A Midsummer's Nightmare

CHAPTER 4

Sylvia asked Nathan to show me to my new bedroom. Talk about irony.

“This is it,” he said, pushing open the second door on the left when we reached the top of the stairs. “Right across the hall from mine.”

“Great,” I muttered, stepping into the room with my arms folded tightly across my chest. It wasn’t small, but it wasn’t very big, either. The walls were painted a boring shade of white, and they didn’t even have any paintings or pictures hanging on them, which gave the place an eerie psych-ward feel.

My gaze moved to the queen-size bed in the middle of the room. It wasn’t the bed I’d slept in at Dad’s condo, the bed I’d called mine for six years. This one was larger, with an oak frame and way too many pillows. The comforter was a neutral shade of beige, matching easily with the carpet and the curtains that hung around the only window. It was perfect and clean and pretty, just like everything else in my dad’s new life.

And I hated it.

The thing that stung—the thing that was most obvious to me—was that this room was meant to be a guest room. It wasn’t mine.

My bedroom at Dad’s condo hadn’t been fancy or anything. The old bed creaked, and the carpet really needed to be redone. A few photos of Dad and me were the only things that had decorated the walls (aside from one of his crazy bright paintings); I’d never taken the time to put up posters. But the room had been mine. No one slept there but me. Even during the school year, I knew Dad hadn’t used my room for visitors. He had a spare room for that. My room had belonged to me and only me.

This room didn’t. It never would.

“Did you know?” I demanded, turning to face Nathan. The anger over everything I’d learned in the past hour was finally boiling over. “The other night, did you know we were…?”

He sighed and calmly shut the bedroom door. “No. I mean—yes, I knew Greg had a daughter, but I never asked what her name was. I had no idea it was you.”

“Right.” I walked over to the window and stared down into the backyard, noting the fancy-looking patio strewn with lawn chairs and a table with an umbrella in the middle. I could also see the big-ass inground pool. The water was crystal blue, and a diving board stood at the far end. Just the kind of thing you’d see on TV. “This sucks.”

He didn’t say anything. He was so calm, taking this so well. I kind of wanted to punch him, to make him yell the way I wanted to yell. Couldn’t he see how fucked up this was?

I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fingers around the windowsill. My summer wasn’t supposed to start like this.

“I won’t tell them,” he said, breaking the long silence. “You don’t have to worry about your dad finding out.”

“I don’t really give a shit what you tell them.” I opened my eyes and turned away from the window, walking over to unzip my duffel bag.

Okay, that wasn’t true. I did care. I didn’t want Dad to know about the things I’d done. With Nathan or anyone else. No matter how angry I was at him, I still wanted him to see me as his little girl.

But I admit, I would have loved to see Sylvia’s face when she found out a member of her perfect little family had thrown a wild party and slept with a girl he barely knew. She’d be scandalized.

“Either way, you don’t have to worry about it. Obviously I’d be in trouble, too. So as far as I’m concerned, that party never happened.”

“Awesome. Are you done now?” I asked.

Our eyes met then, and he wasn’t smiling anymore. Not even that fake cover-up smile. He took a slow, deep breath before saying, “Sorry. I’ll let you unpack.”

“How are you so calm about this?” I cried as he walked toward the door.

Nathan didn’t look at me. He kept one hand on the knob, but hesitated before turning it. “We have to spend two and a half months living under the same roof. I think we should both just forget what happened the other night and start from scratch. So, like I said, that party never happened.” He opened the door. “Good luck getting settled in. I’ll be across the hall if you need anything.”

And he walked away.

I closed and locked the door behind him. Forget it ever happened? He made that sound so easy. I knew I’d told him he’d forget about me in no time, but I hadn’t expected to be living across the hall. I hated him for making it sound so simple.

With a sigh, I walked back over to my open duffel bag and stared down at my clothes, thrown haphazardly into the bottom. I never folded things. I didn’t see the point; I’d just wear them and they’d get all crumpled again anyway. Folding T-shirts was a ridiculous waste of energy.

I grabbed an armful of clothes and went to put them away, but I stopped in the middle of the room. I stared at the double doors of the closet, which I knew must be humongous. It was probably full of linens, I realized. There was probably an old ironing board inside, or maybe a collapsible treadmill. It wasn’t my closet. It wasn’t meant for my crap.

So I put the clothes back in my bag. I wasn’t about to unpack. Not here. This wasn’t home.

I was thinking of digging out the bottle of Margaritaville Gold at the bottom of my duffel. I’d brought it for the nights when Dad and I mixed drinks together. He preferred to use rum, which I wasn’t a fan of, so I’d packed my own tequila this summer. It looked like I was going to need it sooner than I thought, though.

I was about to reach into my bag and find it when someone knocked on the door.

