The fire pops. I flinch.
“She was beautiful,” Irene says. “Mixed race, which was rare back then in rural Massachusetts. Her father was Algerian, I think, and her mother very British. She had this thick, glossyblack. Skin like porcelain. Bright green eyes. She was the kind of pretty that didn’t seem real.”
She takes a slow sip.
“She got straight A’s, teachers adored her, the town adored her. Her father dressed her in designer clothes—Chanel, Dior, all imported. Back then that wasn’t normal. Most families couldn’t afford anything close to that. She stood out. She was special.”
Aunt Susan hums. “Alexis.”
Irene nods. “Alexis.”
She turns back to me.
“She ruled the school from third grade to twelfth grade. Dated every popular boy. Got every lead role. Made every team. Her two best friends guarded her like secret service. And I mean that literally—only the same two girls sat with her at lunch from fifth grade through senior year. No one got in. She wasn’t cruel to me, but she didn’t help me either. Her sidekicks? They made my life hell. And she let them.”
I shift on the couch, uneasy.
I know exactly the type.
I’ve lived the consequences of girls like that.
One spark from them can burn down your whole world.
“One summer,” Irene says, eyes drifting toward the window like she can still see that day, “I was home from college. I remember walking into the mall—because malls were the big thing back then. We didn’t have online shopping. Every teenager lived at the mall on Saturdays.”
She smiles a little at the memory.
“I wanted to buy my mom something fancy for her birthday. Perfume. Something expensive. So I went to the makeup counter.”
Her smile fades.
“And who was standing there behind the register?
Alexis.”
My breath catches.
“She was wearing the little black jacket, the acrylic name tag, the whole getup. And I remember thinking, Why is she here? Why isn’t she married to some Wall Street executive? Why isn’t she living in a penthouse? Why isn’t she… everything she was supposed to become?”
Irene exhales.
“And that’s when it hit me.
She couldn’t leave.”
My brows knit. “What do you mean?”
“She couldn’t leave the town,” Irene says simply. “Because the town was the only place she was somebody.”
The sentence drops like a stone.
“She needed that bubble,” Irene continues. “Needed to be the queen. Needed the admiration, the gossip, the fear, the pedestal. Out in the real world? She was just another pretty girl. And she couldn’t handle being ordinary. She told me her parents divorced. Her mother took more than half of her father’s money. They sold their house and his business. And that was it. No more designer clothes and luxury cars.
She takes my hands again. Warm. Steady.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Jade?”
I swallow.
