Prologue
Kaya
Ten Years Ago
I’m standing in front of an outdated and ornate floor-length mirror in my bedroom, remnants of the childhood bedroom set I grew up with. As I twirl the same tendril of hair and stare at an awful zit covered in toothpaste on my forehead, I’m still hopeful about the future. High school can’t be any worse than junior high was. It’s a new building, more students, and a chance to start fresh.
“I can’t believe my baby is all grown up,” my mother says, as she studies my face. “How was the first day of school?”
“It was cool,” I offer tentatively.
“Give it some time, babe. You’re going to find your people and then I know you’re going to love it. High school is a special time in a person’s life. Your father would have been so proud of you.”
“Proud of what? I have done nothing.”
“You don’t have to do anything in particular, Kaya. Just the fact that you’re growing into a wonderful young lady is enough. That’s all we ever wanted.”
I’m fourteen-years-old and not much excites me, but I’m hoping my mom’s words about high school being a memorable moment in time are truthful. I haven’t told her much about how difficult it’s been for me to make friends over the years, but I think it’s painfully obvious by how much time I spend gaming online and not with actual people.
I’m seeking to change all of that this year, though. My plan of attack is to attend all the extracurricular activities I can, starting with a pep rally in the gym for the school’s football team tonight. Football is a huge deal at my school and in this house, too. My brother plays on the team and has dreams of heading to the NFL.
“Have fun tonight,” she tells me, then turns back around before exiting my room. “And make sure your brother doesn’t drink tonight. He’s got your dad’s car.”
“I’m not his keeper, Ma.”
“Just look out for each other,” she huffs.
“Okay,” I say, agreeing to almost anything to get her out of my room. This tender mother daughter moment is only making me more anxious about tonight.
I’m nervous as I enter the gym. The large room feels completely different at night, filled with students seated on the bleachers, and the school band playing loud upbeat music to build enthusiasm. I find myself scanning the large space looking for any familiar face I can, even my brother, but I don’t see him, so I take a seat and pretend to text someone on my cell phone to appear busy.
After a moment, a popular boy I’ve grown up seeing around the neighborhood, John Dixon, sits next to me on one bleacher. He’s one of the coolest boys in the senior class with his flawless brown skin and million-dollar smile, so when he cracks a friendly smile and says, “Hey, beautiful, I’m John. What’s your name?”
I almost pee in my pants.
All I manage to do is offer him a goofy grin in response, and before I can get myself together to say something remotely sensible, I feel my face flush as I hear the laughter erupt from the crowd of students behind me. I tentatively turn around and see my brother’s best friend, Brick, standing there with his arm wrapped around a girl, and a cocky smirk on his face, as if he’d just orchestrated a grand performance for the benefit of his audience.
My heart sinks for a moment as he glances at me and says, “What do you think you’re doing, freshman?” He gestures widely towards me, taking in the blue iridescent shadow on my eyelids and the homemade off-the-shoulder sweatshirt I’m wearing. “Are you trying to give Dixon your number or give him something else tonight?”
The crowd laughs again, and I feel my humiliation suffocating me. I wish I could just disappear, or that the ground would open up and swallow me whole. Quickly, I gather my things and rush out of the gym, tears stinging my eyes as I try desperately to make my escape. I can still hear Brick behind me, his voice taunting me as I run. I know exactly what he was insinuating. How could a lowly freshman nerd like me even dream that someone like John Dixon would be interested in me?
Angry tears stream down my face as I stomp my way out of the gym and into the night. I have nowhere to go because my brother is my ride home, but I need to escape. I was just humiliated by the most arrogant boy in the school. A boy who once taught me how to first ride a bike grew into a jerk who takes some sort of sick pleasure in tormenting me.
I’m so enraged that I don’t notice when someone creeps behind me and swings me around by my arm in the middle of the road.
“Aaah!” I yelp in surprise.
“Are you crying?” he asks incredulously but still with that annoying smirk of his, like he thinks he’s so above everyone else.
I wipe my eyes quickly with the backs of my hands.
“What do you want, Brick?”
“You just took off. Where are you going?”
“What did you expect me to do when the entire school was back there laughing at me?”
“Are you having a Carrie movie moment or something? That was not the entire school laughing. It literally was five people.”
“And you’re missing the point!”
“And you were making a fool of yourself, Kaya.”
Brick never usually refers to me by my actual name, and his authoritarian tone pisses me off even more.
“By sitting on the bleachers and minding my own business?”
“You were flirting with John fucking Dixon.”
“I was not!”
“The heavy makeup. The half shirt you’re wearing. This isn’t you. If Kyle had been there, he would have done the same thing. Probably worse.”
“Then leave those types of decisions for my brother to make.”
“Excuse me for looking out for you, because as long as it’s breathing and has two tits, John Dixon will try to fuck anything.”
“Oh, so I’m just anything?”
Maple street is empty, except for the lingering echoes of laughter in the air. I felt humiliated and laughed at, a feeling that only served to make me feel more self-conscious and ashamed. My palms are slippery with sweat and my face is burning with embarrassment as the two of us are so close up in each other’s faces that I can practically smell what Brick had for dinner.
As usual, he looks so sure of himself, so confident in his own skin, and as angry as I am, I can’t help but be drawn in.
He leans in, close enough so that our noses are almost touching, and when he speaks his voice differs from what I’ve ever heard before. It’s soft and low.
“No, you’re better than what you did back there,” he whispers, and then suddenly he kisses me.
It’s a gentle kiss, hesitant and unsure, as if he’s waiting for me to pull away. But I don’t. I want this. I want the warmth of his lips against mine, want the feeling of his hands on either side of my face. Even after everything he’s done, I won’t mind that my first kiss is going to be in the middle of the street, with my brother’s best friend. So I close my eyes and savor the moment.
When Brick pulls away, I feel a little lost, a little sad that the moment has gone so quickly. Then he stares into my eyes as if he’s confused by something and an odd moment transpires between us. The moment is fleeting, though, and finally he takes a step back.
That’s when I notice it.
Regret.
He thinks that he’s made the biggest mistake of his life.
I am the biggest mistake of his life.
“Let me call your brother to come get you,” he says, as if he can’t get away from me fast enough.
I want to cry, but I’m determined to hold back the tears.
“I can get home on my own.”
He shifts nervously between feet.
“So… we don’t need to really tell Kyle about this, right?”
The nerve of this boy embarrassing me in front of the entire school, stealing my first kiss from me, and now he wants me to protect him from my brother?
Arrogant.
Beautiful.
Coward.
I raise my middle finger up right between Brick’s two eyes, like Kyle taught me to do when I was being bullied at ten-years-old.
“You don’t have to ever worry about me telling my brother diddly squat about you because as of now, it’s like you don’t even exist.”
And just like that, from that moment on, Brick wasn’t just my brother’s annoying best friend, he became my arch enemy.