“What?”

“Um… Can I come in?”

I frowned and walked across the room. After flipping the lock, I pulled the door open a crack and looked out into the hall. Bailey was standing there, running her fingers through her hair. Now that I got a decent look at her, I realized just how small this girl was. She hadn’t even hit five feet yet, and she looked like she might weigh ninety pounds. If Sylvia hadn’t mentioned that she was about to start high school, I would have guessed the kid was ten years old.

“Is it okay if I, um, come in?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, pulling the door open and stepping aside.

“Thanks.” She walked into the room, barely looking around as she moved to plop down on the bed. She glanced at my duffel bag. “You unpacking?”

“No,” I said. Before she could ask why, I added, “Do you need something?”

“Oh. No, not really,” she answered, shaking her head. “Sorry. I can leave if I’m bothering you. I just thought I’d help you unpack or something.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I mean, you seem… like, really surprised by all this.”

“That’s because I am,” I said, pushing the door closed again.

“Really? Your dad didn’t tell you about us?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“You’d have to ask him that.”

“Wow… I’m sorry. That kind of sucks.” She paused for a moment, then added, “I hope you’ll still have fun here, though. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. We can, like, hang out. I’ve never had a sister before.”

This will not make us sisters, I thought. I wanted to scream it at her. It took everything I had to hold it back.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she was saying, unaware of my fuming. “Nathan’s okay. We don’t fight that much. Not like my friends do with their brothers. He drives me places and takes me to movies. He’s all right, but I’ve always wanted a sister…. You probably think that’s stupid, don’t you?”

“Pretty much.” She looked suddenly hurt when I said this, and I felt kind of guilty, so I added, “I mean, I sort of get it. I have a big brother, too, but he moved out years ago, so I haven’t really been much of a sister in a while. I probably suck at it.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” she said. “I love your clothes. Those jeans are awesome. We could, like, hang out and go shopping if you want. I need some new clothes for high school, and, well, Mom said she’d take me, but… she has really bad taste. She always puts me in this old-woman-looking stuff. Stuff no one my age wears. I’d rather dress the way you do.”

I looked down at my green cotton tank top and low-slung Tommy Hilfiger jeans. “Thanks.” The girl deserved some credit. At least she knew good fashion when she saw it. If there was one thing I cared about, it was my wardrobe, and I had certainly mastered the “I don’t give a shit” look. Believe it or not, it took a lot of talent to pull off that style without looking sloppy.

“We should definitely go shopping,” she said again.

“Um… maybe.”

“Awesome,” she said. “My birthday is in August. I’ll have money after that. We could go to the mall in the next county over before you leave for college. That would be fun.”

“Maybe,” I repeated. I wasn’t committing myself to anything. But it was impossible to flat out reject this girl. I wasn’t a pushover or anything. Far from it. She just had those big puppy eyes that made you feel guilty, you know?

That’s why, when she asked, “Do you want me to go? So you can unpack and get settled in?” I shook my head and let her stay.

“So do you, like, have a boyfriend?” she asked, pulling her legs into a crisscross position on the bed. “Is he going to miss you while you’re here?”

“I don’t have one,” I told her. “And I don’t want one, either.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Boys are a pain in the ass.”

Bailey laughed, like she thought I was kidding. “I’m allowed to date once I start high school. I’m going to try out for the cheerleading squad this summer. Boys like cheerleaders, right?”

“I guess,” I said, walking over to stare out the window. “I wouldn’t really know. I didn’t hang out with the cheerleaders much. We weren’t in the same crowd.”

“So what crowd were you in?”

I looked over at her, thinking of how to answer.

I remembered being thirteen and thinking that high school would be some great new adventure. I’d even dreamed of being a cheerleader, too. At the time, though, I’d been in the middle of an awkward growth spurt. I was all knees and elbows, and I could barely walk without tripping, let alone do a decent cartwheel.

By the time tryouts rolled around the next year, though, my ambitions had changed. I’d started partying and drinking and getting a reputation for being easy, which was funny, I guess, since I wasn’t even having sex when the rumors first started. The prissy little cheerleaders thought I was a wild-child slut, and I thought they were stupid bitches. So it just hadn’t worked out.

It was weird to think I’d been so much like Bailey once.

I cleared my throat, suddenly aware that she was still waiting on my answer. “Well, I was in the… the…”

“Bailey!” Sylvia’s voice called from downstairs. “Honey, come help me set the table for supper.”

“Coming!” Bailey yelled. She hopped off the bed and walked over to the door, looking back at me with that same happy smile. “We’ll hang out again later, okay?”

“Sure,” I mumbled.

“We eat dinner at six,” she added. “I’ll see you downstairs in a little while, Whitley.”

Then she was gone.

And I was finally alone.