I stepped back again, the whole room too small, too loud, too sharp around the edges.
“I don’t even know who youareanymore. You’re not the person I thought you were. And I’m not who I thought I was either. You didn’t just lie about you. You lied aboutme.”
“Francesca—”
God, I hated my name. I hated it even more how it sounded when she said it like that. Like I was being an idiot and she needed to reprimand mybehavior.
“I need to go.”
“Wait—” Eddie was stepping away from Mom but I dodged his outstretched arm.
I was already halfway down the hall, grabbing my shoes with shaking hands. I didn’t even know where I was going—just that I couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t look at them. Couldn’t hear the next carefully constructed excuse orjustification.
The cats were all hiding and I wished I could be them, dive under the bed and stay there until all the idiots in the apartment left. I didn’t have that freedom though. “I’ll be back,” I whispered the promise to them.
Grasping the keys off my desk in shaking fingers, I bolted out of my room and down the hall. I bypassed them again, mentally clapping my hands over my ears to block any more lies. Through the kitchen to the backdoor, then I slammed out. The rattle of it shaking the glass in the door.
The morning sun hit like a slap, but I didn’t stop. Not until I was down the steps and in the street, heart thundering, lungs burning, thoughts spinning like a tornado tearing through everything I thought I knew.
I needed to get away.
I needed to breathe.
I needed this tonot be real.
Chapter
Two
COOP
It was like waking up inside a dumpster fire and realizing you were the one who lit the match.
My phone was still buzzing under my pillow, screen lighting up with messages, missed calls, a fewveryunfortunate memes, and at least six “we need to talk” texts from people who hadnobusiness needing to talk to me right now. Especially notLaura’s dad.
And definitely not my mom.
The ringtone I’d set for her—some chirpy acoustic guitar thing that I’d thought wassafe—now sounded like a death march. I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t want to. I just didn’t want to…yet.
Jake had already texted me three times by the time I sat up in bed and wiped my face.
Jake:
Wake up
Jake:
it’s bad
Jake:
Like fake your death bad
He wasn’t wrong.
A quick scroll through Post-it-gram confirmed thatSharon The Saboteurhad officially made me a main character on the worst day of my life. The video wasn’t just the pool party or the club or the stupid topless chicken fight (which, for the record, wasn’t my idea). No, the crown jewel was the betting pool.
Shaky footage of Bubba reading out our scoring system like it was the damn NBA draft.
