She was facing away from me, so I didn’t see the happiness the sugary treat surely brought to her face.
Maybe I’d misjudged Mr. Burrows after all.
When was the last time my parents got me a cupcake for no reason, let alone picked me up from school? I had to walk even when it was pouring down rain. It wasn’t their fault—they both worked hard—but still, it wasn’t fair.
Jayden bumped my shoulder, nearly making me drop my bag, as he barrelled past me toward his family.
I turned and hastened away, both happy the sad little girl was having her day brightened and bitter that an asshole like Jayden had anything positive in his life. Why shouldn’t he suffer the same way he made me suffer every day?
After school, I needed to focus on something other than Turner, so I got my makeup out with the intention of trying to re-create that watercolor look I’d seen on Instagram. I quickly realized I didn’t have the right kind of eyeshadow and decided to do a dramatic vintage look with killer winged eyeliner instead.
It had been a dramatic day, so it was only fitting.
With a full face of makeup, I spread my books out on my bed and started on my homework. I worked on an English essay, then reluctantly moved on to a Statistics worksheet.
Halfway through my fourth question—and about fifty percent sure the previous three were wrong anyway—the sound of the front door opening provided the perfect excuse to stop.
I stretched my arms over my head and walked into the kitchen to find my mom depositing several grocery bags on the counter.
“Hey, Mom. Is Dad working late?” They both picked up overtime whenever it was offered. That usually resulted in takeout for dinner—my parents liked to cook together as they talked about their day. I used to sit at the dining table and do my homework, or when I was little, they’d give me something nonessential to the meal to chop.
“Yeah.” She smiled at me, then paused. “Oh my god, Philomena, you look stunning! When did you grow up?”
She stroked a lock of hair hanging over my shoulder as she inspected my makeup.
“Thanks, Mom.” She was so busy, so overworked and tired, it was rare for us to talk like this.
“I’m making pulled pork tacos for dinner. Wanna help?”
I shot her a skeptical look. She was full of energy and in a suspiciously good mood, but it was nice, so I chose not to question it. “Fine. But only because you buttered me up with your compliments.”
“Great! Can you unload while I freshen up? Thanks!” She didn’t wait for a response before disappearing into the bathroom.
“Child labor . . .” I grumbled as I started putting things away.
She came back in a pair of my sweats, her hair up in a messy bun and her contacts replaced with glasses. We were the same size, but my mom was a little shorter.
Mom chatted about her work, the gossip she’d heard from the ladies she had coffee with every Saturday afternoon, and the movie she’d fallen asleep during the other night. She asked a few questions about school and my friends, but I’d perfected dodging those questions a long time ago. Instead I told her about the math homework I was struggling with and the few things I did with my cousins and Amaya.
My parents had enough on their plate without worrying about me. What would be the point in telling them I didn’t have any friends at school? They couldn’t afford to send me to Fulton Academy, and there were no other public schools I could get to in under an hour on public transport. I was better off gritting my teeth and getting through it. Not counting days off, I had only 174 days of school to go. I was on the home stretch.
“You know what we haven’t done in a long time?” Mom said as we laid everything out on the table. “A girls’ day with your aunt Emily and your cousins.”
I smiled. “Yeah, we should definitely organize that.”
When we moved back to Devilbend, my mom and her sister had started organizing girls’ days for us. My mom hadn’t really kept in touch with my aunt before we moved back—I wasn’t sure why—but Auntie Em seemed really happy to have us living so close. She invited us over all the time and had encouraged us girls to become friends.
We’d go to parks and have picnics, go for hikes, or even take the hour-and-a-half drive into San Francisco and spend the day there—although my mom didn’t like that too much; it was expensive. I didn’t see what the issue was when my aunt was happy to pay for everything.
“That smells amazing.” My dad toed his shoes off at the door, back just in time for dinner.
“Gross!” I gagged as my mom gave him a big hug and kiss.
We sat at the dining table to eat for the first time in weeks, and the TV even stayed off. Dad was exhausted, but Mom was in the best mood I’d seen her in for a long time. I figured it had something to do with a class she kept rambling on about. It was run by BestLyf—I knew nothing about them other than that they had a tall building in downtown Devilbend and employed a lot of people from the nicer side of town—and Mom had attended her first session over the weekend. It sounded like self-help bullshit and was likely to go the route of the yoga class she’d taken at the community center, or the pottery class she’d taken with Auntie Em, or the stack of adult coloring books she’d brought home one time. None of those things had lasted, but they’d each given her a brief period of excited energy.
When I went back to my room, my math homework was still sitting on my bed, mocking me in all its half-finished glory. I sent Turner a text whining about it and then packed up all the books, deciding to get up early and finish it tomorrow.
After sending the girls a pic of my makeup, I headed to the bathroom to wash it all off and get ready for bed.
I got a little pang of excitement when I returned to see my phone flashing with notifications. I didn’t get a lot of messages. Usually it was Mom or Dad telling me they were working late or asking me to do a chore.
I turned the light off, got into bed, propped my phone on my pillow, and settled in for some scrolling before trying to sleep.
The messages were from the girls, gushing about how good I looked and how flawless my makeup was. Amaya begged me to post them on Instagram every single time I sent a pic, and tonight was no different.
In between chatting with them, I scrolled Instagram, obsessing over makeup that was way better than what I could do and trying to ignore the fact that Turner still hadn’t replied.
Under a pic of some artfully arranged makeup brushes, there was a post from the “DNHS Confessions Page.”
“The new guy—Turner—is fucking hot!”
Usually I scrolled past, trying not to read what they said, but Turner’s name caught my attention. Like a masochist, I tapped on the page and scrolled through the recent confessions. No one knew who ran the page, but the description read, “Send us your Devilbend North High tea, and we’ll spill it for you! Oops!” Students sent in anonymous comments, gossip, and bitchy things, and the page posted them all, unedited. I had a feeling Kelsey ran it. Something like that would require someone mean-hearted to keep it going, and that bitch was always on her phone.
There were several posts about how hot Turner was and what people wanted to do to him. There were common ones like “Anna cheated on the science quiz” or “Meg and Josh were making out in the back of the admin building even though Josh has a girlfriend.” The juicy gossip was interspersed with just plain mean comments. At least one per day was about me. “Phil looks particularly fat today,” “Is that thing on her face contagious?” and so on. It was a running joke for people to then comment with some variation of “Who? What are you talking about?”