but we’ll get there.
For now, I just say:
I do have one condition though.
Really?she says, eyes widening.
Wait—what’s the condition?
You have to let me plan
at least half of the fake dates.
I’m an expert when it comes to
taking full advantage of this time of year.
Trust.
Deal,
Lyric says, sticking out her hand.
OK, then.
I slide my palm into hers
and we shake on it.
The warmth of Lyric’s skin against mine
sends a delicious
spark of energyup my spine
and oh god
the way she is smilingat me
I never want to let go.
CHAPTER 7Lyric
LIP OF THE DAY:
Glass Slipper
I don’t know about you, but whenever good things happen to me, I immediately start to question if I deserve it. I came home after school Monday on a high from all of the attention on BeautyStarz and the business agreement between Juniper and me. I made red beans and rice with sausage for dinner and then laughed with Grammy Viv through a couple wild episodes ofCatfishwhile I did my homework on her bed. I felt good—solid—until it was time to sleep and my mind wouldn’t stop racing with thoughts. I tossed and turned, started to question what was real, and then I fell into a rough slumber.
Now it’s early Tuesday morning and I’m wide awake after being thrown from a bad dream full of shadows and empty rooms. Inthese dreams, I’m always chasing a blurry figure that’s shaped like my mother—trying to call out, make her recognize me—but as I run through room after room, she’s never actually there. Grammy Viv and me—this life we’ve built together—well, it’s good. But mornings like this, when I can’t stop thinking of her, when all I want is for my mom to make me a glass of hot milk and hold me close—these mornings ruin me. These mornings, I’m filled with a guilt that sends me into a spiral of shame—knowing that she’s out there somewhere, houseless, a brain full of unraveling chemistry, surviving. And here I am, making plans for the future. What right do I have to be happy? To hope for more, when the woman who made me left and never came back? Why wasn’t I good enough for her to stay healthy for?
My chest is full of rocks. My heart feels like it’s trying to escape through my throat, my bed a tangle of sheets, my head ablaze with half dreams and half nightmares. I crawl onto the carpeted floor and lie down, trying to ground myself, to bring breath back into my chest. So many things can happen in one day, so many plans and accomplishments—and yet, on the floor, trying to suck air in, I am struck with how useless I am.You’re so fucking fake, my head screams,and now Juniper knows it. What if you fail? What if this whole plan of yours doesn’t amount to anything?In therapy, I talk about this sometimes—when pushed. How appearing to have it all under control on the outside is a coping mechanism I developed over the years. A shell of protection, so that no one has a reason to hurt me. But often, on the inside, I’m just a scared, sad, uncertain little girl—overwhelmed and full of doubt. And now, now I’ve added another thing to my plate: a fake-dating operation, for what?! To make some money, to prove that I’m worth something to beauty brands, to show them all—the whole fucking system—that I’m enough. I’m never enough. Not for my mom, not for Grammy Viv, not for Jamison or Kiana, and nowJuniper has agreed to this wild scheme and I have to go through with it. I feel sick. Nauseated. I try to sink deeper into the carpet and practice belly breathing, but mostly I’m trying to avoid screaming, or worse—exploding. I’ve been doing so well, keeping myself in check. I can’t slip now. It could jeopardize everything.
“Lyric has a serious anger issue for such a young girl. It’s becoming a liability to place her in foster homes—especially ones with other kids. She’s dangerous.”
The family court judge says this, opening a thick folder with my case.
I am nine and recently kicked out of my third foster home, which was less of a home, more of a workhouse. The social worker assigned to my case this time is a damp-smelling, mousy white woman named Karla Kain who picked me up a few hours earlier and brought me here to family court. Karla dresses like she’s fifty, but in the car she babbled on so I know she’s barely twenty-six, fresh out of social work school and hoping to “do some good, help those who are needy.” I hated her on sight, and I let her know it when she stopped her ramble by telling her the only needy thing in this car was her face. “Young lady,” she scolded, a slight knot of impatience on her forehead, “that kind of attitude will keep you from finding your forever home,” and then we drove the rest of the way to court in silence. I simmered in the back seat, my left hand throbbing and raw from the wall I punched the night before just because I could—a jagged, delicious hole of fury right into the room next to mine. At least it wasn’t someone’s face.
