I’d been fighting her tooth and nail up until that very moment. Those words—those wise words—had been the last ones my mother had said to me before she couldn’t say anything else. The next day she had been placed on a ventilator and three days later she had died holding my stepfather’s hand.
Since then, I hadn’t protest once about having to move to California, but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to it. I didn’t want to have to say goodbye to my family, my friends, and my life in Virginia. I didn’t want to have to move three thousand plus miles to a new family, possible new friends, and a whole new life. It wasn’t fair that I had to do that.
But I was going to follow my mother’s advice. I wasn’t going to go through life with the regret of not at least trying.
It still hurt though. It felt as if I had lost more than just the mother that had loved me just as much as I’d loved her. I was also losing Carter, Angie, and Caleb.
***
I was lying on my bed when the knock came. I’d come upstairs as soon as all the family and friends had left the house earlier in the evening. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep, wanting to memorize everything about the room that had been mine for the last thirteen years even though I could tell you every little detail about it along with every happy memory I’d had behind those four walls.
Like the Demon’s Wings poster hanging over my desk that I’d gotten the band to sign the last time they were in Roanoke. Or the OtherWorld poster that I’d been able to get Zander Brockman to sign for me when I’d seen him walking around Nashville when Caleb had taken me and a few of his college friends down to see a Trance concert last summer.
The Trance poster I’d had signed by the entire band that same day was on the opposite wall right beside of my favorite Avenge Sevenfold posters. Angie and I had painted the walls a dark purple when I was fifteen, and the doorframe that lead into my bathroom was smeared because Caleb had surprised his twin when he’d walked through the door, causing her to trip and fall against the wet paint. She’d had a purple streak on her cheek for two days, but I’d left the smeared mark there to remind us all of that hilarious sight.
Rubbing a hand over my tired eyes, I lifted my head and glanced at the door. The knock came again and I blew out a sigh. “It’s open.”
The door opened just a fraction before Angie stuck her blond head around the door. The lights in the room were off, but like always, the light from my bathroom was shining brightly. It was stupid, but that bathroom light had always been my nightlight. A seventeen year old who needs a nightlight, yeah, that’s me.
“You awake?” she asked when she spotted me on my bed.
Behind her, Caleb pushed his twin sister gently, getting her to walk into the room so that he could follow. “Of course she’s awake, Ang. She wouldn’t have yelled out if she had been.” Entering the room he turned on the lights and then shut the door behind him.
When my eyes adjusted to the light I saw that their arms were loaded with junk food. Caleb was carrying a huge bowl of microwaved popcorn with extra butter in one hand and a small cooler that I knew would have a quart of chocolate milk, Diet Cokes, and a pint of ice cream. Angie’s arms were just as full. She had a box of pizza from my favorite Italian restaurant, a bag of Doritos and a container of French onion dip.
As soon as they reached my bed they dropped everything on top of my covers and plopped down on either side of me. Caleb’s big frame made the bed groan and me bounce a few inches as he settled in for the long haul.
I sat up, pushing my pillows behind my back as I took everything in. “What’s this?”
“This is your going away party,” Caleb informed me with a small, sad smile. “Since you can’t go clubbing with us or anything fun like that, we thought we would bring the fun to you.” He kicked off his shoes and then slipped under the covers with me.
Angie reached for my remote to the flat screen that was hanging from the wall in front of my bed before doing the same thing her brother had just done. “We are going to watch hilarious movies, eat until we vomit, and fall asleep together. Like we used to do.”
For the first time that day my eyes began to sting with tears. My bottom lip began to tremble and I bit down hard to stop it. Seeing that my eyes were bright with tears I was squished into a step-sandwich for the hundredth time that day. “It’s only a year, Kin.” Caleb rushed to assure me. “Less really. And then you will be right back here, going to college and making our lives miserable once again.”
“Caleb!” Angie scolded her twin, but I tried to smile and elbowed him in the stomach. I knew he was just teasing. Unlike some stepsiblings who fought and hated each other like mortal enemies, my stepbrother and stepsister and I were closer than if we related by blood. The four-year age gap between the three of us might as well not have existed we were so close.
I was going to miss them so bad.
“We’ll come to visit you every chance we get,” Angie promised as she opened the box of pizza causing the scent of tomato and garlic to fill the room. “Christmas in California should be fun.”
“I’m gonna miss the snow,” I whispered as I picked up a slice of cheese pizza. I loved waking up on Christmas morning to all that snow in Aspen, where we’d always spent Christmas. I doubted that there would be any snow in Malibu for Christmas this year.
“And Dad said he will check up on you every time he has to fly to Cali for business.” Caleb opened the bag of Doritos and handed me the container of dip. “And we can FaceTime every night. And text. And email. And…”
“And?” I asked around a mouthful of popcorn.
“And Skype,” Angie supplied as she stuffed her mouth with another bite of pizza. If she had been anywhere else, with any other two people, my beautiful stepsister would not have been cramming her face with greasy food full of bad carbs. But with me and Caleb she didn’t care. She knew that with us she was free to be whoever she wanted to be.
“Yeah, Skype,” Caleb said with a nod. “We will talk and see each other so much that it will be almost like you are still on the East Coast.”
Because they were both trying so hard I forced a smile for them and continued to eat my weight in junk food. Angie finally decided on a movie on the satellite’s pay-per-view channel before settling back and reaching for the pack of gummy bears I hadn’t noticed earlier. When I saw the opening credits I snorted Diet Coke out my nose.
“What?” Angie asked innocently as she produced a napkin so I could clean myself and the comforter up.
Caleb sighed at his sister before wrapping his huge arms around my shoulders and pulling my head down onto his hard shoulder. “You have a weird fetish for Jonah Hill, Ang. It isn’t right. Maybe you should start seeing your shrink again.”
With my nose stinging from the Diet Coke now instead of the need to ugly-cry, a small laugh escaped me. The first one in weeks. Rolling my eyes as my stepsiblings continued to bicker at each other, I cuddled against Caleb a little more and soaked up their love for me while I still could.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Cha
pter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
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