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I wait for the guilt to hit, knowing it’s coming. Hell, it’s already here, just…buried right now, buried under the heavy-ass boulder that is shock and confusion and-and…
Something I can’t name.
Something I don’t want to name.
This…this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
Whirling away from the stranger in the mirror, I jump in the shower, pumping up the heat.
And I wash this night and these feelings away, watching it all swirl down the drain.
Forget it, forget it, forget?—
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
To say I was ill-prepared for the Florida heat would be putting it lightly.
Or rather, the humidity, as Dad likes to keep saying with a sort of har-har-har air about him that tells me he knows his joke is lame as hell…but can’t seem to stop from throwing it out there every chance he gets.
They warned me of course—Mom and Dad, and even Izzy. And I’m not stupid. I knew, in theory, that it gets hot as fuck down here.
But I was not prepared for it to be quite this unbearable, smack-dab in the middle of September. In July? Sure, yeah, totally. But it’s fall.
The evenings haven’t been too bad. But the days are sweltering, even when it rains.
On the bright side, we leave tomorrow, and I’ll no longer have to grin and bear it through the short-sleeved shirts and khaki shorts Mom insisted I buy when I nearly fainted on the second day, drowning in thick layers of fabric and triple as much sweat as during Pennsylvanian summers.
On an even brighter note, tonight, I get to cover up. Even if it is an ill-fitting suit that makes me look like Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Slicked back hair and everything.
“You do not!” Izzy exploded in a snort earlier when I said as much. “You’re fucking gorgeous, JJ. And one day, you better know it.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?”
“It’s a fucking fact.” And with that she wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue, before whirling around and leaving the room in a flurry of black lace and loose tendrils of hair curling in her wake.
If anyone’s the gorgeous one tonight, it’s my sister.
Gone are the ripped jeans and band tees and Converse.
Gone is the wild mane of long, wavy brown hair—hair that has suffered, much like myself in this humidity.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen my sister all dressed up, obviously. Between recitals and competitions and school dances over the years…it’s not at all an odd sight to see.
And yet, there’s a sort of glow to her tonight—a fierceness to her that puts all past formal events to shame.
Isobel Montgomery is in her fucking element tonight.
The night she’s been waiting for with equal parts anxiety and excitement for months.
The Notre Père Institute of Music showcase.
This is the performance that determines her future. The one where Izzy will play her ass off to impress a bunch of stuck-up pricks in order to snag a donor from their Board, and thus a spot at one of the most prestigious music schools in the world.
If no one picks her…
She doesn’t get in.
Simple as that.
