Part I
Fairhaven
Birthday
The sound that jarred me awake on the morning of my seventeenth birthday was a familiar girl’s voice chirping, “Hey, Vega! Pick up your damned phone! Hey, Vega! Vegaaaa!”
A smile spread over my lips as I rolled over and reached for my cell phone, which was sitting on top of the half-read pile of novels on the white night stand next to my bed.
“Thanks again for recording the stellar personalized ring-tone, Liv,” I muttered as I clicked the reply button and pressed the phone to my ear. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
“Happy Birthday, Vega!” she sang, deftly ignoring the mental arrows of sarcasm I was shooting her way. “May I remind you on this July twenty-sixth that you’re now officially one year closer to your demise?”
“Yes, and thank you for that, too.”
“You’re welcome. But for the record, if you’d had the two weeks I’ve just had, you’d be praying for death.”
I let out a snicker. “Let me guess: You didn’t have the greatest time at the cottage with your parents.”
Liv drew out a pathetic sigh, followed by a dramatic inhalation, which meant she was about to set off on a superhumanly fast verbal tirade. “Well, let’s see. It rained for ten days straight. There was no internet and no cable TV. We lived like freaking cavemen. I’m talking jigsaw puzzles and board games, and not the fun kind with dirty words. We’re talking full-on financial transactions and real estate deals. Not to mention that my dad cheats constantly. I pretty much tore out half my hair, and I’m now on the verge of a psychotic break. But hey, thanks so much for asking.”
“I’m sorry for your ordeal,” I said. “It reminds me of the stories of glassy-eyed soldiers coming back from war. I don’t know how you survived.”
“The worst part,” Liv added without missing a beat, “is that I’m about to go on a ten-day road trip with the parental units. They want to leave tomorrow. I’ve barely had time to recover from the cottage. You may as well just kill me now.”
“I’d love to, but I hear they arrest people for stuff like that,” I said, hoping she’d change the subject. The truth was, it was hard to hear Liv complain about her parents. I lost mine four years ago in a car accident, and the only immediate family I had left was my older brother Will. It was hard not to envy anyone who still had the luxury of spending time with their family.
“I’m sorry,” Liv said, apparently picking up on my tone. “I’m being an inconsiderate ass.”
“It’s okay,” I replied.
“No, it’s not. Besides, the reason I called wasn’t to moan about my life. I know it must suck to be alone today, so I’m hereby forcing you to hang out with me on this fine birthday morning. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“What?” I yelled, shooting up to a sitting position, “But I haven’t even showered yet!”
“Fine. I don’t want to hang out with you if you’re rancid. Tell you what—it’s ten now. I’ll give you exactly half an hour, then we’re going on an adventure.”
“An adventure? In Fairhaven that doesn’t mean much.”
“You might be surprised,” Liv said in an uncharacteristically cryptic tone. “I may not have an actual birthday present for you, but I do have a cunning plan that involves both your future happiness and your present pleasure.”
“Um, I really don’t like the sound of that,” I replied with a yawn and a stretch. I could practically feel the mischievous smile in Liv’s voice. This was her I’m going to meddle in your life in ways that make you cringe tone, one that had led to multiple disasters over the course of our teen years, normally involving some boy or another. If I was book-crazy, Liv was boy-crazy, and I’ve always been fairly sure she’d stack guys up on her nightstand and flip through them one at a time if she could.
Still, I was curious enough to kick the sheets off my feet and yank myself out of bed.
“Just…trust me,” she said. “Or don’t. Now go shower and make yourself presentable, Smellypants.”
“Fine,” I said in surrender and with what I think may have been the first ever audible eye-roll. “See you in half an hour.”
“Bye, Stinkyface!”
“Bye, Bossybutt,” I chuckled as I hung up.
Much as she could be overwhelming, I had to admit that I enjoyed having a take-charge best friend. While I fretted over every option and decision, Liv plowed through life like she was the offspring of a bulldozer and a wrecking ball.
She was my polar opposite. She was outgoing, bouncy, and fun. I was on permanent alert, always analyzing the possibilities, second guessing myself, and constantly on the lookout for danger around every corner. Meanwhile, Liv was completely lacking in self-consciousness. She was the only reason I ever actually went to parties or socialized with anyone—not that I did either very often. She was fearless, gregarious, perky…everything I was not.
Then again, I was everything she wasn’t. I was competitive. I was focused. I’d always excelled at school and consistently maintained the highest grades among my peers at Plymouth High. I was also the fastest female sprinter in my grade. Which was a dubious honor, given that it was probably inspired by my innate desire to flee from other human beings.
My almost obsessive need to excel at school and track was something Liv had always found odd at best, repugnant at worst. Last year, over tea at the café across the street from our school, she asked me why I always tried so hard.
“It’s not so much that I care about getting the best grades or winning or anything,” I told her with a shrug. “It’s just that I freaking hate losing.”
Waving her hand in the air like she was scanning a newspaper headline, Liv said she could see my tombstone now: “Here lies Vega Sloane. Winning was more important to her than life, itself. And that’s why she’s dead.”
The truth, of course, was that I knew if I didn’t excel at my classes, I’d fail to secure the scholarships I needed if I ever wanted to go to college. And without college, I’d probably end up living in a soggy, toxic cardboard box, licking discarded hamburger-wrappers in a desperate attempt to stave off starvation.
My older brother Will and I had been living on our own since our parents died, and we’d survived on a meagre inheritance and his earnings ever since. Will, who was twenty-two now, had put off attending university during that time so he could pick up jobs here and there, always insisting I avoid part-time work while I was still in high school.
“Focus on your studies while you can,” he always said. “You have plenty of time to work your butt off and be miserable later.”
All the while, he’d kept us alive. He’d invested our small inheritance cleverly enough so we managed to keep our house and scrape by with the basic necessities. He sacrificed so much of his own life, all so I could lead a relatively normal teenage existence. I owed him everything, and, as I eased out of bed and slid my feet into my fuzzy-bunny slippers, I made a mental note to tell him so. Will had been in Europe for most of July, but he was supposed to get home later in the afternoon to celebrate my birthday with me. Even though he only planned on staying for the night, his homecoming was the best gift I could possibly imagine.