile number one thousand and one. From my left, I can feel Parrish’s gaze swing to his dad. A scowl takes over his full, lush mouth, but I tell myself that I’m imagining how pretty he is, even when he’s frowning like that.
“Can I please just go to school today?” Parrish asks, and his father gives him a warning look. “Chas and I have plans this afternoon.” Caz he said. Must be short for Chasm, the guy he mentioned coming over last night. “It’s not like Mia”—and here Parrish pauses, looking me dead in the face to tell me that mistake was intentional—“oops, sorry Dakota. It’s just, we’ve all been hearing about you for years now as Mia. Mia this, Mia that. Say a prayer for Mia, light a candle for Mia.”
“Parrish,” Tess begins, stepping forward, her heels loud on the marble floors, but her inglorious stepson isn’t done with his rant. Instead, he gets up, too, moving so close to me that I can smell him again. I hate that he smells like laundry detergent and clovers with just a hint of citrus, something lemony and fresh.
He spins his milk-free phone around in his tattooed hand as he leans in toward me.
“No, you can’t go outside and ride your bike because Mia. And you can’t spend the night at a friend’s house because Mia. And you can’t live your fucking life because some girl you don’t even know got kidnapped from daycare a million years ago.”
“Parrish, that’s enough!” Tess shouts, her voice harsh and cold and deadly serious.
Without even meaning to, my hand comes up and I crack Parrish across the face. My palm, where it touches him, burns like the sunburst tattoos on the backs of his hands. As soon as he lifts his own hand to his cheek and smirks at me, I know I’ve fallen right into whatever game it is that he’s playing.
“Mia—Dakota,” Tess corrects, stepping between us. She puts her hand on my shoulder, like she thinks I might actually go for Parrish or something. “Parrish was way out of line, no doubt, and I don’t know how you were raised, but we do not resort to physical violence in this house.”
My eyes flick to hers, and I can’t help it, even though I hate these people and I don’t care what they think, and I want to go home … her words hurt. Actually, they cut me like a knife, making my already fragile heart bleed.
“Parrish, get your uniform,” Tess says after a moment, letting out a long sigh as she exchanges a look with Paul. “We’ll drop you off at the academy on the way to breakfast.”
“Are you kidding me?” I whisper, trying not to lose my temper. Maxine calls me a Red Hot—sweet and spicy in a single bite. I really do attempt to be nice and give people the benefit of the doubt, but when I blow up, I fucking lose it. That’s what he wants, I think as Parrish starts to turn away toward the front entry and the curving staircase, triumph clear in his brown gaze. He thinks he’s won, and if I don’t find a way to flip this situation, he’ll be right about that. Choking down my pride, I phrase my next sentence carefully. “Tess—” Not good enough. “Mom,” I start, trying out the word and seeing her eyes widen in surprise. Now that gives Parrish pause, and he flicks his attention back to me with another scowl building on his pretty lips. “You said we were going to breakfast as a family. This is my first official day here, and I …” My courage runs out, and the words just stop, but I think I’ve done enough.
“Oh, you’re right,” Tess says, scrubbing her hands over her face as Henry continues to cling to her leg, Kimber gapes at me, and Paul moves across the room to put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I’m so used to spoiling you, Parrish, but things are different now. You and Chasm can meet up some other time, and I’ve already asked your teachers to email home any missing schoolwork.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Parrish snaps, turning back around with fury blazing in his eyes. “This girl, this stranger, shows up here and all of a sudden, we’re supposed to rewrite our entire lives to fit hers?” The look he gives me cuts bone-deep. “By the way,” he leans in to whisper against my ear before I get a chance to pull back. “Looking at you in the daylight, I lied. You’re a two, not a three.”
My hands clench into fists as I resist the urge to shove him back against the wall. My ears are ringing so loudly that I can barely hear Paul when he barks out a reprimand to his son. Doesn’t have much effect though; Parrish just shrugs his shoulders, turns, and saunters down the hall as he slips in a pair of earbuds.
